E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
1886
TO My MOTHER
SORRENTO, Christmas Day, 1885
The Reverend Augustin Ambrose would gladly have given up taking pupils.He was growing old and his sight was beginning to trouble him; he wasvery weary of Thucydides, of Homer, of the works of Mr. Todhunter ofwhich the green bindings expressed a hope still unrealised, of conicsections—even of his beloved Horace. He was tired of the stupidities ofthe dull young men who were sent to him because they could not "keep up",and he had long ceased to be surprised or interested by the remarks ofthe clever ones who were sent to him because their education had notprepared them for an English University. The dull ones could never bemade to understand anything, though Mr. Ambrose generally succeeded inmaking them remember enough to matriculate, by dint of ceaselessrepetition and a system of memoria technica which embraced most thingsnecessary to the salvation of dull youth. The clever ones, on the otherhand, generally lacked altogether the solid foundation of learning; theycould construe fluently but did not know a long syllable from a shortone; they had vague notions of elemental algebra and no notion at all ofarithmetic, but did very well in conic sections; they knew nothing ofprosody, but dabbled perpetually in English blank verse; altogether theyknew most of those things which they need not have known and they knewnone of those things thoroughly which they ought to have known. Aftertwenty years of experience Mr. Ambrose ascertained that it was easier toteach a stupid boy than a clever one, but that he would prefer not toteach at all.
Unfortunately the small tithes of a small country parish in Essex did notfurnish a sufficient income for his needs. He had been a Fellow ofTrinity College, Cambridge, within a few years of taking his degree,wherein he had obtained high honours. But he had married and had foundhimself obliged to accept the first living offered to him, to wit, thevicarage of Billingsfield, whereof his college held the rectory andreceived the great tithes. The entire income he obtained from his curenever at any time exceeded three hundred and forty-seven pounds, and inthe year when it reached that high figure there had been an unusuallylarge number of marriages. It was not surprising that the vicar shoulddesire to improve his circumstances by receiving one or two pupils. Hehad married young, as has been said, and there had been children born tohim, a son and a daughter. Mrs. Ambrose was a good manager and a goodmother, and her husband had worked hard. Between them they had brought uptheir children exceedingly well. The son had in his turn entered thechurch, had exhibited a faculty of pushing his way which had notcharacterised his father, had got a curacy in a fashionable Yorkshirewatering-place, and was thought to be on the way to obtain a first-rateliving. In the course of time, too, the daughter had lost her heart to ayoung physician who had brilliant prospects and some personal fortune,and the Reverend Augustin Ambrose had given his consent to the union. Norhad he been disappointed. The young physician had risen rapidly in hisprofession, had been elected a member of the London College, hadtransferred himself to the capital and now enjoyed a rising practice inChelse