It was Saturday when the examination was finished, and Mark wished he
could be granted the privilege of staying over Sunday in college. He had
no regrets for what he had done; he was content to let this experience
be all that he should ever intimately gain of Oxford; but he should like
to have the courage to accost one of the tutors and to tell him that
being convinced he should never come to Oxford again he desired the
privilege of remaining until Monday morning, so that he might
crystallize in that short space of time an impression which, had he been
successful in gaining the scholarship, would have been spread over four
years. Mark was not indulging in sentiment; he really felt that by the
intensity of the emotion with which he would live those twenty-four
hours he should be able to achieve for himself as much as he should
achieve in four years. So far as the world was concerned, this
experience would be valueless; for himself it would be beyond price. So
far as the world was concerned, he would never have been to Oxford; but
could he be granted this privilege, Oxford would live for ever in his
heart, a refuge and a meditation until the grave. Yet this coveted
experience must be granted from without to make it a perfect experience.
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