London, October 28, 1864
Our life in the country[1] has at last settled down into very profound repose. I have perambulated the whole neighborhood, visited every spot that I could remember, and come to the conclusion that my range must have been very limited in my boyhood. The old school house is down and every trace of it, even to the old trees in the playground, is effaced. Last Sunday I went to the old parish church, which looked ugly enough when I attended it as a boy, but which now appeared more so than I had fancied it. There was nothing pleasant associated with it. As the school was large, only a portion of the boys attended at one time, and as I was among the small ones, our turn was generally in the afternoon, when nobody else was there, and the service was much more coldly and mechanically performed than it is now. Indeed I may say that all my school experience here comes back to me with a dreary sort of chill. I find Dr. Nicholas, the head of it, dimly remembered as an indifferent scholar and rather an animal man. Indeed there were stories about him current among the boys at the time, which were not over creditable. He had however quite a family of daughters who were intimate at our house. I do not find a trace of a single one of them. Fifty years make a pretty big hole even in the oldest established society. General Clitheroe remains to be sure, but whether the same who in 1816 was a colonel is dubious. Anyhow the name continues, which is something in the midst of the vacuum. Change is over the whole surface. . . .
[1] Hanger Hill House, Ealing.
