Masques & Phases Part 2

On referring to 'Euterpe,' the second book of the Histories of Herodotus, Professor Lachsyrma selected the second method of embalming as less troublesome and more expeditious. The whole matter lasted little longer than the seventy prescribed days. At the end of which time he was able, in accordance with his original intention, to deposit in a handsome gla.s.s case at the British Museum the Mummy of Heliodorus, a Greek settler in Egypt who held some official appointment at the Court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It is described in the catalogue as one of the best examples of its kind in Europe. Indeed, it is probably unique.

Professor Lachsyrma often pauses before the case when visiting our gaunt House of Art. Even the policeman on duty has noticed this peculiarity, and smiles respectfully. The Professor has ceased to ridicule Egyptology; and his confidence in the resources and sufficiency of antiquity, so rudely shaken for one long evening, is completely re-established.

_To_ S. S. SPRIGGE, ESQ., M.D.

THE BRAND OF ISIS.

'Videant irreligiosi videant et errorem suum recognoscant. En ecce pristinis aerumnis absolutus, Isidis magnae providentia gaudens Lucius de sua fortuna triumphat.' APULEIUS.

'Her image comes into the gloom With her pale features moulded fair, Her breathing beauty, morning bloom, My heart's delight, my tongue's despair.' BINYON.

'An Oxford scholar of family and fortune; but quaint and opinionated, despising every one who has not had the benefit of an University education.' RICHARDSON.

[Greek text]. HERODOTUS.

I once had the good fortune to take down to dinner a young American lady of some personal attractions. Her vivacity and shrewdness were racial; her charm peculiar to herself. Her conversation consisted in a rather fierce denunciation of Englishmen, young Oxford Englishmen in particular.

Their thoughts, their dress, their speech, their airs of superiority offended one brought up with that Batavian type of humanity, the American youth, to whom we have nothing exactly corresponding in this country except among drawing-room conjurors. But I was startled at her keen observation when I inquired with a smile how she knew I was not an Oxford man myself.

'Had you been one, you would never have listened to what I have been saying,' she retorted. Rather nettled, I challenged her to pick out from the other guests those on whom she detected the brand of Isis. A pair of gloves was the prize for each successful guess. She won seven; in fact all the stakes during the course of the evening. Over one only she hesitated, and when he mentioned that he had neither the curiosity nor the energy to cross the Atlantic, she knew he came from Oxford.

Yes, there is something in that manner after all. It irritates others besides Americans. Novelists try to describe it. We all know the hero who talks English with a Balliol accent--that great creature who is sometimes bow and sometimes c.o.x of his boat on alternate evenings; who puts the weight at the University Sports and conducts the lady home from a College wine without a stain on her character; is rusticated for a year or so; returns to win the Newdigate and leaves without taking a degree.

Or that other delightful abstraction--he has a Balliol accent too--with literary tastes and artistic rooms, where gambling takes place. He is invariably a coward, but dreadfully fascinating all the same; though he scorns women he has an hypnotic influence over them; something in his polished Oxford manner is irresistible. Throughout a career of crime his wonderful execution on the piano, his knowledge of Italian painting, and his Oxford manner never seem to desert him. We feel, not for the first time, how dangerous it must be to allow our simple perky unspoiled Colonials to a.s.sociate with such deleterious exotic beings, who, though in fiction horsewhipped or (if heroes) shot in the last chapter, in real life are so apt to become prosperous city men or respected college officials.

The Oxford manner is, alas, indefinable; I was going to say indefensible.

Perhaps it is an att.i.tude--a mental att.i.tude that finds physical expression in the voice, the gesture, the behaviour. Oxford, not conduct, is three-fourths of life to those who acquire the distemper.

Without becoming personal it is not easy to discuss purely social aspects, and we must seek chiefly in literature for manifestations of the phenomenon: in the prose of Matthew Arnold for instance--in the poems of Mr. Laurence Binyon, typical examples where every thought seems a mental reservation. Enemies rail at the voice, and the voice counts for something. Any one having the privilege of hearing Mr. Andrew Lang speak in public will know at once what I mean--a pleasure, let me hasten to say, only equalled by the enjoyment of his inimitable writing, so pre- eminently Oxonian when the subject is not St. Andrews, Folk Lore, or cricket. Though Oxford men have their Cambridge moments, and beneath their haughty exterior there sometimes beats a Cambridge heart. Behind such reserve you would never suspect any pa.s.sions at all save one of pride. Even frankly irreligious Oxford men acquire an ecclesiastical pre- Reformation aloofness which must have piqued Thackeray quite as much as the refusal of the city to send him to Westminster. He complains somewhere that the undergraduates wear kid gloves and drink less wine than their jolly brethren of the Cam. He was thoroughly Cambridge in his att.i.tude towards life, as you may see when he writes of his favourite eighteenth century in his own fascinating style. How angry he becomes with the vices and corruption of a dead past! Now no Oxford essayist would dream of being angry with the past. How annoyed the sentimental author of _The Four Georges_ would be with Mr. Street's genial treatment of the same epoch! It would, however, be the annoyance of a father for his eldest son, whom he sent to Oxford perhaps to show that an old slight was forgiven and forgotten.

