I may have consciously reasoned that the best way to forget the present was in the revival3 of memories. Or I may have been driven by a mere4 homing instinct. Anyhow, it was in the direction of my old College that I went. Midnight was tolling5 as I floated in through the shut grim gate at which I had so often stood knocking for admission.
The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak—my oak. I read the name on the visiting-card attached thereto—E. J. Craddock—and went in.
E. J. Craddock, interloper, was sitting at my table, with elbows squared and head on one side, in the act of literary composition. The oars6 and caps on my walls betokened7 him a rowing-man. Indeed, I recognised his somewhat heavy face as that of the man whom, from the Judas barge9 this afternoon, I had seen rowing “stroke” in my College Eight.
He ought, therefore, to have been in bed and asleep two hours ago. And the offence of his vigil was aggravated10 by a large tumbler that stood in front of him, containing whisky and soda11. From this he took a deep draught12. Then he read over what he had written. I did not care to peer over his shoulder at MS. which, though written in my room, was not intended for my eyes. But the writer’s brain was open to me; and he had written “I, the undersigned Edward Joseph Craddock, do hereby leave and bequeath all my personal and other property to Zuleika Dobson, spinster. This is my last will and testament13.”
I thereby15 and therewith left him. As I emerged through the floor of the room above—through the very carpet that had so often been steeped in wine, and encrusted with smithereens of glass, in the brave old days of a well-remembered occupant—I found two men, both of them evidently reading-men. One of them was pacing round the room. “Do you know,” he was saying, “what she reminded me of, all the time? Those words—aren’t they in the Song of Solomon?—‘fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and... and...’”
“‘Terrible as an army with banners,’” supplied his host—rather testily17, for he was writing a letter. It began “My dear Father. By the time you receive this I shall have taken a step which...”
Clearly it was vain to seek distraction18 in my old College. I floated out into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent19 of these meadows’ moisture is the scent of Oxford20. Even in hottest noon, one feels that the sun has not dried THEM. Always there is moisture drifting across them, drifting into the Colleges. It, one suspects, must have had much to do with the evocation21 of what is called the Oxford spirit—that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to them who as youths were brought into ken8 of it, so exasperating22 to them who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasmal23 air, not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has helped Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar24 race of artist-scholars, scholar-artists. The undergraduate, in his brief periods of residence, is too buoyant to be mastered by the spirit of the place. He does but salute25 it, and catch the manner. It is on him who stays to spend his maturity26 here that the spirit will in its fulness gradually descend27. The buildings and their traditions keep astir in his mind whatsoever28 is gracious; the climate, enfolding and enfeebling him, lulling29 him, keeps him careless of the sharp, harsh, exigent realities of the outer world. Careless? Not utterly30. These realities may be seen by him. He may study them, be amused or touched by them. But they cannot fire him. Oxford is too damp for that. The “movements” made there have been no more than protests against the mobility31 of others. They have been without the dynamic quality implied in their name. They have been no more than the sighs of men gazing at what other men had left behind them; faint, impossible appeals to the god of retrogression, uttered for their own sake and ritual, rather than with any intent that they should be heard. Oxford, that lotus-land, saps the will-power, the power of action. But, in doing so, it clarifies the mind, makes larger the vision, gives, above all, that playful and caressing32 suavity33 of manner which comes of a conviction that nothing matters, except ideas, and that not even ideas are worth dying for, inasmuch as the ghosts of them slain34 seem worthy35 of yet more piously36 elaborate homage37 than can be given to them in their heyday38. If the Colleges could be transferred to the dry and bracing39 top of some hill, doubtless they would be more evidently useful to the nation. But let us be glad there is no engineer or enchanter to compass that task. Egomet, I would liefer have the rest of England subside40 into the sea than have Oxford set on a salubrious level. For there is nothing in England to be matched with what lurks41 in the vapours of these meadows, and in the shadows of these spires—that mysterious, inenubilable spirit, spirit of Oxford. Oxford! The very sight of the word printed, or sound of it spoken, is fraught42 for me with most actual magic.
And on that moonlit night when I floated among the vapours of these meadows, myself less than a vapour, I knew and loved Oxford as never before, as never since. Yonder, in the Colleges, was the fume43 and fret44 of tragedy—Love as Death’s decoy, and Youth following her. What then? Not Oxford was menaced. Come what might, not a stone of Oxford’s walls would be loosened, nor a wreath of her vapours be undone45, nor lost a breath of her sacred spirit.
I floated up into the higher, drier air, that I might, for once, see the total body of that spirit.
