show the manageress his skill as a "mixologist." From under his deft hand, and by dint of his nimble shaking and pouring and mixing, came those thirst-quenching decoctions so dear to the palate of the true-born American "fellow." "What," asked asked the Senator from New York with the launch Unexpected party, "with their revelry by night and shove and push and splash by day, is there on earth to compare with Columbia's children, so quick to do, so ready to pay, so electric in wit and spirit, so certain to die of a hurried life and wrecked nerves? But the phlegm and torpor of the Englishman have their uses, after all. They spread him out over eighty years, in a dull light and lazy intelligence perhaps, but they pickle him, nevertheless, to a ripe old age. The superficial brilliance and fervour of the American burn him out at fifty and penalise him with indigestion and an extravagant family which end him smartly at the age of sixty. It is a matter of opinion who has the best of this earthly tenancy. "The American justifies his characteristics of fresh enthusiasm, strenuous movement, by pointing to the achievement of his rugged power in the night of a hundred years years through which his Saxon brother has slept. What can you, even in the zenith of European egoism, gainsay of a nation which has the capacity to comprehend and value the beauty of age and historic form and splendour on one hand, and on the other to yoke the marts of the world to its overladen van? Some older nations pretend not to see the indomitable pace of this Western giant, and pass the whisper round to trip him up. But palsied arms and doddering legs have not the power to do it." The Senator was nearly out of breath; but he recovered himself, and continued: "The spirit which takes American youth to the most sacred shrines of distant nations, to their heritage and historic symbols, to all that is allied with a people's greatness, to the classic treasures of all ages and climes, also leads him on in his stern endeavour to comprehend and occupy, with a freer civilisation, the material possibilities of the world!" "Bang!" said Russell in approval. "But his pace is terrific and the foundation of his powers often hollow. Speed has not built deeply, and American purposes may not endure any better than the gallop ing American will endure unless he nurses his fibre with more deliberation and pays a lesser social tax upon his nervous system. Though he is the most adaptable traveller in the world, we often blush for some of him, oftener still for all of her, and sometimes slink away. Yet what would English inns and European hotels and pensions do without the grossly gaping purse of the fellow from across the sea?" Some one muttered that the Senator knew his book. The coffee room contained others besides the Senator's launch party, Russell, and myself, among them a barrister and his friend, an architect. The barrister, having listened intently to the foregoing rhapsody, engaged the Senator in friendly discourse upon the difference in the dominant traits of the English and the Americans. As this discussion was punctuated with pipes and ale an unwholesome indulgence following the libations prepared by Russell -- the evening wore on convivially and with sententious arguments pro and con. The barrister and architect intended cruising down the Thames in a rowing skiff rigged with a light cat-sail. The former was a tall, strongly built man, swarthy of face and with a head heavy with the "black-lettered lore" of the bar. His companion and junior was a lithe young fellow of about thirty, blueeyed and fair-haired. Both were English gentlemen, and of the stuff one is glad to know long beyond a vagrant cruise such as ours. CHAPTER V THE HISTORY OF OXFORD Oxford Castle The University Its Tradition and Legends Saxons and Danes - The Legend of St. Frideswyde The Norman Period Robert D'Oyly – The First Schools The Monastic Friars Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus · - Old Oxford Walls - The "Annual Reparation View" The Student's Kennel -The Oxford Influence Sir Thomas Bodley Archbishop Laud - The Colleges: their foundationThe Martyrs: Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley. History of Pericles was gaudily informed in the history of Oxford. He recited it, however, always with a keen regard for what he assumed to be the appreciative capacity of his temporary employers. Some heard him repeat merely bare facts, others inspired him to garnish his narrative with an extravagantly florid imagery that would have made the fame of many a dreary literary hack. Sometimes, but more especially immediately following our "special recognition," Pericles would recite poems whose authors had found the divine afflatus within the walls of Oxford. |