him a mystery unfathomable. Now, if he can be, or
assume to be, all this, then he will be admitted into the most orthodox
and steady set in his college; and if he have, besides, an ordinary
amount of scholarship, and tact enough to talk judiciously about his
books and his reading, he may get up a very fair reputation indeed. And
when at his final examination he makes, as nine-tenths of such men do
make, a grand crash, and his name comes out in the third or fourth
class, or he get "gulfed" altogether--it is two to one but his friends
and his tutor look upon him, and talk of him, as rather an ill-used
individual. He was "unlucky in his examination"--"the essay did not suit
him"--they were "quite surprised at his failure"--"his health was not
good the last term or two"--"he was too nervous." These are cases which
have occurred in every man's experience: men read ten hours a-day, with
a watch by their side, cramming in stuff that they do not understand,
are talked about as "sure firsts" till one gets sick of their very
names, assume all the airs which really able men seldom do assume, and
take at last an equal degree with others who have been acquiring the
same amount of knowledge with infinitely less pretension, and who,
without moping the best part of their lives in an artificial existence,
will make more useful members of society in the end. "How was it," said
an old lady in the country to me one day, "that young Mr C---- did not
get a first class? I understand he read very hard, and I know he refused
every invitation to dinner when he was down here in the summer
vacation?" "That was the very reason, my dear madam," said I; "you may
depend upon it." She stared, of course; but I believe I was not far out.

Let men read as much as they will, and as hard as they will, on any
subjects for which they have the ability and inclination; but never let
them suppose they are to lay down one code of practice to suit all
tempers and constitutions. Cannot a man be a scholar, and a gentleman,
and a good fellow at the same time?

And, after all, where is the broad moral distinction between these
_soi-disant_ steady men, and those whom they are pleased to consider as
"rowing" characters? it has always seemed to me rather apocryphal. If a
man thinks proper to amuse himself with a chorus in his own rooms at one
o'clock in the morning, it seems hardly material whether it be Greek or
English--Sophocles or Tom Moore. It's a matter of taste, a