VIII. VESTER, CAMENAE 139

160. I think it must have been as early as 1832 that my father, noticing with great respect the conduct of all matters in this family, wrote to Mr. Fall in courteous request that “the two boys” might be permitted, when Richard was at home, to pursue their holiday tasks, or recreations, so far as it pleased them, together. The proposal was kindly taken: the two boys took stock of each other,-agreed to the arrangement,-and, as I had been promoted by that time to the possession of a study, all to myself, while Richard had only his own room, (and that liable to sisterly advice or intrusion,) the course which things fell into was that usually, when Richard was at home, he came up past the seven gates about ten in the morning; did what lessons he had to do at the same table with me, occasionally helping me a little with mine; and them we went together for afternoon walk with Dash, Gipsy, or whatever dog chanced to be dominant.

161. I do not venture to affirm that the snow of those Christmas holidays was whiter than it is now, though I might give some reasons for supposing that it remained longer white. But I affirm decisively that it used to fall deeper in the neighbourhood of London than has been seen for the last twenty or twenty-five years. It was quite usual to find in the hollows of the Norwood Hills the field fences buried under crested waves of snow, while, from the higher ridges, half the counties of Kent and Surrey shone to the horizon like a cloudless and terrorless Arctic sea.

Richard Fall was entirely good-humoured, sensible, and practical; but had no particular tastes; a distaste, if anything, for my styles both of art and poetry. He stiffly declined arbitration on the merits of my compositions; and though with pleasant cordiality in daily companionship, took rather the position of putting up with me, than of pride in his privilege of acquaintance with a rising author. He was never unkind or sarcastic; but laughed me inexorably out of writing bad English for rhyme’s sake, or demonstrable nonsense either in prose or rhyme. We got

[Version 0.04: March 2008]