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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
158
Clearly
it
was
vain
to
seek
distraction
in
my
old
College.
I
floated
out
into
the
untenanted
meadows.
Over
them
was
the
usual
coverlet
of
white
vapour,
trailed
from
the
Isis
right
up
to
Merton
Wall.
The
scent
of
these
meadows’
moisture
is
the
scent
of
Oxford.
Even
in
hottest
noon,
one
feels
that
the
sun
has
not
dried
THEM.
Always
there
is
moisture
drifting
across
them,
drifting
into
the
Colleges.
It,
one
suspects,
must
have
had
much
to
do
with
the
evocation
of
what
is
called
the
Oxford
spirit--that
gentlest
spirit,
so
lingering
and
searching,
so
dear
to
them
who
as
youths
were
brought
into
ken
of
it,
so
exasperating
to
them
who
were
not.
Yes,
certainly,
it
is
this
mild,
miasmal
air,
not
less
than
the
grey
beauty
and
gravity
of
the
buildings,
that
has
helped
Oxford
to
produce,
and
foster
eternally,
her
peculiar
race
of
artist-scholars,
scholar-artists.
The
undergraduate,
in
his
brief
periods
of
residence,
is
too
buoyant
to
be
mastered
by
the
spirit
of
the
place.
He
does
but
salute
it,
and
catch
the
manner.
It
is
on
him
who
stays
to
spend
his
maturity
here
that
the
spirit
will
in
its
fulness
gradually
descend.
The
buildings
and
their
traditions
keep
astir
in
his
mind
whatsoever
is
gracious;
the
climate,
enfolding
and
enfeebling
him,
lulling
him,
keeps
him
careless
of
the
sharp,
harsh,
exigent
realities
of
the
outer
world.
Careless?
Not
utterly.
These
realities
may
be
seen
by
him.
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