Transplanted by Gertrude Atherton — Read

Cecil finished his Oxford epoch, taking his double first and crowning his athletic career as stroke of his college eight. He wrote to Lee that he was a wreck mentally, and was going on a tour round the world to shoot big game; he should eventually land in California, where he expected she would have a grizzly for him. He hoped for tigers in India, lions and elephants in Africa, and buffalo in the "Western" United States. He should also take a run through South America. When he had finished with the grizzly, he should feel a man once more, not a worn-out intellect.

"It would be quite dreadful not to have gone through Oxford," he confessed, "for nothing else moulds a man's brain into shape -- if he's got one. How odd and unfinished your American men must be! I understand that few of those who go to the Universities take the whole course -- which is a kindergarten compared to ours -- and that the majority scorn education after eighteen; but I am more than willing to forget all I ever knew for at least two years. After that, of course, I shall think seriously of what I am to do with my life. I did not tell you, I think, that my grandmother is dead, and that I am not quite a pauper. I feel reasonably sure that the political life will be my choice, and I shall manage to learn something of each of our colonies that I visit."