Fawcett was aggressively unorthodox. But far more potent was the influence
of Leslie Stephen, then with infinite pain struggling under the yoke that
he had taken on himself at ordination, and had not yet shaken off. The
effect of Stephen's talk--though he influenced young men as much by his
dry critical silence as by his utterances--was heightened by admiration
for his athletic prowess. He coached the college Eights: anyone who has
been at a rowing college will realize how commanding an ascendancy is
implied. But his athletics covered every phase of muscular activity; and
Fawcett joined him in encouraging the fashion of long walks.

Another of the long-walkers whom the Memoir notes as among the chief
influences of those days was Leslie Stephen's pupil Romer, the Admirable
Crichton of that moment--oarsman, cricketer, and Trinity Hall's hope in
the Mathematical Tripos. The future Lord Justice of Appeal was then
reading for the Tripos, in which he was to be Senior Wrangler; and,
according to Cambridge custom, took a certain amount of coaching as part
of his work. Charles Dilke was one of those whom he instructed, and it was
the beginning of a friendship which lasted many years.

Looking back, Sir Robert Romer says that most undergraduates are simply
grown-up boys, and that at Trinity Hall in his day there was no variation
from this type till Dilke came there--a lad who, to all appearance, had
never associated with other lads, whose companions had been grown-up
people, and who had mature ideas and information on everything. But,
thrown among other young men, the young man found himself with surprising
rapidity. Elements in his nature that had never been brought out developed
at once; and one of these was a great sense of fun. Much stronger than he
looked, he plunged into athletics with a perfectly simple delight.
"Nobody," says Sir Robert Romer, "could make more noise at a boating
supper." This frank natural glee remained with him to the end. Always