to the best set of the university. The Major rushed off to London and
thence to Cheltenham, from which Watering-place he descended upon some
neighbouring great houses, whereof the families were not gone abroad,
and where good shooting and company was to be had.

A quarter of the space which custom has awarded to works styled the
Serial Nature, has been assigned to the account of one passage in Pen's
career, and it is manifest that the whole of his adventures cannot be
treated at a similar length, unless some descendant of the chronicler
of Pen's history should take up the pen at his decease, and continue the
narrative for the successors of the present generation of readers. We
are not about to go through the young fellow's academical career with,
by any means, a similar minuteness. Alas, the life of such boys does not
bear telling altogether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours? As long
as what we call our honour is clear, I suppose your mind is pretty easy.
Women are pure, but not men. Women are unselfish, but not men. And I
would not wish to say of poor Arthur Pendennis that he was worse than
his neighbours, only that his neighbours are bad for the most part.
Let us have the candour to own as much at least. Can you point out ten
spotless men of your acquaintance? Mine is pretty large, but I can't
find ten saints in the list.

During the first term of Mr. Pen's academical life, he attended
classical and mathematical lectures with tolerable assiduity; but
discovering before very long time that he had little taste or genius
for the pursuing of the exact sciences, and being perhaps rather annoyed
that one or two very vulgar young men, who did not even use straps to
their trousers so as to cover the abominably thick and coarse shoes and
stockings which they wore, beat him completely in the lecture-room, he
gave up his attendance at that course, and announced to his fond parent
that he proposed to devote himself exclusively to the cultivation of
Greek and Roman Literature.

Mrs. Pendennis was, for her part, quite satisfied that her darling boy
should pursue that branch of learning for which he had the greatest
inclination; and only besought him not to ruin his health by too much
study, for she had heard the most melancholy stories of young students
who, by over-fatigue, had brought on brain-fevers and perished untimely
in the midst of their university career. And Pen's health, which was
always delicate, was to be regar