Page:Carroll - Notes by an Oxford Chiel.djvu/88

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Outsiders have enquired, with a persistence verging on personality, and with a recklessness scarcely distinguishable from insanity, to whom we are to attribute the first grand conception of the work. Was it the Treasurer, say they, who thus strove to force it on an unwilling House? Was it a Professor who designed this box, which, whether with a lid on or not, equally offends the eye? Or was it a Censor whose weird spells evoked the horrid thing, the bane of this and of succeeding generations? Until some reply is given to these and similar questions, they must and will remain—for ever—unanswered!

On this point Rumour has been unusually busy. Some say that the Governing Body evolved the idea in solemn conclave—the original motion being to adopt the Tower of St. Mark's at Venice as a model: and that by a series of amendments it was reduced at last to a simple cube. Others say that the Reader in Chemistry suggested it as a form of crystal. There are others who affirm that the Mathematical Lecturer found it in the