Part 14 (1/2)

Would oft suspend the dashi+ng oar To bid his gentle spirit rest

He would dehtest pretext A water- lily, the diht in the West, the problefisher or a crested wagtail, demanded consultation and a pause in our toil

Occasional rests, he proved, were a wise, nay, necessary precaution with a heavy old tub manned by indifferent oarsmen I, on the other hand, would have violently explored the Thae if I could have done it no other way

We talk of the charm of the open road, but what is it to the charets narrow? There, if anywhere, reigns the Genius of the Unexpected You push your boat round sole of water, s and tall rushes obscuring your course, and then suddenly shoot out into the open, with a view, perhaps, of an old church or s which a boy feelswithround the corner, not to stick a knife into me, but perhaps to crown an with a boatload of undergraduates shooting out of the Thahs made by a canalised brook, into a little lake in front of an exquisite grey Elizabethan house There the heroine and an aged parent or guardian were surprised taking tea upon a bank studded with priuardian consented to have tea out-of-doors in violet- tio the way of those orators who take up the whole of their speeches in explaining that they have not tilories and delights of the Thames

Whether, in point of fact, I was a bad son of Oxford, or she a disdainful, indifferent, or careless h forand love her now, love her for her faults as much as for her virtues, but love her olden streah her stately streets and hallowed gardens, her walks between the waters, and her woodlands The punctual tide of young hearts ebbs and flows as of yore in a thousand college rooms--true cells of happiness It informs and inspires every inch of Oxford It alleries and halls The pictures of the hts of the eternal spirit--look gravely froraphy if it is general and not particular?

I may too often yield, like ue rhetoric, but not here Every loving thought of Oxford has forexa down on me froht call randsires ”my home and feast to share,” I pictureto a lecture in the Hall of University I see above h's?) picture of ”the generous, the ingenuous, the high-souled Williaht of that fascinating and i, and had dreamed like me in that very Hall the dreams of youth

I keep in mind yet another specific example of how I linkedin Christ Church Hall with a friend, that I had the good luck to find myself opposite Lawrence's picture of Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, the young diploreen velvet coat of exquisite tint and texture I daresay if by chance a reader looks up the two pictures he will find that under the spell of memory they have assumed beauties not their own But what does that matter? They were to me, at twenty, an inspiration They are still, at sixty, a dreaht

Yet, intense as wasthe old pleasures, though with a difference, I can honestly say, ”_Non equideis_”--”I do not envy, but am the more amazed” I hope, nay, am sure that ue turned upside down, ”_O fortunate senex; ergo tua rura manebunt_”--”Oh, happy old man; therefore your little fields and little woodlands at Newlands shall still flourish and abound”

As o, I can be supremely happy in my remembrances, and yet even happier at ht to be Hibernian in an Einstein world After all, have I not a right to be? I, who have always been an explorer at heart, areatest exploration of all There are only two or three more bends of the stream, and I shall shoot out into that lake or new reach, whichever it may be I may have a pleasant thrill of dread of what is there, but not of fear The trenificent unknown , not paralysing

Therefore, though I enjoy the past in retrospect, I opento meet me The man who cannot enjoy that which is in front of hied in whilory of what is to co when fathers have night, and may the fountain of perpetual youth always send its best, its clearest, its h, the Broad, and the Corn

But, though my memories of Oxford are so vivid and so happy, they are also, as s human, enwoven with tears It was there that my eldest son died I cannot do more than record the bare fact Yet I cannot write of Oxford as if he had never been The shadow that falls across ainsaid

CHAPTER XIV

PRESS WORK IN LONDON

Before I come to the period when I became, not only Editor, but Proprietor, of _The Spectator_, I ive an account of some of my experiences with other newspapers My first newspaper article appeared in _The Daily News_ It gave an account of the bonfires lighted on the hill-tops round Cortina, in the Tyrol, at which place we spent the summer of 1880, on the birthday of the Austrian Ehted to find myself described as ”a correspondent” of _The Daily News_ I expect I owed the acceptance of an, ”While the Austrian Kaiser is keeping his birthday with the waters of the Ischl in his kitchens, we at Cortina, etc, etc” The paper, however, for which I wrote chiefly during the ti Balliol was _The Saturday Review_ The _Saturday_ in those days was famous for its ”et articles of this kind accepted I also wrote for _The Acade edited by Lord Morley I re with a letter of introduction to him, he asked me whether I had had any for ”middles” for the _Saturday_ His reply was characteristic

