This creed10 Mr. Jackson put into practice every day of the term. Greek was the special subject that he taught, and week by week his pupils, besides attending his lectures, which just now were concerned with the Peloponnesian war, made renderings11 of English verse into Iambics and English prose into its possible equivalent in Thucydidean or Platonic13 Greek. The point of these exercises really was to cram14 into the rendering12 as many tags from classical authors as could be dragged in. When a set of Iambics were plentifully15 besprinkled with phrases and unusual usages from ?schylus or Sophocles, Mr. Jackson considered them a good effort of scholarship, and never paused to reflect whether it might not be merely a specimen17 of the most comical Baboo Greek.
Everything connected with classical Greek was an unrivalled instrument of education in his regard, and thus his pupils were also thoroughly18 instructed in Greek history. They might be as ignorant as a sucking child on the subject of French, Italian or English history; their claims, as regards history, to be educated rested solely19 on their knowledge of Greek history. Similarly it was nice to know dates; he had no objection to anyone being aware of the year in which Constantinople fell into the hands of Osman, or England into those of{29} William the Conqueror20. But it was necessary to salvation21 to have on the tip of your tongue the date of the death of Pericles. Subsequently, in Greek history, the classical age ceased, and that nation and language had not the good luck to interest Mr. Jackson any further at all.
His loyal conspirator22 and coadjutor in keeping the Greek flag flying was Waters, who was to make one of the four to-night, and since his host Butler held the same views with regard to Latin as he to Greek, and had asked Alison, his Latin fellow-conspirator, to complete the table, Jackson felt justified23 in expecting a pleasant evening. It was not that he intended or expected that anybody would talk “shop” with regard to education; simply he felt happier and more at ease in the presence of classical scholars than in that of mathematicians24 or natural scientists. With natural scientists he had, however, a bond in common (when they did not bring into prominence25 their doleful heresy26 that natural science or natural history could possibly be considered an instrument of education), for he himself had for years been an enthusiastic collector of fresh-water shells. But that was his hobby, over which he unbent his mind, laying no claim to be an educated man because he had a very considerable knowledge of this branch of conchology, any more than Butler considered it a title to culture that he had a completer knowledge of Handel’s music than any living man, or probably any dead one, including Handel himself.
Jackson strolled along the broad gravel27 path towards Butler’s rooms, passing groups of undergraduates on the way, to some of whom, his own pupils, he nodded; practically he knew none others, even by sight. Jim and Birds were among those he knew, who, since smoking in the court was forbidden, discreetly28 held their{30} cigarettes behind their backs as Mr. Jackson passed them. But though short-sighted, he had a keen sense of smell, and pleasantly enough made a rather neat Latin quotation29 about incense30.
From Butler’s room came the loud resonance31 of a piano, which quite drowned the noise of his knocking, and entering, he found that sardonic32 colleague deeply engaged at his piano on the last movement of Handel’s Occasional Overture33. Butler’s method of playing was to put his face very near the music, plant a firm foot on the loud pedal, and add the soft pedal for passages marked piano. He preserved an iron and unshakable tempo34, counting the requisite35 number of beats to each bar in an audible voice, and not stopping till he got to the end of his piece unless the book fell off the music-rest, when he turned the page. When that occurred, he continued counting while he picked it up.
To-night no such interruption occurred, and it was not till he had reached the last loud chord that he observed Jackson’s appearance.
“That’s a glorious thing you were playing,” observed he pleasantly, as he put his cap and gown in the window-seat. “Glorious. They can’t write such music now.”
Butler gave a short sarcastic36 laugh.
“They can’t indeed,” he said. “Modern music is just trash: there’s no other word for it. The other day when I was up in town I went—good evening, Waters—I went to a concert in order to hear Handel’s violin sonata37, and had to sit through a piece of Debussy. If it hadn’t been for the question of manners, I should have put back my head and howled like a dog.”
“And had to grin like a dog instead,” suggested Waters, stroking his short black beard, which was{31} streaked39 with grey. The applicability of the classical English epithet40 “silver-sabled” to his beard consoled him for those signs of the middle years.
