But never again should I transcend the control of this earthly mass, through joy. Whenever the expansion of high spirits would lift me into the soaring vein, there comes the remembrance of what I did to my dear father,--and down goes all. Alas, all my rise into the air, since then, springs from a darker, and a deeper source, and one more active in the present age--honest wrath at roguery. But of that I knew nothing at Oxford; and little, until I became, against my own desire, mixed up with political, and national affairs. With these heavy matters to carry through, I dare not linger as I would love, among the sweet memories of Oxford life. With a very few lessons, I learned enough to steer our Corpus eight, at practice first, and then in the momentous races, which began upon the 10th of May, that year. The fright I was in, that first evening of the races, was more than I can describe, and it makes me tremble now to think of it. But, with Green looking at me, as calm as a statue, and Brown behind him smiling, I gathered up my courage, and did my best, and we made our bump below the Gut. And I sent off a telegram to my mother, for the wires were just established then--"We have made our bump"--which the people in London turned into something ludicrous; but she knew from my letters what was meant. I am told that Oxford men are now become addicted to total abstinence,--a craze unheard of in my time, save as a last resource for incurables. And even when we ran the Corpus flag to the top of the rope, as we did very soon, and held a great supper in the captain's room, to celebrate this fine event, very few indeed of us could be fairly said to have crossed the large boundary of temperance. Much of the glory was ascribed to me, who had earned it, only by inanity; of which, as a lofty merit, there were then far fewer instances than now. So often was my bodily welfare pledged, first in Champagne, and then in claret, and then in port-wine, and in rum-punch next, and finally in Champagne again, that the fusion of physical and psychical emotions plunged me at length into the last new science, whose name is "Hyle-Ideology." Green, and Brown, and the rest of our oars were forbidden to exhibit mutuality, lest the Corpus flag should come down to-morrow; but the rudder fell under no such restrictions, and hard as I strove to maintain a stiff helm, it was more than any hand, and head, could do. However, they put me in a deep armchair, through the back of which they passed a curtain-rope. Then they gave me a tassel in either hand, and lifting ship and all, upon their heads, bore me with a favourable breeze to bed, while all of us chanted a nautical song. I steered the ship, throughout her course, with gravity so accurate, and so discreetly was she manoeuvred, that she never once capsized. Now, this will show, whether any one of us could have had one drop too much.