over which there are bridges leading to the ancient college parks; I float on the gentle river between the “backs” and the parks, and I think of our students, of their hollow bellies and their boots down-at-heel with trudging from lecture to lecture. I bow down to you, O Cambridge, for upon me was conferred the honour of eating on the dais among the learned masters in a hall so vast and old that I felt as if I were only dreaming about it; I greet you with both hands, O Cambridge, for I was vouchsafed the joy of eating with students, masters and other young people from earthenware dishes in the Half Moon; and happy I was among them. And I have seen lawns where only the masters and not the undergraduates may walk, and staircases where only the graduates and not the students may play billiards; I have seen professors in rabbits’ fur and cloaks as red as lobsters, I have seen the graduates kneel and kiss the hand of the Vice-Chancellor; of all these wonders I
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