Communication
A Letter from Cambridge
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sni,—Only the most notable events could have made us remember the term just ended as anything other than the term in which the old University Library passed out of use ; and there have been no such events. With all its faults and inconveniences, the old building had a quality which attracted to it a deal of sentiment, and even sentimentality when the time came to take leave of it. At least a part of the grumbling which traditionally accompanied its use was a roundabout expression of affection—just as sailors grumble at an old ship of which they are secretly very fond.
It would be pleasant to be able to believe that the grumbling at the new building is only part of the University Library tradition : that we grumble at its outside because we have not yet had the opportunity to grumble at its inner arrangements. But there is no disguising the fact that it has not given very general satisfaction. The tower is so much bigger than any- thing else for fifty miles around, so metropolitan—it gives one something of the feeling which one had on first seeing a Lyons' shop in Petty Cury. And quite apart from its own merits or demerits, it happens that by its mere situation it destroys the illusion (very much an illusion admittedly) that beyond the backs there is open country ; it is no longer possible to stand in front of King's Chapel and feel that you are looking out over Cambridgeshire.
Why is it that so little of the recent building in Cambridge has met with anything like general approval ? Is it that we are over-critical ? Or is it true that architecture itself is in 'a state of confusion between widely differing styles—what is the obvious way in which to build now ? If this is the case, it is a pity that so much building is being done, and that so much is going to be done. King's, Caius, and St. John's are all con- templating large schemes, and it is plain that the appearance of Cambridge is going to change considerably in the near future, for better or for worse. It will be more likely to change for the better if an attempt is made to keep the cost within more reasonable limits than those obtaining in recent College buildings. The cost of building per set of rooms in the new parts of Downing and Magdalene is out of all pro- portion with the rents which undergraduates are likely to pay, and there is nothing much to show for it but rather vulgar grandiloquence in the former, and " a certain whimsical triviality " in the latter. It is a pleasure to turn to the laboratories and to Downing Street, where at least three very pleasant buildings have gone up in the last two or three years.
The term itself has been uneventful. There has been no very striking activity on the part of our bureaucrats, and the only dissension in high places was caused by a small piece of proctorial legislation dealing with the lodging-house regula- tions. These same regulations, by the way, were the subject of an amusing inquiry by one of those chiefly concerned in their administration. The familiar phrase, " in stain pupil- lari " occurs in them at a crucial point, and it might be con- sidered important to discover whether lodging-house keepers who are not, as a body, acquainted with the learned languages, understood its meaning. The inquiry showed that they did not, and the nearest guesses were " in this house," and " during the present term." But it was concluded that these little misunderstandings do not much impede the proper ad- ministration of the law ; with us, as the M.P. said to the deeply shocked Matthew Arnold, "That a thing should be an anomaly is no objection to it whatsoever." And in any case it is hard to find a convenient English description of the very varied company of those in the pupillary state.
For the undergraduate, the continued fine weather has aggravated the usual problem of the Easter term, whether to work or to go on the river. Though one can still find those who believe that it is possible to do both, by working on the river :—one sees them carrying note-books down to their punts, and scattered about the backs, sun-sodden, struggling to keep on their books eyes that are raised inevitably at the sound of a female voice. There seem to be it ore females than ever in Cambridge, and one has the impression that the under- graduate grows ever more—whatever the equivalent of " uxorious " is for those not yet in stain matrimoniali. How- ever, such inspiration is not out of place this year, for the river has not been its usual pleasant self. It is low, dirty, and the weeds flourish already as high as they are usually to be found in August.
Political violence has been quite absent, and the more optimistic are already expressing the hope that the worst is over, and that the young men next year will be quieter. There has been fairly widespread feeling against the Sedition Bill, and a meeting of most respectable people to protest against it.
May Week has passed off very much as usual, and now we are faced by a Long Vacation in which it is impossible to do any work because no books are available. The books them- selves are being transferred from the old Library to the new by ambling carts drawn by horses, in a manner apparently so inefficient and leisurely that it should provide American visitors with the feeling that they are really seeing a bit of the old world at work—the books would have been moved in just the same way in the seventeenth century. But if they follow the carts to their destination, they will receive quite a different impression on the old world ; the new Library could not have been built in the seventeenth century, and would not have been.—I am, Sir, &c., YOUR CAMBRIDGE CORRESPONDT.
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