”Ah! When I was a youngout his hands to show the unending chain Some of my work also appeared in _The Acadeher side of English literature One article I recall was a review of a reprint of the poe to the delightful art of Mr

Lovat Fraser, coentlemen who so admirably represent Macheath and hisat the article the other day, I was glad to see that I drew attention to Gay's peculiar handling of the couplet and also to his delight in every kind of old song and ballad I quoted in this respect, however, not fro by Silenus in Gay's Eclogues One of these songs I have always longed to hear or to read, owing to the fascination of its title--”The grass nohere Troy town stood”

After I went to _The Spectator_ the newspaper world widened infor the _Saturday_ and the _Pall Mall_ and the _Acadeular post as leader-writer on the staff of the _Standard_ I also wrote a weekly leader for the _Observer_ for the best part of a year Of the _Observer_ I have only one thing to note, and that is a saying of the Editor, Mr Dicey, brother to reat veneration, though ard to him by the fact that he still lives At our first interview Mr Dicey toldfor the _Observer_ Ifor a weekly paper, like the _Spectator_, but for a daily paper which, however, only happened to coht, was a very illu and instructive remark, and it is one which should be observed, in my opinion, by all writers in Sunday papers At present Sunday papers are in danger of becoazines What the world wants, or, at any rate, what a great many people want, is a daily paper to read on Sundays, not a ood But perhaps Mr Dicey and I were old-fashi+oned Anyway, there was a sort of easygoing, old-fashi+oned, early-Victorian air about the _Observer_ Office of those days which was very pleasant nobody appeared to be in a hurry, and one was given almost complete freedom as to the way in which to treat one's subject I was also a contributor to the _Manchester Guardian_ For that distinguished paper I wrote Notes for their London Letter and also a number of short reviews

I should add that from that time till I became Editor and Proprietor of the _Spectator_ I wrote a weekly article for _The Econohted, for the Editor, Mr Johnstone, was not only a great editor, but a very satisfactory one from the contributor's point of view He told you exactly what he wanted written about, and then left you to your own devices As it happened, I generally was in entire agreement with his policy, but if I had not been, it would not have mattered, because he made it so very clear to one, as an editor should, that one was expressing not one's own views, but the views of the _Econo, they certainly deserved full consideration Therefore, full exposition could never be regarded as taking the wrong side

Though _The Econoly Unionist than I was, I cannot recall any occasion on which my leaders were altered by the Editor I can only recall, indeed, one comment made by Mr Johnstone in the course of soreatly interested and areat a journalist and so sound a politician, was not a man who had paid any attention to literature Possibly, indeed, he did not consider that it deserved it When, however, the coehot, for many years Editor of _The Economist_, were published, Mr Johnstone asked hted

How could a young man in the 'nineties, full of interest in the Constitution, in Economics, and in _belles-lettres_, have felt otherwise than enthusiastic about Bagehot?

It was, therefore, with no sehot in his own paper I was always an i with literary problems, and still more of that perfection of style for which, by the way, he never received full credit I sought to say so which would ard to his place in literature on this special point

Accordingly, in praising his style, I said that it orthy to be compared with that of Stevenson, who at the tireatest master of words Mr Johnstone, with, as I fully adised toaltered the article He had, he explained, left out the passage about Stevenson But gerated, but because he thought, and thought also that Mr Bagehot's faht think, that one was not properly appreciative of Bagehot's work if one compared it to that of Stevenson! I have always been a lover of the irony of accident in every forly poignant I had thought, as I wrote, that people ood deal too far in ehot, but lo and behold! my purple patch was ”turned down,” not because of this but because it was held to be too laudatory of Stevenson, and not laudatory enough of ehot's style was ini now, and with a better perspective, I should have said not less but a good deal lish Constitution” are in their way perfect, and, what isto any previous humorist They stand somewhere between the heartiness of Sydney Smith and the dainty fastidiousness of Matthew Arnold, and yet imitate neither They have a quality, indeed, which is entirely their own and is entirely delightful One of the things which is so char cocksure What could be e which points out that Southey, ”who lived almost entirely with domestic women, actually died in the belief that he was a poet”? The pathos of the situation, and the Olympian stroke delivered in such a word as ”domestic” cannot but fill any artisan of words with admiration The essay, ”Shakespeare and the Plain Man,” is full of such delights

If I aet that I aehot, I shall not yield to the criticism There is method in my madness No, I am prepared to contend, and to contend with my last drop of ink, that I am justified in what I have done If this book is worth anything, it is the history of a ely through his skill in the art of presentation Therefore it cannot be out of place to say so unduly discursive I have not really said as ht to have said on the subject