From a College Window | Page 7

Five-and-twenty years ago I was rowing here myself
in one of these boats, and I do not wish to renew the experience. I

cannot conceive why and in what moment of feeble good-nature or
misapplied patriotism I ever consented to lend a hand. I was not a good
oar, and did not become a better one; I had no illusions about my
performance, and any momentary complacency was generally sternly
dispelled by the harsh criticism of the coach on the bank, when we
rested for a moment to receive our meed of praise or blame. But though
I have no sort of wish to repeat the process, to renew the slavery which
I found frankly and consistently intolerable, I find myself looking on at
the cheerful scene with an amusement in which mingles a shadow of
pain, because I feel that I have parted with something, a certain
buoyancy and elasticity of body, and perhaps spirit, of which I was not
conscious at the time, but which I now realize that I must have
possessed. It is with an admiration mingled with envy that I see these
youthful, shapely figures, bare- necked and bare-kneed, swinging
rhythmically past. I watch a brisk crew lift a boat out of the water by a
boat-house; half of them duck underneath to get hold of the other side,
and they march up the grating gravel in a solemn procession. I see a
pair of cheerful young men, released from tubbing, execute a wild and
inconsequent dance upon the water's edge; I see a solemn conference of
deep import between a stroke and a coach. I see a neat, clean-limbed
young man go airily up to a well-earned tea, without, I hope, a care, or
an anxiety in his mind, expecting and intending to spend an agreeable
evening. "Oh, Jones of Trinity, oh, Smith of Queen's," I think to myself,
"tua si bona noris! Make the best of the good time, my boy, before you
go off to the office, or the fourth-form room, or the country parish!
Live virtuously, make honest friends, read the good old books, lay up a
store of kindly recollections, of firelit rooms in venerable courts, of
pleasant talks, of innocent festivities. Very fresh is the cool morning air,
very fragrant is the newly-lighted bird's-eye, very lively is the clink of
knives and forks, very keen is the savour of the roast beef that floats up
to the dark rafters of the College Hall. But the days are short and the
terms are few; and do not forget to be a sensible as well as a
good-humoured young man!"
Thackeray, in a delightful ballad, invites a pretty page to wait till he
comes to forty years: well, I have waited--indeed, I have somewhat
overshot the mark--and to-day the sight of all this brisk life, going on

just as it used to do, with the same insouciance and the same merriment,
makes me wish to reflect, to gather up the fragments, to see if it is all
loss, all declension, or whether there is something left, some strength in
what remains behind.
I have a theory that one ought to grow older in a tranquil and
appropriate way, that one ought to be perfectly contented with one's
time of life, that amusements and pursuits ought to alter naturally and
easily, and not be regretfully abandoned. One ought not to be dragged
protesting from the scene, catching desperately at every doorway and
balustrade; one should walk off smiling. It is easier said than done. It is
not a pleasant moment when a man first recognizes that he is out of
place in the football field, that he cannot stoop with the old agility to
pick up a skimming stroke to cover-point, that dancing is rather too
heating to be decorous, that he cannot walk all day without undue
somnolence after dinner, or rush off after a heavy meal without
indigestion. These are sad moments which we all of us reach, but which
are better laughed over than fretted over. And a man who, out of sheer
inability to part from boyhood, clings desperately and with apoplectic
puffings to these things is an essentially grotesque figure. To listen to
young men discussing one of these my belated contemporaries, and to
hear one enforcing on another the amusement to be gained from
watching the old buffer's manoeuvres, is a lesson against undue
youthfulness. One can indeed give amusement without loss of dignity,
by being open to being induced to join in such things occasionally in an
elderly way, without any attempt to disguise deficiencies. But that is
the most that ought to be attempted. Perhaps the best way of all is to
subside into the genial and interested looker-on, to be ready to applaud
the game