Page 170 - of-human-bondage-

other that he was a man of excellent gifts, and he listened to
them willingly when they prophesied his future eminence.
In course of time he became an authority on art and litera-
ture. He came under the influence of Newman’s Apologia;
the picturesqueness of the Roman Catholic faith appealed
to his esthetic sensibility; and it was only the fear of his fa-
ther’s wrath (a plain, blunt man of narrow ideas, who read
Macaulay) which prevented him from ‘going over.’ When
he only got a pass degree his friends were astonished; but
he shrugged his shoulders and delicately insinuated that he
was not the dupe of examiners. He made one feel that a first
class was ever so slightly vulgar. He described one of the
vivas with tolerant humour; some fellow in an outrageous
collar was asking him questions in logic; it was infinitely
tedious, and suddenly he noticed that he wore elastic-sid-
ed boots: it was grotesque and ridiculous; so he withdrew
his mind and thought of the gothic beauty of the Chapel at
King’s. But he had spent some delightful days at Cambridge;
he had given better dinners than anyone he knew; and the
conversation in his rooms had been often memorable. He
quoted to Philip the exquisite epigram:
‘They told me, Herakleitus, they told me you were dead.’
And now, when he related again the picturesque little an-
ecdote about the examiner and his boots, he laughed.
‘Of course it was folly,’ he said, ‘but it was a folly in which
there was something fine.’
Philip, with a little thrill, thought it magnificent.
Then Hayward went to London to read for the Bar. He
had charming rooms in Clement’s Inn, with panelled walls,

1