How significant is the fact that through all these centuries of
building and planting, of pulling down and raising up, the makers of
Cambridge--that is, the men who achieved for her her place in the
realms of thought, inquiry, and discovery--never seemed to have
thought that Death could play much havoc among them. In the old
monasteries there was always a cemetery. The canon or the monk who
passed into the cloister came there once for all--to live _and
die_ within the walls of his monastery. The scholar who came to
get all the learning he could, and who settled in some humble hostel
or some unpretentious college of the old type, came to spend some few
years there, but no more. He came to live his life, and when there
was no more life in him--no more youthful force, activity, and
enthusiasm-there was no place for him at Cambridge, There they wanted
men of vigour and energy, not past their work. Die? No! as long as he
was verily alive it was well that he should stay and toil. When he
was a dying man, better he should go. No college at Cambridge had a
cemetery. Let the dead bury their dead!
Indeed, it must have been hard for the weak and sickly--the lad of
feeble frame and delicate organization-to stand that rugged old
Cambridge life. "College rooms" in our time suggest something like
the _ne plus ultra_ of aesthetic elegance and luxury.
Pages:
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281