was a really remarkable book: but neither of them aimed at giving a full picture of Oxford life. And the interest of Miss Broughton"s "Belinda"
and Mr. Hardy"s "Jude the Obscure" lies outside the proctor"s rounds.
Yes (and humiliating as the confession may be), with all its crudities and absurdities, _Verdant Green_ does mark the nearest approach yet made to a representative Oxford novel.
How comes this? Well, to begin with, _Verdant Green_, with all his faults, did contrive to be exceedingly youthful and high-spirited. And in the second place, with all its faults, it did convey some sense of what I may call the "glamour" of Oxford. Now the University, on its part, being fed with a constant supply of young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty, does contrive, with all its faults, to keep up a fair show of youth and high spirits; and even their worst enemies will admit that Oxford and Cambridge wear, in the eyes of their sons at any rate, a certain glamour. You may argue that glamour is glamour, an illusion which will wear off in time; an illusion, at all events, and to be treated as such by the wise author intent on getting at truth. To this I answer that, while it lasts, this glamour is just as much a fact as _The Times_ newspaper, or St. Paul"s Cathedral, just as real a feature of Oxford as Balliol College, or the river, or the Vice-Chancellor"s poker: and until you recognise it for a fact and a feature of the place, and allow for it, you have not the faintest prospect of realising Oxford. Each succeeding generation finds that glamour, or brings it; and each generation, as it pa.s.ses, deems that its successor has either found or brought less of it.
But the glamour is there all the while. In turning over a book the other day, written in 1870 by the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, I come on this pa.s.sage:--
"When I recall my own undergraduate life of thirty years and upwards agone, I feel, notwithstanding modern vaunt, the _laudator temporis acti_ earnest within me yet, and strong. Nowadays, as it seems to me, there is but little originality of character in the still famous University; a dread of eccentric reputation appears to pervade College and Hall: every "Oxford man," to adopt the well-known name, is subdued into sameness within and without, controlled as it were into copyism and mediocrity by the smoothing-iron of the nineteenth century. Whereas _in_ my time and before it there were distinguished names, famous in every mouth for original achievements and "deeds of daring-do." There were giants in those days--men of varied renown-- and they arose and won for themselves in strange fields of fame, record and place. Each became in his day a hero of the Iliad or Odyssey of Oxford life--a kind of Homeric man."
To which I am constrained to reply, "Mere stuff and nonsense!"
Mr. Hawker--and more credit to him--carried away Homeric memories of his own seniors and contemporaries. But was it in nature that Mr. Hawker should discover Homeric proportions in the feats of men thirty years his juniors? How many of us, I ask, are under any flattering illusion about the performances of our juniors? We cling to the old fond falsehood that there were giants in _our_ days. We honestly believed they were giants; it would hurt us to abandon that belief. It does not hurt us in the least to close the magnifying-gla.s.s upon the feats of those who follow us.
But this generation, too, will have its magnifying-gla.s.s. "There were giants in our days?" To be sure there were; and there are giants, too, in these, but others, not we, have the eyes to see them.
Say that the scales have fallen from our eyes. Very well, we must e"en put them on again if we would write a novel of University life. And, be pleased to note, it does not follow, because we see the place differently now, that we see it more truly. Also, it does not follow, because Oxford during the last twenty years has, to the eye of the visitor, altered very considerably, that the characteristics of Oxford have altered to anything like the same extent. Undoubtedly they have been modified by the relaxation and suspension of the laws forbidding Fellows to marry.
Undoubtedly the brisk growth of red-brick houses along the north of the city, the domestic hearths, afternoon teas and perambulators, and all things covered by the opprobrious name of "Parks-system," have done something to efface the difference between Oxford and other towns.
But on the whole I think they have done surprisingly little.
Speaking as a writer of novels, then, I should say that to write a good novel entirely concerned with Oxford lies close upon impossibility, and will prophesy that, if ever it comes to be achieved, it will be a story of friendship. But her glamour is for him to catch who can, whether in prose or rhyme.
ALMA MATER.
Know you her secret none can utter?
Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
Still on the spire the pigeons flutter; Still by the gateway flits the gown; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, Faces of stone look down.
Faces of stone, and other faces-- Some from library windows wan Forth on her gardens, her green s.p.a.ces Peer and turn to their books anon.
Hence, my Muse, from the green oases Gather the tent, begone!
Nay, should she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise and fling her One poor _sou_ for her serenade?
One poor laugh from the antic finger Thrumming a lute string frayed?
Once, my dear--but the world was young then-- Magdalen elms and Trinity limes-- Lissom the blades and the backs that swung then.
Eight good men in the "good old times-- Careless we, and the chorus flung then Under St. Mary"s chimes!
Reins lay loose and the ways led random-- Christ Church meadow and Iffley track-- "Idleness horrid and dogcart" (tandem)-- Aylesbury grind and Bicester pack-- Pleasant our lines, and faith! we scanned "em: Having that artless knack.
Come, old limmer, the times grow colder: Leaves of the creeper redden and fall.
Was it a hand then clapped my shoulder?
--Only the wind by the chapel wall.
