There is that about the material fabric, the actual stone and mortar, of Trinity College, Dublin, which makes a vivid appeal to the imagination of the common man. The cultured sentimentalist will not indeed be able to lave his soul in tepid emotion while he walks through these quadrangles, as he may among the cloisters and chapels of the Oxford colleges. The amateur of the past cannot here stand at gaze before any single building as he does before the weather-beaten front of Oriel, tracing in imagination the footsteps of Newman or Arnold. Yet to the average man, and far more to the newly emancipated schoolboy, Trinity College, Dublin, makes an appeal which can hardly be ignored. In Oxford and Cambridge town and University are mixed together; shops jostle and elbow colleges in the streets. In Dublin a man leaves the city behind him when he enters the college, passes completely out of the atmosphere of the University when he steps on to the pavement. The physical contrast is striking enough, appealing to the ear and the eye. The rattle of the traffic, the jangling of cart bells, the inarticulate babel of voices, suddenly cease when the archway of the great entrance-gate is passed.

An immense silence takes their place. There is no longer any need for watchfulness, nor risk of being hustled by the hurrying crowds. Instead of footway and street crossing there are broad walks, untrodden stretches of smooth grass. The heavy campanile is in front, and heights of gray building frown down on each side. It needs no education, not even any imagination, to appreciate the change. It is not necessary to know that great scholars inhabited the place, to recall any name or any man’s career. The appeal is not to a recollected impression of the Middle Ages, or indeed of any past, remote or near. It is the spirit of scholarship itself, abstract, intangible, which creates this atmosphere. Knowledge, a severe goddess, awes while she beckons.

Hyacinth Conneally had submitted himself to such emotions time after time when, fresh from the wilds of Connemara, he made his way to the examination-hall, an outside student in a borrowed cap and gown. Now, when for the first time he entered into the actual life of the college, could look up at windows of rooms that were his own, and reckon on his privilege of fingering tomes from the shelves of the huge library, the spirit of the place awed him anew. He neither analyzed nor attempted an expression of what he felt, but his first night within the walls was restless because of the inspiration which filled him.

Yet this college does not fail to make an appeal also to the thinking mind, only it is a strange appeal, tending to sadness. The sudden silence after the tumult of the streets has come for some minds to be the symbol of a divorce between the knowledge within and the life without. And this is not the separation which must always exist between thought and action, the gulf fixed between the student and the merchant. It is a real divorce between the nation and the University, between the two kinds of life which ought, like man and woman, to complete each other through their very diversity, but here have gone hopelessly apart. Never once through all the centuries of Ireland’s struggle to express herself has the University felt the throb of her life. It is true that Ireland’s greatest patriots, from Swift to Davis, have been her children; but she has never understood their spirit, never looked on them as anything but strangers to her family. They have been to her stray robber wasps, to be driven from the hive; while to the others they have seemed cygnets among her duckling brood. It is very wonderful that the University alone has been able to resist the glamour of Ireland’s past, and has failed to admire the persistency of her nationality. There has surely been enough in every century that has passed since the college was founded to win it over from alien thought and the ideals of the foreigner.

All this Hyacinth came to feel afterwards, and learnt in bitterness of spirit to be angry at the University’s isolation from Irish life. At first quite other thoughts crowded upon his mind. He felt a rebellion against his father’s estimate of what he was to learn. It seemed to him that he had come into vital touch with the greatest life of all. He was to join the ranks of those who besieged the ears of God for knowledge, and left behind them to successors yet unborn great traditions of the enigmas they had guessed. In entering upon the study of theology he seemed to become a soldier in the sacred band, the élite of the army which won and guarded truth. Already he was convinced that there could be no greater science than the Divine one, no more inspiring moment in life than this one when he took his first step towards the knowledge of God.

He crossed the quadrangle with his mind full of such thoughts, and joined a group of students round the door of one of the examination-halls. It did not shock his sense of fitness that some of his fellow-students in the great science wore shabby clothes, or that others scorned the use of a razor. Bred as he had been at home, he felt no incongruity between dirty collars and the study of divinity. It was not until he caught scraps of conversation that he experienced an awakening from his dream. One eager group surrounded a foreseeing youth who had written the dates of the first four General Councils of the Church upon his shirt-cuff.

‘Read them out, like a good man,’ said one.

‘Hold on a minute,’ said another, ‘till I see if I have got them right. I ground them up specially this morning. Nic?a, 318—no, hang it! that’s the number of Bishops who were present; 325 was the date, wasn’t it?’

‘What was the row about at Chalcedon?’ asked a tall, pale youth. ‘Didn’t some monk or other go for Cyril of Alexandria?’

‘You’ll be stuck anyhow, Tommy,’ said a neat, dapper little man with a very ragged gown.

Hyacinth slipped past the group, and approached two better dressed students who stood apart from the others.

‘Is this,’ he asked, ‘where the entrance examination to the divinity school is to be held?’

For answer he received a curt ‘Yes’ and a stare. Apparently his suit of brown Connemara homespun did not commend him to these aristocrats. They turned their backs on him, and resumed their conversation.

