The Years of Penance

Abstract

For Housman, as for others, the four years at Oxford had been in many respects a prolongation of schooldays. Oxford had given his life a regular pattern of comings and goings, objectives and challenges, and had placed at his disposal a small but important circle of friendships in a society in which roles were clearly defined and considerable individual freedom existed within a framework of institutional authority and discipline. When he returned home in the early summer of 1881, all this was left behind. The present was deeply disquieting, for his father’s ‘break down’ lasted until the end of July; the future was bleakly uncertain. As for the financial difficulties which beset his family, these must have been felt as a keen reproach as well as a source of immediate anxiety and discomfort. ‘We were frightfully poor at the time’,* Laurence recalled. Housman’s depression, natural enough in the circumstances of his failure, must have been increased by feelings of guilt and intensified by his proud and lonely refusal to find solace in human relationships. Fifty-five years later his sister Kate still remembered his mood during this period as ‘very morose... I saw little of him except at meals’;* and Laurence confirmed this: ‘he withdrew into himself — very taciturn and ungenial — and showed nothing’.*

‘He very much lived in water-tight compartments that were not to communicate with each other.’

(Katharine Symons, Housman’s sister)*