LIFE OF DR. ROLLESTON. Xlii 



college, his incessant reading through the night, or in summer 

 in the window-seat in the full glare of sunshine, was a 

 wonder to the people at his lodgings; they once ran up to 

 tell him of a great fire, but he only said, ' How peculiar ! ' and 

 would no more look up from his work than if he had been 

 Archimedes. To be late for a lecture was a sin he could never 

 forgive himself for. Once he was at a breakfast in college, when 

 ten o'clock struck; he. rushed headlong downstairs, struggling 

 into his gown as he went, meeting half-way the upcoming scout, 

 who was knocked to the bottom of the flight, and to this day 

 carries in a broken nose the record of punctuality. When 

 Rolleston came to be himself a lecturer, he was in like manner 

 severe on his class, though in his later years he relaxed a little. 

 He used to say, 'When I was young I could never forgive my 

 men for being late — but now I give 'em five minutes.' It must 

 not be thought, however, that this studious life was due to want 

 of ability for manly exercises. At school the old drill-sergeant 

 would not condescend to fence with any other boy but Rolleston, 

 who, he used to say, was the only one who could handle a single- 

 stick if the Mounseers came among us. He rowed in his College 

 eight,- and kept up through life his fondness for the river, 

 priding himself on his pupils who distinguished themselves 

 there — indeed his class sometimes fancied that he tolerated 

 their shortcomings more easily than those of other men. 



An influence one would have expected to find marks of in 

 Rolleston' s character was the religious controversy which then 

 divided Oxford. Newman and Pusey had raised the standard of 

 church supremacy, and a phalanx of zealous youths followed their 

 lead. Since then Stanley, preaching for liberty, had raised a new 

 spirit among many of the bolder and more independent. Thus 

 within the lines of the Church of England there was renewed 

 the world-old strife between authority and reason, with its usual 

 distracting results of personal animosity and social division. 

 Rolleston's temper and work both kept him outside the actual 

 battle of theology. The ceremonies, the symbolisms, the ecstasies 

 of the High Church School wanted the reality he cared for. The 



