Full text of "Laughing Torso"
See other formats
AT A PUBLIC SCHOOL fact there was no end to the ancestors who came over on that very overcrowded ship, the " May- flower." She was what the Americans would de- scribe as " dumb." From here I went to Bath. This was very different from my private school; there were a hundred and fifty girls and I was delighted with it: the girls complained bitterly that it was a charity institution; the only advantage being that we were not made to wear uniforms and be com- pletely like workhouse inmates. My first term I won the foreign languages prize because I had had the verb " To be " and the verb " To have " dinned into my head for two years. I had no particular talent for languages. I drew maps for a friend of mine and she did my arithmetic. At Christmas I played the " Mad Hatter " in Alice in Wonderland., and had a great success; the Arch- deacon of Bath always sent his old top hats to the school for theatricals, so I wore one. One day during preparation someone handed me a copy of Edward Lear's Nonsense Rhymes. I thought them so funny and made such a disturbance that I was sent out. A friend and I started to write a magazine together, I doing the illustrations, having abandoned writing. This was stopped as it was considered un- conventional. Bath made me horribly ill and de- pressed; I developed glands and had to stay at home for a term. My family were at Portsmouth waiting for the return of my Father from South Africa and I was sent to the Portsmouth School of Art. This was in • '• • • _ .13' '• _ -.". •• -•• -:-.' ••'•'•;,;;•-: