The Casual Ward: Academic and Other Oddments

Nearly all the flights in this book have been first taken in the Cornhill Magazine, the Oxford Magazine, or the Saturday Review. They are reproduced by the kind permission of the Editors of these periodicals. I am allowed also to reprint a set of verses published by Messrs. Constable & Co.

A. D. G.

November, 1912

M. T. CICERONIS DE LEGE BODLEIANA ORATIO

[Literally Translated by a Balliol First-Class Man]

[On a Proposal to place Bicycles within the precincts of the Bodleian Library]

I. Not concerning a thing of no moment, O Conscript Fathers, you are now called upon to decide: whether to one man by the counsel and advice of Curators it is to be permitted that he should take away from you the power of placing in the Proscholium the instruments of celerity, the assistances of (your) feet, the machines appointed by a certain natural providence for the performance of your duties: whether, in which place our ancestors sold pigs with the greatest consent and indeed applause of the Roman people, from that (place) bicycles are to be ejected by one guardian of books. O singular impudence of the man! For be unwilling, Conscript Fathers, be unwilling to believe that in this pretence of consulting for (the interests of) a public building something more is not also being aimed at and sought to be obtained: in such a way (lit. so) he attacks bicycles that in reality he endeavours to oppress the liberty of each one of you: that by this example and as it were by the thin end of a certain wedge he may lay the foundation of a royal power over all these things, which I (as) consul preserved. Concerning which matter I could say much, if time allowed me: now behold and examine the miserable condition of those whom a man devoid of constancy and gravity overturns from (their) fortunes.

II. What! shall the Masters of Arts, what! shall the Doctors, what! shall the Proctors themselves (than which kind of men nothing can exist more holy, nothing more upright, nothing more auspiciously established) be compelled to come on foot that they may consult those most sacred volumes in which the Roman people have wished that all learning should be included? The Hypobibliothecarii, what men! what citizens! will, I believe, walk, especially considering that it is to be contended by them against the lengthiness of a journey: and then, if, as (usually) happens, some sudden tempest should arise, they must suffer (their) bicycles lacking shelter to be most miserably corrupted by rain. It has been handed down to memory, Conscript Fathers, that Caius Duilius was permitted by the republic, which he had saved by (his) incredible fortitude, to be borne by an elephant whenever he had been invited to a dinner. Therefore, did he use a most luxurious quadruped that he might by so much the more quickly arrive at a banquet: shall we, who desire to hasten not for the sake of lust and the belly, but for the sake of this learning and books, be forbidden to employ bicycles? I pray and entreat you, Conscript Fathers, do not allow this disgrace to be branded upon the heart itself and entrails of the commonwealth.

III. But for(sooth) the College of All Souls (which I name; for the sake of honour) is near, in which machines may be sheltered. O thing before unheard (of)! From which place even undergraduates have been excluded by a certain divine will: into that shall bicycles be thrown? O times, O manners! It is not fitting, Conscript Fathers, that the studies of most learned men, Fellows, should be interrupted in this way. Moreover, they also have a library, that to them also it may be possible to say that wheels should be kept afar off: they have keys, bolts, bars, a gate, a porter: they will exclude, reject, expectorate them. Which act I blame in such a way that I confess and acknowledge that it will be done with the greatest legality.

IV. If the Founder of the Library, if Sir Thomas Bodley himself, I say, should stand forth from the Elysian fields, it is not necessary that I should remind you with what ancient severity he would inveigh against this new power, against the Bibliothecarius, nay rather, against the Curators themselves: for you can calculate (it) in (your) minds. He would say to them, “Did I give you authority over books, that you should use it against bicycles? did I place you in an upper part of a most convenient building, that you should also rule the lower? did I endow you with huge wealth and an enormousness of stipend, that you should therefore the more exercise a kingly dominion over the common utility, and the necks, heads, lives, fortunes of the poorer citizens?” To which interrogation and most stern reproach I do not think they, although they are of a remarkable audacity, could answer anything: for neither is there (anything) that can be replied.

