after a fashion of the force
that kept the Royal Standard flying against the Parliament. But they had
not inherited the spirit of mediaeval Oxford. They were too
self-conscious, too congregational. As individuals, perhaps they were in
tone with Oxford, but, eating bacon and eggs and talking about bishops,
they belonged evidently to Keble, and Michael could not help feeling
that Keble like Mansfield and Ruskin Hall was in Oxford, but not in the
least of Oxford. The spirit of mediaeval Oxford was more typically
preserved in the ordinary life of the ordinary graduate; and yet it was
a mistake to think of the spirit of Oxford at any date. That spirit was
dateless and indefinable, and each new manifestation which Michael was
inclined to seize upon, even a manifestation so satisfying as Venner's,
became with the very moment that he was aware of it as impossible to
determine as a dream which leaves nothing behind but the almost violent
knowledge that it was and exasperatingly still is.

The revived interest lasted a very short time in its communal aspect,
and Michael retreated into his mediaeval history, still solicitous of
Catholicism in so far as to support the papacy against the Empire in the
balance of his judgment, but no longer mingling with the Anglican
adherents of the theory, nor even indeed committing himself openly to
Christianity as a general creed. Indeed, his whole attitude to religion
was the result of a reactionary bias rather than of any impulse toward
constructive progression. He would have liked to urge himself forward
confidently to proclaim his belief in Christianity, but he could acquire
nothing more positive than a gentle skepticism of the value of every
other form of thought, a gentleness that only became scornfully
intolerant when provoked by ignorance or pretentious statement.

Meanwhile, The Oxford Looking-Glass, though inclining officially to
neither political party, was reflecting a widespread interest in social
reform. Michael woke up to this phenomenon as he read through the sixth
number on a withering March day toward the end of term. Knowing Maurice
to be a chameleon who unconsciously acquired the hue of his
surroundings, Michael was sure that The Oxford Looking-Glass by this
earnest tone indicated the probable tendency of undergraduate energy in
the hear future. Yet himself, as he surveyed his acquaintances, could
not perceive in their attitude any hint of change. In St. Mary's the
debating