My Tutor Jumped Out
Of His Chair To Hand Me The Note.
'Did I not anticipate the
event'?
He cried. 'What a wonderful world we live in!
Unconsciously I made room for the infant by sacrificing the
life of that pig.' As I never heard him allude to the
doctrine of Pythagoras, as he had no leaning to Buddhism,
and, as I am sure he knew nothing of the correlation of
forces, it must be admitted that the conception was an
original one.
Be this as it may, Mr. Collyer was an upright and
conscientious man. I owe him much, and respect his memory.
He died at an advanced age, an honorary canon, and - a
bachelor.
Another portrait hangs amongst the many in my memory's
picture gallery. It is that of his successor to the
vicarage, the chaplaincy, and the librarianship, at Holkham -
Mr. Alexander Napier - at this time, and until his death
fifty years later, one of my closest and most cherished
friends. Alexander Napier was the son of Macvey Napier,
first editor of the 'Edinburgh Review.' Thus, associated
with many eminent men of letters, he also did some good
literary work of his own. He edited Isaac Barrow's works for
the University of Cambridge, also Boswell's 'Johnson,' and
gave various other proofs of his talents and his scholarship.
He was the most delightful of companions; liberal-minded in
the highest degree; full of quaint humour and quick sympathy;
an excellent parish priest, - looking upon Christianity as a
life and not a dogma; beloved by all, for he had a kind
thought and a kind word for every needy or sick being in his
parish.
With such qualities, the man always predominated over the
priest. Hence his large-hearted charity and indulgence for
the faults - nay, crimes - of others. Yet, if taken aback by
an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the
perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily
lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would
stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an
outsider who knew less of him than - the recording angel.
A fellow undergraduate of Napier's told me a characteristic
anecdote of his impetuosity. Both were Trinity men, and had
been keeping high jinks at a supper party at Caius. The
friend suddenly pointed to the clock, reminding Napier they
had but five minutes to get into college before Trinity gates
were closed. 'D-n the clock!' shouted Napier, and snatching
up the sugar basin (it was not EAU SUCREE they were
drinking), incontinently flung it at the face of the
offending timepiece.
This youthful vivacity did not desert him in later years. An
old college friend - also a Scotchman - had become Bishop of
Edinburgh. Napier paid him a visit (he described it to me
himself). They talked of books, they talked of politics,
they talked of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, of
Brougham, Horner, Wilson, Macaulay, Jeffrey, of Carlyle's
dealings with Napier's father - 'Nosey,' as Carlyle calls
him. They chatted into the small hours of the night, as boon
companions, and as what Bacon calls 'full' men, are wont.
The claret, once so famous in the 'land of cakes,' had given
place to toddy; its flow was in due measure to the flow of
soul. But all that ends is short - the old friends had spent
their last evening together. Yes, their last, perhaps. It
was bed-time, and quoth Napier to his lordship, 'I tell you
what it is, Bishop, I am na fou', but I'll be hanged if I
haven't got two left legs.'
'I see something odd about them,' says his lordship. 'We'd
better go to bed.'
Who the bishop was I do not know, but I'll answer for it he
was one of the right sort.
In 1846 I became an undergraduate of Trinity College,
Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one
ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back
upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man
spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation
for something better. But happiness and utility are not
necessarily concomitant; and even when an undergraduate's
course is least employed for its intended purpose (as, alas!
mine was) - for happiness, certainly not pure, but simple,
give me life at a University,
Heaven forbid that any youth should be corrupted by my
confession! But surely there are some pleasures pertaining
to this unique epoch that are harmless in themselves, and are
certainly not to be met with at any other. These are the
first years of comparative freedom, of manhood, of
responsibility. The novelty, the freshness of every
pleasure, the unsatiated appetite for enjoyment, the animal
vigour, the ignorance of care, the heedlessness of, or
rather, the implicit faith in, the morrow, the absence of
mistrust or suspicion, the frank surrender to generous
impulses, the readiness to accept appearances for realities -
to believe in every profession or exhibition of good will, to
rush into the arms of every friendship, to lay bare one's
tenderest secrets, to listen eagerly to the revelations which
make us all akin, to offer one's time, one's energies, one's
purse, one's heart, without a selfish afterthought - these, I
say, are the priceless pleasures, never to be repeated, of
healthful average youth.
What has after-success, honour, wealth, fame, or, power -
burdened, as they always are, with ambitions, blunders,
jealousies, cares, regrets, and failing health - to match
with this enjoyment of the young, the bright, the bygone,
hour? The wisdom of the worldly teacher - at least, the
CARPE DIEM - was practised here before the injunction was
ever thought of. DU BIST SO SCHON was the unuttered
invocation, while the VERWEILE DOCH was deemed unneedful.
Little, I am ashamed to own, did I add either to my small
classical or mathematical attainments. But I made
friendships - lifelong friendships, that I would not barter
for the best of academical prizes.
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