"The names of the sides of the chambers are significant:
"Liberals. — Catholics.
"What a fine country Belgium would be if it could get rid of its priests a little more. The people understand freedom. In Ghent the priests are rich, but utterly powerless owing to the extent of the manufacturing interest."
When he returned to Cambridge for the October term of 1863, his hard reading did not satisfy his prodigious power for work. He was Vice- President of the Union, and he undertook the more arduous duties of Secretary and Treasurer of the College Boat Club. When at the beginning of 1864 he was re-elected Vice-President of the Union, his grandfather wrote: "Your University career has proved to me that you have a happiness of manner that wins friends." Mr. Dilke's health began to decline notably in the early part of 1864, and loss of sight menaced him. He took the doctor's sentence, that he must refrain altogether from reading, with characteristic philosophy, but added: "I have ordered that newspapers are not to be sent here, so you must excuse it if, when we meet, I am a little in arrear of the course of life."
Early in February, 1864, Charles Dilke had entered without training for a walking race, and had beaten the University champion, Patrick, covering the mile ("in a gale of wind and over heavy slush") in eight minutes and forty-two seconds. [Footnote: Mr. Patrick, afterwards member of Parliament, and from 1886 Permanent Under-Secretary for Scotland.] To this announcement his grandfather made pleasant reply, threatening to come up and compete in person, but three days later wrote:
"I wish you had sent me a Cambridge paper which contained an account of your Olympic games. It is not too late now if you can get one; I reserve the right of reading everything that relates to you and your concerns."
Meanwhile Charles Dilke's reading went on with feverish energy. The dangerous rival was closely watched. "Shee has been sitting up till ominously late hours for some nights past. His father came up last night and left again to-night, but I fear he did not make his son waste much time." The competitors were straining then for a college law prize, but the letter goes on to observe very sagely:
"The law is of little consequence, as neither of us can know anything about it at present; but I should like to win the essay prize."
The prize was the annual college prize for the best English essay, and that year's subject was "Sir Robert Walpole." Compositions were presumably sent in after the Christmas vacation, for on February 29th, 1864, a fortnight after the announcement as to the walking race, comes this laconic bulletin: