Tom Brown at Oxford, by Thomas Hughes|書籍線上App不用買-HotApp4Game

In the Michaelmas term after leaving school, Tom Brown received asummons from the authorities, and went up to matriculate at St.Ambrose's College, Oxford, He presented himself at the collegeone afternoon, and was examined by one of the tutors, who carriedhim, and several other youths in like predicament, up to theSenate House the next morning. Here they went through the usualforms of subscribing to the articles, and otherwise testifyingtheir loyalty to the established order of things, without muchthought perhaps, but in very good faith nevertheless. Havingcompleted the ceremony, by paying his fees, our hero hurried backhome, without making any stay in Oxford. He had often passedthrough it, so that the city had not the charm of novelty forhim, and he was anxious to get home; where, as he had never spentan autumn away from school till now, for the first time in hislife he was having his fill of hunting and shooting.He had left school in June, and did not go up to reside at Oxfordtill the end of the following January. Seven good months; duringa part of which he had indeed read for four hours or so a weekwith the curate of the parish, but the residue had beenexclusively devoted to cricket and field sports. Now, admirableas these institutions are, and beneficial as is their influenceon the youth of Britain, it is possible for a youngster to gettoo much of them. So it had fallen out with our hero. He was abetter horseman and shot, but the total relaxation of all thehealthy discipline of school, the regular hours and regular workto which he had been used for so many years, had certainly thrownhim back in other ways. The whole man had not grown; so that wemust not be surprised to find him quite as boyish, now that wefall in with him again, marching down to St. Ambrose's with aporter wheeling his luggage after him on a truck as when we lefthim at the end of his school career.Tom was in truth beginning to feel that it was high time for himto be getting to regular work again of some sort. A landing placeis a famous thing, but it is only enjoyable for a time by anymortal who deserves one at all. So it was with a feeling ofunmixed pleasure that he turned in at the St. Ambrose gates, andinquired of the porter what rooms had been allotted to him withinthose venerable walls.While the porter consulted his list, the great college sundial,over the lodge, which had lately been renovated, caught Tom'seye. The motto underneath, _"Pereunt et imputantur,"_ stood out,proud of its new gilding, in the bright afternoon sun of a frostyJanuary day: which motto was raising sundry thoughts in hisbrain, when the porter came upon the right place in his list, anddirected him to the end of his journey: No. 5 staircase, secondquadrangle, three pair back. In which new home we shall leave him to install himself, while we endeavor to give the reader some notion of the college itself.