OMAN’S, MARCH 6

DEAR DAVID,

DO you recollect Wastle of Trinity? I suspect not; but you have heard of him a thousand times. And yet you may have met him at my rooms, or North’s; for I think he determined, after you began to reside. At all events, you remember to have heard me describe his strange eccentric character—his dissolute behaviour during the first years of his residence—his extravagant zeal of study afterwards—last of all, the absurdity of his sudden elopement, without a degree, after having astonished the examining masters by the splendid commencement of his examination. The man is half-mad in some things; and that is the key of the whole mystery.

Wastle and I were great friends during the first terms I spent at Jesus. He had gone to school at Harrow with my brother Samuel, and called on me the very day I entered. What a life was ours in that thoughtless prime of our days! We spent all the mornings after lecture in utter lounging—eating ice at Jubb’s—flirting with Miss Butler—bathing in the Charwell, and so forth. And then, after dinner, we used to have our fruit and wine carried into the garden, (I mean at Trinity,) and there we sat, three or four of us, sipping away for a couple of hours, under the dark refreshing shade of those old beechen bowers. Evensong was no sooner over, than we would down to the Isis, and man one, or sometimes two of Mother Hall's boats, and so run races against each other, or some of our friends, to Iffley or Sandford. What lots of bread and butter we used to devour at tea, and what delight we felt in rowing back in the cool misty evening—sometimes the moon up long ere we reached Christ Church meadows again. A light supper—cheese-and-bread and lettuces—and a joyous bowl of Bishop—these were the regular conclusion. I would give half I am worth to live one week of it over again. At that time, Wastle and I, Tom Vere (of Corpus,) and one or two more, were never separate above three or four hours in the day.