Two pictures come into my memory.
I have climbed to the top of a tree by the edge of
the playing field, and am looking at my school-fellows
and am as proud of myself as a March cock when it
crows to its first sunrise. I am saying to myself,
“if when I grow up I am as clever among grown-up
men as I am among these boys, I shall be a famous
man.” I remind myself how they think all
the same things and cover the school walls at election
times with the opinions their fathers find in the newspapers.
I remind myself that I am an artist’s son and
must take some work as the whole end of life and not
think as the others do of becoming well off and living
pleasantly. The other picture is of a hotel sitting-room
in the Strand, where a man is hunched up over the
fire. He is a cousin who has speculated with
another cousin’s money and has fled from Ireland
in danger of arrest. My father has brought us
to spend the evening with him, to distract him from
the remorse my father knows that he must be suffering.