“And that is old Corpus,” he said, glancing out at the little gleaming windows of the College, “all this youth and life out of doors, contrasts strangely enough, I am sure, with the musty existence within.”
“The books may be musty, but I don’t think the existence is,” said I, rashly; “everybody ought to be happy that has something to do.”
“Yes. I always envy a hard student who has an object,” said Mr. Edgar, rather eagerly seizing upon this possibility of conversation—“he is a happy fellow who has a profession to study for, otherwise it is vanity and vexation of spirit.”
Now I had a strong instinct of contradiction in me—a piece of assertion always provoked me to resistance.
“I do not know how that can be,” said I. “I suppose Mr. Osborne only lives for his books, and his spirit shows very little vexation or vanity, and papa does nothing else but study, and cannot have any object in it—I fancy a good thing ought to be good for its own sake.”
“Mr. Osborne is a very busy man—he has a great many pursuits,” said my new friend, “he is not a fair example. We have an enthusiasm for books when we are young, and suck inspiration from them, and then we come back to them that they may deaden our own feelings and recollections after we have had a life of our own—when we are old.”
“You are not old, to be aware of that,” cried I, though I secretly thought that, at least, in my father’s case this might be true.
“I have lived a very solitary life,” he said, “which is almost as good as grey hairs.”
After that we paused again, very conscious of our silence, but finding conversation a very difficult matter. I was more at my ease than I had expected. I observed him, but not with the same intense observation. A person I knew by name, and spoke to in my father’s house, was a less mysteriously interesting person than the stranger who had attracted my notice so much, when all were strangers. At last, Mr. Edgar began to talk again—it was only to ask me if I had seen the great author who was at the party when he met me first—he did not say “had the pleasure to meet.”
“I saw him, but I did not speak to him—nor even hear him speak,” said I.