Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/102

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22
THE NEW BELFRY

§ 13. On the Moral of the new Belfry, Ch. Ch.

The moral position of Christ Church is undoubtedly improved by it. 'We have been attacked, and perhaps not without reason, on the Bread-and-Butter question,' she remarks to an inattentive World (which heeds her not, but prates on of Indirect Claims and of anything but indirect Claimants), 'we have been charged—and, it must be confessed, in a free and manly tone—with shortcomings in the payment of the Greek Professor, but who shall say that we are not all "on the square" now?'

This, however, is not the Moral of the matter. Everything has a moral, if you choose to look for it. In Wordsworth, a good half of every poem is devoted to the Moral: in Byron, a smaller proportion: in Tupper, the whole. Perhaps the most graceful tribute we can pay to the genius of the last-named writer, is to entrust to him, as an old member of Christ Church, the conclusion of this Monograph.

Look on the Quadrangle of Christ Church, squarely, for is it not a Square?
And a Square recalleth a Cube; and a Cube recalleth the Belfry;