There have been, of course, plenty of men unravaged by the blithe contagion. Mr. Gladstone intellectually always seemed to me a Cambridge man in his energy, his enthusiasm, his political outlook. Only in his High Church proclivities is he suspect. The poet Sh.e.l.ley was an obvious Cantab. He was, we are told, a man of high moral character. Well, principles and human weakness are common to all Universities, and others besides Sh.e.l.ley have deserted their wives: but to desert your wife on principle seems to me callous, calculating, and Cambridge-like.

A painful but interesting case came under my personal observation, and it ill.u.s.trates the other side of the question. A clever young graduate of my acquaintance, after four years of distinguished scholars.h.i.+p at Oxford, came up to the metropolis and entered the dangerous lists of literature.

It is not indiscreet if I say that he belonged to what was quite a brilliant little period--the days of Mr. Eric Parker, Mr. Max Beerbohm, and Mr. Reginald Turner. So there was nothing surprising in his literary tastes, though I believe he was unknown to those masters of prose. He was tall, good-looking, and prepossessing, but his Oxford manner was unusually p.r.o.nounced. He never expressed disgust--no Oxford man does--only pained surprise at what displeased him; he never censured the morals or manners of people as a Cambridge man might have done. Out of the University pulpit no Oxford man would dream of scolding people for their morals. After a year of failure he fell into a decline. His parents became alarmed. They hinted that his ill success was due to his d.a.m.ned condescension (the father was of course a Cambridge man). I too suggested in a mild way that a more ingratiating manner might produce better luck with editors. At last his health broke down, and a wise family physician was called in. After studying the case for some months, Aesculapius (he was M.B. of Cambridge) divined that ill success rather than ill health was the provocative; and he related to the patient (this is becoming like an Arabian Night) the following story:

'A certain self-made man, confiding to a friend plans for his son's education, remarked: "Of course I shall send him to Eton." "Why Eton?"

said the friend. "Because he is to be a barrister, and if he did not go to Eton no one would speak to him if they knew his poor old father was a self-made man. Then he will go to Cambridge." "Why not Oxford?" said the friend, who was a self-made Oxford tradesman. "Because then he would never speak to me," replied the first self-made man.'

My friend from that moment recovered. He became more tolerant; he became successful. He became a distinguished dramatist. He justified his early promise.

There is in this little story perhaps a charge of sn.o.bbishness from which Oxford men are really entirely free. They are too conscious of their own superiority to be tuft-hunters, and I believe miss some of the prizes of life by their indifference towards those who have already 'arrived.' Yet they appear sn.o.bbish to others who have not had the benefit of a University education, and in this little essay I endeavour to hold up the mirror to their ill-nature--the fault to which I am unduly attached.

Writers besides Richardson have referred to it. I might quote many eloquent tributes from Dryden to Wordsworth and Byron, all Cambridge men, who have felt the charm and acknowledged a weakness for the step-sister University. Cambridge has never been fortunate in having the compliment reciprocated. Neither Oxford men nor her own sons have been over-generous in her praises: you remember Ruskin on King's Chapel. And I, the obscurest of her children, who cast this laurel on the Isis, will content myself with admitting that I sincerely believe you can obtain a cheaper and better education at Cambridge, though it has always been my ambition to be mistaken for an Oxford man.

I often wonder whether Mr. Cecil Rhodes, while he had the English Government in one pocket, the English Press in the other, and South Africa in the hollow of his hand, felt a certain impotency before Oxford.

He had to acknowledge its influence over himself--an influence stronger than Dr. Jameson or the Afrikander Bond. He was never quite sure whether he admired more the loneliness of the Matoppos or the rather over-crowded diamond mines of Kimberley. On the grey veld he used to read _Marius the Epicurean_, and sought in Mr. Pater the key to the mystery he was unable to solve. He turned to the Thirty-nine Articles (more tampered with at Oxford than in any other cathedral city) with the same want of success.

