OXFORD, _June_ 12
The Mitre.
It was here in Oxford that a grain of common sense entered the brain of
the flower of chivalry. You might call it the dawn of reason. We had
spent part of the morning in High Street, "the noblest old street in
England," as our dear Hawthorne calls it. As Wordsworth had written a
sonnet about it, aunt Celia was armed for the fray,--a volume of
Wordsworth in one hand, and one of Hawthorne in the other. (I wish
Baedeker didn't give such full information about what one ought to read
before one can approach these places in a proper spirit.) When we had
done High Street, we went to Magdalen College, and sat down on a bench in
Addison's Walk, where aunt Celia proceeded to store my mind with the
principal facts of Addison's career, and his influence on the literature
of the something or other century. The cramming process over, we
wandered along, and came upon "him" sketching a shady corner of the walk.
Aunt Celia went up behind him, and, Van Tyck though she is, she could not
restrain her admiration of his work. I was surprised myself: I didn't
suppose so good looking a youth could do such good work. I retired to a
safe distance, and they chatted together. He offered her the sketch; she
refused to take advantage of his kindness. He said he would "dash off"
another that evening, and bring it to our hotel,--"so glad to do anything
for a fellow-countryman," etc. I peeped from behind a tree and saw him
give her his card. It was an awful moment; I trembled, but she read it
with unmistakable approval, and gave him her own with an expression that
meant, "Yours is good, but beat that if you can!"
She called to me, and I appeared. Mr. John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, was
presented to her niece, Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York. It was over,
and a very small thing to take so long about, too.
He is an architect, and of course has a smooth path into aunt Celia's
affections. Theological students, ministers, missionaries, heroes, and
martyrs she may distrust, but architects never!
"He is an architect, my dear Katharine, and he is a Copley," she told me
afterwards. "I never knew a Copley who was not respectable, and many of
them have been more."
After the introduction was over, aunt Celia asked him guilelessly if he
had visited any other of the English cathedrals. Any others, indeed!
This to a youth who had been all but in her lap for a fortnight! It was
a blow, but he rallied bravely, and, with an amused look in my direction,
replied discreetly that he had visited most of them at one time or
another. I refused to let him see that I had ever noticed him before;
that is, particularly.
Memoranda: "The very stones and mortar of this historic town seem
impregnated with the spirit of restful antiquity." (Extract from one of
aunt Celia's letters.) Among the great men who have studied here are the
Prince of Wales, Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel, Sir
Philip Sidney, William Penn, John Locke, the two Wesleys, Ruskin, Ben
Jonson, and Thomas Otway. (Look Otway up.)