University of Virginia Library

Heard ye the arrow hurtle in the sky?
Heard ye the dragon-monster's dreadful cry?”—
Excuse this sudden burst of the Heroic;
The present state of things would vex a Stoic!
And just as Sairey Gamp, for pains within,
Administered a modicum of gin,
So does my mind, when vexed and ill at ease,
Console itself with soothing similes,
The “dragon-monster” (pestilential schism!)
I need not tell you is Conservatism.
The “hurtling arrow” (till we find a better)
Is represented by the present Letter.
'Twas, I remember, but the other day,
Dear Senior Censor, that you chanced to say
You thought these party-combinations would
Be found, “though needful, no unmingled good.”
Unmingled good? They are unmingled ill!
I never took to them, and never will—
What am I saying? Heed it not, my friend:
On the next page I mean to recommend
The very dodges that I now condemn

910

In the Conservatives! Don't hint to them
A word of this! (In confidence. Ahem!)
Need I rehearse the history of Jowett?
I need not, Senior Censor, for you know it.
That was the Board Hebdomadal, and oh!
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow!
Let each that wears a beard, and each that shaves,
Join in the cry “We never will be slaves!”
“But can the University afford
To be a slave to any kind of board?
A slave?” you shuddering ask. “Think you it can, Sir?”
Not at the present moment,” is my answer.
I've thought the matter o'er and o'er again
And given to it all my powers of brain;
I've thought it out, and this is what I make it,
(And I don't care a Tory how you take it:)
It may be right to go ahead, I guess:
It may be right to stop, I do confess;
Also, it may be right to retrogress.
 

“In a letter on a point connected with the late elections to the Hebdomadal Council you incidentally remarked to me that our combinations for these elections, ‘though necessary were not an unmixed good.’ They are an unmixed evil.”

“I never go to a caucus without reluctance: I never write a canvassing letter without a feeling of repugnance to my task.”

“I need not rehearse the history of the Regius Professor of Greek.”

“The University cannot afford at the present moment to be delivered over as a slave to any non-academical interest whatever.”

“It may be right to go on, it may be right to stand still, or it may be right to go back.”