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Wordsworth expresses himself with regard to his years at Cambridge in his letter to Miss Taylor (an early fan) of April 9th, 1801:
I did not, as I in some respects greatly regret, devote myself to the studies of the University. This neglect of University studies will be easily comprehended by you, when I inform you, that I employed the last of my summer vacations in a pedestrain tour of the Alps.
He writes at length in The Prelude on the subject of his time at Cambridge eg Prelude Bk III
My spirit was up, my thoughts were full of hope;
Some friends I had, acquaintances who there
Seemed friends, poor simple school-boys, now hung round
With honour and importance: in a world
Of welcome faces up and down I roved;
Questions, directions, warnings and advice,
Flowed in upon me, from all sides; fresh day
Of pride and pleasure! to myself I seemed
A man of business and expense, and went
From shop to shop about my own affairs,
To Tutor or to Tailor, as befel,
From street to street with loose and careless mind.
The Prelude Bk III 18-29
St John's second second court
St John's front entrance
St John's from the garden
He begins to entertain doubts early on as to whether he was for this place, or the place for him:
Yet from the first crude days
Of settling time in this untried abode,
I was disturbed at times by prudent thoughts,
Wishing to hope without a hope, some fears
About my future worldly maintenance,
And, more than all, a strangeness in the mind,
A feeling that I was not for that hour,
Nor for that place.
The Prelude Bk III 75-82
By the end of Bk III, he has come to some very negative conclusions about the place:
all degrees
And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise
Here sate in state, and fed with daily alms
Retainers won away from solid good;
And here was Labour, his own bond-slave; Hope,
That never set the pains against the prize;
Idleness halting with his weary clog,
And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,
And simple Pleasure foraging for Death;
Honour misplaced, and Dignity astray;
Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile
Murmuring submission, and bald government,
(The idol weak as the idolator,)
And Decency and Custom starving Truth,
And blind Authority beating with his staff
The child that might have led him; Emptiness
Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth
Left to herself unheard of and unknown.
The Prelude Bk III 591-608
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