Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 399, January 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 399, January 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
I went out--and to see Francis Vivian; for, on leaving Mr Trevanion,
I was not without anxiety for my new friend's future provision.
But Vivian was from home, and I strolled from his lodgings, into
the suburbs on the other side of the river, and began to meditate
seriously on the best course now to pursue. In quitting my present
occupations, I resigned prospects far more brilliant, and fortunes
far more rapid than I could ever hope to realise in any other
entrance into life. But I felt the necessity, if I desired to keep
steadfast to that more healthful frame of mind I had obtained,
of some manly and continuous labour--some earnest employment.
My thoughts flew back to the university; and the quiet of its
cloisters--which, until I had been blinded by the glare of the
London world, and grief had somewhat dulled the edge of my quick
desires and hopes, had seemed to me cheerless and unaltering--took
an inviting aspect. They presented what I needed most--a new scene,
a new arena, a partial return into boyhood; repose for passions
prematurely raised; activity for the reasoning powers in fresh
directions. I had not lost my time in London: I had kept up, if not
studies purely classical, at least the habits of application; I had
sharpened my general comprehension, and augmented my resources.
Accordingly, when I returned home, I resolved to speak to my father.
But I found he had forestalled me; and, on entering, my mother drew
me up stairs into her room, with a smile kindled by my smile, and
told me that she and her Austin had been thinking that it was best
that I should leave London as soon as possible; that my father
found he could now dispense with the library of the Museum for some
months; that the time for which they had taken their lodgings would
be up in a few days; that the summer was far advanced, town odious,
the country beautiful--in a word, we were to go home. There I could
prepare myself for Cambridge, till the long vacation was over; and,
my mother added hesitatingly, and with a prefatory caution to
spare my health, that my father, whose income could ill afford the
requisite allowance to me, counted on my soon lightening his burden,
by getting a scholarship. I felt how much provident kindness there
was in all this--even in that hint of a scholarship, which was meant
to rouse my faculties, and spur me, by affectionate incentives, to a
new ambition. I was not less delighted than grateful.
"But poor Roland," said I, "and little Blanche--will they come with
us?"
"I fear not," said my mother, "for Roland is anxious to get back to
his tower; and, in a day or two, he will be well enough to move."
"Do you not think, my dear mother, that, somehow or other, this lost
son of his had something to do with his illness,--that the illness
was as much mental as physical?"
"I have no doubt of it, Sisty. What a sad, bad heart that young man
must have!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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