Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/132

28 upon it! Even as a railway-porter moves with an unwonted majesty when bearing a portmanteau on his head—or as I myself (to speak modestly) gain a new beauty from these massive tomes—or as ocean charms us most when the rectangular bathing-machine breaks the monotony of its curving marge—so are we blessed by the presence of that which an envious world hath dubbed 'the Tea-chest.'

Mutat quadrata rotundis. &apos;It exchangeth square things for round.&apos; Witness that series of square-headed doors and windows, so beautifully broken in upon by that double archway! For indeed, though simple (&apos;simplex munditiis,' as the poet saith) it is matchless in its beauty. Had those twin archways been greater, they would but have matched those at the corners of the Quadrangle—had they been less, they would but have copied, with an abject servility, the doorways around them. In such things, it is only a vulgar mind that thinks of a match. The subject is lowe. We seek the Unique, the Eccentric! We glory in this two-fold excavation, which scoffers speak of as 'the Tunnel.'

Come, Sir, let me ask you a pleasant question. Why doth the Governing Body chuse