But I doubt
that it was ever more keenly felt than in my case; I doubt, too, that
it is common or strong in English boys, considering the conditions in
which they exist. For restraint is irksome to all beings, from a
black-beetle or an earthworm to an eagle, or, to go higher still in
the scale, to an orang-u-tan or a man; it is felt most keenly by the
young, in our species at all events, and the British boy suffers the
greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the
instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks
eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will
be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.
To come back to my own case: I did not and could not know that it was
an exceptional case, that my feeling for nature was something more
than the sense of pleasure in sun and rain and wind and earth and
water and in liberty of motion, which is universal in children, but
was in part due to a faculty which is not universal or common. The
fear, then, was an idle one, but I had good reason for it when I
considered how it had been with my elder brothers, who had been as
little restrained as myself, especially that masterful adventurous
one, now in a distant country thousands of miles from home, who, at
about the age at which I had now arrived, had made himself his own
master, to do what he liked with his own life.
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