"I was induced to continue my residence at
Cambridge, instead of going to live at home,
by various feelings, by habit, by a knowledge
that I was a great man there and a small one
everywhere else, by a certain sense of
helplessness when out in the great world, but
principally by being very much nearer to
Astarté and the Smiths, when there than at
Mudborough. We formed a society of seventy
in number, from the tottering old Senior of
fourscore, to the spruce young Deacon of
twenty-five. I look back upon this period of
my life in much the same manner that, on
emerging into the broad thoroughfare, we
cast a glance behind us at the close and
pestilential alley through which our way has
lain. Of the whole seventy, two were related
to the Master's first wife, one to his second
wife, and one to himself; the remaining sixty-
six owed their elevation to their superior
attainments either in classics or mathematics.
We had some eminent men, it is true, but
they were entirely among the non-residents;
for more than half the fellows were abroad in
the world engaged in different professions—at
the bar, in the church, or under government.
These had not enjoyed any connection with
the University, for years, beyond the fact of
receiving their salaries, which they would
have continued to do if they had been in Peru
or at Ispahan. Those that were in residence
were, for the most part, ignorant inversely as
their ages, that is to say, the most recently
elected generally knows the most. This will
not appear surprising, when it is remembered
that the Seniors having spent forty or fifty
years, pretty equally divided between the
labours of eating, preaching, and sleeping, had
forgotten by that time most of the Latin and
Greek that they had learnt in their youth,
without having acquired any other branches
of knowledge to supply the deficiency. They
used the same old forks and spoons, and
retained the same old ideas and prejudices that
they had brought up with them half a century
before. Upon these they had engrafted all
detestable habits of old bachelorhood, much
love of port-wine, and a little dirt. They had
always been accustomed to consider
themselves the Lords of everything around; it was
disagreeable to go elsewhere and be
undeceived. They accordingly, every now and
then, ran a little way out of their hermitage
to look upon the faces of men, but quickly
trotted back to their favourite little delusions,
to their courtyards, to their sleepy sermons,
and to their red mullet. Talking of red
mullet, one of the most extraordinary things
was our system of dinners. They consisted
of every luxury from earth, air, and sea, and
we had to pay for them, if I remember rightly,
about eight shillings a day (exclusive of wine).
It would have been infinitely more agreeable
to the feelings of every one, except these
Seniors, who of course governed the College,
to have had a good plain dinner for three or
four shillings, and to put the remainder into
our pockets. But no one thought of saying a
word openly, and the cook and steward got
richer and richer every day.

"After a short experience, I determined upon
making an effort to extricate myself from this
position, and with that view wrote to my
father, announcing my engagement, and
demanding permission to marry immediately.
I received a reply from him (my poor mother,
I must tell you, died during my college career),
with enquiries as to the position and family
of the fair one, but more especially as to what
money she was likely to have. To the last
query, I replied that I really did not know,
never having indeed thought upon the matter.
In answer to this, he told me that I was a
fool, for, as I should forfeit my fellowship by
marriage, what means of support remained to
me unless Astarté had money? This was
true, but I felt that he had no right to blame
me for not knowing that which I had never
been taught. The business of the Greek
Stage, and the winding ways of Helicon, had
been pressed upon my notice from my earliest
years, but the business of the nineteenth
century, and the winding ways of men, I had
been left to pick up as I could, or rather not
to pick up at all.

"At last, however, he relented, and we were
married upon three hundred a year which he
allowed us. My Astarté brought me her
facility in versification by way of dowry, but
it was as good in my estimation as any other.
We had not been married long before we
found out that we were in debt. Not that the
circumstance was revealed to us by the state
of our accounts, for "we scarcely kept any, but
by this simple fact, that persons knocked at
the door asking for money and we had none
to give them. The fact is, that my wife and
I had been so long in the habit of
contemplating sheep in the form of 'peaceful
flocks,' and oxen in the act of 'drawing with
unwearied breast the strong plough,' that we
were quite unable to realise their cost when
they were divided by the butcher into joints,
and by the cook, the maid-servant, between
their aunts, and cousins, and parish constable
for the time being. We were just beginning
to appreciate the difficult position in which
we found ourselves, when a dreadful calamity
overtook us—the ruin of my father, followed,
almost immediately, by his death. He had
invested his savings—about forty thousand
pounds—in some great undertaking, presided
over by an enormously wealthy and much
respected man. The undertaking had been
ruined by mismanagement, or even something
worse; the enormously wealthy and much
respected man had retired into privacy for a
few years, in order to husband his gains and
to emerge again, one day, wealthier and more
respected than ever; and thousands were,
like my father, left without a penny in the
world, to carp at fortune or to worry the daily
papers with their useless and at last rejected
communications.