Even as an undergraduate he was not following "a train
of thought made familiar" by authors who had not yet written a line,
and by books which had not yet been published.
So much, then, of the poet that was to be and of the philosopher
existed in the little volume of the undergraduate. In The Mystic we
notice a phrase, two words long, which was later to be made familiar,
"Daughters of time, divinely tall," reproduced in the picture of
Helen:-
"A daughter of the Gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair."
The reflective pieces are certainly of more interest now (though they
seem to have satisfied the poet less) than the gallery of airy fairy
Lilians, Adelines, Rosalinds, and Eleanores:-
"Daughters of dreams and of stories,"
like
"Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores,
Felise, and Yolande, and Juliette."
Cambridge, which he was soon to leave, did not satisfy the poet.
Oxford did not satisfy Gibbon, or later, Shelley; and young men of
genius are not, in fact, usually content with universities which,
perhaps, are doing their best, but are neither governed nor populated
by minds of the highest and most original class.
"You that do profess to teach
And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart."
The universities, in fact, teach a good deal of that which can be
learned, but the best things cannot be taught. The universities give
men leisure, books, and companionship, to learn for themselves.
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