This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE It was no very bright prospect that lay before Bishop John Selwyn at this time. A hopeless cripple, cut off from the one sphere of labour to which he had given his life's devotion, there seemed little left him but to drag out a few more years of comparative ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE It was no very bright prospect that lay before Bishop John Selwyn at this time. A hopeless cripple, cut off from the one sphere of labour to which he had given his life's devotion, there seemed little left him but to drag out a few more years of comparative uselessness. But there was still a work for him to do. It was in the spring of 1893, when he was staying at Worthing with his second daughter, who was ill at the time, that the offer came to him of the Mastership of Selwyn College. Nothing more unexpected, nothing more startling, could have happened. At the first moment he even conceived the thing to be some kind of huge practical joke. He took the letter up into his daughter's room, threw it on her bed, and sat and roared with laughter at it "What do you think they want me to do now?" he said. The idea that he, "a rough man who had been out in the wilds and was not fit to associate with dons and such folk," as he described himself, should be Head of a College appeared to him nothing short of preposterous. The Bishop of Peterborough (now Bishop of London) was deputed by the Council of Selwyn College to convey their wishes. Here are his letters: "THE Palace, Peterborough, 17th March, 1893. "My Dear Bishop Selwyx, "I have been requested, as one of a Committee appointed by the Council of Selwyn College, to ask you if you would be willing to succeed Mr. Lyttelton as Master. I may add that if you were willing to do so I think the Council would unanimously elect you. "I may further say that this decision was not arrived at without a full consideration of all material facts. I am sorry to say that personally I am unknown to you; but that was not the case with the majority of those present. I can only...
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