I took my servant’s advice, and when all was done to my liking, I walked down to the college gate for one last look at the place. I was in a strange temper—partly glad, partly sad—and wholly excited. When I looked on the grey, peaceful walls, breathing learning and repose, and thought of the wise men who had lived there, and the great books that had been written, and the high thoughts that had been born, I felt a keen pang of regret. For there was at all times in me much of the scholar’s spirit, and I doubted whether it had not been better for me, better for all, had I chosen the life of study. I reflected how little my life would lie now in cloisters and lecture halls, in what difficulties I would soon be plunged and what troublous waters I might be cast upon. My own land was in a ferment, with every man’s hand against his brother; my love might be in danger; of a surety it looked as if henceforward quiet and gentleness might be to seek in my life. I own that I looked forward to it without shrinking—nay, with a certain hopeful anticipation; but I confess also that I looked at the past and all that I was leaving with a certain regret. Indeed, I was born between two stools; for, while I could never be content to stay at home and spend my days among books, on the other hand, the life of unlettered action was repugnant. Had it been possible, I should have gladly dwelt among wars and tumults with men who cared not for these things alone, and could return, when all violence was at an end, to books and study with a cheerful heart. But no man has the making of the world, and he must even fit himself to it as he finds it. Nor do I think it altogether evil to have many desires and even many regrets, for it keeps a man’s spirit active, and urges him on to valiant effort. Of this I am sure, that contentment is the meanest of the virtues. As I left the place there was a cool, grey haze over all the gardens and towers—mellow and soft and lucid. But to the north, where lay the sea, there was a broken sky, blue, with fitful clouds passing athwart. It seemed, as it were, the emblem of my life—the tranquil and the unsettled. Yet in the broken sky there was a promise of sunshine and brilliance, which was not in the even grey; and this heartened me. So at four that evening we mounted horse and rode forth by the way we had come, and ere the hour of eleven were on the wharf at Rotterdam, sniffing the distant smell of the sea. CHAPTER IX AN ACCOUNT OF MY HOME-COMING