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Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 12 of 166 (07%)
public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he
has been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of
restraint, and nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no
quiet clique of the exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten
borough of the arts. All classes rub shoulders on the greasy
benches. The raffish young gentleman in gloves must measure his
scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie from the parish school.
They separate, at the session's end, one to smoke cigars about a
watering-place, the other to resume the labours of the field beside
his peasant family. The first muster of a college class in
Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads,
fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish
embarrassment, ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades,
and afraid of the sound of their own rustic voices. It was in
these early days, I think, that Professor Blackie won the affection
of his pupils, putting these uncouth, umbrageous students at their
ease with ready human geniality. Thus, at least, we have a healthy
democratic atmosphere to breathe in while at work; even when there
is no cordiality there is always a juxtaposition of the different
classes, and in the competition of study the intellectual power of
each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our tasks ended, we of
the North go forth as freemen into the humming, lamplit city. At
five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the college
gates, in the glare of the shop windows, under the green glimmer of
the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies
in wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the
masters of the world; and some portion of our lives is always
Saturday, LA TREVE DE DIEU.

Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his
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