ther my taste is entirely trustworthy, but I confess
that I find the Italianate and classical buildings of Oxford finer than
the Gothic buildings. The Gothic buildings are quainter, perhaps, more
picturesque, but there is an air of solemn pomp and sober dignity about
the classical buildings that harmonises better with the sense of wealth
and grave security that is so characteristic of the place. The Gothic
buildings seem a survival, and have thus a more romantic interest, a
more poetical kind of association. But the classical porticos and
facades seem to possess a nobler dignity, and to provide a more
appropriate setting for modern Oxford; because the spirit of Oxford is
more the spirit of the Renaissance than the spirit of the Schoolmen;
and personally I prefer that ecclesiasticism should be more of a
flavour than a temper; I mean that though I rejoice to think that sober
ecclesiastical influences contribute a serious grace to the life of
Oxford, yet I am glad to feel that the spirit of the place is liberal
rather than ecclesiastical. Such traces as one sees in the chapels of
the Oxford Movement, in the shape of paltry stained glass, starved
reredoses, modern Gothic woodwork, would be purely deplorable from the
artistic point of view, if they did not possess a historical interest.
They speak of interrupted development, an attempt to put back the
shadow on the dial, to return to a narrower and more rigid tone, to put
old wine into new bottles, which betrays a want of confidence in the
expansive power of God. I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such
attempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought. I want to see
religion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and
tradition. And thus I love to see worship enshrined in noble classical
buildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the
intellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into
the more timid and secluded ecclesiastical life, making it fuller,
larger, more free, more deliberate.

But even apart from the buildings, which are after all but the body of
the place, the soul of Oxford, its inner spirit, is what lends it its
satisfying charm. On the one hand, it gives the sense of the dignity
of the intellect; one reflects that here can be lived lives of stately
simplicity, of high enthusiasm, apart from personal wealth, and yet
surrounded by enough of seemly dignity to give life the charm of grave
order an