“No, I assure you, grinning was beyond me,” said this musical sufferer, “though I admit the neatness of your quotation. It was a mere16 confused noise like nothing so much as the protracted41 tuning42 of the orchestra. But, it’s no use getting angry with stuff that doesn’t merit the faintest attention.”
Jackson put his head on one side, his favourite attitude when pronouncing critical judgments43.
“I’m not altogether so sure that I agree with you,” he said, “I’m not speaking about Debussy because I’ve never heard of him before, but I think some modern music is uncommonly44 fine. But you’re such a confounded purist, my dear fellow.”
“Certainly I can’t find time for the second best,” said Butler. “There’s nothing been written in the last fifty years that has a chance of living.”
“A sweeping45 statement, rather,” said Waters. “I was considerably46 impressed by the festival at Bayreuth two years ago: in fact I’m going again in August. There are certain parts of Tristan and Isolde that are very moving. Can’t I persuade you to come with me?”
Jackson laughed.
“Not if you were Peitho herself would you persuade him,” he said. “What was that phrase of yours, Butler, when you heard Tristan in London. ‘Three hours of neurasthenic cacophany,’ I think you called it.”
“I believe I did,” said Butler, gratified that his dictum should be remembered. “But if I did, I understated it. Ah, here is our coffee: I wonder why Alison doesn’t come.”
“He went to see the Master about something con{32}nected with the May-week concert,” said Waters. “He told us he might be a little late. I can’t quite agree with our host about Wagner, but I do cordially agree with him that there’s a cult9 of the incompetent47 sprung up, who make up for their want of artistic48 ability by sheer bizarre impertinence. Debussy I make no doubt is one of them (though like Jackson I never heard a note of him), and the modern impressionists and post-impressionists and cubists are others. If I may adapt Butler’s phrase I should have no hesitation49 in describing their canvasses50 as ‘Three feet of neurasthenic daubings.’ But of course their scribblings are merely pour rire.”
Jackson put his head on one side again.
“I don’t know that there’s much more to be said for any modern art,” he answered. “I myself am unable to give even the most admired modern painters a place in the pictorial51 tripos. Sargent, for instance: I don’t consider his portraits more than mere posters, pieces of scenic52 painting if you will, dabbed53 on, without any finish, like a copy of Greek prose without any accents. Ha, here’s Alison: now we’ll get to work.”
It was curious to note now, immediately on the advent54 of the players to make up their table at whist, all these lesser55 problems and pronouncements with regard to the position of Wagner, Sargent and Debussy in the realms of art were immediately dismissed for the greater preoccupation. For those middle-aged56 men, in spite of their gently-fossilized existence, their indulgent contempt for anything that was not immediately “Cambridge,” their general pessimism57 about modern effort, retained a certain streak38 of boyishness and gusto, in that they were genuinely fond of games, both the milder and more sedentary ones that they themselves{33} played, and those better suited to the robust58 vigour59 of their pupils, accepting the importance of them as a clause in the creed that made Cambridge just precisely60 what it was. Their theories about them, just as about education, might be all cut and dried, and the sap as completely be gone out of them as out of the pressed flowers in some botancial collection (which they would unanimously have alluded61 to as a Hortus Siccus), but they did believe in them.
There was no elasticity62 or any possible growth or development that could come to those fibrous stems and crackling petals63, but they believed in their creed and would have opposed with tooth and nail of conviction any suggested reform or innovation. For Cambridge, so long as the forts of classics and cricket stood secure, was to them an institution as abiding64 as the moon, and no criticism concerning it could be taken seriously, any more than you could take seriously a person who said that he would have preferred the colour of the moon to be pea-green or magenta65. But Cambridge could only remain a permanent and perfect phenomenon, if it remained exactly as it was. Whatever in the world of flux66 and change might alter and crumble67, Cambridge must present an unalterable front to the corroding68 centuries. Whatever change came there, must, in the very nature of things, be a change for the worse.
