Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 36

As I have a little spare time, I take up my pen, which is a shockingly bad one, to write to you.

I have been requested to ask you, Ma, if I may get another suit of clothes. I can get them very cheap & good here as the Rector has a private tailor, & if I get a suit they can do for my Sunday suit for the rest of this year & then for my ordinary suit next year. But I am not allowed to get them without leave from you. A great many boys are getting new suits now for the procession at Corpus Christi.

I am improving in my lessons & am 13^th instead of 19^th in a school of 37 fellows.

PS write soon please

At the time above he was some six weeks short of his twelfth birthday. According to Stonyhurst records he was significantly younger than most of the other boys in his ‘school’ (grade, or form)—as much as three years younger. It is not clear why this was; by his account he was not considered advanced for his age at his earlier school in Edinburgh, nor by Stonyhurst for a long time. (The oldest boys in his form may have been held back.) But it limited his opportunities for friendship to be that much younger than most of his classmates, and only one of his lifelong friends came from his Stonyhurst days.