n in what regions one can be effective. But no one need be
case-hardened, smoke-dried, angular. The worst of a University is that
one sees men lingering on because they must earn a living, and there is
nothing else that they can do; but for a human-hearted, good-humoured,
and sensible man, a college life is a life where it is easy and
pleasant to practise benevolence and kindliness, and where a small
investment of trouble pays a large percentage of happiness. Indeed,
surveying it impartially--as impartially as I can--such a life seems to
hold within it perhaps the greatest possibilities of happiness that
life can hold. To have leisure and a degree of simple stateliness
assured; to live in a wholesome dignity; to have the society of the
young and generous; to have lively and intelligent talk; to have the
choice of society and solitude alike; to have one's working hours
respected, and one's leisure hours solaced--is not this better than to
drift into the so-called tide of professional success, with its dreary
hours of work, its conventional domestic background? No doubt the
domestic background has its interests, its delights; but one must pay a
price for everything, and I am more than willing to pay the price of
celibacy for my independence.

The elderly Don in college rooms, interested in Greek particles,
grumbling over his port wine, is a figure beloved by writers of fiction
as a contrast to all that is brave, and bright, and wholesome in life.
Could there be a more hopeless misconception? I do not know a single
extant example of the species at the University. Personally, I have no
love for Greek particles, and only a very moderate taste for port wine.
But I do love, with all my heart, the grace of antiquity that mellows
our crumbling courts, the old tradition of multifarious humanity that
has century by century entwined itself with the very fabric of the
place. I love the youthful spirit that flashes and brightens in every
corner of the old courts, as the wallflower that rises spring by spring
with its rich orange-tawny hue, its wild scent, on the tops of our
mouldering walls. It is a gracious and beautiful life for all who love
peace and reflection, strength and youth. It is not a life for fiery
and dominant natures, eager to conquer, keen to impress; but it is a
life for any one who believes that the best rewards are not the
brightest, who is willing humbly to lend a cheerful hand, to listen as
well as to speak. It i