ALMA MATER.
[Illustration]
Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical
career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university
comrades and days. The young man's life is just beginning: the boy's
leading-strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignities
of freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, or of bad health, or of
roguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappointment. The play has not
been acted so often as to make him tired. Though the after-drink, as
we mechanically go on repeating it, is stale and bitter, how pure and
brilliant was that first sparkling draught of pleasure!--How the boy
rushes at the cup, and with what a wild eagerness he drains it! But
old epicures who are cut off from the delights of the table, and are
restricted to a poached egg and a glass of water, like to see people
with good appetites; and, as the next best thing to being amused at a
pantomime one's self is to see one's children enjoy it, I hope there may
be no degree of age or experience to which mortal may attain, when he
shall become such a glum philosopher, as not to be pleased by the sight
of happy youth. Coming back a few weeks since from a brief visit to the
old University of Oxbridge, where my friend Mr. Arthur Pendennis passed
some period of his life, I made the journey in the railroad by the side
of a young fellow at present a student of Saint Boniface. He had got
an _excat_ somehow, and was bent on a day's lark in London: he never
stopped rattling and talking from the commencement of the journey until
its close (which was a great deal too soon for me, for I never was tired
of listening to the honest young fellow's jokes and cheery laughter);
and when we arrived at the terminus nothing would satisfy him but a
Hansom cab, so that he might get into town the quicker, and plunge into
the pleasures awaiting him there. Away the young lad went whirling, with
joy lighting up his honest face; and as for the reader's humble servant,
having but a small carpet-bag, I got up on the outside of the omnibus,
and sate there very contentedly between a Jew-pedlar smoking bad cigars,
and a gentleman's servant taking care of a poodle-dog, until we got
our fated complement of passengers and boxes, when the coachman drove
leisurely away. _We_ weren't in a hurry to get to town. Neither one of
us was particularly eager about rushing into that near smoking Babylon,
or thought of dining at the club that night, or dancing at the Casino.
Yet a few years more, and my young friend of the railroad will be not
a whit more eager.
There were no railroads made when Arthur Pendennis went to the famous
University of Oxbridge; but he drove thither in a well appointed coach,
filled inside and out with dons, gownsmen, young freshmen about to
enter, and their guardians, who were conducting them to the University.
A fat old gentleman, in gray stockings, from the City, who sate by Major
Pendennis inside the coach, having his pale-faced son opposite, was
frightened beyond measure, when he heard that the coach had been driven
for a couple of stages by young Mr. Foker, of Saint Boniface College,
who was the friend of all men, including coachmen, and could drive as
well as Tom Hicks himself. Pen sate on the roof, examining coach,
passengers, and country, with great delight and curiosity. His heart
jumped with pleasure as the famous University came in view, and the
magnificent prospect of venerable towers and pinnacles, tall elms and
shining river, spread before him.
Pen had passed a few days with his uncle at the major's lodgings,
in Bury-street, before they set out for Oxbridge. Major Pendennis
thought that the lad's wardrobe wanted renewal; and Arthur was by
no means averse to any plan which was to bring him new coats and
waistcoats. There was no end to the sacrifices which the self-denying
uncle made in the youth's behalf. London was awfully lonely. The Pall
Mall pavement was deserted; the very red jackets had gone out of town.
There was scarce a face to be seen in the bow windows of the clubs.