Of the great ancient fortress69 of Cambridge, St. Stephen’s College was beyond doubt the most impregnable bastion. Founded by Henry VII., it had had a glorious record of opposition70 to every reform and innovation that had assaulted its grey walls. When first railways began to knit England together, St. Stephen’s had headed every defensive71 man?uvre to keep their baleful facilities away from the sanctuary72.{34} St. Stephen’s collective spirit did not wish to “run up” to London in two or three hours: it preferred the sequestering73 methods of the stage-coach. Till some forty years ago it had consisted entirely74 of fellows and undergraduates who had been scholars of St. Stephen’s School, and at the conclusion of their enjoyment75 of Henry VII.’s endowment there, proceeded for the rest of their lives, if so disposed, to be supported by Henry VII. at St. Stephen’s College. They entered it as scholars, became fellows in due course, and taught to the succeeding generation precisely what they had learned.
Then had come that overwhelming assault on the tradition of centuries, which our four whist-players thought bitterly of even till to-day, when the college was thrown open to boys from other schools who, instead of necessarily taking up classics, went in for all sorts of debased subjects such as natural science and medicine. But there was no help for it: that particular gate of the bastion had to be opened, and scientists moral and physical, even students of modern languages, mingled76 with the white-robed classical choir77. But the spirit of the more loyal-hearted portion of the garrison78 remained unbroken, and sturdily, long after the rest of Cambridge blazed with electric light, St. Stephen’s, owing chiefly to the determined79 stand made by Jackson and Butler, moved in its accustomed dusk of candles and oil lamps.
The introduction of bath-rooms provoked a not less gallant80 opposition: in the time of Henry VII. hot baths were unheard of, and if nowadays you wanted one, you could get a can of hot water from the kitchen. And it was only under the severest pressure that those debasing paraphernalia81 squeezed their way in. Not for a moment is it implied that Jackson and his friends{35} were like bats who preferred the dark, or like cats who disliked water, but only that they disliked any change, and preferred things precisely as they were....
The game proceeded in the utmost harmony and with academic calm, and was interspersed82 with neat quotations83. For instance, when at the conclusion of a hand, Waters said approvingly to his partner, “You saw my call all right,” Jackson without a moment’s thought replied, “Yes, Waters, one clear call for me.” Or when hearts were trumps84, and Butler proved only to have one of that suit, he paused, without applying his lit match to his pipe, to say, “Eructavit cor meum.” As that one happened to be the ace2, it was quickly and sharply that Alison said, “But your heart is inditing85 of a good matter.” Even when apt quotation failed, something academic was fragrant86 in their most ordinary remarks, as when, spades being turned up as trumps for the third time running, Butler referred to “the prevalence of those agricultural implements,” or when his partner found that his hand contained seven diamonds, he called it “a jewel song.” There was not one atom of pose or desire for effect in those little mots, their minds thought like that, and their tongues faithfully expressed their impressions.
The third of these pleasant rubbers came to an end about a quarter to eleven, and, a “senatus consultum” being taken, it was resolved not to begin a new one, but to relax into conversation.
“Non semper arcum,” said Butler, rising. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, you will help yourselves, please. I think you said, Alison, that when we had finished Sarah Battling, you wanted to tell us what the Master spoke87 to you about.”
Alison was busy making a curious drink that he found refreshing88, which was a mixture of port and soda89{36} water (called Alison’s own) in exactly equal proportions. There must be just as much port as there was water, neither more nor less, else some recondite90 flavour was missed. He was a man of about forty-five, clean-shaven and alert: his great acquirement was an inward knowledge of Cicero’s letters so amazing, that when once he set a piece of Latin translation in a college examination, composed not at all by Cicero, but by himself, even the Master had been deceived, and asked him out of which of Cicero’s letters he had taken that piece. In other respects he played lawn-tennis, and was responsible, as precentor, for the music of the College services in chapel91.
“Yes, it is a matter of some importance,” he said. “The Choral Society, of course, are giving their annual sacred concert in chapel during May-week, and they have most unfortunately selected Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ for performance. The Master tells me that he is inclined absolutely to refuse to give permission for it, but asked me first to consult some of you. I told him I should meet you three to-night, and he said that he desired no better subcommittee.”
