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290
Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
159
He
may
study
them,
be
amused
or
touched
by
them.
But
they
cannot
fire
him.
Oxford
is
too
damp
for
that.
The
“movements”
made
there
have
been
no
more
than
protests
against
the
mobility
of
others.
They
have
been
without
the
dynamic
quality
implied
in
their
name.
They
have
been
no
more
than
the
sighs
of
men
gazing
at
what
other
men
had
left
behind
them;
faint,
impossible
appeals
to
the
god
of
retrogression,
uttered
for
their
own
sake
and
ritual,
rather
than
with
any
intent
that
they
should
be
heard.
Oxford,
that
lotus-land,
saps
the
will-power,
the
power
of
action.
But,
in
doing
so,
it
clarifies
the
mind,
makes
larger
the
vision,
gives,
above
all,
that
playful
and
caressing
suavity
of
manner
which
comes
of
a
conviction
that
nothing
matters,
except
ideas,
and
that
not
even
ideas
are
worth
dying
for,
inasmuch
as
the
ghosts
of
them
slain
seem
worthy
of
yet
more
piously
elaborate
homage
than
can
be
given
to
them
in
their
heyday.
If
the
Colleges
could
be
transferred
to
the
dry
and
bracing
top
of
some
hill,
doubtless
they
would
be
more
evidently
useful
to
the
nation.
But
let
us
be
glad
there
is
no
engineer
or
enchanter
to
compass
that
task.
Egomet,
I
would
liefer
have
the
rest
of
England
subside
into
the
sea
than
have
Oxford
set
on
a
salubrious
level.
For
there
is
nothing
in
England
to
be
matched
with
what
lurks
in
the
vapours
of
these
meadows,
and
in
the
shadows
of
these
spires--that
mysterious,
inenubilable
spirit,
spirit
of
Oxford.
Oxford!
The
very
sight
of
the
word
printed,
or
sound
of
it
spoken,
is
fraught
for
me
with
most
actual
magic.
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