“Who is that who has just come in, in beaver?” said Tom, touching the
next man to him.
“Oh, don’t you know? That’s Blake; he’s the most wonderful fellow in
Oxford,” answered his neighbor.
“How do you mean?” said Tom.
“Why, he can do everything better than almost anybody, and without
any trouble at all. Miller was obliged to have him in the boat last
year though he never trained a bit. Then he’s in the eleven, and is a
wonderful rider, and tennis-player, and shot.”
“Aye, and he’s so awfully clever with it all,” joined in the man on the
other side. “He’ll be a safe first, though I don’t believe he reads
more than you or I. He can write songs, too, as fast as you can talk
nearly, and sings them wonderfully.”
“Is he of our College, then?”
“Yes, of course, or he couldn’t have been in our boat last year.”
“But I don’t think I ever saw him in chapel or hall.”
“No, I dare say not. He hardly ever goes to either, and yet he manages
never to get hauled up much, no one knows how. He never gets up now
till the afternoon, and sits up nearly all night playing cards with the
fastest fellows, or going round singing glees at three or four in the
morning.”
Tom looked with great interest at the admirable Crichton of St.
Ambrose’s; and, after watching him a few minutes, said in a low tone to
his neighbor:
“How wretched he looks! I never saw a sadder face.”
Poor Blake! one can’t help calling him “poor,” although he himself
would have winced at it more than at any other name you could have
called him. You might have admired, feared, or wondered at him, and
he would have been pleased; the object of his life was to raise such
feelings in his neighbors; but pity was the last which he would have
liked to excite.
He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, full of all sorts of energy
and talent, and power and tenderness; and yet, as his face told only
too truly to any one who watched him when he was exerting himself in
society, one of the most wretched men in the College. He had a passion
for success—for beating everybody else in whatever he took in hand,
and that, too, without seeming to make any great effort himself. The
doing a thing well and thoroughly gave him no satisfaction unless he
could feel that he was doing it better and more easily than A, B, or C,
and that they felt and acknowledged this. He had had his full swing of
success for two years, and now the Nemesis was coming.
For, although not an extravagant man, many of the pursuits in which he
had eclipsed all rivals were far beyond the means of any but a rich
one, and Blake was not rich. He had a fair allowance, but by the end
of his first year was considerably in debt, and, at the time we are
speaking of, the whole pack of Oxford tradesmen, into whose books he
had got (having smelt out the leanness of his expectations), were upon
him, besieging him for payment. This miserable and constant annoyance
was wearing his soul out. This was the reason why his oak was sported,
and he was never seen till the afternoons, and turned night into day.
He was too proud to come to an understanding with his persecutors, even
had it been possible; and now, at his sorest need, his whole scheme
of life was failing him; his love of success was turning into ashes
in his mouth; he felt much more disgust than pleasure at his triumphs
over other men, and yet the habit of striving for such successes,
notwithstanding its irksomeness, was too strong to be resisted.
Poor Blake! he was living on from hand to mouth, flashing out with all
his old brilliancy and power, and forcing himself to take the lead in
whatever company he might be; but utterly lonely and depressed when by
himself—reading feverishly in secret, in a desperate effort to retrieve
all by high honors and a fellowship. As Tom said to his neighbors,
there was no sadder face than his to be seen in Oxford.