demolished to make room for a railway-station the façade was carefully preserved for the sake of its fine brick-work and rich ornaments. Hence its appearance in the South Kensington Museum, where, however, no record is made of the fact that the boy Keats often passed through this doorway in his school-days. 66 During the six years he spent at this, his only school, the future poet gave at first no indication of that passion for literature by which he was afterwards distinguished. Books had no attraction for him; what he lived for was fighting; he would fight any one at any time, morning, noon, or night; "it was meat and drink to him.' Even his brothers were not exempt from his pugnacious exploits; "before we left school," said George Keats, we quarrelled often and fought fiercely;" but if any one else attacked either of his brothers, John Keats flew to his aid. One day an usher boxed the ears of Tom Keats, and in an instant John rushed from his place in the school and faced the usher in a fighting attitude. Naturally, this reckless courage made him the favourite of the school, but even apart from that trait of his character he won the love of all his companions. Suddenly, when his terms were drawing to a close, Keats, like Newton, dropped the character of the pugilist for that of the scholar, and he became so absorbed in his reading that he was never without a book in his hand. Even at supper, he would prop up a portly folio between himself and the table, "eating his meal from beyond it." In harmony with the lowly social station of life into which he was born, none of these interesting school-houses has so humble an appearance as that in which Thomas Carlyle began his education. He was only five years old when he was enrolled among the pupils of "Tom Donaldson's " school in his native village of Ecclefechan, the master being, according to his famous scholar, "a severely-correct kind of man." But he qualified that opinion by recalling that his master was always "merry and kind" to him, and only severe to the "undeserving." Tom Donaldson must have been a capable teacher, for by the time Carlyle had reached his seventh year he was reported to be complete in English." 66 Two other buildings were to claim some share in the honour of training the great writer, the grammar-school at Annan and Edinburgh Uni versity; but as he denied receiving much good from either, the lowly school-house of Ecclefechan may be regarded as the most important factor in Carlyle's education. It is not now used for scholastic purposes, but those pilgrims from America who visit that Scottish village in such large numbers every year look upon this modest building with almost as much interest as that other little house in which Carlyle was born. Behind the school-house is the simple village graveyard where the friend of Emerson and the author of " Sartor "sleeps with his lowly kindred. |