He read abundantly, but, as Fitzgerald says, he read
`for human pleasure.' He never was a Greek scholar, he disliked
Philosophy, as presented to him in class-work; the gods had made him
poetical, not metaphysical.
There was one other cause of his lack of even such slender
commercial success in letters as was really necessary to a man who
liked `plain living and high thinking.' He fell early in love with
a city, with a place--he lost his heart to St. Andrews. Here, at
all events, his critic can sympathise with him. His `dear St.
Andrews Bay,' beautiful alike in winter mists and in the crystal
days of still winter sunshine; the quiet brown streets brightened by
the scarlet gowns; the long limitless sands; the dark blue distant
hills, and far-off snowy peaks of the Grampians; the majestic
melancholy towers, monuments of old religion overthrown; the deep
dusky porch of the college chapel, with Kennedy's arms in wrought
iron on the oaken door; the solid houses with their crow steps and
gables, all the forlorn memories of civil and religious feud, of
inhabitants saintly, royal, heroic, endeared St.
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