with some rubicund wigged Masters. I like to
think of the obscure and yet dignified lives that have
been lived in these quaint and stately chambers.
I suppose that there used to be a great deal of tippling
and low gossip in the old days of the vinous, idle
Fellows, who hung on for life, forgetting their books,
and just trying to dissipate boredom. One tends
to think that it was all like that; and yet, doubtless,
there were quiet lives of study and meditation led
here by wise and simple men who have long since mouldered
into dust. And all that dull rioting is happily
over. The whole place is full of activity and
happiness. There is, if anything, among the Dons,
too much business, too many meetings, too much teaching,
and the life of mere study is neglected. But
it pleases me to think that even now there are men
who live quietly among their books, unambitious, perhaps
unproductive, but forgetting the flight of time, and
looking out into a pleasant garden, with its rustling
trees, among the sound of mellow bells. We are,
most of us, too much in a fuss nowadays to live these
gentle, innocent, and beautiful lives; and yet the
University is a place where a poor man, if he be virtuous,
may lead a life of dignity and simplicity, and refined
happiness. We make the mistake of thinking that
all can be done by precept, when, as a matter of fact,
example is no less potent a force. To make such
quiet lives possible was to a great extent what these
stately and beautiful places were founded for—that
there should be in the busy world a corner where activities
should not be so urgent, and where life should pass
like an old dream, tinged with delicate colour and
soft sound. I declare I do not know that it is
more virtuous to be a clerk in a bank, toiling day
by day that others should be rich, than to live in
thought and meditation, with a heart open to sweet
influences and pure hopes. And yet it seems to
be held nowadays that virtue is bound up with practical
life. If a man is content to abjure wealth and
to forego marriage, to live simply without luxuries,
he may spend a very dignified, gentle life here, and
at the same time he may be really useful. It
is a thing which is well worth doing to attempt the
reconciliation between the old and the young.
Boys come up here under the impression that their pastors
and teachers are all about fifty; they think of them
as sensible, narrow-minded men, and, like Melchizedek,
without beginning of days or end of life. They
suppose that they like marking mistakes in exercises
with blue pencil, and take delight in showing their
power by setting punishments. It does not often
occur to them that schoolmasters may be pathetically
anxious to guide boys right, and to guard them from
evil. They think of them as devoid of passions
and prejudices, with a little dreary space to traverse
before they sink into the tomb. Even in homes,
how seldom does a perfectly simple human relation
exist between a boy and his father! There is