To be rebuked, however mildly, by Dr. Arnold was a Potable
experience. One boy could never forget how he drew a distinction
between 'mere amusement' and 'such as encroached on the next
day's duties', nor the tone of voice with which the Doctor added
'and then it immediately becomes what St. Paul calls REVELLING'.
Another remembered to his dying day his reproof of some boys who
had behaved badly during prayers. 'Nowhere,' said Dr. Arnold,
'nowhere is Satan's work more evidently manifest than in turning
holy things to ridicule.' On such occasions, as another of his
pupils described it, it was impossible to avoid 'a consciousness
almost amounting to solemnity' that, 'when his eye was upon you,
he looked into your inmost heart'.
With the boys in the Sixth Form, and with them alone, the severe
formality of his demeanour was to some degree relaxed. It was his
wish, in his relations with the Praepostors, to allow the Master
to be occasionally merged in the Friend. From time to time, he
chatted with them in a familiar manner; once a term he asked them
to dinner; and during the summer holidays he invited them, in
rotation, to stay with him in Westmorland.
It was obvious that the primitive methods of discipline which had
reached their apogee under the dominion of Keate were altogether
incompatible with Dr.
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