That always seems to me a real touch of Oxford in what some one well said, was an 'ugly life.' What a wonderful subject for the brush of a Royal Academician! no ordinary artist could ever do it justice: the great South African statesman on the lonely rocks where he had chosen his tomb; a book has fallen from his hand (Mr. Pater's no doubt); his eyes are gazing from canvas into the future he has peopled with his dreams. By some clever device of art or nature the clouds in the sky have shaped themselves into Magdalen Tower--into harmony with his thoughts, and the setting sun makes a mandorla behind him. He is thinking of Oxford, and round his head _Oriel_ clings as in 'The Blessed Damozel.'

He could terrorise the Colonial Secretary, he could foment a war and add a new empire to England; he could not overcome his love of Oxford, the ant.i.thesis of all sordid financial intrigue and political marauding.

Athens was after all a dearer name than Groot-Schuurr. He set fire to both.

I speculate sometimes whether the University was aware of his testamentary dispositions before it conferred on him an honorary degree.

I hope not. He deserved it as the greatest son of Oxford, the greatest Englishman of his time. Imre Kiralfy, who has done for a whole district of London what Mr. Rhodes tried to do for the empire, is but an _impresario_ beside him. A French critic says we cannot admire greatness in England; and this was shown by the timid way a large number of Imperialists, while professing to believe the war a righteous one, thought they would seem independent if they disclaimed approval of Mr.

Rhodes, by not having the pluck to admit the same motives though ready enough to share the plunder. You may compare the ungrateful half-unfriendly obituaries in the press with the leaders a few days later, after the will was opened.

But what immediately concerns us here is the intention of Mr. Rhodes. Was it entirely benevolence, or some wish to test the strength of Oxford--to bring undergraduates into contact with something coa.r.s.er, some terrific impermeable force that would be manner-proof against Oxford? Would he conquer from the grave? Several Americans have been known to go through the University retaining the Ma.s.sachusetts _patina_. What if a number of these savages were grafted on Oxford? How would they alter the tone? We shall see. It will be an interesting struggle. Shall we hear of six- shooters in the High?--of hominy and flannel cake for breakfast?--will undergrads look 'spry?'--will they 'voice' public opinion? . . . I forbear: my American vocabulary is limited. _Outre_ _mer, outres moeurs_, as Mr. Walkley might say in some guarded allusion to Paul Bourget. . . .

I shall be sorry to see poker take the place of roulette, and the Christ Church meadows turned into a ranch for priggish cowboys, or Addison's Walk re-named the Cake Walk. But no, I believe Mr. Rhodes, if there was just a touch of malice in his testament, realised that Oxford manners were stronger than the American want of them. Oxford may be wounded, but I have complete confidence in the issue. These Boeotian invaders must succ.u.mb, as n.o.bler stock before them. They will form an interesting subject for some exquisite study by Mr. Henry James, who will deal with their gradual civilisation. Preserved in the amber of his art they will become immortal.

I have been able to clip only the fringe of a great theme. Athletes require an essay to themselves. In later age they seem to me more melancholy than their Cambridge peers and less successful. These splendid creatures are really works of art, and form our only subst.i.tute for sculpture in the absence of any native plastic talent. From the collector's point of view they belong to the best period, while the graceful convention of isocephaly, which has raised the standard of height, renders them inapt for the 'battles' of life, however well equipped for those of their College where the cuisine is at all tolerable.

I am not enough of an antiquary to conjecture if there was ever a temple to Isis during the Roman occupation of Britain on the site of the now ill.u.s.trious University. But I like to imagine that there existed a cultus of the venerable G.o.ddess in the green fields where the purple fritillaries, so reminiscent of the lotus, blossom in the early spring.

In the curious formal pattern of their petals I see a symbol of the Oxford manner--something archaic, rigid, severe. The Oxford Don may well be a reversion to some earlier type, learned, mystic, and romantic as those priests of whom Herodotus has given us so vivid a picture. The wors.h.i.+p of Apis, as Mr. Frazer or Mr. Lang would tell us, becomes then merely the hieroglyph for a social standard, a manner of life. This, I think, will explain the name Oxford on the Isis--the Ford of Apis, the ox- G.o.d at this one place able to pa.s.s over the benign deity. You remember, too, the horrid blasphemy of Cambyses (his very name suggests Cambridge), and the vengeance of the G.o.ds. So be it to any sacrilegious reformer who would trans.m.u.te either the Oxford Don or the Oxford undergraduate--the most august of human counsellors, the most delightful of friends.

(1902.)

HOW WE LOST THE BOOK OF JASHER.

