The boxes arrived in a few days, that his mother had packed with so much care. Pen was touched as he read the superscriptions in the dear well-known hand, and he arranged in their proper places all the books, his old friends, and all the linen and table-cloths which Helen had selected from the family stock, and all the jam-pots which little Laura had bound in straw, and the hundred simple gifts of home. Pen had another Alma Mater now. But it is not all children who take to her kindly.
CHAPTER XIX.
PENDENNIS OF BONIFACE.
Our friend Pen was not sorry when his Mentor took leave of the young gentleman on the second day after the arrival of the pair in Oxbridge, and we may be sure that the major on his part was very glad to have discharged his duty, and to have the duty over. More than three months of precious time had that martyr of a major given up to his nephew.—Was ever selfish man called upon to make a greater sacrifice? Do you know many men or majors who would do as much? A man will lay down his head, or peril his life for his honor, but let us be shy how we ask him to give up his ease or his heart's desire. Very few of us can bear that trial. Say, worthy reader, if thou hast peradventure a beard, wouldst thou do as much? I will not say that a woman will not. They are used to it; we take care to accustom them to sacrifices: but, my good sir, the amount of self-denial which you have probably exerted through life, when put down to your account elsewhere, will not probably swell the balance on the credit side much. Well, well, there is no use in speaking of such ugly matters, and you are too polite to use a vulgar tu quoque. But I wish to state once for all that I greatly admire the major for his conduct during the past quarter, and think that he has quite a right to be pleased at getting a holiday. Foker and Pen saw him off in the coach, and the former young gentleman gave particular orders to the coachman to take care of that gentleman inside. It pleased the elder Pendennis to have his nephew in the company of a young fellow who would introduce him to the best set of the University. The major rushed off to London and thence to Cheltenham, from which watering-place he descended upon some neighboring great houses, whereof the families were not gone abroad, and where good shooting and company was to be had.
A quarter of the space which custom has awarded to works styled the Serial Nature, has been assigned to the account of one passage in Pen's career, and it is manifest that the whole of his adventures can not be treated at a similar length, unless some descendant of the chronicler of Pen's history should take up the pen at his decease, and continue the narrative for the successors of the present generation of readers. We are not about to go through the young fellow's academical career with, by any means, a similar minuteness. Alas, the life of such boys does not bear telling altogether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours? As long as what we call our honor is clear, I suppose your mind is pretty easy. Women are pure, but not men. Women are unselfish, but not men. And I would not wish to say of poor Arthur Pendennis that he was worse than his neighbors, only that his neighbors are bad, for the most part. Let us have the candor to own as much at least. Can you point out ten spotless men of your acquaintance? Mine is pretty large, but I can't find ten saints in the list.
During the first term of Mr. Pen's academical life, he attended classical and mathematical lectures with tolerable assiduity; but discovering, before very long time, that he had little taste or genius for the pursuing of the exact sciences, and being, perhaps, rather annoyed that one or two very vulgar young men, who did not even use straps to their trowsers, so as to cover the abominably thick and coarse shoes and stockings which they wore, beat him completely in the lecture-room, he gave up his attendance at that course, and announced to his fond parent that he proposed to devote himself exclusively to the cultivation of Greek and Roman literature.