Boarding schools -- England -- Fiction; University of Oxford -- Fiction
"Well, one thing is quite plain," asserted Martin, "there's no charity
going as far as I am concerned. If I have to go and live in a dirty
hot hole I go there because I can't get a decent living otherwise. I
go on the make and I'll resign as soon as I can get the thousand that
they're always chattering about. None of your Burden for me."
"To gather from what one sees," said Lawrence, "the Burden doesn't
weigh very heavily on the shoulders of the big pots. They seem to do
themselves pretty well."
"Of course they do. That's what they go for. How many varsity men
would go abroad if they could live in comfort and get the same wage at
home? Not ten per cent. And who can blame them? India pays, and it
pays for hard, dangerous, useful work. I don't mind men going for the
pay, but I do mind journalists blithering about their self-devotion in
taking up the noble load."
"All the same," said Rendell cheerily, "you've quite a good chance for
the Home."
"I wish the deuce I had," sighed Martin. "If I'd worked all the time I
might have done it. But it's too late now. I don't really know
anything and will be lucky to get India. Come on, let's move a bit."
During the next few days Martin managed to forget the looming menace of
the East. The heat remained and they lived on the river, bathing and
sleeping and feeding in turn. And then here were a couple of farewell
dinners. The champagne flowed and Holywell was full of rushing people
and strange noises. The passing of Lawrence was worthy of his whole
career and on his last night a stalwart cortege bore him like a warrior
to his rest.
After the end of term Martin stayed up to work. July was a month of
lonely misery, of dust and bad tennis and the cramming of English
Literature. At last the time for his Greats viva came and he walked
down to the Schools with Lawrence, there to be asked by a nervous
little man whether he thought things or thought thoughts. He at once
informed the nervous little man that this was an idiotic question and
that Descartes ... his knowledge of Descartes was overwhelming.
Lawrence was dealt with by a truculent, red-faced man who asked him
minute questions about the wanderings of the Phocaeans. Lawrence just
smiled wisely and was sent away. Rendell's turn came later. He was
asked about the foundations of morality and maintained that while Kant
was very wise and venerable he was also very wrong. But he remained
respectful of Kant. One can only be offensive to J. S. Mill in Oxford
nowadays, but about him one can say anything.
Once more Rendell took a first, Martin a second, and Lawrence a third.
It was the history that kept them apart. Their philosophy had been
uniformly good; Mr Cuggy was filled with pride and wrote to
congratulate them all: whereat they wondered what would have happened
if they had continued to cling to that philosophic rock, the Absolute.
Yet it was nice of him to write. That was the worst of Cuggy: you
couldn't dislike him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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