He disliked the games
worse even than the squalls of the class-room and hall, for he was
still feeble, not filling out and attaining his full strength till a
much later age than most boys. This was perhaps due to the closeness
with which his father had kept him to his books in childhood, but I
think in part also to a tendency towards lateness in attaining
maturity, hereditary in the Pontifex family, which was one also of
unusual longevity. At thirteen or fourteen he was a mere bag of bones,
with upper arms about as thick as the wrists of other boys of his age;
his little chest was pigeon-breasted; he appeared to have no
strength or stamina whatever, and finding he always went to the wall
in physical encounters, whether undertaken in or earnest, even with
boys shorter than himself, the timidity natural to childhood increased
upon him to an extent that I am afraid amounted to cowardice. This
rendered him even less capable than he might otherwise have been,
for as confidence increases power, so want of confidence increases
impotence. After he had had the breath knocked out of him and been
well shinned half a dozen times in scrimmages at football-
scrimmages in which he had become involved sorely against his will- he
ceased to see any further fun in football, and shirked that noble game
in a way that got him into trouble with the elder boys, who would
stand no shirking on the part of the younger ones.
Pages:
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226