Often on men still in their pupilage the weight of the first
misfortunes falls heavily; the first touch of Dame Fortune's whip is
the most poignant. We cannot recover the first summer term; but it
has passed into ourselves and our memories, into which Oxford, with
her beauty and her romance, must also quickly pass. He is not to be
envied who has known and does not love her. Where her children have
quarrelled with her the fault is theirs, not hers. They have chosen
the accidental evils to brood on, in place of acquiescing in her
grace and charm. These are crowded and hustled out of modern life;
the fever and the noise of our struggles fill all the land, leaving
still, at the Universities, peace, beauty, and leisure.
If any word in these papers has been unkindly said, it has only been
spoken, I hope, of the busybodies who would make Oxford cease to be
herself; who would rob her of her loveliness and her repose.
Footnotes:
{1} Poems by Ernest Myers. London, 1877.
{2} A very pleasing account of the scenery near Oxford appeared in
the Cornhill for September 1879.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Oxford[City/Univ], by Andrew Lang
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