the University who predicted an astonishing future for him, and indeed
all possibilities seemed within his reach. "His verses were listened
to," said _The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates' Journal_, "with
rapt attention." It was just the sort of thing, half poetry, half
rhythmic rhetoric, which was sure to reach the hearts and minds of
youth. His voice, too, was of beautiful tenor quality, and exquisitely
used. When he sat down people crowded to praise him and even men of
great distinction in life flattered him with extravagant compliments.
Strange to say he used always to declare that his appearance about the
same time as Prince Rupert, at a fancy dress ball, given by Mrs.
George Morrell, at Headington Hill Hall, afforded him a far more
gratifying proof of the exceptional position he had won.

"Everyone came round me, Frank, and made me talk. I hardly danced at
all. I went as Prince Rupert, and I talked as he charged but with more
success, for I turned all my foes into friends. I had the divinest
evening; Oxford meant so much to me....

"I wish I could tell you all Oxford did for me.

"I was the happiest man in the world when I entered Magdalen for the
first time. Oxford--the mere word to me is full of an inexpressible,
an incommunicable charm. Oxford--the home of lost causes and
impossible ideals; Matthew Arnold's Oxford--with its dreaming spires
and grey colleges, set in velvet lawns and hidden away among the
trees, and about it the beautiful fields, all starred with cowslips
and fritillaries where the quiet river winds its way to London and the
sea.... The change, Frank, to me was astounding; Trinity was as
barbarian as school, with coarseness superadded. If it had not been
for two or three people, I should have been worse off at Trinity than
at Portora; but Oxford--Oxford was paradise to me. My very soul seemed
to expand within me to peace and joy. Oxford--the enchanted valley,
holding in its flowerlet cup all the idealism of the middle ages.[3]
Oxford is the capital of romance, Frank; in its own way as memorable
as Athens, and to me it was even more entrancing. In Oxford, as in
Athens, the realities of sordid life were kept at a distance. No one
seemed to know anything about money or care anything for it.
Everywhere the aristocratic feeling; one must have money, but must not
bother about it. And all the appurtenances of life were perfect: the
food, the wine, the cigarettes; the common needs of life became