The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XVIII. Alma Mater

  Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academicalcareer, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old universitycomrades and days. The young man's life is just beginning: the boy'sleading-strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignitiesof freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, or of bad health, or ofroguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappointment. The play has notbeen acted so often as to make him tired. Though the after drink, aswe mechanically go on repeating it, is stale and bitter, how pure andbrilliant was that first sparkling draught of pleasure!--How the boyrushes at the cup, and with what a wild eagerness he drains it! Butold epicures who are cut off from the delights of the table, and arerestricted to a poached egg and a glass of water, like to see peoplewith good appetites; and, as the next best thing to being amused at apantomime one's-self is to see one's children enjoy it, I hope there maybe no degree of age or experience to which mortal may attain, when heshall become such a glum philosopher as not to be pleased by the sightof happy youth. Coming back a few weeks since from a brief visit to theold University of Oxbridge, where my friend Mr. Arthur Pendennis passedsome period of his life, I made the journey in the railroad by the sideof a young fellow at present a student of Saint Boniface. He had got anexeat somehow, and was bent on a day's lark in London: he never stoppedrattling and talking from the commencement of the journey until itsclose (which was a great deal too soon for me, for I never was tired oflistening to the honest young fellow's jokes and cheery laughter); andwhen we arrived at the terminus nothing would satisfy him but a hansomcab, so that he might get into town the quicker, and plunge into thepleasures awaiting him there. Away the young lad went whirling, withjoy lighting up his honest face; and as for the reader's humble servant,having but a small carpet-bag, I got up on the outside of the omnibus,and sate there very contentedly between a Jew-pedlar smoking bad cigars,and a gentleman's servant taking care of a poodle-dog, until we gotour fated complement of passengers and boxes, when the coachman droveleisurely away. We weren't in a hurry to get to town. Neither one of uswas particularly eager about rushing into that near smoking Babylon, orthought of dining at the Club that night, or dancing at the Casino. Yeta few years more, and my young friend of the railroad will be not a whitmore eager.

  There were no railroads made when Arthur Pendennis went to the famousUniversity of Oxbridge; but he drove thither in a well-appointed coach,filled inside and out with dons, gownsmen, young freshmen about toenter, and their guardians, who were conducting them to the university.A fat old gentleman, in grey stockings, from the City, who sate by MajorPendennis inside the coach, having his pale-faced son opposite, wasfrightened beyond measure when he heard that the coach had been drivenfor a couple of stages by young Mr. Foker, of Saint Boniface College,who was the friend of all men, including coachmen, and could driveas well as Tom Hicks himself. Pen sate on the roof, examining coach,passengers, and country with great delight and curiosity. His heartjumped with pleasure as the famous university came in view, and themagnificent prospect of venerable towers and pinnacles, tall elms andshining river, spread before him.

  Pen had passed a few days with his uncle at the Major's lodgings, inBury Street, before they set out for Oxbridge. Major Pendennis thoughtthat the lad's wardrobe wanted renewal; and Arthur was by no meansaverse to any plan which was to bring him new coats and waistcoats.There was no end to the sacrifices which the self-denying uncle made inthe youth's behalf. London was awfully lonely. The Pall Mall pavementwas deserted; the very red jackets had gone out of town. There wasscarce a face to be seen in the bow-windows of the clubs. The Majorconducted his nephew into one or two of those desert mansions, and wrotedown the lad's name on the candidate-list of one of them; and Arthur'spleasure at this compliment on his guardian's part was excessive. Heread in the parchment volume his name and titles, as 'Arthur Pendennis,Esquire, of Fairoaks Lodge, ----shire and Saint Boniface College,Oxbridge; proposed by Major Pendennis, and seconded by ViscountColchicum,' with a thrill of intense gratification. "You will come infor ballot in about three years, by which time you will have taken yourdegree," the guardian said. Pen longed for the three years to be over,and surveyed the stucco-halls, and vast libraries, and drawing-roomsas already his own property. The Major laughed slyly to see the pompousairs of the simple young fellow as he strutted out of the building. Heand Foker drove down in the latter's cab one day to the Grey Friars,and renewed acquaintance with some of their old comrades there. The boyscame crowding up to the cab as it stood by the Grey Friars gates, wherethey were entering, and admired the chestnut horse, and the tights andlivery and gravity of Stoopid, the tiger. The bell for afternoon-schoolrang as they were swaggering about the play-ground talking to their oldcronies. The awful Doctor passed into school with his grammar inhis hand. Foker slunk away uneasily at his presence, but Pen went upblushing, and shook the dignitary by the hand. He laughed as he thoughtthat well-remembered Latin Grammar had boxed his ears many a time. Hewas generous, good-natured, and, in a word, perfectly conceited andsatisfied with himself.

