MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IHAVE been reading, belatedly perhaps, Lord Berners's second volume of autobiography. In this volume he Passes on from his first childhood, and introduces us to the age of puberty and to his early bewildered years at Eton. I always _enjoy Lord Berners's writing, since I like my authors to be sensible ; and Lord Berners, although one could not accuse him of being blind to the humorous aspects of life, approaches the more delicate phases of his own and other people's experience with a seriousness and. a sympathy which I find rewarding. It is not, however, my intention to write an appre- ciation of " A Distant Prospect "; one day I hope to devote to Lord Berners the writer a more extended examination than any marginal comment will allow. But I mention the book, not only because it gave me moments of delight which I wish to share with others, but because it started a train of thought which has been buzzing continuously in my head for the last five days. Lord Berners refers to the teaching of the Classics at his private and his public school. He remarks that the masters at Eton, with one exception, " left me with the impression that they cared for the Classics as little as they cared' for their pupils, and were making use of the former. to penalise the latter. It is "scarcely surprising that most boys left Eton with an incurable dislike for the Classics." Lord Berners himself 'did not, owing to ill-health, fill up his full time in Eton, and it is possible that had he remained there a year longer the sacred flame would at last have been lit. But it seems strange to me that I, who am of Lord Berners' generation, and who share, I - should imagine; many of his tastes; should have derived from school a lasting if amateurish affection for the Classics, whereas he should have been left only with a lasting dislike. And I con- clude that had I not, in my last year at school, come under the inspiration. of Dr. Pollock, who took a humanistic view of Greek and Latin literature, I also should have missed the great enjoy- ments which the Classics have given me in life.
* * *
Previous page