V. Although I wish to say more things, I am deterred by the will of the editor of that most known Magazine (than which paper I do not think that anything is more conjoined with the safety of the republic): nor am I not also prevented by tears and weeping itself. Conscript Fathers, if there is anything in you of constancy, if of gravity, if of fortitude, if of humanity (which that there is I most certainly know), fortify this common citadel of the good: open the Pig Market, closed by the intolerable influence of bad men: be unwilling, be unwilling that the seat of the Muses, the School of Divinity, the most delightful meeting-places of Boards of Faculties, should be stained by royal power and polluted by cruelty. Which that it will certainly happen if you do not prevent it by your votes, I most confidently predict and vaticinate.

THE EIGHTS IN FICTION

I. Old Style

“There’s nothing that emphasizes the amari aliquid of life like one’s tobacconist,” mused Fane Trevyllyan as he flung a box of eighteenpenny Emeticos into the fire and lit a Latakia cigarette.

It was a lovely August morning in the Eights of 18-; and the stroke of the Charsley Hall boat reclined wearily in his luxuriously furnished apartments within that venerable College and watched the midday sun gilding the pinnacles of the Martyr’s Memorial. It had been a fast and furious night, and Trevyllyan had lost more I.O.U.s than even he cared to remember: and now he was very weary of it all. Had it not been for one thing, he would have thrown it all up – sent dons, deans, duns, and dice to the devil, and gone down by the afternoon train: as it was, there was nothing for it but to recline on his tiger-skins and smoke countless cigars. He never would train.

“Going to row to-day, Fane?” It was little Bagley Wood, the cox. Trevyllyan sanctioned his presence as if he had been a cat or a lapdog: to all others he was stern and unapproachable – a true representative of his Order.

“Don’t know, caro mio,” was the reply. “It’s such a bore, you know: and then I half think I promised to take La Montmorenci of the Frivolity up the Cherwell to Trumpington in the University Barge.”

“What! when the Lady Gwendolen de St. Emilion has come down on purpose to see us catch Christ Church! why, sapristi, where can your eyes be?” The stroke hissed something between his clenched teeth, and Bagley Wood found himself flying through an unopened window.

“Cherchez la femme! it’s always the way with the Trevyllyans,” muttered the lad, as he picked himself up from the grass plot in the quadrangle and strolled off to quiet his nerves with a glass of aguardiente at the Mitre.

* * * * *

An August moon shone brightly on the last night of the great aquatic contest: the starter had fired his pistol, and all the boats but one were off.

“Hadn’t you better think about starting, Trevyllyan?” asked the coach of the Charsley Hall Eight, a trifle pale and anxious. “See, they are all under way. Glanville Ferrers, the Christ Church stroke, swears you shan’t bump him as you did last week. He must be past the Soapworks by this time.”

“Caramba! then I suppose we ought to get in,” replied the other; and as he spoke he divested himself of the academical garb that scarcely concealed his sky-blue tights, and stood, a model of manly beauty, on the banks of the rushing river. Then, throwing away a half-finished cigar, Trevyllyan strode into the boat. Per Bacco! ’twas a magnificent sight. As the crack Eight of the river sped swiftly after her rival, cheers arose from the bank, and odds on both boats were freely taken and offered by the cognoscenti.

You and I, amigo mio! have seen many a race in our day. We have seen the ’Varsity crews flash neck and neck past Lillie Bridge: we have held our breath while Orme ran a dead heat with Eclipse for the Grand National: we have read how the victor of the pancratium panted to the meta amid the Io Triumphes of Attica’s vine-clad Acropolis. But we did not see the great Christ Church and Charsley’s race – that great contest which is still the talk of many a learned lecture-room. They say the pace was tremendous. Four men fainted in the Christ Church boat, and Trevyllyan’s crew repeatedly entreated him to stop. But he held on, inexorable as the Erinnyes.

Fair as Pallas Anadyomene – fair as the Venus whom Milo fashioned pour se désennuyer in his exile at Marseilles – the Lady Gwendolen de St. Emilion sat throned on the University Barge, and watched the heroes as their bare arms flashed in the moonlight. And now they were through the Gut, and the nose of the Charsley’s boat pressed hard on its rival: yet Fane Trevyllyan did not make his final effort. Would he spare Glanville Ferrers? Quien sabe? They had been friends – once. But the die was cast. As the boats sped past her the Lady Gwendolen stooped from her pride of place and threw a rose – just one – into the painted poop of the Christ Church wherry. That was all: but it was enough. Trevyllyan saw the action where he sat: one final, magnificent, unswerving stroke – those who saw it thought it would never end! – and with a muttered “Habet!” he sent the brazen beak of his Eight crashing in among the shattered oars of his helpless competitor.

Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.

II. New or Kodak Style
(From the French)

 
If they are frivolous, these Universities!
At present great sensation in Oxford: this town, so gloomy, so sad ordinarily, is to-day en fête.
Is it that one elects a new Vice-Chancellor?
No.
It is the contest aquatic of the Colleges which goes to take place.
One discusses in the salons the most chic how many kilogrammes they weigh, these heroes of the oar.
Everywhere Professors in straw hats and Heads of Colleges en matelot.
What a spectacle!
…
On the barges..
Grouped on these venerable hulks, crowds of ladies excite our admiration by their beauty and our respect by their intelligence.
Whence do they come, these damsels, so young, so charming?
It is that they have arrived from the metropolis at the request of their brothers, their cousins – what do I know of it? perhaps their prétendants– of whom they wish to enhance with their applause the athletic triumph.
…
After all, they are adorable, these English misses!
…
On the bank..
One hears the portentous echo of the Five-Minutes-Gun.
Moment tremendous!
They have started: one sees already the strokesman of the first-boat.
One would say a whole University that runs on the towing-path, and that utters loud cries.
Here and there coachmen are seen carrying pistols and pronouncing terrible execrations.
Why these pistols?.
A little brutal, these English: but of a force, a virility!
…
I myself who speak to you am infected by this enthusiasm.
I run: I utter cries: I raffole of the leading-boat: I shout En avant!  Vive la Madeleine!  Vive le Cercle Nautique!  Hourra!.
But one does not do these things at forty years.
I am out of breath, what?  I wish to stop.
Arrest yourselves, my friends too impetuous!
I appeal to you in the name of France, who respects you: do not annihilate me, do not pulverize me…
Vain appeal!  One would say the car of Juggernaut.
I am knocked down: I am criblé with kicks: I am massacred.
…
Ah!.
 

THUCYDIDES ON THE INFLUENZA

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the epidemic among the Oxonians, how they had the epidemic, having begun to write as soon as it broke out on No. 2 Staircase, and considering it to be the most noticeable of all that had appeared previously. (For the place was not liable to diseases at other times, but especially free from them, except that which affected the teeth: on account of which they used to go up to the metropolis, in word to consult the Delphic oracle but in deed to go to Olympia, so that not a few were banished from the city both for other reasons and not least this.) As to the causes of it, then, let any one speak who is aware of them: but I will show what things happened on account of it, having both myself put on an æger and seen others similarly afflicted, so that I can describe it with equal certainty more than the narrative of another not having done so, but relying on the incredibility of historians more than the sureness of experience.

For in the first beginning of the sickness men remembered what Homer says about the lower and higher animals in the Trojan business —

First did he assail the mules and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote, seeing that now too not less but equally as much first, the College Tutors were attacked, and next the scouts, and last of all the men themselves. But most of all the scouts were affected, and this caused the greatest calamity: so that a man must often wish that his scout might recover, wishing indeed contrary to nature, but being persuaded by the greatness of the surrounding misfortune, lest he should suffer even worse things at the hands of a scout’s boy, or considering it terrible if he shall lose even the daily enjoyment of his breakfast not being brought to him. And all laws concerning meals were brought into a state of confusion, so that many anticipated taking the commons of another. And they welcomed the hospitality of those outside the walls, regarding their hunger in the present as much more important than another man’s inability to pay his debts in the future.

