the disconsolate
and half-finished buildings, I could not but ask myself as to the
purpose to which my money had been devoted. And I could not but
tell myself that if in coming years these tenements should be left
tenantless, my country would look back upon me as one who had wasted
the produce of her young energies. But again I bethought me of
Columbus and Galileo, and swore that I would go on or perish in the
attempt.

As these painful thoughts were agitating my mind, a slow decrepit old
gentleman came up to me and greeted me as Mr President. He linked his
arm familiarly through mine, and remarked that the time seemed to be
very long before the college received any of its inhabitants. This
was Mr Graybody, the curator, who had been specially appointed to
occupy a certain residence, to look after the grounds, and to keep
the books of the establishment. Graybody and I had come as young men
to Britannula together, and whereas I had succeeded in all my own
individual attempts, he had unfortunately failed. He was exactly of
my age, as was also his wife. But under the stress of misfortune they
had both become unnaturally old, and had at last been left ruined
and hopeless, without a shilling on which to depend. I had always
been a sincere friend to Graybody, though he was, indeed, a man very
difficult to befriend. On most subjects he thought as I did, if he
can be said to have thought at all. At any rate he had agreed with me
as to the Fixed Period, saying how good it would be if he could be
deposited at fifty-eight, and had always declared how blessed must
be the time when it should have come for himself and his old wife.
I do not think that he ever looked much to the principle which I had
in view. He had no great ideas as to the imbecility and weakness of
human life when protracted beyond its fitting limits. He only felt
that it would be good to give up; and that if he did so, others might
be made to do so too. As soon as a residence at the college was
completed, I asked him to fill it; and now he had been living there,
he and his wife together, with an attendant, and drawing his salary
as curator for the last three years. I thought that it would be the
very place for him. He was usually melancholy, disheartened, and
impoverished; but he was always glad to see me, and I was accustomed
to go frequently to the college, in order to find a sympathetic soul
with whom to converse about the future of the establishment. "Well,
G