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.
Amongst my associates or acquaintances, two or three of whom
have since become known - were the last Lord Derby, Sir
William Harcourt, the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, Latimer
Neville, late Master of Magdalen, Lord Calthorpe, of racing
fame, with whom I afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains, the
last Lord Durham, my cousin, Sir Augustus Stephenson, ex-
solicitor to the Treasury, Julian Fane, whose lyrics were
edited by Lord Lytton, and my life-long friend Charles
Barrington, private secretary to Lord Palmerston and to Lord
John Russell.
But the most intimate of them was George Cayley, son of the
member for the East Riding of Yorkshire. Cayley was a young
man of much promise. In his second year he won the
University prize poem with his 'Balder,' and soon after
published some other poems, and a novel, which met with
merited oblivion. But it was as a talker that he shone. His
quick intelligence, his ready wit, his command of language,
made his conversation always lively, and sometimes brilliant.
For several years after I left Cambridge I lived with him in
his father's house in Dean's Yard, and thus made the
acquaintance of some celebrities whom his fascinating and
versatile talents attracted thither.
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