fraternity," &c., giving the idea that Arnold turned out a set of young square-toes who wore long-fingered black gloves and talked with a snuffle. I can only say that their acquaintance must have been limited and exceptional. For I am sure that every one who has had anything like large or continuous knowledge of boys brought up at Rugby, from the times of which this book treats down to this day, will bear me out in saying, that the mark by which you may know them, is, their genial and hearty freshness and youthfulness of character. They lose nothing of the boy that is worth keeping, but build up the man upon it. This is their differentia as Rugby boys; and if they never had it, or have lost it, it must be not because they were at Rugby, but in spite of their having been there; the stronger it is in them the more deeply you may be sure have they drunk of the spirit of their school.
But this boyishness in the highest sense is not incompatible with seriousness,—or earnestness, if you like the word better.[1] Quite the contrary. And I can well believe that casual observers, who have never been intimate with Rugby boys of the true stamp, but have met them only in the every-day society of the Universities, at wines, breakfast parties, and the like, may have seen a good deal more of the serious or earnest side of their characters than
- ↑ "To him (Arnold) and his admirers we owe the substitution of the word 'earnest' for its predecessor 'serious.'"-Edinburgh Reveiw, No. 217, p. 183.
