"A boy--no better--with his rosy cheeks
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride."
Wordsworth's _Prelude_.
A public school man is by no means lonely when he first enters the
university. He finds many of his old school-fellows accompanying him,
and many who have gone up before him, and he feels united to them all by
a bond of fellowship, which at once creates for him a circle of friends.
Had Julian merely kept up his Harton acquaintances, he would have known
as many Camford men as were at all necessary for the purposes of
society.
But although with most or all of the Hartonians Julian remained on
pleasant and friendly terms, there were others whom he saw quite as
much, and whose society he enjoyed all the more thoroughly because their
previous associations and experiences were different from his own. And
on looking back in aftertimes, what a delight it was to remember the
noble hearts which, during those years of college life, had always
beaten in unison with his own. Few enjoyments were more keen than that
social equality and unconventional intercourse common among all
undergraduates, which might at any time ripen into an earnest and
invaluable friendship, or merely stop at the stage of an agreeable
acquaintanceship. A great, and not the least useful portion of
University education consisted in the intimate knowledge of character
and the many-sided sympathies which were thus insensibly acquired.
During the first few weeks of college life, of course, a good deal of
time was spent in receiving and returning the visits of acquaintances,
old and new. Of the latter, there was one with whom Julian and
Lillyston were equally charmed, and who soon became their constant
companion. His name was Kennedy, and Julian first got to know him by
sitting next him in lecture-room. His lively remarks, his keen and
vivid sense of the ludicrous, the quick yet kindly notice he took of
men's peculiarities, his ardent appreciation of the books which occupied
their time, and the pleasant, rapid way in which he would dash off a
caricature, soon attracted notice, and he rapidly became popular, both
among undergraduates and dons. He was known, too, by the warm eulogy of
his fellow-Marlbeians, who were never tired of singing his praises among
themselves.
"Splendid!" whispered he to Julian warmly, after Julian had just
finished construing a difficult clause in the Agamemnon, which he had
done with a spirit and fire which even kindled a spark of admiration in
the cold breast of Mr Grayson. "Splendidly done, Home! I say, how
very reserved you are. Here have I been longing to know you for the
last ten days, and we have hardly got beyond a nod to each other yet.
Do come in to tea at my rooms to-night at eight. I want to introduce
you to a friend of mine--Owen of Roslyn school."
"With pleasure," said Julian. "That dark-haired fellow is Owen, is it
not? I hear he's going to do great things!"
"Oh yes! booked for a Fellow and a double-first; so you ought to know
him, you know."
"Silence, gentlemen," said Mr Grayson, turning his stony gaze on
Kennedy, whose bright face instantly assumed a demure expression of deep
attention, while the light of laughter which still danced in his eyes
might have betrayed to a careful observer the fact that the notes on
which he appeared to be so assiduously occupied mainly consisted of
replications of Mr Grayson's placid physiognomy and Roman nose.
"I've brought an umbra with me, Kennedy, in the person of Mr Lillyston,
who sits next to me at lectures, and wanted to be introduced to you,"
said Owen, as he came in to Kennedy's room that evening.
"I'm delighted," said Kennedy. "Mr Lillyston, let me introduce you to
Mr Home."
"We hardly need an introduction, Hugh, at this time of day; do we?" said
Julian, laughing; and the four were soon as much at home as it was
possible for men to be. There was no lack of conversation. I think the
rooms of a Camford undergraduate are about the last place where
conversation ever flags; and when men like Kennedy, Owen, Julian, and
Lillyston meet, it is perhaps more genuinely earnest and interesting
than in any other time or place.
The next day, as Kennedy was sitting in Julian's rooms, glancing over
the Aeschylus with him, in strutted Hazlet, whom we have incidentally
mentioned as having been the son of a widow lady living at Ildown. He
had come up to Camford straight from home, and as he had only received a
home-education everything was strangely bewildering to him, and Julian
was almost the only friend he knew. Nor was he likely to attract many
friends; his manner was strangely self-confident, and his language
dictatorial and dogmatic. In his mother's house he had long been the
centre of religious tea-parties, before which he was often called upon
to read and even to expound the Scriptures. "At the tip of his subduing
tongue" were a number of fantastic phrases, originally misapplied, and
long since worn bare of meaning, and the test of his orthodoxy was the
universality with which he could reiterate proofs of heresy against
every man of genius, honesty, and depth--who loved truth better than he
loved the oracles of the prevalent idols. Hazlet practised the duty of
Christian charity by dealing indiscriminate condemnation against all
except those who belonged to his own exclusive and somewhat ignorant
school of religious intolerance. His face was the reflex of his mind;
his lank black hair stuck down in stiff dry straightness over a
contracted forehead and an ill-shaped head; his spectacles gave
additional glassiness to a lack-lustre eye, and the manner in which he
carried his chin in the air seemed like an acted representation of "I am
holier than thou."
