53
opportunity of preparing the set classics. But I followed Browning's advice to "greet the Unseen with 
a cheer": my real knowledge of Greek and Latin enabled me to give renderings, far above the 
average, of unfamiliar passages. I could never adapt myself to the sheep-system of mnemonic 
"learning". In October I entered the university, taking rooms at 16 St. John's Street. From that 
moment begins an entirely new chapter in my life. 
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12 
When I went up to Cambridge in the October term of 1895, I had the sensation of drawing a long 
deep breath as one does after swimming under water or (an even better analogy) as one does after 
bracing oneself against the pain inflicted by a dentist. I could not imagine anything better in life. I 
found myself suddenly in an entirely new world. I was part of the glories of the past; and I made a 
firm resolution to be one of the glories of the future. I should like the haunted room over the Great 
Gate of Trinity to be turned into a vault like that of Christian Rosencreutz to receive my 
sarcophagus. I must admit that I don't know of much else in England of the works of man which I 
would not make haste to destroy if the opportunity occurred. But Trinity, except New Court and 
Whewell's Court, is enough for nay poet to live and die for. 
I remember being amazed in later years when my patriotism was doubted. I wasn't going to have 
"Eintritt Verboten" put up over the Great Gate with a Prussian sentry to enforce it. I am perfectly 
aware that I am irrational. The traditions of England are intertwined inextricably with a million 
abuses and deformities which I am only too eager to destroy. But all Englishmen keep their brains in 
watertight compartments. It would be a comic degradation of make Trinity the headquarters of the 
Rationalist Press Association. But at the time I had not seen the logical incompatibility of my various 
positions. Shakespeare's patriotism in John of Gaunt's dying speech and Henry V appeals directly to 
my poetic sense. 
I am quite prepared to die for England in that brutal, unthinking way. "Rule, Britannia" gets me 
going as if I were the most ordinary music-hall audience. This sentiment is not interfered with by my 
detestation of the moral and religious humbug which one is expected to produce at moments of 
national crisis. My patriotism is of the blatant, unintelligent variety, popularized by Kipling. I like 
the old rime: 
Two skinny Frenchmen, one Portugee, 
One jolly Englishmen lick 'em all three. 
But I can find no moral excuse for my attitude. I am an animal with a family and a country. To hell 
with everybody! This animal is prepared to use its brains and its force as stupidly and unscrupulously 
as the Duke of Wellington. It is not convinced by its own philosophical opinions, which condemn 
patriotism as parochialism, regard war as immoral savagery and economic 
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insanity, and consider public opinion and its leaders as the bleating of sheep, huddling into their 
fold at the barking of mongrel dogs. 
The atmosphere of Cambridge formed an admirable background for my state of mind. I saw myself 
as a romantic character in history. The Church of England, as represented by my Uncle Tom, had 
seemed a narrow tyranny, as detestable as that of the Plymouth Brethren; less logical and more 
hypocritical. My Uncle Jonathan was a sound churchman; but he kept his religion to himself and 
went his own triumphant way in the world, keeping ecclesiastical discipline at arm's length as far as 
he himself was concerned. He was prima facie one of the saved, whenever he troubled to think