Lunch in Common Room: cold, clammy, and generally unappetising. Guest who is apparently an old member of the college greets me and says he supposes I've forgotten him. 'Not at all: remember you quite well: glad to meet you again.' Haven't the faintest idea what his name is: awkward. Appears in course of conversation to be ex-undergraduate whom I knew very well and did not like. Evidently regards me as a venerable fossil: he himself has grown bald and fat and looks fifty, more or less: suppose I must be about seventy or eighty. Vice-Principal wants to know if I will play fives at two: yes, if he likes. No, by the way, can't; have got to go and vote in Convocation. Don't know what it is about, but promised to go: can't think why. Time to go.
In the Convocation House. Very few people there, nobody at all interested. Borrow Gazette and study list of agenda. Question on which I promised to vote comes on late, all sorts of uninteresting matters to be settled first: mostly small money grants for scientific purposes: pleasant way of wasting three-quarters of an hour. My question here at last: prepare to die in last ditch in defence of original form of statute. Member of Hebdomadal Council makes inaudible speech, apparently on the subject. No one else has anything to say: Council's proposal, whatever it is, carried nem. con. No voting: might as well have played fives after all: next time shall.
Time for walk round the Parks: rain and mud. Worst of the Parks is, you always meet people of houses where you ought to have called and haven't. Free fight under Rugby rules going on between University and somewhere else. Watch it: don't understand game: try to feel patriotic: can't...... Meeting at four to oppose introduction of Hawaiian as an optional language in Responsions. Not select: imprudent for a caucus to transact business by inviting its opponents: people of all sorts of opinions present. Head of House makes highly respectable speech, explaining that while qualified support of reform is conceivable and even under possible circumstances advisable, premature action is rarely consistent with mature deliberation. Nobody seems to have anything definite to suggest: most people move amendments. Safe to vote against all of them: difficult to know how you are voting, however: wording of amendments so confusing. All of them negatived: substantive motion proposed: lost as well. Question referred to a Committee: ought to have been done at first. Hour and a half wasted. Remember that I have cut my five-o'clock pupil for second time running. Am offered afternoon tea: thirsty, but must be off: man at half-past five. On the way back meet resident sportsman in the High. Has been out with hounds and had best twenty-five minutes of the season, in the afternoon, three miles off. Might have been there myself if it hadn't been for Convocation: hang Convocation! Never mind; satisfaction of a good conscience: shall always be able to say that I lost best run of season through devotion to duty.
LAWN TENNIS AT OXFORD. Drawn by Lancelot Speed.
Six forty-five: pupils gone; dress for seven-o'clock dinner with friend at St. Anselm's. Man comes to ask why he has been gated: explain: man not satisfied. Gone, at any rate. Another man, asking leave to be out after twelve. Five minutes to dress and walk a quarter of a mile. Wish men wouldn't choose this time for coming to see one. Very late: dinner already begun: no soup, thanks. Meaty atmosphere: noisy atmosphere at lower end of Hall: undergraduates throw bread about. No one in evening dress but myself. Distinguished guest in shape of eminent German Professor: have got next him somehow: wish I hadn't: wears flannel shirt and evidently regards me as a mere butterfly of fashion. Speaks hardly any English: try him in German: replies after an unusual effort on my part, 'Ich spreche nur Deutsch.' My command of the language evidently less complete than I thought: or perhaps he only speaks his own patois. Man opposite me Demonstrator at the Museum, who considers that the University and the world in general was made for physiologists.
Small party in Common Room, most of diners having to see pupils or attend meetings. Will I have any wine? No one else drinks any and my host is a teetotaller: 'No, thanks--never drink wine after dinner.' Truth only a conventional virtue after all. Eminent Teuton would like more beer, but has been long enough in England to know better than to ask for it. Am put next to Demonstrator, who endeavours to give general ideas of digestive organs of a frog, interpreting occasionally in German for Professor's benefit: illustrates with fragments of dessert: most interesting, I am sure. Nothing like the really good talk of an Oxford Common Room, after all. Senior Fellow drinks whisky and water and goes to sleep. Coffee and cigarettes: or will I have a weed? 'Thanks, but must be off: man at nine...' Back in college: rooms dark: can't find my matches and fall over furniture.
Man comes to read me an essay. Know nothing about the subject: thought he was going to write on something else. Essay finished: must say something: try to find fault with his facts. Man confronts me with array of statistics, apparently genuine: if so nothing more to say. Criticise his grammar: man offended. Interview rather painful, till concluded by entrance of nine-thirty man with Latin prose. Rather superior young man, who considers himself a scholar. Suggest that part of his vocabulary is not according to classical usage: proves me wrong by reference to dictionary. Is not surprised to find me mistaken. Wish that Higher Education had stopped in Board Schools and not got down to undergraduates.
Man at ten, with a desire to learn. Stays till near eleven discussing his chances in the schools at great length. Presently comes to his prospects in life. Would send me to sleep if he wouldn't ask me questions.
Eleven: no more men, thank goodness. Tobacco and my lecture for to-morrow.... Never could understand why a gentleman being neither intoxicated nor in the society of his friends, cannot cross the quadrangle without a view-halloo... There he is again: must go out and see what is going on. Quadrangle very cold, raining. Group of men playing football in the corner: friends look on and encourage them from windows above. As I come on the scene all disappear, with shouts: none identified: saves future trouble, at all events. More tobacco and period of comparative peace. Bedtime.