The major conducted his nephew into one or two of those desert
mansions, and wrote down the lad's name on the candidate-list of one
of them; and Arthur's pleasure at this compliment on his guardian's
part was excessive. He read in the parchment volume his name and titles,
as "Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, of Fairoaks Lodge, --shire, and Saint
Boniface College, Oxbridge; proposed by Major Pendennis, and seconded by
Viscount Colchicum," with a thrill of intense gratification. "You will
come in for ballot in about three years, by which time you will have
taken your degree," the guardian said. Pen longed for the three years to
be over, and surveyed the stucco-halls, and vast libraries, and drawing
rooms, as already his own property. The major laughed slily to see the
pompous airs of the simple young fellow, as he strutted out of the
building. He and Foker drove down in the latter's cab one day to the
Gray Friars, and renewed acquaintance with some of their old comrades
there. The boys came crowding up to the cab as it stood by the Gray
Friars gates, where they were entering, and admired the chestnut horse,
and the tights and livery and gravity of Stoopid, the tiger. The bell
for afternoon-school rang as they were swaggering about the play ground
talking to their old cronies. The awful doctor passed into school with
his grammar in his hand. Foker slunk away uneasily at his presence, but
Pen went up blushing, and shook the dignitary by the hand. He laughed as
he thought that well-remembered Latin Grammar had boxed his ears many a
time. He was generous, good-natured, and, in a word, perfectly conceited
and satisfied with himself.
Then they drove to the parental brew-house. Foker's Entire is composed
in an enormous pile of buildings, not far from the Gray Friars, and the
name of that well known firm is gilded upon innumerable public-house
signs, tenanted by its vassals in the neighborhood; and the venerable
junior partner and manager did honor to the young lord of the vats,
and his friend, and served them with silver flagons of brown stout, so
strong, that you would have thought, not only the young men, but the
very horse Mr. Harry Foker drove, was affected by the potency of the
drink, for he rushed home to the west-end of the town at a rapid pace,
which endangered the pie-stalls and the women on the crossings, and
brought the cab-steps into collision with the posts at the street
corners, and caused Stoopid to swing fearfully on his board behind.
The major was quite pleased when Pen was with his young acquaintance;
listened to Mr. Foker's artless stories with the greatest interest,
gave the two boys a fine dinner at a Covent Garden Coffee-house, whence
they proceeded to the play; but was above all happy when Mr. and
Lady Agnes Foker, who happened to be in London, requested the pleasure
of Major Pendennis and Mr. Arthur Pendennis's company at dinner in
Grosvenor-street. "Having obtained the _entree_ into Lady Agnes Foker's
house," he said to Pen with an affectionate solemnity which befitted the
importance of the occasion, "it behoves you, my dear boy, to keep it.
You must mind and _never_ neglect to call in Grosvenor-street when you
come to London. I recommend you to read up carefully, in Debrett, the
alliances and genealogy of the Earls of Rosherville, and if you can, to
make some trifling allusions to the family, something historical, neat,
and complimentary, and that sort of thing, which you, who have a poetic
fancy, can do pretty well. Mr. Foker himself is a worthy man, though not
of high extraction or indeed much education. He always makes a point of
having some of the family porter served round after dinner, which you
will on no account refuse, and which I shall drink myself, though all
beer disagrees with me confoundedly." And the heroic martyr did actually
sacrifice himself, as he said he would, on the day when the dinner took
place, and old Mr. Foker at the head of his table, made his usual joke
about Foker's Entire. We should all of us, I am sure, have liked to see
the major's grin, when the worthy old gentleman made his time-honored
joke.
Lady Agnes, who, wrapped up in Harry, was the fondest of mothers, and
one of the most good-natured though not the wisest of women, received
her son's friend with great cordiality: and astonished Pen by accounts
of the severe course of studies which her darling boy was pursuing, and
which she feared might injure his dear health. Foker the elder burst
into a horse-laugh at some of these speeches, and the heir of the house
winked his eye very knowingly at his friend. And Lady Agnes then going
through her son's history from the earliest time, and recounting his
miraculous sufferings in the measles and whooping-cough, his escape
from drowning, the shocking tyrannies practiced upon him at that horrid
school, whither Mr. Foker would send him because he had been brought up
there himself, and she never would forgive that disagreeable doctor, no
never--Lady Agnes, we say, having prattled away for an hour incessantly
about her son, voted the two Messieurs Pendennis most agreeable men; and
when the pheasants came with the second course, which the major praised
as the very finest birds he ever saw, her ladyship said they came from
Logwood (as the major knew perfectly well) and hoped that they would
both pay her a visit there--at Christmas, or when dear Harry was at
home for the vacations.
