The truth is, I did envy those men. I did not envy
them their learning; for the majority of men who came into my cousin's room
had no learning to envy, being rather brilliant and agreeable men than
severe students; but I envied them their opportunities of learning; and
envied them just as much their opportunities of play--their boating, their
cricket, their foot-ball, their riding, and their gay confident carriage,
which proceeds from physical health and strength, and which I mistook for
the swagger of insolence; while Parker's Piece, with its games, was a sight
which made me grind my teeth, when I thought of the very different chance
of physical exercise which falls to the lot of a London artisan.
And still more did I envy them when I found that many of them combined, as
my cousin did, this physical exercise with really hard mental work, and
found the one help the other. It was bitter to me--whether it ought to have
been so or not--to hear of prizemen, wranglers, fellows of colleges, as
first rate oars, boxers, foot-ball players; and my eyes once fairly filled
with tears, when, after the departure of a little fellow no bigger or
heavier than myself, but with the eye and the gait of a game-cock, I was
informed that he was "bow-oar in the University eight, and as sure to be
senior classic next year as he has a head on his shoulders.
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