  Then they drove to the parental brew-house. Foker's Entire is composedin an enormous pile of buildings, not far from the Grey Friars, and thename of that well-known firm is gilded upon innumerable public-housesigns, tenanted by its vassals in the neighbourhood; and the venerablejunior partner and manager did honour to the young lord of the vatsand his friend, and served them with silver flagons of brown-stout, sostrong, that you would have thought, not only the young men, but thevery horse Mr. Harry Foker drove, was affected by the potency of thedrink, for he rushed home to the west-end of the town at a rapid pace,which endangered the pie-stalls and the women on the crossings, andbrought the cab-steps into collision with the posts at the streetcorners, and caused Stoopid to swing fearfully on his board behind.

  The Major was quite pleased when Pen was with his young acquaintance;listened to Mr. Foker's artless stories with the greatest interest; gavethe two boys a fine dinner at a Covent Garden Coffee-house, whence theyproceeded to the play; but was above all happy when Mr. and Lady AgnesFoker, who happened to be in London, requested the pleasure of MajorPendennis and Mr. Arthur Pendennis's company at dinner in GrosvenorStreet. "Having obtained the entree into Lady Agnes Foker's house," hesaid to Pen with an affectionate solemnity which befitted the importanceof the occasion, "it behoves you, my dear boy, to keep it. You must mindand never neglect to call in Grosvenor Street when you come to London.I recommend you to read up carefully, in Debrett, the alliances andgenealogy of the Earls of Rosherville, and if you can, to make sometrifling allusions to the family, something historical, neat, andcomplimentary, and that sort of thing, which you, who have a poeticfancy, can do pretty well. Mr. Foker himself is a worthy man, though notof high extraction or indeed much education. He always makes a point ofhaving some of the family porter served round after dinner, which youwill on no account refuse, and which I shall drink myself, though allbeer disagrees with me confoundedly." And the heroic martyr did actuallysacrifice himself, as he said he would, on the day when the dinner tookplace, and old Mr. Foker, at the head of his table, made his usual jokeabout Foker's Entire. We should all of us, I am sure, have liked to seethe Major's grin, when the worthy old gentleman made his time-honouredjoke.

  Lady Agnes, who, wrapped up in Harry, was the fondest of mothers, andone of the most good-natured though not the wisest of women, receivedher son's friend with great cordiality: and astonished Pen by accountsof the severe course of studies which her darling boy was pursuing, andwhich she feared might injure his dear health. Foker the elder burstinto a horse-laugh at some of these speeches, and the heir of the housewinked his eye very knowingly at his friend. And Lady Agnes then goingthrough her son's history from the earliest time, and recounting hismiraculous sufferings in the measles and hooping-cough, his escapefrom drowning, the shocking tyrannies practised upon him at that horridschool, whither Mr. Foker would send him because he had been brought upthere himself, and she never would forgive that d
isagreeable Doctor, nonever--Lady Agnes, we say, having prattled away for an hour incessantlyabout her son, voted the two Messieurs Pendennis most agreeable men; andwhen pheasants came with the second course, which the Major praisedas the very finest birds he ever saw, her ladyship said they came fromLogwood (as the Major knew perfectly well), and hoped that they wouldboth pay her a visit there--at Christmas, or when dear Harry was at homefor the vacations.

