And while George was left with Lord Lynedale, I was summoned to a
private conference with the dean, in his study.
I found him in a room lined with cabinets of curiosities, and hung all over
with strange horns, bones, and slabs of fossils. But I was not allowed
much time to look about me; for he commenced at once on the subject of
my studies, by asking me whether I was willing to prepare myself for the
university, by entering on the study of mathematics?
I felt so intense a repugnance to them, that at the risk of offending
him--perhaps, for what I knew, fatally--I dared to demur. He smiled--
"I am convinced, young man, that even if you intended to follow poetry as a
profession--and a very poor one you will find it--yet you will never attain
to any excellence therein, without far stricter mental discipline than
any to which you have been accustomed. That is why I abominate our modern
poets. They talk about the glory of the poetic vocation, as if they
intended to be kings and world-makers, and all the while they indulge
themselves in the most loose and desultory habits of thought.
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