He walked on as he finished speaking, and I told him that I played Rugby football and liked it. "I like nearly every game," I added.
He glanced at me quickly, and after we had walked a little way he began again.
"The excellent Lord Chesterfield in his Letters stated that it was very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so; most of my young friends impress me with the fact that they have learned that maxim too well. But you on the contrary——" He waved his umbrella and did not finish the sentence.
"There is no harm in liking games," I answered; "if I did not take heaps of exercise I should never be well, or able to read."
"Heaps of exercise," he repeated, and looked oddly at me.
"I mean a fearful lot of exercise," I explained.
"You did not quote 'Mens sana in corpore sano,' for which I have to thank you, even if your use of the English language affords reasonable grounds for protest. Heaps of mud, heaps of rubbish, but not, I think, heaps of exercise."
"Heaps of money," I ventured to suggest, but he shook his head sadly.
"We were talking of athletics," he said, "which represent to me the most sweeping epidemic of the century. Do not let athletics spread their deadly, if in one sense empurpling, pall over your University life. Oxford has many gifts for those who are willing to receive them; do not, my friend, be content with the least which she can give. The maxim of Mr. Browning, that the grasp of a man should exceed his reach, if not an ennobling maxim, must not be forgotten entirely."
I walked by his side in silence, for I knew that the Warden did not often give advice to an undergraduate. His language even seemed to have become less carefully chosen, and I felt that he intended to be not only human but kind, for there was no special reason why he should talk to me unless he wished.