‘She was walking up and down the pier listening to the band with two of the rankest outsiders you ever set eyes on—medicals out of Paddy Dunn’s. Of course I could do nothing else but break it off.’

‘Oh, you were engaged to her, then? I didn’t know.’

‘Well, I was and I wasn’t. Anyhow, I thought it better to have a clear understanding. She came up to me outside the door of Patrick’s on Sunday afternoon just as if nothing had happened. “Hullo, Bob,” says she; “I haven’t seen you for ages.” “My name,” said I, “is Mr. Banks”—just like that, as cool as you please. I could see she felt it. “I’ve called you Bob,” says she, very red in the face, “and you’ve called me Maimie ever since we went to Sunday-school together, and I’m not going to begin calling you Mr. Banks now, my boy-o! so don’t you think it!”’

It was a relief to Hyacinth when he was tapped on the arm by a boy with a very pimply face, who thrust a paper into his hand, and distracted his attention from the final discomfiture of Maimie, which Mr. Banks was recounting in a clear, high-pitched voice, as if he wished everyone in the neighbourhood to hear it.

‘I hope you’ll come,’ said the boy.

‘Where?’

‘It’s all in the paper. The students’ prayer-meeting, held every Wednesday morning at nine o’clock sharp. Special meeting to-morrow.’

Hyacinth was bewildered. There was something quite unfamiliar in this prompt and business-like advertisement of prayer. The student with the papers began to be doubtful of him.

‘You’re not High Church, are you?’ he asked. ‘We’re not. We don’t have printed offices, with verses and responds, and that sort of thing. We have extempore prayer by members of the union.’

‘No; I’m not High Church,’ said Hyacinth—‘at least, I think not. I don’t really know much about these things. I’ll be very glad to go to your meeting.’

‘That’s right,’ said the other. ‘All are welcome. There will be special prayer to-morrow for the success of the British arms. I suppose you heard that old Kruger has sent an ultimatum. There will be war at once.’

There was a sudden movement among the students; gowns were pulled straight and caps adjusted.

‘Here he comes,’ said someone.

Dr. Henry, the divinity professor, crossed the square rapidly. He was a middle-aged man, stout, almost ponderous, in figure; but he held himself rigidly upright, and walked fast across the square. The extreme neatness of his clothes contrasted with the prevailing shabbiness of the students and the assistant lecturers who followed him. Yet he did not seem to be a man who gave to externals more than their due share of consideration. His broad forehead gave promise of great intellectual power, a promise half belied by the narrow gray eyes beneath it. These were eyes which might see keenly, and would certainly see things just as they are, though they were not likely to catch any glimpse of that greater world where objects cannot be focussed sharply. Yet in them, an odd contradiction, there lurked a possibility of humorous twinkling. The man was capable perhaps of the broad tolerance of the great humorist, certainly of very acute perception of life’s minor incongruities. His thin lips were habitually pressed together, giving a suggestion of strength to the set of his mouth. A man with such a mouth can think and act, but not feel either passionately or enduringly. He will direct men because he knows his own mind, but is not likely to sway them because he will always be master of himself, and will not become enslaved to any great enthusiasm. The students trooped into the hall, and the examination began. The assistant lecturers helped in the work. Each student was called up in turn, asked a few questions, and given a portion of the Greek Testament to translate. For the most part their capacities were known beforehand. There were some who had won honours in their University course before entering the divinity school. For them the examiners were all smiles, and the business of the day was understood to be perfunctory. Others were recognised as mere pass men, whom it was necessary to spur to some exertion. A few, like Hyacinth, were unknown. These were the poorer students who had not been able to afford to reside at the University sooner than was absolutely necessary. Their knowledge, generally scanty, was received by the examiners with undisguised contempt. It fell to Hyacinth’s lot to present himself to Dr. Henry. He did so tremulously.

The professor inquired his name, and looked him over coldly.

‘Read for me,’ he said, handing him a Greek Testament. The passage marked was St. Paul’s great description of charity. It was very familiar to Hyacinth, and he read it with a serious feeling for the words. Dr. Henry, who at first had occupied himself with some figures on a sheet of paper, looked up and listened attentively.

‘Where were you at school,’ he asked. ‘Who taught you Greek?’

‘My father taught me, sir.’

‘Ah! You have got a very peculiar pronunciation, and you’ve made an extraordinary number of mistakes in accentuation and quantity, but you’ve read as if St. Paul meant something. Now translate.’

‘You have given me,’ he said, when Hyacinth had finished, ‘the Authorized Version word for word. Can you do no better than that?’

‘I can do it differently,’ said Hyacinth, ‘not better.’

‘Do you know any Greek outside of the New Testament?’

Hyacinth repeated a few lines from Homer.

‘That book of the “Odyssey” is not in the college course,’ said Dr. Henry. ‘How did you come to read it?’

Hyacinth had no explanation to give. He had read the book, it seemed, without being forced, and without hope of getting a prize. He recited it as if he liked it. The remainder of the examination disclosed the fact that he was lamentably deficient in the rudiments of Greek grammar, and had the very vaguest ideas of the history of the Church.