  "God bless you, my dear boy," Pendennis said to Arthur, as they werelighting their candles in Bury Street afterwards to go to bed. "Youmade that little allusion to Agincourt, where one of the Roshervillesdistinguished himself, very neatly and well, although Lady Agnes did notquite understand it: but it was exceedingly well for a beginner--thoughyou oughtn't to blush so, by the way--and I beseech you, my dear Arthur,to remember through life, that with an entree--with a good entree,mind--it is just as easy for you to have good society as bad, and thatit costs a man, when properly introduced, no more trouble or soins tokeep a good footing in the best houses in London than to dine with alawyer in Bedford Square. Mind this when you are at Oxbridge pursuingyour studies, and for Heaven's sake be very particular in theacquaintances which you make. The premier pas in life is the mostimportant of all--did you write to your mother to-day?--No?--well,do, before you go, and call and ask Mr. Foker for a frank--They likeit--Good night. God bless you."

  Pen wrote a droll account of his doings in London, and the play, and thevisit to the old Friars, and the brewery, and the party at Mr. Foker's,to his dearest mother, who was saying her prayers at home in the lonelyhouse at Fairoaks, her heart full of love and tenderness unutterable forthe boy: and she and Laura read that letter and those which followed,many, many times, and brooded over them as women do. It was the firststep in life that Pen was making--Ah! what a dangerous journey itis, and how the bravest may stumble and the strongest fail. Brotherwayfarer! may you have a kind arm to support yours on the path, and afriendly hand to succour those who fall beside you. May truth guide,mercy forgive at the end, and love accompany always. Without thatlamp how blind the traveller would be, and how black and cheerless thejourney!

  So the coach drove up to that ancient and comfortable inn the Trencher,which stands in Main Street, Oxbridge, and Pen with delight andeagerness remarked, for the first time, gownsmen going about, chapelbells clinking (bells in Oxbridge are ringing from morning-tide tilleven-song)--towers and pinnacles rising calm and stately over the gablesand antique house-roofs of the homely busy city. Previous communicationshad taken place between Dr. Portman on Pen's part, and Mr. Buck,Tutor of Boniface, on whose side Pen was entered; and as soon as MajorPendennis had arranged his personal appearance, so that it should makea satisfactory impression upon Pen's tutor, the pair walked down MainStreet, and passed the great gate and belfry-tower of Saint George'sCollege, and so came, as they were directed, to Saint Boniface: whereagain Pen's heart began to beat as they entered at the wicket of thevenerable ivy-mantled gate of the College. It is surmounted with anancient dome almost covered with creepers, and adorned with the effigyof the Saint from whom the House takes its name, and many coats-of-armsof its royal and noble benefactors.

  The porter pointed out a queer old tower at the corner of thequadrangle, by which Mr. Buck's rooms were approached, and the twogentlemen walked across the square, the main features of which were atonce and for ever stamped in Pen's mind--the pretty fountain playingin the centre of the fair grass plats; the tall chapel windows andbuttresses rising to the right; the hall with its tapering lantern andoriel window; the lodge, from the doors of which the Master issued withrustling silks; the lines of the surrounding rooms pleasantly broken bycarved chimneys, grey turrets, and quaint gables--all these Mr. Pen'seyes drank in with an eagerness which belongs to first impressions; andMajor Pendennis surveyed with that calmness which belongs to a gentlemanwho does not care for the picturesque, and whose eyes have been somewhatdimmed by the constant glare of the pavement of Pall Mall.