Far be it from me to hold up to ridicule any body of earnest and honest
men, to whatever party they may belong. I am writing of Hazlet, not of
those who hold the same opinions as he did. That man must have been
unfortunate in life who has not many friends, and friends whom he holds
in deep affection, among the adherents of opinions most entirely
antagonistic to his own. Hazlet's repulsiveness was due to a very
mistaken education, developing a very foolish idiosyncrasy, and
especially to the pernicious system of encouraging sentiments and
expressions which in a boy's mind _could_ not be other than sickly
exotics. He had to be taught his own hypocrisy by the painful progress
of events, and, above all, he had to learn that religious shibboleths
may be no proof of sanctification, and that religious intolerance is
usually the hybrid offspring of ignorance and conceit. In many
essential matters he held the truth,--but he held it in unrighteousness.
It may be imagined that Hazlet was no favourite companion of Julian
Home. But Julian loved and honoured to the utmost of his power the good
points of all; he had a deep and real veneration for humanity, and
rarely allowed himself an unkind expression, or a look which indicated
ennui, even to those associates by whose presence he was most
unspeakably bored. Hazlet mistook his courteous manner for a
deferential agreement, and was, too often, in Julian's presence more
than usually insufferable in his Pharisaical tendencies.
"Good heavens!" said Kennedy, who saw Hazlet coming across the court.
"Who's this, Home? He looks as if he had been just presiding at three
conventicles and a meeting at Philadelphus Hall. Surely he can't be
coming here."
"Oh, yes," said Julian, "that's a compatriot of mine named Hazlet; a
very good fellow, I believe, though rather obtrusive perhaps."
"Good morning, Home," said Hazlet, in a measured and sanctified tone, as
he entered the room and sat down.
Kennedy glanced impatiently at the Aeschylus.
"Ah! I see you're engaged on that heathen poet. It often strikes me,
Home, that we may be wrong after all in spending so much time on these
works of men, who, as Saint Paul tells us, were `wholly given to
idolatry.' I have just come from a most refreshing meeting at--"
"I say, Home," cut in Kennedy hastily, "shall I go? I suppose you won't
do over any more of the Agamemnon this morning."
"I don't know," said Julian; "perhaps Hazlet will join us in our
construe."
"No, I think not," said Hazlet, with a compassionate sigh. "I have
looked at it; but some of it appeared to me so pagan in its sentiments
that I contented myself with praying that I might not be put on. But
you haven't told me what you think about what I was saying."
"Botheration," said Kennedy; "so your theory is that Christianity was
intended to put an extinguisher over the light of heaven-born genius,
and that the power and passion and wisdom of Aeschylus came from himself
or the devil, and not from God? Surely, without any further argument on
such an absurd proposition, it ought to be sufficient for you that this
kind of learning forms a part of your immediate duty."
"I find other duties more paramount--now prayer, for instance, and talk
with sound friends."
"Phew!!!" whistled Kennedy, thoroughly disgusted at language which was
as new to him as it was distasteful; and, to relieve his feelings, he
abandoned the conversation to Julian, and began to turn over the books
on the table. Julian, however, seemed quite disinclined to enter into
the question, and after a pause, Hazlet, gracefully waiving his little
triumph, asked him with a peculiar unction--
"And how goes it, my dear Home, with your immortal soul?"
"My soul!" said Julian carelessly. "Oh! it's all right."
Hazlet then began to look at Julian's pictures.
"Ah," he observed with a deep sigh, "I'm sorry to see that you have the
portrait of so unsound, so dangerous a man as Mr Vere."
"We'll drop that topic, please, Hazlet," said Julian, "as we're not
likely to agree upon it."
"Have you ever read one word that Mr Vere ever wrote?" asked Kennedy.
"Well, yes; at least no, not exactly: but still one may judge, you know;
besides, I've seen extracts of his works."
"Extracts!" answered Kennedy scornfully; "extracts which often attribute
to him the very sentiments which he is opposing. But it isn't worth
arguing with one of your school, who have the dishonesty to condemn
writers whom you are incapable of understanding, on the faith of
extracts which they haven't even read."
