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