universality of the classics and mathematics that they will adapt themselves with equal ease to the dreariest of college rooms or to the most romantic scenery.

p. 68

Harry Barton, Richard Glenville, Thomas Thornton, and I, made up Porkington’s Reading Party.

Harry Barton’s father was a Manchester cotton spinner of great wealth. Himself a man of no education, beyond such knowledge as he had picked up in the course of an arduous life, the cotton spinner was not oblivious to those advantages which ought to accrue to a liberal education; and he resolved that his son, a fine handsome lad, should not fail in life for want of them. Young Barton had, therefore, in due course been sent to Eton and Camford with a full purse, a vigorous constitution, a light heart, and a fair amount of cramming. At Camford he found himself in the midst of his old Eton chums, and plunged eagerly into all the animated life and excitement of the University. Boating, cricket, rackets, billiards, wine parties, betting—these formed the chief occupation of the two years which he had already passed at college. Reading, upon some days, formed an agreeable diversion from the monotony of the above-named more interesting studies. Porkington, however, who seldom placed a man wrong, still promised him a second class. Hearty, generous, a lover of ease and pleasure, good-natured and easily led, he was a general favourite; and in some respects deserved to be so.

Richard Glenville was the son of an orthodox low church parson, a fat vicar and canon, a man who, if he was not conformed to the world at large, was a mere p. 69reflection of the little world to which he belonged. His son Richard was a quick-sighted youth, clear and vigorous in intellect, not deep but acute. He was high church, because he had lived among the low church party. He was a Tory, because his surroundings were mostly Liberal. He was inclined to be profane, because his father’s friends bored him by their solemnity. He was flippant, because they were dull; careless, because they were cautious; and fast, because they were slow. He had an eye for the weak points of things. He delighted in what is called “chaff.” He affected to regard all things with indifference, and was tolerant of everything except what he was pleased to denounce as shams. Upon this point he would occasionally become very warm. If his sense of truth and honour were touched, he became goaded into passion; but most things appealed to him from their humorous side. He was tall, fair, and handsome, the features clean cut and the eyes grey. His manners were polished, and he 

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