Clara Hopgood

Frank Palmer, the gentleman whom we saw descend from the coach, was

the eldest son of a wholesale and manufacturing chemist in London.

He was now about five-and-twenty, and having just been admitted as a

partner, he had begun, as the custom was in those days, to travel for

his firm. The elder Mr Palmer was a man of refinement, something

more than a Whig in politics, and an enthusiastic member of the Broad

Church party, which was then becoming a power in the country. He was

well-to-do, living in a fine old red-brick house at Stoke Newington,

with half-a-dozen acres of ground round it, and, if Frank had been

born thirty years later, he would probably have gone to Cambridge or

Oxford.

In those days, however, it was not the custom to send boys

to the Universities unless they were intended for the law, divinity

or idleness, and Frank's training, which was begun at St Paul's

school, was completed there. He lived at home, going to school in

the morning and returning in the evening. He was surrounded by every

influence which was pure and noble. Mr Maurice and Mr Sterling were

his father's guests, and hence it may be inferred that there was an

altar in the house, and that the sacred flame burnt thereon. Mr

Palmer almost worshipped Mr Maurice, and his admiration was not

blind, for Maurice connected the Bible with what was rational in his

friend. 'What! still believable: no need then to pitch it

overboard: here after all is the Eternal Word!'

It can be imagined how those who dared not close their eyes to the light, and yet clung

to that book which had been so much to their forefathers and

themselves, rejoiced when they were able to declare that it belonged

to them more than to those who misjudged them and could deny that

they were heretics. The boy's education was entirely classical and

athletic, and as he was quick at learning and loved his games, he

took a high position amongst his school-fellows. He was not

particularly reflective, but he was generous and courageous,

perfectly straightforward, a fair specimen of thousands of English

public-school boys. As he grew up, he somewhat disappointed his

father by a lack of any real interest in the subjects in which his

father was interested. He accepted willingly, and even

enthusiastically, the household conclusions on religion and politics,

but they were not properly his, for he accepted them merely as

conclusions and without the premisses, and it was often even a little

annoying to hear him express some free opinion on religious questions

in a way which showed that it was not a growth but something picked

up.