"God bless you, my dear boy," Pendennis said to Arthur, as they were
lighting their candles in Bury-street afterward to go to bed. "You
made that little allusion to Agincourt, where one of the Roshervilles
distinguished himself, very neatly and well, although Lady Agnes did not
quite understand it; but it was exceedingly well for a beginner--though
you oughtn't to blush so, by the way--and I beseech you, my dear Arthur,
to remember through life, that with an _entree_--with a good _entree_,
mind--it is just as easy for you to have good society as bad, and that
it costs a man, when properly introduced, no more trouble or _soins_ to
keep a good footing in the best houses in London than to dine with a
lawyer in Bedford-square. Mind this when you are at Oxbridge pursuing
your studies, and for Heaven's sake be _very_ particular in the
acquaintances which you make. The _premier pas_ in life is the most
important of all--did you write to your mother to-day?--No?--well, do,
before you go, and call and ask Mr. Foker for a frank.--They like
it.--Good night. God bless you."
Pen wrote a droll account of his doings in London, and the play, and the
visit to the old Friars, and the brewery, and the party at Mr. Foker's,
to his dearest mother, who was saying her prayers at home in the lonely
house at Fairoaks, her heart full of love and tenderness unutterable for
the boy: and she and Laura read that letter and those which followed,
many, many times, and brooded over them as women do. It was the first
step in life that Pen was making--Ah! what a dangerous journey it
is, and how the bravest may stumble and the strongest fail. Brother
wayfarer! may you have a kind arm to support you on the path, and a
friendly hand to succor those who fall beside you. May truth guide,
mercy forgive at the end, and love accompany always. Without that
lamp how blind the traveler would be, and how black and cheerless
the journey!
So the coach drove up to that ancient and comfortable inn the
Trencher, which stands in Main-street Oxbridge, and Pen with delight
and eagerness remarked, for the first time, gownsmen going about,
chapel bells clinking (bells in Oxbridge are ringing from morning-tide
till even-song)--towers and pinnacles rising calm and stately over
the gables and antique house-roofs of the homely, busy city. Previous
communications had taken place between Dr. Portman on Pen's part, and
Mr. Buck, Tutor of Boniface, on whose side Pen was entered; and as soon
as Major Pendennis had arranged his personal appearance, so that it
should make a satisfactory impression upon Pen's tutor, the pair walked
down Main-street, and passed the great gate and belfry-tower of Saint
George's College, and so came, as they were directed, to Saint Boniface:
where again Pen's heart began to beat as they entered at the wicket of
the venerable ivy-mantled gate of the college. It is surmounted with an
ancient dome almost covered with creepers, and adorned with the effigy
of the saint from whom the house takes its name, and many coats-of-arms
of its royal and noble benefactors.
The porter pointed out a queer old tower at the corner of the
quadrangle, by which Mr. Buck's rooms were approached, and the two
gentlemen walked across the square, the main features of which, were
at once and forever stamped in Pen's mind--the pretty fountain playing
in the center of the fair grass plats; the tall chapel windows and
buttresses rising to the right; the hall with its tapering lantern and
oriel window; the lodge, from the doors of which the master issued
awfully in rustling silks; the lines of the surrounding rooms pleasantly
broken by carved chimneys, gray turrets, and quaint gables--all these
Mr. Pen's eyes drank in with an eagerness which belongs to first
impressions; and Major Pendennis surveyed with that calmness which
belongs to a gentleman who does not care for the picturesque, and whose
eyes have been somewhat dimmed by the constant glare of the pavement of
Pall Mall.
