Oxford had caught the pageant-fever which was this summer devastating England; and a great part of the term was spent (some cynics said wasted) in the extensive preparations for our own particular show. When they were all but complete, one of the historic "rags" by which Christ Church has from time to time distinguished itself broke out, in consequence of the House becoming head of the river; and among other excesses, some damage was done to the pageant-stands already erected in the meadows. A few days after this émeute a description of it, which is really too good to be lost, appeared in the Corriere della Sera of Milan, "telephoned by our London correspondent." I translate literally from the Italian:—
Recently the students of Oxford were beaten by those of Cambridge in the great annual regatta: the other day they were defeated by the sportive group (il gruppo sportivo) of Merton College; finally, they allowed themselves to be vanquished by the sportive section (la sezione sportiva) of the Society of Christ Church, to whom was adjudged the primacy of the Thames. Yesterday, profoundly moved in their amore proprio, the students of Oxford permitted themselves to proceed to deplorable excesses, even to the point of applying fire to the stands erected on the riverside by the rival Societies. They set fire also to the tent of the Secretariat of Christ Church, feeding the flames with the chairs which they discovered in the vicinity.[[14]]
I believe that our Oxford pageant (in spite of the wet summer) proved financially successful, if not altogether so artistically. A few of the scenes were very pretty, especially the earliest (St. Frideswide), and also the one representing Charles I. and his family at Oxford. And the ecclesiastical and monastic episodes were instructive, if only as showing the incompetence of twentieth-century Anglicanism to reproduce even the externals—much more the spirit—of the Catholicism of old England. Even more deplorable was the "comic" scene (written by the Chichele professor of modern history!) in which the clarum et venerabile nomen of one of Oxford's saintliest sons was dragged in the mud: Roger Racon being depicted as a mountebank cheap-jack, hawking quack medicines from a motor-bicycle![[15]] My brother, who had entertained me at Warwick, came as my guest to witness the Oxford effort; and we had the rather interesting experience of viewing it in the company of Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. They were both pleased and interested; but it was impossible to deny that the poetic glamour of the Warwick pageant (largely due to the romantic beauty of its setting) was almost wholly wanting at Oxford.
Of the other pageants which were sprouting up all over the country during this summer (unhappily one of the wettest on record), I attended only one—that held at Bury St. Edmunds, which attracted me as being mainly concerned with Benedictines. The setting was almost as fine as at Warwick—verdant lawns, big trees and the majestic ruins of our famous abbey all "in the picture"; and the "monks," mostly represented by blameless curates, were at least presentable, not unkempt ragamuffins as at Oxford.[[16]] The appearance of "Abbot Sampson" (played, I was told, by a local archdeacon) was grotesque enough: he wore throughout a purple chasuble over a black cassock, with a white mitre, and strode about brandishing a great wooden crosier! but he spoke his lines very well. Everything, however, was spoilt by the pitiless rain, which fell unceasingly. A clever black-haired lady who played Boadicea (I believe the wife of an Ipswich dentist) had to abandon her chariot and horses and appear on foot, splashing through several inches of mud; and some of the "early British" matrons and maidens sported umbrellas and mackintoshes! I had to leave half-way through the performance, chilled to the bone, and firmly convinced that open-air drama in England was a snare and a delusion.
Mark Twain, whom I have mentioned above, was one of the miscellaneous celebrities, including Prince Arthur of Connaught and "General" Booth, whom our Chancellor nominated for honorary degrees at his first Encænia. I met Mrs. Whitelaw Reid (the American Ambassadress) at dinner at Magdalen on Commemoration evening, and lunched with her a few days later at Dorchester House. One of the attachés was told off to show me the famous "old Masters," about which I found he knew a good deal less than I did! The same agreeable young American accompanied me a little later to Bradfield, to see the boys play Antigone: a real summer's day, for once, and the performance was admirable, especially that of the title-rôle, the youth who played the part proving himself a genuine tragedian. The comments of a lady just behind us, who was profoundly bored most of the time, were amusingly fatuous.[[17]]
I was in spiritual charge this term of our Catholic undergraduates (fifty or so), their chaplain having gone off on an invalid's holiday, and left his flock in my care. I was delighted to have the company every week-end of Robert Hugh Benson, who was giving the Sunday conferences in our chapel. "Far from being the snake-like gloomy type of priest so common in fiction," a weekly paper said of him about this time, "Father Benson is a thorough man of the world, liberal, amiable, and vivacious." He was, of course, all this and a great deal more; and I greatly appreciated the opportunity which these summer weeks afforded me of becoming really intimate with him. It was the beginning of a genuine friendship, which was only interrupted (not, please God, broken) by his premature and lamented death seven years later.[[18]]
[[1]] "Very satisfactory, I think, from an architectural point of view," said the alderman to his colleague, as they surveyed together the interior of the new town hall; "but I fear the acoustics are not exactly what they ought to be." His companion sniffed several times. "Do you think not?" he said. "I don't notice anything myself!"
[[2]] [Greek: Henôsis tes anglichánês chaì tes Orthodóxou Echchlêsías.]
[[3]] It was at least a convenient method of disposing of the Pope and his claims.