“Is his objection to it on the score of Elgar, Elgar’s score one might say,” asked Butler, “or on that of Gerontius? If on that of the composer, I am disposed to agree with him. I know nothing about Gerontius, as a literary production, except that a hymn92 which we occasionally sing in chapel with a vulgar tune93, is excerpted from it, I believe.”
Jackson chuckled94.
“On the score of Elgar, Elgar’s score,” he repeated. “Very neat, Butler. I know the hymn you mean, ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height.’ It goes admirably into Greek iambics.{37}”
“Equally well into Latin elegiacs,” said Alison. “No, the Master has no feeling against Elgar’s music: that wasn’t his point. But he could not see himself permitting the performance in chapel of a libretto95 so markedly, so pugnaciously96 Roman Catholic. I am bound to confess that there’s something to be said for his view. What do you say, Jackson? You are our spiritual pastor97.”
Jackson took his stand by the fire-place, and put his head on one side.
“Well, if I’m bound to speak as from a rostrum,” he said, “I shall be disposed to ask for notice of that question. It’s an uncommonly nice point, and the question, of course, on which it all hinges is how far the purpose of a libretto is extinguished by being treated musically. I remember going to see Gounod’s Faust, of which the libretto contains some frankly98 intolerable situations. But somehow when treated musically they did not strike me as actually indecent.”
“The indecency of the music would be enough for me,” said Butler incisively99. “Nothing else but that would strike me.”
“Ah, there’s our purist again. But just now the question is not so much of Purism as Puritanism.”
“After all, we sing ‘Praise to the Holiest’ in chapel,” remarked Alison. “I have known the Master join in it.”
Butler drew in his breath with a hissing100 inspiration as of pain at that recollection.
“Yes, yes, sufficient unto the day—usually Trinity Sunday—is the Master’s singing of that hymn,” he remarked. “If the Master proposed to sing the whole of the ‘Dream of Gerontius’ himself I would be steadfast101 in prayer that it should not be given at all. But he has not threatened that, I gather.{38}”
Waters extracted a few crumbs102 of biscuit that had fallen in his silver-sabled beard.
“I think Jackson has hit the nail on the head,” he remarked. “The question is how far music purges103 the libretto. In my view it doesn’t: it merely emphasizes it. Another appeal, the musical, is added. I admit the inconsistency of singing a hymn that comes out of Gerontius, but you do not remedy that inconsistency by adding to it the far greater one of giving, as Alison neatly104 phrased it, a pugnaciously Roman Catholic work in a Church of England chapel.”
“And those who vote for the motion, that is the exclusion105 of Gerontius?” asked Alison.
He counted hands.
“The ayes have it,” he announced. “I think we may conclude that Gerontius will have to seek another dormitory.”
“To sleep, perchance to dream,” suggested Waters.
This point being settled, the unrest in Ireland and possible Labour troubles were lightly touched on, but such subjects had very little concern for these sheltered lives, and presently, even before Alison had drunk his tumbler of Alison’s Own, more exhilarating topics came under discussion. There was a proposal to be brought by some Junior Don at the next College meeting that the dinner hour should, during the summer months, be postponed106, from 7.30 till 8; this aroused Butler’s gloomiest apprehensions107.
“That young Mackenzie is a most undesirable108 man,” he said. “We made a great mistake when we elected him to a Fellowship.”
“Considering the degrees he took,” said Jackson. “A first in mathematics one year, a first in mechanical science the next, and a fellowship dissertation109 which{39} appears to be the most valuable contribution ever made to the subject of engines for aeroplanes, I don’t see what else we could do. I regretted the necessity as much as you.”
“I refuse to admit the necessity,” said Butler. “As the greatest classical college of the University, what have we to do with aeroplanes? I hope it is not our business to further the exploitation of mechanical toys.”
Jackson assumed the “rostrum” again.
“I don’t altogether agree with you,” he said, “about their being mechanical toys. There may be something in them after all. But I do agree with you that the study and construction of them should be conducted at their proper place and not at a University. One of Mackenzie’s gliders110, or so I think he calls them, came sailing in yesterday through the open window of my lecture-room, followed a moment afterwards by Mackenzie himself without a word of apology. I think, however, he caught my next sentence, ‘After this most unseemly interruption’.... He was meant to in any case. I had a good mind to chuck a Thucydides through the window of his lecture-room and see what he made of that.”
