CHAPTER XV.
With respect to what follows in the pages immediately succeeding, he who undertook to select from, and place in something like order, the scraps and memorandums of the Sexagenarian, confesses that to him the whole is perfectly unintelligible.
But as it is not ill written, and certainly alludes both to some extraordinary personage and very particular events, it is inserted for the exercise of the sagacity of contemporaries, if any shall yet remain, who can break the sphinx’s head.
“How can I entirely pass over, or in what terms shall I reveal one of the most singular and extraordinary facts that ever occurred, but which in my time excited an universal fermentation in our university. A thousand feelings press upon my mind at the remembrance of it, each and all tending to restrain my pen from diffuse or circumstantial description. A star appeared in our horizon, brilliant as the sun of the morning;—in a dire moment, when every eye was expecting its increasing splendour, it suddenly sunk in night:—but the night was not eternal—the star rose again—it still illuminates our extensive sphere. I myself have repeatedly basked among its rays, and enjoyed its genial warmth.—The phænomenon exhibits one of those very rare instances, where the steady exertions of diligence, prudence, and circumspection, aided by talents, and directed by genius, rise superior to the enormous pressure of disgrace and contempt: where a secret and latent vitality lurks in the sap of the blighted rose tree, which being transplanted to a genial soil, a balmy air, duly watered and carefully watched, the principle of life slowly and gradually circulates and ascends, and the senses are finally charmed and delighted with fragrance and with beauty. I forbear to say more, but may in this place not improperly introduce the following anecdote.
“A young man of the college remarkable rather for his knowledge of dogs and horses, than for the brilliancy of his literary attainments, had incurred the displeasure of his tutor. He was sent for to the tutor’s apartment, and after much expostulation and remonstrance, a Spectator was put into his hands, the longest paper selected, and he was ordered, on pain of rustication, not to leave his rooms till he should have rendered it into Latin. On his return, in no very cheerful mood, he found in his rooms a friend. He immediately began his melancholy tale. “Here,” said he, “am I to be confined till the vacation, for it will take me at least till that time, to complete the abominable task of translating this eternal paper into Latin.” His friend desired him to compose himself, to sit down, take pen and paper, and write as he dictated. He did so, and in an inconceiveably short space of time the task was accomplished. He did not, however, venture to take it to the tutor till the day following, and very great astonishment was even then expressed at so early an execution of what had been imposed. The young man departed in high glee; but he had not long been gone, before he was hastily sent for again. “Young man,” said the tutor, “do not make bad worse, by telling me a falsehood. I well know that this exercise is not of your own composition; but I insist upon knowing who did it for you.” Thus on compulsion the name of the real author was of necessity revealed. The reader may guess the rest. It was an early effulgence of that same brilliant star, which set for a time to rise again with renewed and extended radiance.
“The remembrance of this tutor excites a sigh of deep regret. Nature on the score of genius had done a great deal for him, study more. He was a philosopher, a poet, well acquainted with the classics, an excellent linguist, a truly accomplished man. Remarkable for his kindness to his inferiors, more particularly so to those under-graduates whose means did not allow them the opportunity and advantage of private tutors. To such, even beyond the precincts of his own college, he would himself supply the deficiency, without hope or prospect of any compensation but their gratitude. How shall I relate the sequel. He has long ceased to animate and enliven his friends, who loved him. He was, I fear, too ardent a votary to that power, who of all the fabled divinities of Greece and Rome, treats his followers with most unkindness, who repays their libations with malady, their songs with degrading infirmities, their triumphs with defeat.—Peace to his ashes.—If ever man deserved a tear of sympathy, it was ⸺.”
On peut trouver des femmes qui n’ont jamais en de galanterie; mais il est rare d’en trouver qui n’en aient jamais eu qu’une.