Tom Brown's School Days

"[East:] "How often have I told you, Tom, that you must drive a nail where it will go?" "And how often have I told you," rejoined Tom, "that it 'll always go where you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard enough? I hate half measures and compromises." "Yes, he's a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail," laughed East. "Sooner have no bread any day than half the loaf.""

"I don't object to a compromise where you don't give up your principle."

"There isn't such a reasonable fellow in the world, to hear him talk. He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when I'm on his side"

"There are times when there is only one way, and that the highest, and then the men are found to stand in the breach."

"He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow tor getting all sorts of rum things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in his pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what besides."

"The fact was, this was the first attempt at a friendship of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it as a grand step. The ease with which he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and blundered into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at Arthur's reserve and loneliness."

"Now, to persons of moderate invention this was a considerable task, and human nature being prone to repeat itself, it will not be wondered that the masters gave the same subjects sometimes over again after a certain lapse of time. To meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, the school-boy mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an elaborate system of tradition. Almost every boy kept his own vulgus written out in a book, and these books were duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition has gone on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more worlds than one," which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend in my time. The only objection to the traditionary method of doing your vulguses was the risk that the successions might have become confused, and so that you and another follower of traditions should show up the same identical vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when it happened, considerable grief was the result—but when did such risk hinder boys or men from short cuts and pleasant paths?"

"A fourth method, indeed, was used in the school, but of too simple a kind to require a comment. It may be called the vicarious method, obtained among big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in making clever boys whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and construe it to them afterward; which latter is a method not to be encouraged, and which I strongly advise you all not to practise."

"Oh, Tom, you old humbug! you to be upbraiding any one with not learning his lessons! If you hadn't been floored yourself now at first lesson, do you mean to say you wouldn't have been with them? and you've taken away all poor little Arthur's joy and pride in his first birds' eggs; and he goes and puts them down in the study, and takes down his books with a sigh, thinking he has done something horribly wrong, whereas he has learned on in advance much more than will be done at second lesson."

"We boys had an idea that birds couldn't count, and were quite content as long as you left one egg. I hope it is so."

""Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a duck has!" groaned East, holding a bagful in his hand and looking disconsolately at the carcass, not yet half plucked."

"Mind, I don't ask questions," went on Mentor, "but I rather think some of you have been there before this after his chickens. Now, knocking over other people's chickens and running off with them is stealing. It's a nasty word, but that's the plain English of it. If the chickens were dead and lying in a shop, you wouldn't take them, I know that, any more than you would apples out of Griffith's basket; but there's no real difference between chickens running about and apples on a tree and the same articles in a shop. I wish our morals were sounder in such matters. There's nothing so mischievous as these school distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong, and justify things in us for which poor boys would be sent to prison."

"It's more than a game, it's an institution."

"It was the first great wrench of his life, the first gap which the angel Death had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well! I believe it was good for him and for many others in like case; who had to learn by that loss, that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean will knock away all such props in His own wise and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for every soul of man is laid."

"For it is only through our mysterious human relationships, through the love and tenderness and purity of mothers, and sisters, and wives, through the strength and courage and wisdom of fathers, and brothers, and teachers, that we can come to the knowledge of Him, in whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and the purity, and the strength, and the courage, and the wisdom of all these dwell for ever and ever in perfect fulness."

"'You see,' went on my companion, 'the difficulty about Tom Brown's Schooldays is this. It is obvious that part one and part two were written by different people. You admit that, I suppose?'"

"Tom Brown's Schooldays was an important source for character types, plot incidents and motifs for school stories for at least a century following its publication and, arguably, left an indelible mark on the generic form itself."

"Yes, the whole setup of the Assassin's Guild school has, uh, a certain resonance with Rugby School in Tom Brown's Schooldays (note to Americans: a minor Victorian classic of school literature which no-one reads anymore and which is probably now more famous for the first appearance of the Flashman character subsequently popularised by George MacDonald Fraser)."

"Teppic and his friends map directly to corresponding characters in Tom Brown's Schooldays: Teppic is Tom, Chidder is Harry "Scud" East, Arthur is George Arthur and Cheesewright is sort of Flashman, but not exactly."

"The line on p. 27/26 about "'If he invites you up for toast in his study, don't go,'" may refer to the incident where Tom is roasted in front of the fire by Flashy and his cronies. The reference to blanket-tossing on p. 45/44, which Arthur puts a stop to, is also an incident in Tom Brown, on Tom's first day. The scene in the dormitory on the first night, when Arthur gets down to say his prayers, also has an equivalent in the book."

""Er. I may as well reveal this one. That section of the book is 'somewhat like' Tom Brown's Schooldays. A bully (right hand man to the famous Flashman) was Speedicut. Speedicut is (was?) a name for a type of lawnmower -- I know, because I had to push the damn thing... Hence... Fliemoe."