The Secret Glory · Chapter
II explained
Ambrose Meyrick, after being severely caned by Mr.
What happens
Ambrose Meyrick, after being severely caned by Mr. Horbury for visiting Selden Abbey, reflects on the hypocrisy and emptiness of the classical education system. The chapter contrasts his father's reverence for Gothic architecture with the school's rigid, meaningless rituals, and critiques the modern notion of 'scholarship' as a hollow survival. Later, a memoir of Mr. Horbury in the Guardian reveals his later years and his school song, which Meyrick scorns as proof of the system's failure to teach true literature.
Themes in this chapter
Critique of Institutional Education
The chapter attacks the public school system for teaching classics as a meaningless ritual, devoid of the spirit and beauty of the original literatures.
Alienation and the Double Life
Ambrose feels out of tune with his surroundings, blaming the school for not being what it never pretended to be, and lives inwardly with a theory of life unrelated to facts.
The Artist vs. Society
Ambrose judges Horbury's school song by the rules of fine art, finding it rubbish, while society values it for its communal purpose—highlighting the conflict between artistic standards and social utility.
Characters to notice
- Ambrose Meyrick
Left Mr. Horbury's study in a white fury after being caned; meditates murder; later jeers at Horbury's memoir and song.
- Mr. Horbury
The form master who canes Ambrose; described as a decent specimen of his class but savagely cruel in the moment; later dies and is memorialized in the Guardian.
- Canon Horbury
Author of the school song 'Follow, follow, follow!'; his verses are judged by Ambrose as literary rubbish.
- George Horbury
Identified as the same person as Canon Horbury; dies 'fortified with the rites of the Church of a Great Aspiration.'
Key passages
“One has only to recollect the form master’s lessons in the Odyssey or the Bacchae , and then to view modern Freemasons celebrating the Mystic Death and Resurrection of Hiram Abiff; the analogy is complete, for neither the master nor the Masons have the remotest notion of what they are doing.”
The way classics are taught is as empty and ritualistic as Freemason ceremonies—neither teacher nor Mason understands the meaning behind their actions.
Critique of the hollow ritual of classical education.
“He was incorrigible; he was always incorrigible, and thus, in his boyhood, on the dark November evening, he meditated the murder of his good master and uncle—for at least a quarter of an hour.”
Ambrose was stubbornly rebellious, and after his caning he seriously contemplated killing his uncle and teacher for a full fifteen minutes.
Ambrose's intense rage and psychological state after punishment.
“In all his reasoning about schools and schoolmasters there was a fatal flaw—he blamed both for not being what they never pretended to be.”
Ambrose's criticism of schools was fundamentally flawed because he expected them to be something they never claimed to be.
Narrator's analysis of Ambrose's misguided expectations.