"And yet steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection,—to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?—nearer perhaps than all the science of Tübingen. Adorable dreamer, whose heart has been so romantic! who hast given thyself so prodigally, given thyself to sides and heroes not mine, only never to the Philistines! home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!... Apparitions of a day, what is our puny warfare against the Philistines, compared with the warfare which this Queen of Romance has been waging against them for centuries, and will wage after we are gone?"
As a man and a companion,[[1]] if you expected nothing but delightful humour, brilliant discourse, and urbane outlook upon everything, few could rival his personal charm; but he would never really join you in a last ditch to defend the right, or actually charge with you against the wrong, although in his poem "The Last Word," while not participating himself in such strenuous doings, he seems to yield a reluctant admiration to him who does so charge, and who leaves his "body by the wall."
Much has happened since Matthew Arnold poured his scorn upon the unregenerate Philistines; but let us remember, Antony, that thousands and thousands of these contemned neglecters of sweetness and light stood unflinchingly and died upon the plains of France that our country and its freedom should survive.
Your loving old
G.P.
See my Memories, pp. 46-52 and 55.