ous preparation of rods and tackle, with a box of books and a
store of tobacco, he used to set out for the north. He fished the
streams of Uredale and Swaledale; thence he pushed on to the Eden and
the waters of the Border, to Perthshire, to Loch Maree, Gairloch, Skye,
and the far north. When September came, he set off for rambles in
Germany. He travelled on foot, delighting in the discovery of nooks and
corners that were not mentioned in the guidebooks. Then he would return
to his rooms in college, and live among his books. To the undergraduates
of that day he was a solemn and mysterious figure. He spoke to no one,
saluted no one, and kept his eyes steadily fixed on infinite space. He
dined at the high table, but uttered no word. He never played the part
of host, nor did he ever seem to be a guest. He read the service in
chapel when his turn came: his voice had a creaking and impassive tone,
and his pace was too deliberate to please young men with a morning
appetite. As he says here, he was a complete stranger in the college. We
looked upon him with the awe proper to one who was supposed to combine
boundless erudition with an impenetrable misanthropy. In reading the
fourth book of the Ethics, we regarded the description of the
High-souled Man, with his slow movements, his deep tones, his deliberate
speech, his irony, his contempt for human things, and all the rest of
the paraphernalia of that most singular personage, as the model of the
inscrutable sage in the rooms under the clock. Pattison was understood
to be the Megalopsuchos in the flesh. It would have been better for him
if he could have realised the truth of the healthy maxim that nobody is
ever either so happy or so unhappy as he thinks. He would have been
wiser if he could have seen the force in the monition of Goethe:--

Willst du dir ein huebsch Leben zimmern,
Must ums Vergangne dich nicht bekuemmern,
Und waere dir auch was verloren,
Musst immer thun wie neu geboren;
Was jeder Tag will, sollst du fragen,
Was jeder Tag will, wird er sagen;
Musst dich an eignem Thun ergetzen,
Was andre thun, das wirst du schaetzen;
Besonders keinen Menschen hassen,
Und das Uebrige Gott ueberlassen.

(_Zahme Xenien_, iv.)

_Wouldst fashion for thyself a seemly life?--
Then fret not over what is past and gone;
And spite of all thou mayst have lost behind
Yet act as if thy life were just begun:
What each day wills, enough f