an university life did not bring to coningsby that feeling of emancipation usually experienced by freshmen. the contrast between school and college life is perhaps, under any circumstances, less striking to the etonian than to others: he has been prepared for becoming his own master by the liberty wisely entrusted to him in his boyhood, and which is, in general, discreetly exercised. but there were also other reasons why coningsby should have been less impressed with the novelty of his life, and have encountered less temptations than commonly are met with in the new existence which an university opens to youth. in the interval which had elapsed between quitting eton and going to cambridge, brief as the period may comparatively appear, coningsby had seen much of the world. three or four months, indeed, may not seem, at the first blush, a course of time which can very materially influence the formation of character; but time must not be counted by calendars, but by sensations, by thought. coningsby had felt a good deal, reflected more. he had encountered a great number of human beings, offering a vast variety of character for his observation. it was not merely manners, but even the intellectual and moral development of the human mind, which in a great degree, unconsciously to himself, had been submitted to his study and his scrutiny. new trains of ideas had been opened to him; his mind was teeming with suggestions. the horizon of his intelligence had insensibly expanded. he perceived that there were other opinions in the world, besides those to which he had been habituated. the depths of his intellect had been stirred. he was a wiser man.
he distinguished three individuals whose acquaintance had greatly influenced his mind; eustace lyle, the elder millbank, above all, sidonia. he curiously meditated over the fact, that three english subjects, one of them a principal landed proprietor, another one of the most eminent manufacturers, and the third the greatest capitalist in the kingdom, all of them men of great intelligence, and doubtless of a high probity and conscience, were in their hearts disaffected with the political constitution of the country. yet, unquestionably, these were the men among whom we ought to seek for some of our first citizens. what, then, was this repulsive quality in those institutions which we persisted in calling national, and which once were so? here was a great question.
there was another reason, also, why coningsby should feel a little fastidious among his new habits, and, without being aware of it, a little depressed. for three or four months, and for the first time in his life, he had passed his time in the continual society of refined and charming women. it is an acquaintance which, when habitual, exercises a great influence over the tone of the mind, even if it does not produce any more violent effects. it refines the taste, quickens the perception, and gives, as it were, a grace and flexibility to the intellect. coningsby in his solitary rooms arranging his books, sighed when he recalled the lady everinghams and the lady theresas; the gracious duchess; the frank, good-natured madame colonna; that deeply interesting enigma the princess lucretia; and the gentle flora. he thought with disgust of the impending dissipation of an university, which could only be an exaggeration of their coarse frolics at school. it seemed rather vapid this mighty cambridge, over which they had so often talked in the playing fields of eton, with such anticipations of its vast and absorbing interest. and those university honours that once were the great object of his aspirations, they did not figure in that grandeur with which they once haunted his imagination.
what coningsby determined to conquer was knowledge. he had watched the influence of sidonia in society with an eye of unceasing vigilance. coningsby perceived that all yielded to him; that lord monmouth even, who seemed to respect none, gave place to his intelligence; appealed to him, listened to him, was guided by him. what was the secret of this influence? knowledge. on all subjects, his views were prompt and clear, and this not more from his native sagacity and reach of view, than from the aggregate of facts which rose to guide his judgment and illustrate his meaning, from all countries and all ages, instantly at his command.
the friends of coningsby were now hourly arriving. it seemed when he met them again, that they had all suddenly become men since they had separated; buckhurst especially. he had been at paris, and returned with his mind very much opened, and trousers made quite in a new style. all his thoughts were, how soon he could contrive to get back again; and he told them endless stories of actresses, and dinners at fashionable cafés. vere enjoyed cambridge most, because he had been staying with his family since he quitted eton. henry sydney was full of church architecture, national sports, restoration of the order of the peasantry, and was to maintain a constant correspondence on these and similar subjects with eustace lyle. finally, however, they all fell into a very fair, regular, routine life. they all read a little, but not with the enthusiasm which they had once projected. buckhurst drove four-in-hand, and they all of them sometimes assisted him; but not immoderately. their suppers were sometimes gay, but never outrageous; and, among all of them, the school friendship was maintained unbroken, and even undisturbed.
the fame of coningsby preceded him at cambridge. no man ever went up from whom more was expected in every way. the dons awaited a sucking member for the university, the undergraduates were prepared to welcome a new alcibiades. he was neither: neither a prig nor a profligate; but a quiet, gentlemanlike, yet spirited young man, gracious to all, but intimate only with his old friends, and giving always an impression in his general tone that his soul was not absorbed in his university.
and yet, perhaps, he might have been coddled into a prig, or flattered into a profligate, had it not been for the intervening experience which he had gained between his school and college life. that had visibly impressed upon him, what before he had only faintly acquired from books, that there was a greater and more real world awaiting him, than to be found in those bowers of academus to which youth is apt at first to attribute an exaggerated importance. a world of action and passion, of power and peril; a world for which a great preparation was indeed necessary, severe and profound, but not altogether such an one as was now offered to him. yet this want must be supplied, and by himself. coningsby had already acquirements sufficiently considerable, with some formal application, to ensure him at all times his degree. he was no longer engrossed by the intention he once proudly entertained of trying for honours, and he chalked out for himself that range of reading, which, digested by his thought, should furnish him in some degree with that various knowledge of the history of man to which he aspired. no, we must not for a moment believe that accident could have long diverted the course of a character so strong. the same desire that prevented the castle of his grandfather from proving a castle of indolence to him, that saved him from a too early initiation into the seductive distractions of a refined and luxurious society, would have preserved coningsby from the puerile profligacy of a college life, or from being that idol of private tutors, a young pedant. it was that noble ambition, the highest and the best, that must be born in the heart and organised in the brain, which will not let a man be content, unless his intellectual power is recognised by his race, and desires that it should contribute to their welfare. it is the heroic feeling; the feeling that in old days produced demigods; without which no state is safe; without which political institutions are meat without salt; the crown a bauble, the church an establishment, parliaments debating-clubs, and civilisation itself but a fitful and transient dream.