“He wouldn’t make much of Thucydides,” said Butler witheringly. “He said to me the other day that he thanked God he hadn’t wasted a minute of his life in learning Greek. Latin he appeared to have learned for his own amusement: he liked reading Horace, he told me.”
“Turning the classics into a mere hobby,” said Waters, “and reading, I make no doubt, without notes or a dictionary, much as you read a French novel.”
“Amazing!” said Jackson, with his head on one side. “And the worst of it all is that he seems to have got some sort of hold over the undergraduates which is{40} altogether irregular and unseemly. They talk to him as if he was a slightly senior undergraduate himself. No sort of good can come out of such relationships. A don is a teacher, and an undergraduate is a learner. They must both keep their proper places or the whole University system is undermined.”
“That’s the danger in having young men as fellows,” said Alison, “who have no sense of their positions and dignity. There’s too much of that sort of thing. And it’s the same at other colleges.”
Jackson took up his cap and gown.
“Well, I think we know how to put a pretty firm foot down on it here,” he said. “Master Mackenzie will find that his gliders and his dinner at eight aren’t looked very warmly on. By the way, young Linnet played a fine innings the other day against Middlesex, and he showed me up an uncommonly good piece of Greek prose this week. Cricket and Greek. I wish the undergraduates would stick to them. Then we shouldn’t have much bother with fellows like Mackenzie.”
Waters took his watch from his pocket and absently wound it up, instead of looking at the time.
“I was dipping into a play by that obscene Scandinavian dramatist the other day,” he said, “and found a line about the younger generation knocking at the door. Hedda Gabler was it?—anyhow there was a vast lot of gabble.”
“Obscene?” said Alison. “Isn’t that rather a strong word?”
“It was rather strong stuff: that is why I chose the word.”
“I should have said that piffle was nearer the mark,” said Jackson with an air of complete finality.
“I beg to second that motion, if we’re talking about Ibsen,” said Butler. “But I propose as an amendment{41} that we don’t talk about Ibsen. Why talk about Ibsen?”
“Well, we won’t,” said Waters. “I delete the obscene Scandinavian, and remark on my own account that the younger generation does seem to me to be knocking at the door.”
Jackson put on his gown.
“Sport your oak, then, my dear fellow,” he said, “and go on with your Plato. And shut your windows against Mackenzie’s gliders. Cambridge is all right, there’s life in the old dog yet, and a good set of teeth too, if there’s going to be any question of its dinner. Well, I must go. Very pleasant evening, Butler. Good-night, all of you.”
His firm step descended111 the uncarpeted flight of stairs outside in gradual diminuendo, and Alison, as it was Saturday night, took another glass of “his own,” before going to bed.
“Linnet’s a very attractive fellow,” he said. “I like both him and Lethbridge. But some of those first and second year men are rather a poisonous lot. You know the crew I mean, they run that new paper called Camouflage112.”
“Camouflage?” asked Butler.
“Yes, French word, with an allusion113 to the Cam, I conjecture114. I looked it up in a dictionary. It’s the art of concealment115 with intent to deceive, to put it generally. ‘Evasion,’ you might possibly render it by ‘Evasion.’ Haven’t you come across the paper?”
“I am afraid that my reading does not embrace those usually very callow periodicals,” said Butler. “Pray widen my restricted horizon.”
“Well, I have glanced at a number or two of it. I should suppress it if I was the Vice-Chancellor, but I{42} don’t deny it’s got a good deal of cleverness. It’s all misdirected cleverness. There was a really very neat piece of Platonic dialogue directed against the teaching of classical languages. There was an interview in the style of the Daily Mail with Villon, that French vagabond rhymster, you know. There was also a poem called ‘Ode to a Pair of Trousers’ couched in Swinburnian language of almost licentious116 passion. The key to it lay in the last stanza117, in which you found out that it was supposed to be written by the poet on a frosty morning after a cold bath. That explained the ‘softness of thy warm embrace, the clinging of thy leg,’ and the rest of it. The poet merely wanted to get his clothes on again. Rather neat, rather in the C.S.C. style.”