Saint George's is the great college of the University of Oxbridge, with
its four vast quadrangles, and its beautiful hall and gardens, and the
Georgians, as the men are called, wear gowns of a peculiar cut, and give
themselves no small airs of superiority over all other young men. Little
Saint Boniface is but a petty hermitage in comparison of the huge
consecrated pile alongside of which it lies. But considering its size it
has always kept an excellent name in the University. Its _ton_ is very
good; the best families of certain counties have time out of mind sent
up their young men to Saint Boniface; the college livings are remarkably
good, the fellowships easy; the Boniface men had had more than their
fair share of University honors; their boat was third upon the river:
their chapel-choir is not inferior to Saint George's itself; and the
Boniface ale the best in Oxbridge. In the comfortable old wainscoted
College-Hall, and round about Roubilliac's statue of Saint Boniface (who
stands in an attitude of seraphic benediction over the uncommonly good
cheer of the fellows' table) there are portraits of many most eminent
Bonifacians. There is the learned Dr. Griddle, who suffered in Henry
VIII.'s time, and Archbishop Bush who roasted him--there is Lord
Chief Justice Hicks--the Duke of St. David's, K. G., Chancellor of the
University and member of this College--Sprott, the poet, of whose fame
the college is justly proud--Doctor Blogg, the late master and friend
of Doctor Johnson, who visited him at St. Boniface--and other lawyers,
scholars, and divines, whose portraitures look from the walls, or whose
coats-of-arms shine in emerald and ruby, gold and azure, in the tall
windows of the refectory. The venerable cook of the college is one of
the best artists in Oxbridge (his son took the highest honors in the
other University of Camford) and the wine in the fellows' room has long
been famed for its excellence and abundance.
Into this certainly not the least snugly sheltered arbor among the
groves of Academe, Pen now found his way, leaning on his uncle's arm,
and they speedily reached Mr. Buck's rooms, and were conducted into the
apartment of that courteous gentleman.
He had received previous information from Dr. Portman regarding Pen,
with respect to whose family, fortune, and personal merits the honest
doctor had spoken with no small enthusiasm. Indeed Portman had described
Arthur to the tutor "as a young gentleman of some fortune and landed
estate, of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, and
possessing such a character and genius as were sure, under the proper
guidance, to make him a credit to the college and the University." Under
such recommendations the tutor was, of course, most cordial to the young
freshman and his guardian, invited the latter to dine in hall, where he
would have the satisfaction of seeing his nephew wear his gown and eat
his dinner for the first time, and requested the pair to take wine at
his rooms after hall, and in consequence of the highly favorable report
he had received of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, said he should be happy to give
him the best set of rooms to be had in college--a gentleman-pensioner's
set, indeed, which were just luckily vacant. So they parted until
dinner-time, which was very near at hand, and Major Pendennis pronounced
Mr. Buck to be uncommonly civil indeed. Indeed when a college magnate
takes the trouble to be polite, there is no man more splendidly
courteous. Immersed in their books and excluded from the world by the
gravity of their occupations, these reverend men assume a solemn
magnificence of compliment in which they rustle and swell as in their
grand robes of state. Those silks and brocades are not put on for all
comers or every day.
When the two gentlemen had taken leave of the tutor in his study, and
had returned to Mr. Buck's ante-room, or lecture-room, a very handsome
apartment, turkey-carpeted, and hung with excellent prints and richly
framed pictures, they found the tutor's servant already in waiting
there, accompanied by a man with a bag full of caps and a number of
gowns, from which Pen might select a cap and gown for himself, and the
servant, no doubt, would get a commission proportionable to the service
done by him. Mr. Pen was all in a tremor of pleasure as the bustling
tailor tried on a gown and pronounced that it was an excellent fit; and
then he put the pretty college cap on, in rather a dandified manner and
somewhat on one side, as he had seen Fiddicombe, the youngest master at
Gray Friars, wear it. And he inspected the entire costume with a great
deal of satisfaction in one of the great gilt mirrors which ornamented
Mr. Buck's lecture-room: for some of these college divines are no more
above looking-glasses than a lady is, and look to the set of their gowns
and caps quite as anxiously as folks do of the lovelier sex. The major
smiled as he saw the boy dandifying himself in the glass: the old
gentleman was not displeased with the appearance of the comely lad.
