Left Paris on Sunday afternoon, slept at Dieppe; left Dieppe Monday
morning, got to London at three o'clock or thereabouts, and might
have reached Cambridge that night had we been so disposed; next day
came safely home to dear old St. John's, cash in hand 7d.
From my window {3} in the cool of the summer twilight I look on the
umbrageous chestnuts that droop into the river; Trinity library
rears its stately proportions on the left; opposite is the bridge;
over that, on the right, the thick dark foliage is blackening almost
into sombreness as the night draws on. Immediately beneath are the
arched cloisters resounding with the solitary footfall of meditative
students, and suggesting grateful retirement. I say to myself then,
as I sit in my open window, that for a continuance I would rather
have this than any scene I have visited during the whole of our most
enjoyed tour, and fetch down a Thucydides, for I must go to Shilleto
at nine o'clock to-morrow.
TRANSLATION FROM AN UNPUBLISHED WORK OF HERODOTUS
This piece and the ten that follow it date from Butler's
undergraduate days. They were preserved by the late Canon Joseph
McCormick, who was Butler's contemporary at Cambridge and knew him
well.
In a letter to THE TIMES, published 27 June, 1902, shortly after
Butler's death, Canon McCormick gave some interesting details of
Butler's Cambridge days.
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