There lay Oxford far beneath me, like a map in grey and black and silver. All that I had known only as great single things I saw now outspread in apposition, and tiny; tiny symbols, as it were, of themselves, greatly symbolising their oneness. There they lay, these multitudinous and disparate quadrangles, all their rivalries46 merged16 in the making of a great catholic pattern. And the roofs of the buildings around them seemed level with their lawns. No higher the roofs of the very towers. Up from their tiny segment of the earth’s spinning surface they stood negligible beneath infinity47. And new, too, quite new, in eternity48; transient upstarts. I saw Oxford as a place that had no more past and no more future than a mining-camp. I smiled down. O hoary49 and unassailable mushroom!... But if a man carry his sense of proportion far enough, lo! he is back at the point from which he started. He knows that eternity, as conceived by him, is but an instant in eternity, and infinity but a speck50 in infinity. How should they belittle51 the things near to him?... Oxford was venerable and magical, after all, and enduring. Aye, and not because she would endure was it the less lamentable52 that the young lives within her walls were like to be taken. My equanimity53 was gone; and a tear fell on Oxford.
And then, as though Oxford herself were speaking up to me, the air vibrated with a sweet noise of music. It was the hour of one; the end of the Duke’s hour of grace. Through the silvery tangle54 of sounds from other clocks I floated quickly down to the Broad.
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1 averse | |
adj.厌恶的;反对的,不乐意的 | |
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2 outrageous | |
adj.无理的,令人不能容忍的 | |
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3 revival | |
n.复兴,复苏,(精力、活力等的)重振 | |
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4 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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5 tolling | |
[财]来料加工 | |
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6 oars | |
n.桨,橹( oar的名词复数 );划手v.划(行)( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7 betokened | |
v.预示,表示( betoken的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8 ken | |
n.视野,知识领域 | |
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9 barge | |
n.平底载货船,驳船 | |
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10 aggravated | |
使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 ); 使更严重; 激怒; 使恼火 | |
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11 soda | |
n.苏打水;汽水 | |
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12 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
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13 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
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14 gnawed | |
咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 ); (长时间) 折磨某人; (使)苦恼; (长时间)危害某事物 | |
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15 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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16 merged | |
(使)混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 ); 相融; 融入; 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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17 testily | |
adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地 | |
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18 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
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19 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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20 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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21 evocation | |
n. 引起,唤起 n. <古> 召唤,招魂 | |
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22 exasperating | |
adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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23 miasmal | |
adj.毒气的,沼气的 | |
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24 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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25 salute | |
vi.行礼,致意,问候,放礼炮;vt.向…致意,迎接,赞扬;n.招呼,敬礼,礼炮 | |
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26 maturity | |
n.成熟;完成;(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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27 descend | |
vt./vi.传下来,下来,下降 | |
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28 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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29 lulling | |
vt.使镇静,使安静(lull的现在分词形式) | |
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30 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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31 mobility | |
n.可动性,变动性,情感不定 | |
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32 caressing | |
爱抚的,表现爱情的,亲切的 | |
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33 suavity | |
n.温和;殷勤 | |
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34 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
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35 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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36 piously | |
adv.虔诚地 | |
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37 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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38 heyday | |
n.全盛时期,青春期 | |
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39 bracing | |
adj.令人振奋的 | |
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40 subside | |
vi.平静,平息;下沉,塌陷,沉降 | |
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41 lurks | |
n.潜在,潜伏;(lurk的复数形式)vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的第三人称单数形式) | |
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42 fraught | |
adj.充满…的,伴有(危险等)的;忧虑的 | |
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43 fume | |
n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟,气,汽 | |
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44 fret | |
v.(使)烦恼;(使)焦急;(使)腐蚀,(使)磨损 | |
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45 undone | |
a.未做完的,未完成的 | |
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46 rivalries | |
n.敌对,竞争,对抗( rivalry的名词复数 ) | |
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47 infinity | |
n.无限,无穷,大量 | |
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48 eternity | |
n.不朽,来世;永恒,无穷 | |
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49 hoary | |
adj.古老的;鬓发斑白的 | |
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50 speck | |
n.微粒,小污点,小斑点 | |
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51 belittle | |
v.轻视,小看,贬低 | |
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52 lamentable | |
adj.令人惋惜的,悔恨的 | |
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53 equanimity | |
n.沉着,镇定 | |
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54 tangle | |
n.纠缠;缠结;混乱;v.(使)缠绕;变乱 | |
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