Mary Gresley, and An Editor's TalesTrollope, Anthony
General
Mary Gresley, and An Editor's Tales
Trollope, Anthony
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Walter Watt was a fellow of ----. ---- I believe has fellows who do not
take orders. It must have had one such in those days, for nothing could
have induced our friend, Walter Watt, to go into the Church. How it came
to pass that the dons of a college at Oxford should have made a fellow
of so wild a creature was always a mystery to us. I have since been told
that at ---- the reward could hardly be refused to a man who had gone
out a “first” in classics and had got the “Newdegate.” Such had been the
career of young Watt. And, though I say that he was wild, his moral
conduct was not bad. He simply objected on principle to all authority,
and was of opinion that the goods of the world should be in common. I
must say of him that in regard to one individual his practice went even
beyond his preaching; for Jack Hallam certainly consumed more of the
fellowship than did Walter Watt himself. Jack was dark and swarthy.
Walter was a fair little man, with long hair falling on the sides of his
face, and cut away over his forehead,--as one sees it sometimes cut in a
picture. He had round blue eyes, a well-formed nose, and handsome mouth
and chin. He was very far gone in his ideas of reform, and was quite in
earnest in his hope that by means of the “Panjandrum” something might be
done to stay the general wickedness,--or rather ugliness of the world.
At that time Carlyle was becoming prominent as a thinker and writer
among us, and Watt was never tired of talking to us of the hero of
“Sartor Resartus.” He was an excellent and most unselfish man,--whose
chief fault was an inclination for the making of speeches, which he had
picked up at an Oxford debating society. He now lies buried at Kensal
Green. I thought to myself, when I saw another literary friend laid
there some eight years since, that the place had become very quickly
populated since I and Regan had seen poor Watt placed in his last home,
almost amidst a desert.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account