I had not visited Eton for many years. When one day passing from the Fellows' Library into the Gallery, I caught sight of the1 of my school friend Digby Dolben hanging just without the door among our most2 contemporaries. I was3 arrested and as I stood gazing on it, my4 asked me if I knew who it was. I was thinking that I must be almost the only person who would know him. Far 5 of my boyhood were crowding6 upon me: he was standing again beside me in the eager promise of his youth.
This portrait-gallery of old Etonians is very7 : outstanding distinction of birth or excellent qualities may win you a place there.8 , how came Dolben there? It was 9 he was a poet; and yet his poems were not known. They were carefully 10 by his family and a few friends. Indeed, such of his poems as could have come to the eyes of the authorities who approved of this memorial would not11 it. There was another12 — the portrait bears its own certification. Though you might not perhaps understand the poet in it, you can see the soul immersed in deep thought, the habit of stainless (无瑕的) life, of13 , of enthusiasm for high ideals. Such a being must have14 remarkably among his fellows. When his early death endeared ( 使价值更高) his memory, loving grief would generously15 him the glory which he had never worn.
