d quiet solemnity. Here are opportunities for peaceful and
congenial work, to the sound of mellodious bells; uninterrupted hours,
as much society of a simple kind as a man can desire, and the whole
with a background of exquisite buildings and rich gardens. And then,
too, there is the tide of youthful life that floods every corner of the
place. It is an endless pleasure to see the troops of slim and alert
young figures, full of enjoyment and life, with all the best gifts of
life, health, work, amusement, society, friendship, lying ready to
their hand. The sense of this beating and thrilling pulse of life
circulating through these sombre and splendid buildings is what gives
the place its inner glow; this life full of hope, of sensation, of
emotion, not yet shadowed or disillusioned or weary, seems to be as the
fire on the altar, throwing up its sharp darting tongues of flame, its
clouds of fragrant smoke, giving warmth and significance and a fiery
heart to a sombre shrine.

And so it is that Oxford is in a sort a magnetic pole for England; a
pole not, perhaps, of intellectual energy, or strenuous liberalism, or
clamorous aims, or political ideas; few, perhaps, of the sturdy forces
that make England potently great, centre there. The greatness of
England is, I suppose, made up by her breezy, loud-voiced sailors, her
lively, plucky soldiers, her ardent, undefeated merchants, her tranquil
administrators; by the stubborn adventurous spirit that makes itself at
home everywhere, and finds it natural to assume responsibilities. But
to Oxford set the currents of what may be called intellectual emotion,
the ideals that may not make for immediate national greatness, but
which, if delicately and faithfully nurtured, hold out at least a hope
of affecting the intellectual and spiritual life of the world. There
is something about Oxford which is not in the least typical of England,
but typical of the larger brotherhood that is independent of
nationalities; that is akin to the spirit which in any land and in
every age has produced imperishable monuments of the ardent human soul.
The tribe of Oxford is the tribe from whose heart sprang the Psalms of
David; Homer and Sophocles, Plato and Virgil, Dante and Goethe are all
of the same divine company. It may be said that John Bull, the sturdy
angel of England, turns his back slightingly upon such influences; that
he regards Oxford as an incidental ornament of his person, like a seal
th