Everyone who knows anything about art, archaeology, or science has heard of the famous FitzTaylor Museum at Oxbridge. And even outsiders who care for none of these things have heard of the quarrels and internal dissensions that have disturbed that usual calm which ought to reign within the walls of a museum. The ill.u.s.trious founder, to whose munificence we owe this justly famous inst.i.tution, provided in his will for the support of four curators, who govern the two separate departments of science and art. The University has been in the habit of making grants of money from time to time to these separate departments for the acquisition of scientific or archaeological curiosities and MSS. I suppose there was something wrong in the system, but whatever it may be, it led to notorious jealousies and disputes. At the time of which I write, the princ.i.p.al curators of the art section were Professor Girdelstone and Mr. Monteagle, of Prince's College. I looked after the scientific welfare of the museum with Lowestoft as my understudy--he was practically a nonent.i.ty and an authority on lepidoptera. Now, whenever a grant was made to the left wing of the building, as I call it, I always used to say that science was being sacrificed to archaeology. I mocked at the illuminated MSS. over which Girdelstone grew enthusiastic, and the musty theological folios purchased by Monteagle. They heaped abuse upon me, of course, when my turn came, and cracked many a quip on my splendid skeleton of the ichthyosaurus, the only known specimen from Greenland. At one time the strife broke into print, and the London press animadverted on our conduct. It became a positive scandal. We were advised, I remember, to wash our dirty linen at home, and though I have often wondered why the press should act as a voluntary laundress on such occasions, I suppose the remark is a just one.

There came a day when we took the advice of the press, and from then until now science and art have gone hand in hand at the University of Oxbridge. How the breach was healed forms the subject of the present leaf from my memoirs.

America, it has been wisely said, is the great land of fraud. It is the Egypt of the modern world. From America came the spiritualists, from America bogus goods, and cheap ideas and pirated editions, and from America I have every reason to believe came Dr. Groschen. But if his ancestors came from Rhine or Jordan, that he received his education on the other side of the Atlantic I have no doubt. Why he came to Oxbridge I cannot say. He appeared quite suddenly, like a comet. He brought introductions from various parts of the world--from the British Emba.s.sy at Constantinople, from the British and German Schools of Archaeology at Athens, from certain French Egyptologists at Alexandria, and a holograph letter from Archbishop Sarpedon, Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis, Curator of the MSS. in the Monastery of St. Basil, at Mount Olympus. It was this last that endeared him, I believe, to the High Church party in Oxbridge.

Dr. Groschen was already the talk of the University, the lion of the hour, before I met him. There was rumour of an honorary degree before I saw him in the flesh, at the high table of my college, a guest of the Provost. If Dr. Groschen did not inspire me with any confidence, I cannot say that he excited any feeling of distrust. He was a small, black, commonplace-looking little man, very neat in his attire, without the alchemical look of most archaeologists. Had I known then, as I know now, that he presented his first credentials to Professor Girdelstone, I might have suspected him. Of course, I took it for granted they were friends. When the University was ringing with praises of the generosity of Dr. Groschen in transferring his splendid collections of Greek inscriptions to the FitzTaylor Museum, I rejoiced; the next grant would be devoted to science, in consideration of the recently enriched galleries of the art and archaeological section. I only pitied the fatuity of the authorities for being grateful. Dr. Groschen now wound himself into everybody's good wishes, and the University degree was already conferred. He was offered a fine set of rooms in a college famous for culture. He became a well-known figure on the Q.P. But he was not always with us; he went to Greece or the East sometimes, for the purpose, it was said, of adding to the Groschen collection, now the glory of the FitzTaylor.

It was after a rather prolonged period of absence that he wrote to Girdelstone privately, announcing a great discovery. On his return he was bringing home, he said, some MSS. recently unearthed by himself in the monastic library of St. Basil, and bought for an enormous sum from Sarpedon, the Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis. He was willing to sell them to 'some public inst.i.tution' for very little over the original price. Girdelstone told several of us in confidence. It was public news next day. Scholars grew excited. There were hints at the recovery of a lost MS., which was to 'add to our knowledge of the antique world and materially alter accepted views of the early state of Roman and Greek society.' On hearing the news I smiled. 'Some inst.i.tution,' that was suspicious--MSS.--they meant forgery. The new treasure was described as a palimpsest, consisting of fifty or sixty leaves of papyrus. On one side was a portion of the _Lost Book of Jasher_, of a date not later than the fourth century; on the other, in cursive characters, the too notorious work of Aulus Gellius--_De moribus Romanorum_, concealed under the life of a saint.

