There is in this little story perhaps a charge
of snobbishness from which Oxford men are really entirely free. They are too conscious of their own superiority to be tuft-hunters, and I believe miss some of the prizes of life by their indifference towards those who have already ‘arrived.’ Yet they appear snobbish to others who have not had the benefit of a University education, and in this little essay I endeavour to hold up the mirror to their ill-nature—the fault to which I am unduly attached. Writers besides Richardson have referred to it. I might quote many eloquent tributes from Dryden to Wordsworth and Byron, all Cambridge men, who have felt the charm and acknowledged a weakness for the step-sister University. Cambridge has never been fortunate in having the compliment reciprocated. Neither Oxford men nor her own sons have been over-generous in her praises: you remember Ruskin on King’s Chapel. And I, the obscurest of her children, who cast this laurel on the Isis, will content myself with admitting that I sincerely believe you can obtain a cheaper and better education at Cambridge, though it has always been my ambition to be mistaken for an Oxford man.
I often wonder whether Mr. Cecil Rhodes, while he had the English Government in one pocket, the English Press in the other, and South Africa in the hollow of his hand, felt a certain impotency before Oxford. He had to acknowledge its influence over himself—an influence stronger than Dr. Jameson or the Afrikander Bond. He was never quite sure whether he admired more the loneliness of the Matoppos or the rather over-crowded diamond mines of Kimberley. On the grey veld he used to read Marius the Epicurean, and sought in Mr. Pater the key to the mystery he was unable to solve. He turned to the Thirty-nine Articles (more tampered with at Oxford than in any other cathedral city) with the same want of success. That always seems to me a real touch of Oxford in what some one well said, was an ‘ugly life.’ What a wonderful subject for the brush of a Royal Academician! no ordinary artist could ever do it justice: the great South African statesman on the lonely rocks where he had chosen his tomb; a book has fallen from his hand (Mr. Pater’s no doubt); his eyes are gazing from canvas into the future he has peopled with his
dreams. By some clever device of art or nature the clouds in the sky have shaped themselves into Magdalen Tower—into harmony with his thoughts, and the setting sun makes a mandorla behind him. He is thinking of Oxford, and round his head Oriel clings as in ‘The Blessed Damozel.’
He could terrorise the Colonial Secretary, he could foment a war and add a new empire to England; he could not overcome his love of Oxford, the antithesis of all sordid financial intrigue and political marauding. Athens was after all a dearer name than Groot-Schuurr. He set fire to both.
I speculate sometimes whether the University was aware of his testamentary dispositions before it conferred on him an honorary degree. I hope not. He deserved it as the greatest son of Oxford, the greatest Englishman of his time. Imre Kiralfy, who has done for a whole district of London what Mr. Rhodes tried to do for the empire, is but an impresario beside him. A French critic says we cannot admire greatness in England; and this was shown by the timid way a large number of Imperialists, while professing to
believe the war a righteous one, thought they would seem independent if they disclaimed approval of Mr. Rhodes, by not having the pluck to admit the same motives though ready enough to share the plunder. You may compare the ungrateful half-unfriendly obituaries in the press with the leaders a few days later, after the will was opened.
But what immediately concerns us here is the intention of Mr. Rhodes. Was it entirely benevolence, or some wish to test the strength of Oxford—to bring undergraduates into contact with something coarser, some terrific impermeable force that would be manner-proof against Oxford? Would he conquer from the grave? Several Americans have been known to go through the University retaining the Massachusetts patina. What if a number of these savages were grafted on Oxford? How would they alter the tone? We shall see. It will be an interesting struggle. Shall we hear of six-shooters in the High?—of hominy and flannel cake for breakfast?—will undergrads look ‘spry?’—will they ‘voice’ public opinion? . . . I forbear: my American vocabulary is limited. Outre
mer, outrés mœurs, as Mr. Walkley might say in some guarded allusion to Paul Bourget. . . . I shall be sorry to see poker take the place of roulette, and the Christ Church meadows turned into a ranch for priggish cowboys, or Addison’s Walk re-named the Cake Walk. But no, I believe Mr. Rhodes, if there was just a touch of malice in his testament, realised that Oxford manners were stronger than the American want of them. Oxford may be wounded, but I have complete confidence in the issue. These Bœotian invaders must succumb, as nobler stock before them. They will form an interesting subject for some exquisite study by Mr. Henry James, who will deal with their gradual civilisation. Preserved in the amber of his art they will become immortal.
I have been able to clip only the fringe of a great theme. Athletes require an essay to themselves. In later age they seem to me more melancholy than their Cambridge peers and less successful. These splendid creatures are really works of art, and form our only substitute for sculpture in the absence of any native plastic talent. From the collector’s