Friends in Council | Page 2

of mine, came to us frequently in the
course of the autumn. Milverton was at that time writing some essays
which he occasionally read to Ellesmere and myself. The conversations
which then took place I am proud to say that I have chronicled. I think
they must be interesting to the world in general, though of course not so
much so as to me.
Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils. Many is the
heartache I have had at finding that those boys, with all their abilities,
would do nothing at the University. But it was in vain to urge them. I

grieve to say that neither of them had any ambition of the right kind.
Once I thought I had stimulated Ellesmere to the proper care and
exertion; when, to my astonishment and vexation, going into his rooms
about a month before an examination, I found that, instead of getting up
his subjects, like a reasonable man, he was absolutely endeavouring to
invent some new method for proving something which had been proved
before in a hundred ways. Over this he had wasted two days, and from
that moment I saw it was useless to waste any more of my time and
patience in urging a scholar so indocile for the beaten path.
What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to
understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem,
inventing all manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not
go on while these stumbling-blocks lay in their way! But I am getting
into college gossip, which may in no way delight my readers. And I am
fancying, too, that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they were to
me; but I am now the child to them. During the years that I have been
quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways of the busy
world. And though they never think of asserting their superiority, I feel
it, and am glad to do so.
My readers would, perhaps, like one to tell them something of the
characters of Ellesmere and Milverton; but it would ill become me to
give that insight into them, which I, their college friend and tutor,
imagine I have obtained. Their friendship I could never understand. It
was not on the surface very warm, and their congeniality seemed to
result more from one or two large common principles of thought than
from any peculiar similarity of taste, or from great affection on either
side. Yet I should wrong their friendship if I were to represent it
otherwise than a most true- hearted one; more so, perhaps, than some of
softer texture. What needs be seen of them individually will be by their
words, which I hope I have in the main retained.
The place where we generally met in fine weather was on the lawn
before Milverton's house. It was an eminence which commanded a
series of valleys sloping towards the sea. And, as the sea was not more
than nine miles off, it was a matter of frequent speculation with us
whether the landscape was bounded by air or water. In the first valley
was a little town of red brick houses, with poplars coming up amongst
them. The ruins of a castle, and some water which, in olden times, had

been the lake in "the pleasaunce," were between us and the town. The
clang of an anvil, or the clamour of a horn, or busy wheelwright's
sounds, came faintly up to us when the wind was south.
I must not delay my readers longer with my gossip, but bring them at
once into the conversation that preceded our first reading.
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Milverton. I tell you, Ellesmere, these are the only heights I care to
look down from, the heights of natural scenery.
Ellesmere. Pooh! my dear Milverton, it is only because the particular
mounds which the world calls heights, you think you have found out to
be but larger ant-heaps. Whenever you have cared about anything, a
man more fierce and unphilosophical in the pursuit of it I never saw. To
influence men's minds by writing for them, is that no ambition?
Milverton. It may be, but I have it not. Let any kind critic convince me
that what I am now doing is useless, or has been done before, or that, if
I leave it undone, some one else will do it to my mind; and I should
fold up my papers, and watch the turnips grow in that field there, with a
placidity that would, perhaps, seem very spiritless to your now restless
and ambitious nature, Ellesmere.
Ellesmere. If something were to happen which will not, then--O
Philosophy, Philosophy, you, too, are a good old nurse, and rattle your
rattles for your little people, as well as