Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/118

14 blots the fair heavens above. Wherefore, in this grand old City, and in so conspicuous a place, do men set so hideous a thing?

Be you mad, Sir? Why this is the very climacteric and coronal of all our architectural aspirations! In all Oxford there is naught like it!

It joys me much to hear you say so.

And, trust me, to an earnest mind, the categorical evolution of the Abstract, ideologically considered, must infallibly develop itself in the parallelepipedisation of the Concrete! And so farewell.

He is a learned man, and methinks there is much that is sound in his reasoning.

It is all sound, as it seems to me. But how say you? Shall I read you one of these ballads? Here is one called 'The Wandering Burgess,' which (being forsooth a dumpish ditty) may well suit the ears of us whose eyes are oppressed with so dire a spectacle.

Read on, good Scholar, and I will bait our hooks the while.