He liked
also old buildings and out-of-the-way places; colleges; solemn
churchyards, round which the murmuring thousands floated unheeding. In
particular he was fond of visiting, in his short vacations, the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Although (he writes) "Mine have been
anything but studious hours," he professes to have received great solace
from those "repositories of 'mouldering' learning." "What a place to be in
is an old library!" he exclaims, "where the souls of the old writers seem
reposing, as in some dormitory or middle state." The odor of the "moth-
scented" coverings of the old books is "as fragrant as the blooms of the
tree of knowledge which grew in the happy orchard."
An ancient manor-house, that Vanbrugh might have built, dwelt like a
picture in his memory. "Nothing fills a child's mind like an old mansion,"
he says. Yet he could feel unaffectedly the simplicity and beauty of a
country life. The heartiness of country people went to his heart direct,
and remained there forever. The Fields and the Gladmans, with their homely
dwellings and hospitality, drew him to them like magnets. There was
nothing too fine nor too lofty in these friends for his tastes or his
affection; they did not "affront him with their light.
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