  Saint George's is the great College of the University of Oxbridge, withits four vast quadrangles, and its beautiful hall and gardens, and theGeorgians, as the men are called wear gowns of a peculiar cut, and givethemselves no small airs of superiority over all other young men.Little Saint Boniface is but a petty hermitage in comparison of the hugeconsecrated pile alongside of which it lies. But considering its sizeit has always kept an excellent name in the university. Its ton is verygood: the best families of certain counties have time out of mind sentup their young men to Saint Boniface: the college livings are remarkablygood: the fellowships easy; the Boniface men had had more than theirfair share of university honours; their boat was third upon the river;their chapel-choir is not inferior to Saint George's itself; and theBoniface ale the best in Oxbridge. In the comfortable old wainscotedCollege-Hall, and round about Roubilliac's statue of Saint Boniface (whostands in an attitude of seraphic benediction over the uncommonly goodcheer of the fellows' table) there are portraits of many most eminentBonifacians. There is the learned Doctor Griddle, who suffered in HenryVIII.'s time, and Archbishop Bush who roasted him--there is LordChief Justice Hicks--the Duke of St. David's, K.G., Chancellor of theUniversity and Member of this College--Sprott the Poet, of whose famethe college is justly proud--Doctor Blogg, the late master, and friendof Doctor Johnson, who visited him at Saint Boniface--and other lawyers,scholars, and divines, whose portraitures look from the walls, or whosecoats-of-arms shine in emerald and ruby, gold and azure, in the tallwindows of the refectory. The venerable cook of the college is one ofthe best artists in Oxbridge (his son took the highest honours in theother University of Camford), and the wine in the fellows' room has longbeen famed for its excellence and abundance.

  Into this certainly not the least snugly sheltered arbour amongst thegroves of Academe, Pen now found his way, leaning on his uncle's arm,and they speedily reached Mr. Buck's rooms, and were conducted into theapartment of that courteous gentleman.

  He had received previous information from Dr. Portman regarding Pen,with respect to whose family, fortune, and personal merits the honestDoctor had spoken with no small enthusiasm. Indeed Portman had describedArthur to the tutor as "a young gentleman of some fortune and landedestate, of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, andpossessing such a character and genius as were sure, under the properguidance, to make him a credit to the college and the university." Undersuch recommendations the tutor was, of course, most cordial to the youngfreshman and his guardian, invited the latter to dine in hall, where hewould have the satisfaction of seeing his nephew wear his gown and eathis dinner for the first time, and requested the pair to take wine athis rooms after hall, and in consequence of the highly favourable reporthe had received of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, said, he should be happyto give him the best set of rooms to be had in college--agentleman-pensioner's set, indeed, which were just luckily vacant. Sothey parted until dinner-time, which was very near at hand, and MajorPendennis pronounced Mr. Buck to be uncommonly civil indeed. Indeed whena College Magnate takes the trouble to be polite, there is no man moresplendidly courteous. Immersed in their books and excluded from theworld by the gravity of their occupations, these reverend men assume asolemn magnificence of compliment in which they rustle and swell as intheir grand robes of state. Those silks and brocades are not put on forall comers or every day.

  When the two gentlemen had taken leave of the tutor in his study, andhad returned to Mr. Buck's ante-room, or lecture-room, a very handsomeapartment, turkey-carpeted, and hung with excellent prints and richlyframed pictures, they found the tutor's servant already in waitingthere, accompanied by a man with a bag full of caps and a number ofgowns, from which Pen might select a cap and gown for himself, and theservant, no doubt, would get a commission proportionable to the servicedone by him. Mr. Pen was all in a tremor of pleasure as the bustlingtailor tried on a gown and pronounced that it was an excellent fit; andthen he put the pretty college cap on, in rather a dandified manner andsomewhat on one side, as he had seen Fiddicombe, the youngest master
atGrey Friars, wear it. And he inspected the entire costume with a greatdeal of satisfaction in one of the great gilt mirrors which ornamentedMr. Buck's lecture-room: for some of these college divines are no moreabove looking-glasses than a lady is, and look to the set of theirgowns and caps quite as anxiously as folks do of the lovelier sex. TheMajor smiled as he saw the boy dandifying himself in the glass: the oldgentleman was not displeased with the appearance of the comely lad.