The wrathful purpling of Hazlet's sallow countenance portended an
explosion of orthodox spleen, but Julian gently interposed in time to
save the devoted Kennedy from a few unmeasured anathemas.
"Hush!" he said, "none of the odium theologicum, please, lest the mighty
shade of Aeschylus smile at you in scorn. Do drop the subject, Hazlet."
"Very well, if you like, Home; but I must deliver my conscience, you
know. But really, Julian, you are not very Christian in your other
pictures."
This was too much even for Julian's politeness, and he joined in the
shout of laughter with which Kennedy greeted this appeal.
"Fools make a mock at sin," said Hazlet austerely. "I trust that you
will both be brought to a better state of mind. Good morning!"
Kennedy flung himself into an armchair, and after finishing his laugh,
exclaimed, "My dear Home, where did you pick up that intolerable
hypocrite?"
"Hush, Kennedy, hush! Don't call him a hypocrite. His mode of religion
may be very offensive to us, and yet it may be sincere."
"Faugh! the idea of asking you, `How's your soul?' It reminds me of a
friend of mine who was suddenly asked by a minister in a train `if he
didn't feel an aching void?' `An aching void? Where?' said Jones, in a
tone of alarm, for he was an unimaginative person. `Within, sir,
within!' said the stranger. Jones felt anxiously to find whether one of
his ribs was accidentally protruding, but finding them all safe, set
down the minister for a lunatic, and moved to the further end of the
carriage."
Julian smiled; he was more accustomed to this kind of phraseology than
his friend, and knew that outrageous as it was to good taste under the
circumstances, it yet might spring from a sincere and honourable motive,
or at best must be regarded as the natural result of innate vulgarity
and mistaken training.
"Surely at best," continued Kennedy, "it's a most unwarrantable
impertinence for a fellow like that to want to dabble his ignorant and
coarse hand in the hallowed secrets of the microcosm. Not to one's
nearest and dearest friend, not to one's mother or brother would one
babble promiscuously on such awful themes; and to have the soul's
sublime and eternal emotions, its sacred and unspoken communings, lugged
out into farcical prominence by such conversational cant as that, is to
dry up the very fountain of true religion, and put a premium on the
successful grin of an offensive hypocrisy."
Kennedy seemed quite agitated, and as usual found relief in striding up
and down the room. His religious feelings were deep and real--none the
less so for being hidden--and Hazlet's language and manner had given him
a rude shock.
"Another hour in that fellow's company would make me an infidel," he
exclaimed with quivering lip. "Pray for me, indeed, with some of his
`sound and congenial friends.' Faugh! `sound!' how does he dare to
judge whether his superiors are `sound' or not? and why must he borrow a
metaphor from Stilton cheeses when he's talking of religious
convictions."
"Why really, Kennedy," said Julian, "to see the contempt written in your
face, one would think you were an archangel looking at a black beetle,
as a learned judge once observed. If you won't regard Hazlet as a man
and a brother, at least remember that he's a vertebrate animal."
But Kennedy was not to be joked out of his indignation, so Julian
continued. "I wish you knew more of Lillyston. At one time, I should
have been nearly as much bothered by Hazlet as you, but Lillyston's
kind, genial good-humour with every one, and the genuine respectful
sympathy which he shows even for things he can least understand, have
made me much happier than I should have been. Now, _he_ might have done
Hazlet some good, whereas your opposition, my dear fellow, will only
make him more rampant than ever. Ah, here Lillyston comes."
"What an honest open face," said Kennedy.
"Like the soul which looks through it, _sans peur et sans reproche_,"
said Julian warmly.
"Rather a contrast to the last comer," murmured Kennedy, as he picked up
his cap and gown to walk to the lecture-room.
"There, don't think of Hazlet any more," said Julian.
"`He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.'
"A capital good motto that; isn't it, Hugh?"
"I must love Hazlet as one of the very small things, then," said the
incorrigible Kennedy as he left the room with the other two.
Hazlet was put on to construe during the lecture, and if anything could
have shaken the brazen tower of his self-confidence, it would have been
the egregious display of incapacity which followed; but Hazlet rather
piqued himself on his indifference to the poor blind heathen poets, on
whose names he usually dealt reprobation broadcast. "Like lions that
die of an ass's kick," those wronged great souls lay prostrate before
Hazlet's wrathful heels.