MEMOIR
A LAOCOON OFTHE ROCKS
THROP'S WIFE
"IT MUN BE SO"
THE INNER VOICE
B.A.
CORN-FEVER
Frederic Moorman came of a stock which, on both sides, hadstruck deeproots in the soil of Devon. His father's family, which is believed tohave sprung ultimately from "either Cornwall or Scotland"—asufficiently wide choice, it may be thought—had for manygenerationsbeen settled in the county.(1) His mother's—her maiden namewas MaryHonywill—had for centuries held land at Widdicombe and theneighbourhood, in the heart of Dartmoor. He was born on 8th September1872, at Ashburton, where his father, the Rev. A. C. Moorman, wasCongregational minister; and for the first ten years of his life he wasbrought up on the skirts of the moor to which his mother's familybelonged: drinking in from the very first that love of country sightsand sounds which clove to him through life, and laying the foundationofthat close knowledge of birds and flowers which was an endless sourceofdelight to him in after years, and which made him so welcome acompanionin a country walk with any friend who shared his love of such thingsbutwho, ten to one, could make no pretence whatever to his knowledge.
In 1882, his father was appointed to the ministry of theCongregationalChurch at Stonehouse, in Gloucestershire; and Frederic began his formalschooling at the Wyclif Preparatory School in that place. The countryround Stonehouse—a country of barish slopes and richly woodedvalleys—is perhaps hardly so beautiful as that which he hadleft andwhose memory he never ceased to cherish. But it has a charm all itsown,and the child of Dartmoor had no great reason to lament his removal tothe grey uplands and "golden valleys" of the Cotswolds.
His next change must have seemed one greatly for the worse. In1884 hewas sent to the school for the sons of Congregational ministers atCaterham; and the Cotswolds, with their wide outlook over the Severnestuary to May Hill and the wooded heights beyond, were exchanged forthe bald sweep and the white chalk-pits of the North Downs. These toohave their unique beauty; but I never remember to have heard Moormansayanything which showed that he felt it as those who have known suchscenery from boyhood might have expected him to do.
After some five years at Caterham, he began his academicalstudies atUniversity College, London; but, on the strength of a scholarship, soonremoved to University College, Aberystwyth (1890), where thescenery—sea, heron-haunted estuaries, wooded down to the veryshore,and hills here and there rising almost into mountains—offeredsurroundings far more congenial to him than the streets and squares ofBloomsbury.
In these new surroundings, he seems to have been exceptionallyhappy,throwing himself into all the interests