I determined therefore, without farther hesitation, to employ the sum of five hundred pounds in the purchase of an annuity for my mother. The remainder would amply supply me, till those rich mines should be explored from the fertile veins of which I had already drawn such dazzling specimens. I continued in the country almost three weeks; but, as the purchase could not instantly be concluded, I left the stipulated sum in my mother's possession, drew the remainder of the thousand pounds in bills and cash from Thornby, and, with more wealth than I ever bore about me at one time before, returned to Oxford. Though Olivia was daily and hourly remembered, I had recovered so far by the business in which I had been engaged as to think seriously of pursuing my studies; for by their aid I was to realize those splendid projects on which, as I supposed, the happiness of man depends. The learning, which the general forms of taking a degree require, is so little that a man of genius is inclined to treat it with contempt: but, if the candidate happen to be obnoxious to the heads of the university, his examination may then be of a very different kind. I had not much doubt; for, from the questions and answers I had so often heard on these occasions, to reject me seemed to be almost impossible. Yet I was not entirely without alarm. The disgrace of rustication that I had suffered, the coldness of the reception I had met from the president on my return to college, and the ambiguity which I conceived I had since remarked in his manner, excited some fear; and my preparatory efforts were so strenuous that I imagined I might defy reproof. I had been told indeed that malice had a very strange mode of exerting itself, but which was so arbitrary and odious as to be but rarely practised. Any member of convocation, or master of arts, without assigning any cause for his conduct, may object, for two terms, to a person who shall ask leave to take his degree! Nay, these terms ended, another may object, and another! But this was a privilege so disgusting that I had not the least apprehension it would be put in practice against me. To my utter astonishment, I was mistaken! On the day appointed to ask leave, a master of arts actually did appear, and without supporting his objection by reasoning, charge, or censure, exercised this detestable university veto. My surprize and indignation, at hearing him pronounce his negative, were so great that I was deprived of utterance. I even doubted the reality of what I heard: I stood gazing, till he was gone, and then exclaimed, as if to a person present--'Me, Sir!--Do you mean me?' A minute afterward, my interjections were not quite so inoffensive. A torrent of passion burst from me, and he, whose malignity could not justly assert I wanted learning, might, had he stayed, have collected sufficient proofs of my want of philosophy.