  Then Davis, the skip or attendant, led the way, keys in hand, across thequadrangle, the Major and Pen following him, the latter blushing, andpleased with his new academical habiliments, across the quadrangle tothe rooms which were destined for the freshman; and which were vacatedby the retreat of the gentleman-pensioner, Mr. Spicer. The rooms werevery comfortable, with large cross beams, high wainscots, and smallwindows in deep embrasures. Mr. Spicer's furniture was there, and to besold at a valuation, and Major Pendennis agreed on his nephew's behalfto take the available part of it, laughingly however declining (as,indeed, Pen did for his own part) six sporting prints, and four groupsof opera-dancers with gauze draperies, which formed the late occupant'spictorial collection.

  Then they went to hall, where Pen sate down and ate his commons with hisbrother freshmen, and the Major took his place at the high-table alongwith the college dignitaries and other fathers or guardians of youth,who had come up with their sons to Oxbridge; and after hall they went toMr. Buck's to take wine; and after wine to chapel, where the Major satewith great gravity in the upper place, having a fine view of theMaster in his carved throne or stall under the organ-loft, where thatgentleman, the learned Doctor Donne, sate magnificent, with his greatprayer-book before him, an image of statuesque piety and rigid devotion.All the young freshmen behaved with gravity and decorum, but Pen wasshocked to see that atrocious little Foker, who came in very late,and half a dozen of his comrades in the gentlemen-pensioners' seats,giggling and talking as if they had been in so many stalls at the Opera.But these circumstances, it must be remembered, took place some yearsback, when William the Fourth was king. Young men are much betterbehaved now, and besides, Saint Boniface was rather a fast college.

  Pen could hardly sleep at night in his bedroom at the Trencher: soanxious was he to begin his college life, and to get into his ownapartments. What did he think about, as he lay tossing and awake? Was itabout his mother at home; the pious soul whose life was bound up inhis? Yes, let us hope he thought of her a little. Was it about MissFotheringay, and his eternal passion, which had kept him awake so manynights, and created such wretchedness and such longing? He had a trickof blushing, and if you had been in the room, and the candle had notbeen out, you might have seen the youth's countenance redden more thanonce, as he broke out into passionate incoherent exclamations regardingthat luckless event of his life. His uncle's lessons had not been thrownaway upon him; the mist of passion had passed from his eyes now, and hesaw her as she was. To think that he, Pendennis, had been enslaved bysuch a woman, and then jilted by her! that he should have stooped solow, to be trampled on the mire! that there was a time in his life, andthat but a few months back, when he was willing to take Costigan for hisfather-in-law!

  "Poor old Smirke!" Pen presently laughed out--"well, I'll write and tryand console the poor old boy. He won't die of his passion, ha, ha!" TheMajor, had he been awake, might have heard a score of such ejaculationsuttered by Pen as he lay awake and restless through the first night ofhis residence at Oxbridge.

  It would, perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whoselife was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in adifferent sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape ofhis selfish old Mentor: and those who have any interest in his charactermust have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well asvery impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and if of a generousdisposition, not a little selfish in the midst of his profuseness, andalso rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of self-gratification are.

  The six months' passion had aged him very considerably. There was animmense gulf between Pen the victim of love, and Pen the innocent boyof eighteen, sighing after it: and so Arthur Pendennis had all theexperience and superiority, besides that command which afterwardsconceit and imperiousness of disposition gave him over the young menwith whom he now began to live.

  He and his uncle passed the morning with great satisfaction in makingpurchases for the better comfort of the apartments which the lad wasabout to occupy. Mr. Spicer's china and glass was in a dreadfullydismantled condition, his lamps smashed, and his bookcases by no meansso spacious as those shelves which would be requisite to receive thecontents of the boxes which were lying in the hall at Fairoaks, andwhich were addressed to Arthur in the hand of poor Helen.

  The boxes arrived in a few days, that his mother had packed with somuch care. Pen was touched as he read the superscriptions in the dearwell-known hand, and he arranged in their proper places all the books,his old friends, and all the linen and table-cloths which Helen hadselected from the family stock, and all the jam-pots which littleLaura had bound in straw, and the hundred simple gifts of home. Penhad another Alma Mater now. But it is not all children who take to herkindly.