Still all this became clear to me at a much later time only. My first years at Oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and admiration. No one can see that University for the first time, particularly in spring or autumn, without being enchanted with it. To me it seemed a perfect paradise, and I could have wished for myself no better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured for me there. CHAPTER VIII EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD I was still very young when I came to settle at Oxford, only twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally honoured by invitations from Heads of Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly with undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as Grant, Sellar, Palgrave, Morier, and others. Grant, afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion. He had always something new in his mind, and discussed with many flashes of wit and satire. He possessed an aristocratic contempt for anything commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be careful in conversing with him. But he was generous, and his laugh reconciled one to some of his sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the future greatness of one’s friends. They all seem to us no better than ourselves, when suddenly they emerge. Grant had shown what he could do by his edition of Aristotle’s _Ethics_. He became one of the Professors at the new University at Bombay and contributed much to the first starting of that University, so warmly patronized by Sir Charles Trevelyan. On returning to this country he was chosen to fill the distinguished place of Principal of the Edinburgh University. More was expected of him when he enjoyed this _otium cum dignitate_, but his health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of India, and, though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and spending his life as a friend among friends, he died comparatively young, and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly genial man, and his handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will not easily be forgotten.