“I cannot at the moment recall anything of Calverley’s that seems to resemble your very vivid précis,” said Butler icily. “And with your permission, I think I will not invest money or time in the purchase and perusal118 of Camouflage. But without hearing more I am completely in accord with your inclination119 to suppress it.”
Alison’s second indulgence in port and water had roused him to a certain Liberalism that usually hibernated120.
“I wish sometimes we could get more into touch with the undergraduates,” he said. “We know about their games to some extent, and we know what their classical reading consists of, and we look over their compositions. But there our knowledge of them and their education abruptly121 ceases, unless they get into trouble through not keeping chapels122, or making a row, or smoking in the quadrangle. You, for instance, just now, Butler, wanted to know no more about Camouflage or its authors.{43}”
Butler poured himself out a glass of whisky and soda. This, too, was in celebration of Saturday night.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “your admirable description of the Ode was quite enough for me as regards Camouflage. I should like it immediately suppressed. As for the authors, you yourself said they were a poisonous lot.”
“I know I did. But I wonder if one could not learn more about the poison, and perhaps supply an antidote123. Indeed, what if it isn’t poison?”
“I am content to take your word that it is,” said Butler, yawning. Conversation about undergraduates always bored him, for it was not they, to his mind, whom Cambridge connoted. Cambridge meant to him the life lived by himself and his colleagues, the mild scholarly discussion, the gentle, ignorant patronization or criticism of the outer world, the leisure, the port, the dignity of the community of teachers. Naturally his life was concerned also with undergraduates, but only to the extent that he taught and lectured them at fixed124 hours, and when necessary rebuked125.
But more advanced ideas still floated vaguely126 in Alison’s mind, as he rose to go.
“Sometimes I have certain doubts about our educational system,” he observed.
“Get rid of them,” said Butler, booming from his impregnable fortress.
While this decorous pleasure-party of the Olympians was in progress, another by no means less pleasurable, though far less Olympian, had been going on partly in Birds’s room, partly in Jim’s, just across the passage. Two or three people had strolled in to see Birds after Hall, two or three more to see Jim, with the effect that there had been an amalgamation127 and a game of poker128.{44} Those who did not care to play poker, refreshed themselves with cigarettes and conversation and whisky and soda, and a rather neat booby-trap had been set over the door into Birds’s bedroom. Jelf of the poisonous set, and editor of Camouflage, had devised this, and subsequently forgetting about it, and going into Birds’s bedroom to fetch another glass, had got caught by it himself, and was now brushing carbolic tooth powder out of his hair. Then Birds, who at the moment was playing poker in Jim’s room, had come in, and by way of reprisal129 had thrown the rest of the tooth-powder in Jelf’s face, who had sneezed without intermission for ten minutes.
But the ragging had not gone further than that, and now the party had broken up, leaving only Jelf and Badsley with the owners of the rooms. Jelf was a tall, merry-faced, ugly boy, whose hair when not pink with tooth-powder was black. He wore it long and lanky130, with the design, which perfectly131 succeeded, of annoying those who conformed to the custom of short hair. He wore extraordinarily132 shabby clothes and professed133 views of the wildest immorality134 for analogous135 reasons.
“And if I find long black hairs in my brush to-morrow,” said Birds, alluding136 to these incidents, “I shall make you eat them. Why don’t you get your hair cut like ordinary people?”
“Because then I should no longer annoy ordinary people. I say, Camouflage is going to be lovely next week. I’ve written a defence of Polygamy. There’s a polygamous tribe in West Africa whose average length of life is seventy-eight. I attribute that to polygamy.”
“Don’t believe it,” said Birds.
“You haven’t read my article yet, so you do{45}n’t know. It’s style that makes you believe things, and I’ve put it very convincingly with quotations from Taylor’s ‘Anthropology’ and the ‘Golden Bough,’ and Legros’ Travels. No one will turn the passages up, and if they did they wouldn’t find them, because they don’t exist. But it’s all damned scientifically put.”
“Do you mean you made the whole thing up?” asked Jim.
