And he found himself taking a
new interest in what he saw from the window of the Fourth Form room. It
looked on to old lawns, carefully tended, and fine trees with foliage
dense and rich. It gave him an odd feeling in his heart, and he did not
know if it was pain or pleasure. It was the first dawn of the aesthetic
emotion. It accompanied other changes. His voice broke. It was no longer
quite under his control, and queer sounds issued from his throat.
Then he began to go to the classes which were held in the headmaster's
study, immediately after tea, to prepare boys for confirmation. Philip's
piety had not stood the test of time, and he had long since given up his
nightly reading of the Bible; but now, under the influence of Mr. Perkins,
with this new condition of the body which made him so restless, his old
feelings revived, and he reproached himself bitterly for his backsliding.
The fires of Hell burned fiercely before his mind's eye. If he had died
during that time when he was little better than an infidel he would have
been lost; he believed implicitly in pain everlasting, he believed in it
much more than in eternal happiness; and he shuddered at the dangers he
had run.
Since the day on which Mr. Perkins had spoken kindly to him, when he was
smarting under the particular form of abuse which he could least bear,
Philip had conceived for his headmaster a dog-like adoration.
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