Afterwards Professor Henry discussed the new class with his assistants as they crossed the square together.

‘The usual lot,’ said Dr. Spenser—‘half a dozen scholars, perhaps one man among them with real brains. The rest are either idlers or, what is worse, duffers.’

‘I hit on one man with brains,’ said Dr. Henry.

‘Oh! Thompson, I suppose. I saw that you took him. He did well in his degree exam.’

‘No,’ said Dr. Henry; ‘the man I mean has more brains than Thompson. He’s a man I never heard of before. His name is Conneally. He looks as if he came up from the wilds somewhere. He has hands like an agricultural labourer, and a brogue that I fancy comes from Galway. But he’s a man to keep an eye on. He may do something by-and-by if he doesn’t go off the lines. We must try and lick him into shape a bit.’

Hyacinth Conneally knew extremely little about the politics, foreign or domestic, of the English nation. His father neither read newspapers nor cared to discuss such rumours of the doings of Governments as happened to reach Carrowkeel. On the other hand, he knew a good deal about the history of Ireland, and the English were still for him the ‘new foreigners’ whom Keating describes. His intercourse with the fishermen and peasants of the Galway seaboard had intensified his vague dislike of the series of oscillations between bullying and bribery which make up the story of England’s latest attempts to govern Ireland. Without in the least understanding the reasons for the war in South Africa, he felt a strong sympathy with the Boers. To him they seemed a small people doomed, if they failed to defend themselves, to something like the treatment which Ireland had received.

It was therefore with surprise, almost with horror, that he listened for the first time to the superlative Imperialism of the Protestant unionist party when he attended the prayer-meeting to which he had been invited. The room was well filled with students, who joined heartily in the singing of ‘Onward, Christian soldiers,’ a hymn selected as appropriate for the occasion. An address by the chairman, a Dublin clergyman, followed. According to this gentleman the Boers were a psalm-singing but hypocritical nation addicted to slave-driving. England, on the other hand, was the pioneer of civilization, and the nursing-mother of missionary enterprise. It was therefore clear that all good Christians ought to pray for the success of the British arms. The speech bewildered rather than irritated Hyacinth. The mind gasps for a time when immersed suddenly in an entirely new view of things, and requires time to adjust itself for pleasure or revolt, just as the body does when plunged into cold water. It had never previously occurred to him that an Irishman could regard England as anything but a pirate. Anger rapidly succeeded his surprise while he listened to the prayers which followed. It was apparently open to any student present to give utterance, as occasion offered, to his desires, and a large number of young men availed themselves of the opportunity. Some spoke briefly and haltingly, some laboriously attempted to adapt the phraseology of the Prayer-Book to the sentiment of the moment, a few had the gift of rapid and even eloquent supplication. These last were the hardest to endure. They prefaced their requests with fantastic eulogies of England’s righteousness, designed apparently for the edification of the audience present in the flesh, for they invariably began by assuring the Almighty that He was well aware of the facts, and generally apologized to Him for recapitulating them. Hyacinth’s anger increased as he heard the fervent groans which expressed the unanimous conviction of the justice of the petitions. No one seemed to think it possible that the right could be on the other side.

When the meeting was over, the secretary, whose name, it appeared, was Mackenzie, greeted Hyacinth warmly.

‘Glad to have you with us,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll always come. I shall be delighted to propose you as a member of the union. Subscription one shilling, to defray necessary expenses. In any case, whether you subscribe or not, we shall be glad to have you with us.’

‘I shall never come again,’ said Hyacinth.

Mackenzie drew back, astonished.

‘Why not? Didn’t you like the meeting? I thought it was capital—so informal and hearty. Didn’t you think it was hearty? But perhaps you are High Church. Are you?’

Hyacinth remembered that this identical question had been put to him the day before by the pimply-faced boy who distributed leaflets. He wondered vaguely at the importance which attached to the nickname.

‘I am not sure,’ he said, ‘that I quite know what you mean. You see, I have only just entered the divinity school, and I hardly know anything about theology. What is a High Churchman?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t require any theology to know that. It’s the simplest thing in the world. A High Churchman is—well, of course, a High Churchman sings Gregorian chants, you know, and puts flowers on the altar. There’s more than that, of course. In fact, a High Churchman———’ He paused and then added with an air of victorious conviction: ‘But anyhow if you were High Church you would be sure to know it.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Hyacinth, turning to leave the room, ‘I don’t know anything about it, so I suppose I’m not High Church.’

Mackenzie, however, was not going to allow him to escape so easily.

‘Hold on a minute. If you’re not High Church why won’t you come to our meetings?’

‘Because I can’t join in your prayers when I am not at all sure that England ought to win.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Mackenzie. It is possible to startle even the secretary of a prayer union into mild profanity. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you are a Pro-Boer, and you a divinity student?’

It had not hitherto struck Hyacinth that it was impossible to combine a sufficient orthodoxy with a doubt about the invariable righteousness of England’s quarrels. Afterwards he came to understand the matter better.