“No, no,” she interposed, “give them to Mr.——.”
He was, despite features which the dull might call plain, remarkably, and I had almost said physically, beautiful, because of the clear shining of his character. The tender motives that often moulded his lips, the purity and grace that found expression in his eyes, and that fluctuation of the lines of the face in thought which is almost light and shade, wrought an immortal beauty out of Nature’s poor endowment. Nor was that only when he was in a fit small company. Some men, when[Pg 203] not moved by such an influence, lapse into that sculptured and muddy expression which is the chief quality of photographs. You may surprise them void and waste. But if he was ever surprised, it might be seen that he turned to the intruder fresh from a spiritual colloquy. His smile, on opening Plutarch, was as if he blessed and was blessed, and restored the beholder to the age of the first revival of learning. Very soft—some said mincing—was his step among his books, as not knowing what or whom he might disturb. If you saw him in the Bodleian, he seemed its familiar spirit, and in some way its outward and visible expression or heraldic device. Though a wide and learned reader, he had published nothing that had anything to do with books. In his youth he had circulated “An Elegy written within sight of Keble College,” and in later years speculations on the Jurassic sea and the migration of birds. He often read aloud to himself, and even to others on being provoked, in his sounding wainscotted room in sight of All Saints steeple. Especially he liked to chant Sophocles, and to the opening of Electra gave a solemn and almost religious sweetness in the rendering. Then it was that we knew how he had gained and preserved that notable grace of pronunciation. He used to say, “It is a fine day,” instead of “Tserfineday.” And thus of every day he made a rosary of gracious thoughts and deeds among men and Nature and books; and apparelling a worldly life with the sanctity of unworldly temperance and charity, his homeliness became dignified without[Pg 204] losing its simplicity, and almost ornate with courtesies that never set a blush in the face of truth.
II
Of the successful man who is a Don by accident I confess an ignorance that borders on dislike. He is perhaps a scholar, certainly a courtier. He has the open secret of perennial youth. It is very likely that he dabbles in light literature, and may have written a book of fiction or history with a wide circulation. He was a gay, discursive parodist in his youth; chose his own ties, or thought he did; worked hard, and concealed the fact from his inferiors. His extreme caution to-day might appear indiscreet to an impartial judge. He writes letters to the Times on important matters on which he seeks information; or if his old self should be assertive, he writes over the name of “Justice” or “One who knows” in a penny paper, and is indignant towards the friends who fail to recognise his style and point of view. In this and every possible way he keeps a firm connection with the great outer world. He knows the female cousins of all the undergraduates of his college, and many of them have been mildly in love with him in a punt. He is often in London, where he is very academic, and would wish to appear merely well-informed. When he meets London friends in Oxford, he is anxious to prove that he at least is not a mere Don; yet his friends can only wonder that there is now no such thing as an Oxford point of view, but only an[Pg 205] Oxford drawl. His sitting-room is magnificent, and like style, conceals the man. It is no wonder that a man with such arm-chairs should be well satisfied. His books are noble up to the year 1800—abundant and select, often old, always fine; but after the year 1800 a certain timidity of taste may be observed. Of course his friends’ books are there, with the books which you are expected to know in country houses. For the rest, he has overcome the difficulty of selection by not selecting. As the college has good port and is indifferent in its choice of white wine, so he has good classics and a jumble of later work. He is charitable, a ready contributor to approved causes. He has travelled, and is never reduced to silence in company. He is a good talker, knowing how not to offend. He is a brilliant host, suave, considerate,—with comprehensive views,—and ready to make allowances for those who are not Dons. Perhaps he is in the main a summer bird. Then he shows that he is a gallant as well as a scholar and man of the world. He is the figure-head of his college barge during The Eights, and with an eye-glass, that is a kind of sixth sense, he surveys womankind, and sees that it is good.
III
There was lately also a more Roman type amongst us. He had a lusty Terentian wit that was not in the fashion of these times; and his proud frankness about everything but his soul found even less welcome from a[Pg 206] generation that liked to talk of little else. “A little hypocrisy”—such was his advice to freshmen, but not his practice—“a little hypocrisy is useful to a virtuous man, since it is hard not to appear a hypocrite, especially when one is not.” He was what is called an intemperate man. For, though a small, fastidious eater and short sleeper, he was a man of many bottles; nor had he the common gift of repenting of the truths which claret inspired and port enabled him to express. He never learned to whine over private infelicity—a weighty shortcoming; or to moralise on the infelicities of others—which was almost a virtue. A small Kantian once asked him how he felt after a bereavement. “It has never occurred to me,” was his reply, “to think how I felt.” An unsuccessful man himself, and burdened by his more successful and more indolent relatives, his catchword was, nevertheless, “Success.” But he perhaps hated more than a noisy failure a noisy success. Always scheming on behalf of others, he laid no plans for himself, except by writing his own epitaph, on the day before his death. He ate, drank, was merry, and did his duty. He was the life and soul and financial saviour of his college. At no time was he a profound student; he had been elected to a fellowship on account of his birth; yet the brilliant scholar and the nice courtier of the college admitted that he, the chapel, and the cook were equally indispensable. In fact, he was as near to the ideal head of a college as it would be wise to have in an ancient university. He could not lecture, and was a poor judge of imitation Greek prose. He radiated[Pg 207] a clean and vigorous worldly influence through both Common Rooms. He knew every undergraduate who was within the reach of knowledge. His judgment of men was as consummate and as untransferable as his judgment of wine. It was his custom to say that there had been three philosophers, two ancient, one modern, in the history of the world—Ecclesiastes, Democritus, and Sir William Temple of Moor Park. To his pupils he used to pronounce that, “since you are average men and will never be able to understand Ecclesiastes or take the trouble to understand Democritus,” they should follow the Englishman. He then repeated from memory this passage (with such solemnity that I believe he felt it to be his own):—
“Some writers, in casting up the goods most desirable in life, have given them this rank—health, beauty, and riches. Of the first, I find no dispute; but to the two others much may be said; for beauty is a good that makes others happy rather than one’s self; and how riches should claim so high a rank I cannot tell, when so great, so wise, and so good a part of mankind have, in all ages, preferred poverty before them—the Therapeutae and Ebionites among the Jews, the primitive monks and modern friars among Christians, so many dervises among the Mahometans, the Brachmans among the Indians, and all the ancient philosophers; who, whatever else they differed in, agreed in this, of despising riches, and at best esteeming them an unnecessary trouble or encumbrance of life: so that whether they are to be reckoned among goods or evils, is yet left in doubt.[Pg 208]
“When I was young, and in some idle company, it was proposed that every one should tell what their three wishes should be, if they were sure to be granted: some were very pleasant, and some very extravagant; mine were health, and peace, and fair weather; which, though out of the way among young men, yet perhaps might pass well enough among old: they are all of a strain; for health in the body is like peace in the state, and serenity in the air; the sun, in our climate at least, has something so reviving, that a fair day is a kind of sensual pleasure, and of all others the most innocent.”
The last words he would often repeat, with this comment: that people to-day were so much busied with sunsets and landscapes and colours that they had no such hearty feeling for Nature as the old seventeenth-century statesman, philosopher, and gardener had.
“Read Cowley and Pope,” was his only criticism in English literature. “Any one can be a Keats, though few can write as well,” he argued, “but it is not so easy to be like Pope.” Meeting Browning one day, and telling him that he enjoyed some of his poetry, the poet asked him whether he understood it. “No,” said the Don, “do you?”