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As a special offer for our readers and supporters, here is in its integrity, the first paragraph of Ariel Percy Bysshe Shelley by André Maurois and translated by Alix Daniel.
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1.
DR KEATE’S METHOD
In 1809, King George III appointed Doctor Keate as Eton College’s teacher. He was a small and terrible man, who considered beating as a necessary method to lead to moral perfection. Doctor Keate used to end his sermons saying: “Be charitable, my boys, otherwise I shall beat you until you so become.”
The gentlemen and wealthy merchants whose sons were educated by him were not appalled at all by this pious ferocity and actually considered highly the man who was known to have whipped most of the ministers, bishops and generals in the country.
Indeed, it was a time when any strict discipline was approved by the elite. The recent French Revolution had been a demonstration of the dangers of liberalism, specifically when it spreads among the country’s leaders. Officially, England, the soul of the Holy Alliance, believed that fighting against Napoleon meant fighting against the French philosophy. So, it asked its public schools for a generation of obedient hypocrites.
With the purpose of taming the possible zeal of the young aristocrats, their studies were deliberately superficial. After five years of studies, the student had read Homer twice, nearly completed Virgil, expurgated Horace and was able to compose Latin epigrams of average quality about Wellington or even Nelson. The taste for quotes was so much perfected among them that once, when Pitt stopped in the middle of a verse from the Aeneid, the whole Parliament chamber, Whigs and Tories alike, arose and finished off the verse. A perfect example of a homogeneous culture!
Science was optional and so neglected; dance was compulsory. As for religion, Keate deemed any doubt about it as a crime. Talking about religion was useless. In fact, the doctor feared mysticism more than indifference. He tolerated laughter in church and was indifferent about the Sabbath. It is important to point out here the Machiavellianism of this educator. He would tolerate a few little lies. “A sign of respect,” he used to say.
Somewhat barbaric customs were at the centre of student life. The little ones (youngest) were referred to as the fags, or the slaves of the big ones (elders). Each fag had to make the bed of his master, pump up water for him or even brush his clothes and shoes. Any disobedience was sanctioned by appropriate torments. One
child wrote to his parents, not to complain, but just to describe his day at school: “My master, wanted me to jump over a too large ditch, just like a horse. Each time I shirked, he spurred me. As the result my thigh is bleeding, my Greek poets’ small book is reduced to a pulp and my brand-new clothes are torn apart.”
Boxing was an honourable sport. One day, a fight got so violent that one child was killed in the ring. Keate came to see the dead body and said: “This is a shame. However, I demand that each student from Eton to be ready to trade tit for tat in any circumstances.”
The ultimate but hidden objective of the system was to build strong characters from one unique mould. Autonomy of action was important. However, showing creativity in thinking or clothing, or even in the use of language, was the most despised crime. Even the slightest fervour for study or ideas was considered an intolerable tendency which required beating.
As it was, this life was far from displeasing for the young British elite. The pride they derived from being part of the continuing tradition of such an old school, created by the king and forever close to and protected by royalty, was worth the suffering.
A few souls suffered, though, and for a long time. For example, the young Percy Bysshe Shelley, son of a rich landowner in Sussex and grandson of Sir Bysshe Shelley, baronet. He did not seem to fit in with this education. The child, extremely beautiful, with clear blue and sharp eyes, curled blond hair, and a delicate constitution, demonstrated moral scruples quite unusual for a man of his rank, together with an unusual tendency to question the rules.
At the time of his arrival at school, the sixth form’s captains, seeing his frail body, girlish gestures and angelic face, imagined a shy character who would not challenge their authority too much.
However, they soon found out that Shelley was quick to react to any danger with passion. An unwavering will, in a body too weak to physically resist, made him prone to rebellion. His eyes had the kindness of a dreamer when at rest. However, enthusiasm or outrage gave them a nearly wild sparkle, while his voice, usually serious and sweet, became shrill and soared.
His love of books and disdain for games, his hair flying in the wind and his shirt open to a feminine neck, everything shocked the censors in charge of maintaining the elegant brutality the school was proud of.
Having decided, from his first day at Eton, that the tyranny against the fags was against human dignity, Shelley refused point blank to serve. This made him considered disloyal.
He was called ‘Shelley the mad boy’. The most powerful of the tormentors opted for his salvation by torture, but avoided attacking him in single combat, thinking he was able of anything. He fought like a girl, with open hands, slapping and scratching.
In an organised pack, the hunt for Shelley became one of the big games at Eton. When hunters found the odd being reading a poem on the riverbank, they
immediately alerted the others. Hair flying in the wind, Shelley tried to flee, across the meadows, to the street of the town or the college’s cloister. Finally, stopped and surrounded against a wall, squeezed like a wild boar at bay, he uttered a piercing shrill scream. Then, in the mud, the mob of students fired words and nailed him to the wall. One voice shouted: “Shelley!” “Shelley!” answered another voice. The old grey walls echoed the scream “Shelley!” in shrill tones. A sycophant fag held the tortured victim’s clothes, another one pinched him while a third quietly approached and kicked with his boots Shelley’s book, which he was trying to hold desperately against his arm.
And then, all fingers pointed at the victim, and a new scream: “Shelley! Shelley! Shelley!” was the last straw. Finally, the crisis, anticipated by the bullies, happened. A fit of insane fury made his eyes sparkle, his cheeks turned pale and his limbs shook.
Then, tired of the now monotonous show, the whole school went back to its games. Shelley picked up his mud-stained book. All alone and deep in his thoughts, slowly he walked towards the beautiful meadows of the Thame’s bank. Sitting on the sun-dappled grass, he stayed and watched the river gliding by.
Running water has, just like music, the gentle power to transform sadness in melancholia. Both, music and running water slowly seep into the soul the certainty of oblivion, because of their inevitable and continuous natural flow. The massive towers of Windsor and of Eton erected around the rebel child an immutable and hostile universe, but the trembling willow tree calmed him by its own fragility.
He was always going back to his books. It was Diderot, Voltaire and the system of nature by Holbach. He felt courageous in admiring these French writers scorned by Eton’s masters. One title summarised his being: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice by Godwin. So much so that it became his favourite reading. Godwin’s theory made everything appear so simple and logical.
If every human being was reading it, people would live in an idyllic world. If they would listen to the voice of reason, that is, Godwin’s voice, two hours of work a day would be sufficient to nourish them all. Free love would replace the complications of marriage. Philosophy would replace superstitious fears. Sadly, preconceptions and prejudice were there to stay and to harden the hearts.
Shelley closed his book, lay down in the sun, and, surrounded by flowers, he meditated about human misery. From the medieval buildings of the nearby school, a limited murmur of stupidity drifted to these charming woods and brooks. Around him, in the quiet countryside, no mocking face was looking at him, though. At last, the child allowed his tears to flow, and, holding his hands tightly together, he pronounced this strange oath: “ I swear to be good, fair and free, as much as I can; I swear to never be an accomplice, even with my silence, of the selfish and powerful people. I swear to dedicate my life to Beauty…”
If Dr Keate had witnessed this fit of religious fervour, so reprehensible in such a well-maintained English institution, he would certainly have addressed the case with his favourite method.
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