“Yes, my child. As I say, it’s all a question of style. You’ll believe it all right. And then there’s another rather neat rag, if you’ll promise not to tell anybody.”
“Right.”
“I’ve printed a French poem by Victor Hugo, and signed it with my initials.”
“What’s the point?”
“Why, I shall take a copy very diffidently to Butler, and ask him what he thinks of my French. And I bet you five to one that he says that I had better learn prosody137 before I attempt to write French verse, or words to that effect. Anyone take it?”
It seemed so perfectly certain that Butler would say words to that effect that not the wildest gambler would entertain such a hazard.
“And then you’ll tell him?” asked Jim.
“Of course not, but it’ll leak out somehow. I shall tell Mackenzie and he’ll do the rest. I wonder why the dons object to me so much? At least, I know why. They think I’m pulling their sacred legs. The Ode to the Trousers annoyed them awfully138. They thought it was going to be obscene, and suffered a bitter disappointment.”
Robin139 sat down on the floor.
“Don’t see what you’re playing at,” he said. “I{46}t’s perfectly easy to be unpopular, and you take such a lot of trouble about it.”
“There you’re wrong,” said Jelf. “You couldn’t be unpopular if you tried, Birds. Your hair is nice and short and you’ve a clean face and shave every morning, and play cricket and are exactly like everybody else.”
“Sooner be like that than like you,” said Robin politely.
“You couldn’t be like me, if you tried, simply because you can’t think for yourself. You accept all that you’ve been brought up in, like a dear little good boy, eating the dinner that’s given him, and saying his grace afterwards. Being born an Englishman together with Eton and Cambridge has made you precisely what you are, which is exactly the same as Badders and Jim. You do what you’re told without ever asking why. Britannia rules the waves, and church is at eleven on Sunday morning, but you may play lawn-tennis in the afternoon.”
Jelf got up and waved his arms wildly.
“You’re all cast in one mould,” he said, “and Lord, how I should like to break it. Here you sit, you and Badders and Jim, and Badders is going to be a schoolmaster, because his father was, and Jim is going to be a clergyman for the same reason, and you’re going to be a bloody140 lord. Gosh! That’s why you get on so well, simply because you never think. And you never think because you can’t. Happy England! Our national stupidity is the basis of our national prosperity.”
“That comes out of ‘Intentions,’” remarked Badsley.
“I daresay it does, but anyhow, they’re not good intentions, which are invariably fatal. But none of you have got any intentions at all, except to be smug{47} and comfortable and stereotyped141. There’s Badders with his girls, and Birds with his cricket, and Jim—well, I don’t know what Jim’s with. He’s usually with Birds.”
“After all, we seem to annoy you without taking any trouble about it,” remarked Badsley, “and you have to take a great deal of trouble to annoy anybody. You’ve got to grow your hair long, and copy out Victor Hugo, and run a paper that nobody reads.”
“But I can’t help it: I must make a protest against respectability. Respectability carried to such a pitch as St. Stephen’s carries it to is simply indecent. Nobody ever gets drunk except me, and I not frequently because I hate feeling unwell afterwards. It’s so degrading to be sick even in a good cause. Why don’t we keep mistresses? Why does nobody do anything that he shouldn’t according to collegiate standards? Atheism142 too: Why no atheists? And all the time I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’m really just the same as any of you.”
“You need not, I assure you,” said Birds in the Butler voice, “be under any mistaken misapprehensions about that.”
“But I am. I argue and protest, but at bottom——”
“Oh, kick it, somebody,” said Badsley.
Jim went and stood in front of the fireplace with his head on one side.
“The question is how we shall make Jelf more like us,” he said. “Shall we begin by cutting his hair or shaving him, or——”
There was a wild rush across the room and Jelf jumped out of the window on to the grass outside.
“Cowards!” he said, and ran to his room and locked himself in.
Birds, who had just failed to catch Jelf before he{48} jumped out of the window, came back into the room.
“And the rum thing is that though he talks such awful piffle, he’s about right,” he said. “We don’t think. I say, his Victor Hugo rag is rather a good one.”
“Top-hole. But what is there to think about except the things that everybody thinks about?”