But why should I go over old history? Every one remembers the excitement that the discovery caused--the leaders in the _Times_ and the _Telegraph_, the doubts of the sceptical, the enthusiasm of the archaeologists, the jealousy of the Berlin authorities, the offers from all the libraries of Europe, the aspersions of the British Museum. 'Why,'

asked indignant critics, 'did Dr. Groschen offer his MS. to the authorities at Oxbridge?' 'Because Oxbridge had been the first to recognise his genius,' was the crus.h.i.+ng reply. And Professor Girdelstone said that should the FitzTaylor fail to acquire the MS. by any false economy on the part of the University authorities, the prestige of the museum would be gone. But this is all old history. I only remind the reader of what he knows already. I began to bring all my powers, and the force of the scientific world in Oxbridge, to bear in opposition to the purchase of the MS. I pulled every wire I knew, and execration was heaped on me as a vandal, though I only said the University money should be devoted to other channels than the purchase of doubtful MSS. I was doing all this, when I was startled by the intelligence that Dr. Groschen had suddenly come to the conclusion that his find was after all only a forgery.

The Book of Jasher was a Byzantine fake, and he ascribed the date at the very earliest to the reign of Alexis Comnenus. Theologians became fierce on the subject. They had seen the MS.; they knew it was genuine. And when Dr. Groschen began to have doubts on Aulus Gellius, suggesting it was a sixteenth-century fabrication, the cla.s.sical world 'morally and physically rose and denounced' him. Dr. Groschen, who had something of the early Christian in his character, bore this shower of opprobrium like a martyr. 'I may be mistaken,' he said, 'but I believe I have been deceived. I have been taken in before, and I would not like the MS.

offered to any library before two of the very highest experts could decide as to its authenticity.' People had long learnt to regard Dr.

Groschen himself as quite the highest expert in the world. They thought he was out of his senses, though the press commended him for his honesty, and one daily journal, loudest in declaring its authenticity, said it was glad Dr. Groschen had detected the forgery long recognised by their special correspondent. Dr. Groschen was furthermore asked to what experts he would submit his MS., and by whose decision he would abide.

After some delay and correspondence, he could think of only two--Professor Girdelstone and Monteagle. They possessed great opportunities, he said, of judging on such matters. Their erudition was of a steadier and more solid nature than his own. Then the world and Oxbridge joined again in a chorus of praise. What could be more honest, more straightforward, than submitting the MS. to a final examination at the hands of the two curators of the FitzTaylor, who were to have the first refusal of the MS.

if it was considered authentic? No museum was ever given such an opportunity. Professor Girdelstone and his colleague soon came to a conclusion. They decided that there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the Aulus Gellius. In portions it was true that between the lines other characters were partly legible; but this threw no slur on the MS. itself. Of the commentary on the book of Jasher, it will be remembered, they gave no decisive opinion, and it is still an open question. They expressed their belief that the Aulus Gellius was alone worth the price asked by Dr. Groschen. It only remained now for the University to advance a sum to the FitzTaylor for the purchase of this treasure. The curators, rather prematurely perhaps, wrote privately to Dr. Groschen making him an offer for his MS., and paid him half the amount out of their own pockets, so as to close the bargain once and for all.

The delay of the University in making the grant caused a good deal of apprehension in the hearts of Professor Girdelstone and Monteagle. They feared that the enormous sums offered by the Berlin Museum would tempt even the simple-minded Dr. Groschen, though the interests of the FitzTaylor were so near his heart. These suspicions proved unfounded as they were ungenerous. The _savant_ was contented with his degree and college rooms, and showed no hurry for the remainder of the sum to be paid.

One night, when I was seated in my rooms beside the fire, preparing lectures on the ichthyosaurus, I was startled by a knock at my door. It was a hurried, jerky rap. I shouted, 'Come in.' The door burst open, and on the threshold I saw Monteagle, with a white face, on which the beads of perspiration glittered. At first I thought it was the rain which had drenched his cap and gown, but in a moment I saw that the perspiration was the result of terror or anxiety (cf. my lectures on Mental Equilibrium). Monteagle and I in our undergraduate days had been friends; but like many University friends.h.i.+ps, ours proved evanescent; our paths had lain in different directions.

He had chosen archaeology. We failed to convert one another to each other's views. When he became a member of 'The Disciples,' a mystic Oxbridge society, the fissure between us widened to a gulf. We nodded when we met, but that was all. With Girdelstone I was not on speaking terms. So when I found Monteagle on my threshold I confess I was startled.

'May I come in?' he asked.

'Certainly, certainly,' I said cordially. 'But what is the matter?'