[Illustration]
Then Davis, the skip or attendant, led the way, keys in hand, across the
quadrangle, the major and Pen following him, the latter blushing, and
pleased with his new academical habiliments, across the quadrangle to
the rooms which were destined for the freshman; and which were vacated
by the retreat of the gentleman-pensioner, Mr. Spicer. The rooms were
very comfortable, with large cross beams, high wainscots and small
windows in deep embrasures. Mr. Spicer's furniture was there, and to be
sold at a valuation, and Major Pendennis agreed on his nephew's behalf
to take the available part of it, laughingly, however, declining (as,
indeed, Pen did for his own part), six sporting prints, and four groups
of opera-dancers with gauze draperies, which formed the late occupant's
pictorial collection.
Then they went to hall, where Pen sate down and ate his commons with his
brother freshmen, and the major took his place at the high-table along
with the college dignitaries and other fathers or guardians of youth,
who had come up with their sons to Oxbridge; and after hall they went
to Mr. Buck's to take wine: and after wine to chapel, where the major
sate with great gravity in the upper place, having a fine view of the
Master in his carved throne or stall under the organ-loft, where that
gentleman, the learned Doctor Donne, sate magnificent, with his great
prayer-book before him, an image of statuesque piety and rigid devotion.
All the young freshmen behaved with gravity and decorum, but Pen was
shocked to see that atrocious little Foker, who came in very late,
and half-a-dozen of his comrades in the gentlemen-pensioners' seats,
giggling and talking as if they had been in so many stalls at the opera.
But these circumstances, it must be remembered, took place some years
back, when William the Fourth was king. Young men are much better
behaved now, and besides, Saint Boniface was rather a fast college.
Pen could hardly sleep at night in his bed-room at the Trencher: so
anxious was he to begin his college life, and to get into his own
apartments. What did he think about, as he lay tossing and awake?
Was it about his mother at home; the pious soul whose life was bound up
in his? Yes, let us hope he thought of her a little. Was it about Miss
Fotheringay, and his eternal passion, which had kept him awake so many
nights, and created such wretchedness and such longing? He had a trick
of blushing, and if you had been in the room, and the candle had not
been out, you might have seen the youth's countenance redden more than
once, as he broke out into passionate incoherent exclamations regarding
that luckless event of his life. His uncle's lessons had not been thrown
away upon him; the mist of passion had passed from his eyes now, and he
saw her as she was. To think that he, Pendennis, had been enslaved by
such a woman, and then jilted by her! that he should have stooped so
low, to be trampled on in the mire! that there was a time in his life,
and that but a few months back, when he was willing to take Costigan
for his father-in-law!--
"Poor old Smirke!" Pen presently laughed out--"well, I'll write and try
and console the poor old boy. He won't die of his passion, ha, ha!" The
major, had he been awake, might have heard a score of such ejaculations
uttered by Pen as he lay awake and restless through the first night of
his residence at Oxbridge.
It would, perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whose
life was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a
different sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the
shape of his selfish old Mentor; and those who have any interest in
his character, must have perceived ere now, that this lad was very
weak as well as very impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and
if of a generous disposition, not a little selfish in the midst of
his profuseness, and also rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of
self-gratification are.
The six months' passion had aged him very considerably. There was
an immense gulf between Pen the victim of love, and Pen the innocent
boy of eighteen, sighing after it: and so Arthur Pendennis had all the
experience and superiority, besides that command which afterward conceit
and imperiousness of disposition gave him over the young men with whom
he now began to live.
He and his uncle passed the morning with great satisfaction in making
purchases for the better comfort of the apartments which the lad was
about to occupy. Mr. Spicer's china and glass was in a dreadfully
dismantled condition, his lamps smashed, and his book cases by no means
so spacious as those shelves which would be requisite to receive the
contents of the boxes which were lying in the hall at Fairoaks, and
which were addressed to Arthur in the hand of poor Helen.
The boxes arrived in a few days, that his mother had packed with so
much care. Pen was touched as he read the superscriptions in the dear
well-known hand, and he arranged in their proper places all the books,
his old friends, and all the linen and table-cloths which Helen had
selected from the family stock, and all the jam-pots which little Laura
had bound in straw, and the hundred simple gifts of home. Pen had
another Alma Mater now. But it is not all children who take to her
kindly.