I Had Lost My Habits Of Study While At Home; And I Was Not Likely To
Find Them Again At College.
I found that study was not the fashion at
college, and that a lad of spirit only ate his terms; and grew wise by
dint of knife and fork.
I was always prone to follow the fashions of
the company into which I fell; so I threw by my books, and became a man
of spirit. As my father made me a tolerable allowance, notwithstanding
the narrowness of his income, having an eye always to my great
expectations, I was enabled to appear to advantage among my
fellow-students. I cultivated all kinds of sports and exercises. I was
one of the most expert oarsmen that rowed on the Isis. I boxed and
fenced. I was a keen huntsman, and my chambers in college were always
decorated with whips of all kinds, spurs, foils, and boxing gloves. A
pair of leather breeches would seem to be throwing one leg out of the
half-open drawers, and empty bottles lumbered the bottom of every
closet.
I soon grew tired of this, and relapsed into my vein of mere poetical
indulgence. I was charmed with Oxford, for it was full of poetry to me.
I thought I should never grow tired of wandering about its courts and
cloisters; and visiting the different college halls. I used to love to
get in places surrounded by the colleges, where all modern buildings
were screened from the sight; and to walk about them in twilight, and
see the professors and students sweeping along in the dusk in their
caps and gowns.
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