“Dunno. But somehow he finds them. Do you remember when there was flue here before Easter, and he went round with a handcart and a bell, calling out, ‘Bring out your dead’? That did me a lot of good.”
Badsley yawned.
“I’m going to be a schoolmaster because the governor is,” he remarked, “and Jim’s going to be a clergyman, and Birds is going to be a lord. Jelf’s about right. And to-morrow will be Sunday, so I’m going to bed to-day!”
Birds and Jim were left alone, and Birds began undressing.
“I think I shall begin by being an atheist,” he said. “How am I to start? But it is true that we all do what everybody else does. Are you going to breakfast with me to-morrow, or I with you? I forget whose turn it is.”
“Yours. And we can’t think, at least I can’t. If I sat down to think I shouldn’t know what to think about. All the same——”
Jim took a turn up and down the room, trying to frame words to the idea in his mind.
“He’s rather Puck-like, is Jelf,” he said. “I don’t think he’s really human. He thinks that people who aren’t epigrammatic, don’t feel. I doubt if he likes anybody—really likes, I mean. You aren’t good for much if you don’t.{49}”
“That’s what makes him want to pull things down,” said Birds, following vaguely the train of thought. “He can destroy all right; he makes you think nothing’s up to much. But he doesn’t give you anything instead. Lord! I wish I’d been a bit quicker and caught him before he went through the window.”
He strolled whistling away into his own room.
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1
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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2
ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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eschewed
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cult
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| n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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renderings
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| n.（戏剧或乐曲的）演奏( rendering的名词复数 )；扮演；表演；翻译作品 | |
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rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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13
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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15
plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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16
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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19
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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20
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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21
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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22
conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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mathematicians
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| 数学家( mathematician的名词复数 ) | |
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25
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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26
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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27
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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28
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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29
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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30
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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32
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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33
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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tempo
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| n.(音乐的)速度；节奏，行进速度 | |
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35
requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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sonata
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| n.奏鸣曲 | |
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38
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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39
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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40
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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41
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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42
tuning
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| n.调谐，调整，调音v.调音( tune的现在分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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43
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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44
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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45
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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46
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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47
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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48
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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49
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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50
canvasses
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| n.检票员，游说者，推销员( canvass的名词复数 )v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的第三人称单数 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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51
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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52
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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53
dabbed
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| （用某物）轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 )； 轻而快地擦掉（或抹掉）； 快速擦拭； （用某物）轻而快地涂上（或点上）… | |
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54
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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55
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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56
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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57
pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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58
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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59
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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60
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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61
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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63
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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64
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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65
magenta
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| n..紫红色（的染料）；adj.紫红色的 | |
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66
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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67
crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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68
corroding
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| 使腐蚀，侵蚀( corrode的现在分词 ) | |
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69
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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70
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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71
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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72
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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73
sequestering
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| v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的现在分词 )；扣押 | |
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74
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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75
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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76
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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77
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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78
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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79
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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81
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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82
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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83
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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84
trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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85
inditing
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作，赋诗，创作( indite的现在分词 ) | |
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86
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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87
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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88
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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89
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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90
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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91
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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92
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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93
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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94
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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libretto
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| n.歌剧剧本，歌曲歌词 | |
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96
pugnaciously
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pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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98
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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99
incisively
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| adv.敏锐地，激烈地 | |
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100
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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101
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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102
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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103
purges
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| 清除异己( purge的名词复数 )； 整肃（行动）； 清洗； 泻药 | |
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104
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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105
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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106
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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107
apprehensions
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| 疑惧 | |
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108
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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109
dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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110
gliders
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| n.滑翔机( glider的名词复数 ) | |
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111
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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112
camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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113
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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114
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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115
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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116
licentious
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| adj.放纵的，淫乱的 | |
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117
stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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118
perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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hibernated
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| （某些动物）冬眠，蛰伏( hibernate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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amalgamation
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| n.合并，重组；；汞齐化 | |
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poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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reprisal
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| n.报复，报仇，报复性劫掠 | |
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lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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prosody
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| n.诗体论，作诗法 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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139
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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