But when the men themselves began to suffer, then indeed the disease was the commencement of lawlessness to a greater extent for the city. For cuttings of chapels and avoidings of lectures, which are an agony for the present more than a possession for ever, and in short all such things as the indulgence of was formerly more disguised, these a man easily dared to do, it being uncertain on the one hand whether his tutor has the influenza, and on the other if he himself might not put on an æger before being hauled he should pay the penalty. And though some, indeed, did things exactly contrary to this, and being before unaccustomed now went in the morning with a run to chapel in order that fewer being present the paradoxicalness of their appearance when compared with the multitude of those who were absent might gain them a prestige of virtue not real but simulated – yet with most there was now neither fear of the Dean by land nor by sea of their coaches: disobeying whom they ate and drank all kinds of things contrary to law, no one being willing to exert himself for that which seemed to be honourable, and calculating that the present abstention from pastry was not equivalent to the possibility of being bumped in the future about as much and not less than if he had smoked three pipes and a cheroot. And not only was injustice prevalent among those who were as yet in good health, but many of those in the ships, being or seeming to themselves to be sick, had their places taken by others accustomed rather to fight upon the land, whose manly inexperience, though in word more creditable than the cowardice combined with experience of the others, was in reality less powerful than the language which those on the bank thought worthy to use concerning them.

Nevertheless, about this time the Oxonians sent an expedition against Cambridge, having manned a slow train to Bletchley, Nicolaidas being commander second himself; and they advanced as far as Third Trinity, and having ravaged part of the land and set up a trophy, they returned home.

HERODOTUS ON HORSEBACK

At this time the Chancellor being among the Oxonii there was instituted a contest of horses such as this nation is accustomed to celebrate every spring. And this contest is of such a kind, not being well arranged according at least to my opinion: – Having dug trenches and built other ramparts parallel indeed to each other but transversely to the running of the horses themselves, they do not any longer stand round them invoking the gods as those do who play golf, but on the contrary, when they have placed men upon horses they cause them to cross these by leaping under the lash, as far as the goal: and whoever anticipates the others arriving at the goal, sitting at least on the same horse on which sitting he set out, and not it running, having left him behind, nor he himself on foot, he is considered to have conquered. The reason why I said that this contest is not well arranged, is of the following kind: because it being possible to contend in a level place without danger or difficulty, the Oxonii nevertheless themselves make obstacles so as to prevent the horses from (not) arriving at the end of the course, neither being compelled nor there being any necessity (οὐδεμίης ἀναγκαίης ἐούσης). Then, however, they did these things, and also, as they are accustomed to do on such occasions, they sent messengers to inquire of other prophets and also of the Delphic oracle who should be the conqueror. The Pythian priestess, being mindful how she had formerly made a good shot in respect of the Median business, replied in the hexameter rhythm that the issues of victory lay around a wooden wall. Now having this as a proof I will neither refuse to believe in oracles myself nor allow others to disbelieve them. For when the race had begun and the horses had been sent away by the sound of a trumpet, other men were taking part in the contest, and also Pheron the son of Trapezites a Corinthian: this is not the Pheron who, his father having founded a city, was himself expelled from it by the few, who were called Hetairi, because he had allied himself with the democracy forsooth (δηθεν). And there are other things written about this Pheron in the history composed by Proctor, who was tyrant of Oxonia second himself for one year, and in fact caused Pheron to fall out by reason of sedition. What I have said just now is a digression and refers to other matters, and I will now come back to my former story. So then the men, having in the first part of the contest done things worthy of themselves, and having for the most part, although not all, yet the majority, avoided the (not) falling into ditches and the like incurably at least, came presently to the wooden fence, which I conjecture to be the wall meant by the Delphic oracle. It being then necessary either remaining on the hither side to be driven away from all hope of the prize or leaping to run risks concerning their lives, and the rest having leapt in such a way that they crossed the fence sitting rather upon the ground than upon their horses, and some neither with them nor upon them, as the Lacedæmonians say about their shields: this Pheron, of whom I have before made mention, showed himself to be prudent in other things and also in this. He, having a horse much the most active of all the rest, was not left behind by it, but sat there holding on firmly until he had arrived at the farther side; and from thence, the race being easy for him, he came to the goal very much the first, having anticipated. In this way he obtained the prize. I have learnt the names of all the other competitors: but I do not think it proper to relate them, not now at least.

When the spectators had seen these things (and there was also a contest for the natives of the country, in which not a few were roughly handled) they returned in chariots to the city, driving not straight like the Greeks, but obliquely, as is customary. This story some relate, relating things credible to me at least; there being two Oxonii in one chariot, and no one else, one of them entreated the other after they had gone some way without misfortune that he also might be allowed to hold the reins of the horses: to whom the other replied “But – for do you not already hold them?” These men then having left such a memorial of themselves did nevertheless arrive safely at the city.