Dead leaves drift on the lute; so . . . fold her Under the faded shawl.
Never we wince, though none deplore us, We, who go reaping that we sowed; Cities at c.o.c.k-crow wake before us-- Hey, for the lilt of the London road!
One look back, and a rousing chorus!
Never a palinode!
Still on her spire the pigeons hover; Still by her gateway haunts the gown; Ah, but her secret? You, young lover, Drumming her old ones forth from town, Know you the secret none discover?
Tell it--when _you_ go down.
Yet if at length you seek her, prove her, Lean to her whispers never so nigh; Yet if at last not less her lover You in your hansom leave the High; Down from her towers a ray shall hover-- Touch you, a pa.s.ser-by!
[1] "The Quest of the Sangraal," R. S. Hawker.
JUNE.
The following verses made their appearance some years ago in the pages of the _Pall Mall Magazine_. Since then (I am a.s.sured) they have put a girdle round the world, and threaten, if not to keep pace with the banjo hymned by Mr. Kipling, at least to become the most widely-diffused of their author"s works. I take it to be of a piece with his usual perversity that until now they have never been republished except for private amus.e.m.e.nt.
They belong to a mood, a moment, and I cannot be at pains to rewrite a single stanza, even though an allusion to "Oom Paul" cries out to be altered or suppressed. But, after all, the allusion is not likely to trouble President Kruger"s ma.s.sive shade as it slouches across the Elysian fields; and after all, though he became our enemy, he remained a sportsman. So I hope we may glance at his name in jest without a suspicion of mocking at the tragedy of his fate.
THE FAMOUS BALLAD OF THE JUBILEE CUP.
You may lift me up in your arms, lad, and turn my face to the sun, For a last look back at the dear old track where the Jubilee Cup was won; And draw your chair to my side, lad--no, thank ye, I feel no pain-- For I"m going out with the tide, lad, but I"ll tell you the tale again.
I"m seventy-nine, or nearly, and my head it has long turned grey, But it all comes back as clearly as though it was yesterday-- The dust, and the bookies shouting around the clerk of the scales, And the clerk of the course, and the n.o.bs in force, and Is "Ighness, the Prince of Wales.
"Twas a nine-hole thresh to wind"ard, but none of us cared for that, With a straight run home to the service tee, and a finish along the flat.
"Stiff?" Ah, well you may say it! Spot-barred, and at five-stone-ten!
But at two and a bisque I"d ha" run the risk; for I was a greenhorn then.
So we stripped to the B. Race signal, the old red swallow-tail-- There was young Ben Bolt, and the Portland colt, and Aston Villa, and Yale; And W. G., and Steinitz, Leander, and The Saint, And the German Emperor"s Meteor, a-looking as fresh as paint;
John Roberts (scratch), and Safety Match, The Lascar, and Lorna Doone, Oom Paul (a bye), and Romany Rye, and me upon Wooden Spoon; And some of us cut for partners, and some of us strung to baulk, And some of us tossed for stations--But there, what use to talk?
Three-quarter-back on the Kingsclere crack was station enough for me, With a fresh jackyarder blowing and the Vicarage goal a-lee!
And I leaned and patted her centre-bit, and eased the quid in her cheek, With a "Soh, my la.s.s!" and a "Woa, you brute!"--for she could do all but speak.
She was geared a thought too high, perhaps; she was trained a trifle fine; But she had the grand reach forward! _I_ never saw such a line!
Smooth-bored, clean-run, from her fiddle head with its dainty ear half-c.o.c.k, Hard-bit, _pur sang_, from her overhang to the heel of her off hind sock.
Sir Robert he walked beside me as I worked her down to the mark; "There"s money on this, my lad," said he, "and most of "em"s running dark; But ease the sheet if you"re bunkered, and pack the scrimmages tight, And use your slide at the distance, and we"ll drink to your health to-night!"
But I bent and tightened my stretcher. Said I to myself, said I,-- "John Jones, this here is the Jubilee Cup, and you have to do or die."
And the words weren"t hardly spoken when the umpire shouted "Play!"
And we all kicked off from the Gasworks end with a "Yoicks!" and a "Gone away!"
And at first I thought of nothing, as the clay flew by in lumps, But stuck to the old Ruy Lopez, and wondered who"d call for trumps, And luffed her close to the cushion, and watched each one as it broke, And in triple file up the Rowley mile we went like a trail of smoke.
The Lascar made the running: but he didn"t amount to much, For old Oom Paul was quick on the ball, and headed it back to touch; And the whole first flight led off with the right, as The Saint took up the pace, And drove it clean to the putting green and trumped it there with an ace.
John Roberts had given a miss in baulk, but Villa cleared with a punt; And keeping her service hard and low, The Meteor forged to the front, With Romany Rye to windward at dormy and two to play, And Yale close up--but a Jubilee Cup isn"t run for every day.
We laid our course for the Warner--I tell you the pace was hot!
And again off Tattenham Corner a blanket covered the lot.
Check side! Check side! Now steer her wide! And barely an inch of room, With The Lascar"s tail over our lee rail, and brushing Leander"s boom!