Bit of a Fool

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. I was at school at Winchester and fourteen years old when my mother died. At that age I had not any deeper feelings than the average boy, and I know that when the first grief, which is one of the simplest of human emotions, had passed away, I felt a certain sense - I will not say of relief, but of a removal of constraint, of greater freedom. I had no great compunction about annoying my father. When I did any of the usual evil things that boys do, he would get angry, and I, in consequence, defiant. He was a man, and it always seemed a fair stand-up fight. But with my mother it was different.