XI. CHRIST CHURCH CHOIR 195

incident, extremely trivial, which took place a little while afterwards; and which, in spite of its triviality, farther contributed to diminish in my own mind the charm of Christ Church Hall. I had been received as a good-humoured and inoffensive little cur, contemptuously, yet kindly, among the dogs of race at the gentlemen-commoners’ table; and my tutor, and the men who read in class with me, were beginning to recognize that I had some little gift in reading with good accent, thinking of what I read, and even asking troublesome questions about it, to the extent of being one day eagerly and admiringly congratulated by the whole class the moment we got out into quad, on the consummate manner in which I had floored our tutor. I having had no more intention to floor, or consciousness of flooring, the tutor, than a babe unborn! but had only happened, to the exquisite joy of my companions, to ask him something which he didn’t happen to know. But, a good while before attaining this degree of public approval, I had made a direct attempt to bring myself into favourable notice, which had been far less successful.

It was an institution of the college that every week the undergraduates should write an essay on a philosophical subject, explicatory of some brief Latin text of Horace, Juvenal, or other accredited and pithy writer; and, I suppose, as a sort of guarantee to the men that what they wrote was really looked at, the essay pronounced the best was read aloud in hall on Saturday afternoon, with enforced attendance of the other undergraduates. Here, at least, was something in which I felt that my little faculties had some scope, and both conscientiously, and with real interest in the task, I wrote my weekly essay with all the sagacity and eloquence I possessed. And therefore, though much flattered, I was not surprised, when, a few weeks after coming up, my tutor announced to me, with a look of approval, that I was to read my essay in hall next Saturday.

223. Serenely, and on good grounds, confident in my

[Version 0.04: March 2008]