--"My emotions," he said, "at revisiting the university
were at first, overwhelming. I could not speak for an hour; yet my feelings
were upon the whole very pleasurable, and I have not passed, of late years
at least, three days of such great enjoyment and healthful excitement of
mind and body. The bed on which I slept--and slept soundly too--was, as
near as I can describe it, a couple of sacks full of potatoes tied
together. I understand the young men think it hardens them. Truly I lay
down at night a man, and arose in the morning a bruise." He told me "that
the men were much amused at his saying that the fine old Quaker philosopher
Dalton's face was like All Souls' College." The two persons of whom he
spoke with the greatest interest were Mr. Faraday and Mr. Thirlwall; saying
of the former, "that he seemed to have the true temperament of genius, that
carrying-on of the spring and freshness of youthful, nay, boyish feelings,
into the matured strength of manhood!" For, as Mr. Coleridge had long
before expressed the same thought,--"To find no contradiction in the union
of old and new; to contemplate the Ancient of Days and all his works with
feelings as fresh as if all had then sprung forth at the first creative
fiat, this characterizes the mind that feels the riddle of the world, and
may help to unravel it.
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