Mr. Max Beerbohm, and Mr. Reginald Turner.  So there was nothing surprising in his literary tastes, though I believe he was unknown to those masters of prose.  He was tall, good-looking, and prepossessing, but his Oxford manner was unusually pronounced.  He never expressed disgust—­no Oxford man does—­only pained surprise at what displeased him; he never censured the morals or manners of people as a Cambridge man might have done.  Out of the University pulpit no Oxford man would dream of scolding people for their morals.  After a year of failure he fell into a decline.  His parents became alarmed.  They hinted that his ill success was due to his damned condescension (the father was of course a Cambridge man).  I too suggested in a mild way that a more ingratiating manner might produce better luck with editors.  At last his health broke down, and a wise family physician was called in.  After studying the case for some months, Aesculapius (he was M.B. of Cambridge) divined that ill success rather than ill health was the provocative; and he related to the patient (this is becoming like an Arabian Night) the following story: 

’A certain self-made man, confiding to a friend plans for his son’s education, remarked:  “Of course I shall send him to Eton.”  “Why Eton?” said the friend.  “Because he is to be a barrister, and if he did not go to Eton no one would speak to him if they knew his poor old father was a self-made man.  Then he will go to Cambridge.”  “Why not Oxford?” said the friend, who was a self-made Oxford tradesman.  “Because then he would never speak to me,” replied the first self-made man.’

My friend from that moment recovered.  He became more tolerant; he became successful.  He became a distinguished dramatist.  He justified his early promise.

There is in this little story perhaps a charge of snobbishness from which Oxford men are really entirely free.  They are too conscious of their own superiority to be tuft-hunters, and I believe miss some of the prizes of life by their indifference towards those who have already ‘arrived.’  Yet they appear snobbish to others who have not had the benefit of a University education, and in this little essay I endeavour to hold up the mirror to their ill-nature—­the fault to which I am unduly attached.  Writers besides Richardson have referred to it.  I might quote many eloquent tributes from Dryden to Wordsworth and Byron, all Cambridge men, who have felt the charm and acknowledged a weakness for the step-sister University.  Cambridge has never been fortunate in having the compliment reciprocated.  Neither Oxford men nor her own sons have been over-generous in her praises:  you remember Ruskin on King’s Chapel.  And I, the obscurest of her children, who cast this laurel on the Isis, will content myself with admitting that I sincerely believe you can obtain a cheaper and better education at Cambridge, though it has always been my ambition to be mistaken for an Oxford man.