Morning at All Souls College, before the gates are opened and before the students awake, when mist settles over the cobblestone streets and the library windows glow.
Category Archives: Oxford
In Stone
The interior perimeter of the Oxford Museum of Natural History is guarded by the stone effigies of various “men of Science”, from Aristotle to Darwin. These pedestaled figures serve as charming company to the casual wanderer, and there is nothing I like so much about them as their hands – folded, gesticulating, or holding the tools of their art or the objects by which they are recognized (Newton, for instance, bears an apple in his palm). A brief tour:
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The Ruins at Twilight
One midwinter’s day, four friends, warmed by a hearty meal and a good deal of old claret, set out over Port Meadow at twilight to wander the shadowy ruins of Godstow Nunnery, and return by the glimmering lights of a distant village, see over the still river.
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Something of the Winter
“there is something of the Winter that is primal, mysterious and utterly irreplaceable, something both bleak and profoundly beautiful, something essential to this myth of ourselves, to the story of our humanity, as if we somehow need the darkness of the winter months to replenish our inner spirits as much as we need the light, energy and warmth of the summer…Winter, more than any other, was the season of the imagination, of transformed magical landscapes and the eerie silence of the snow.” – Sting, from ‘If on a Winter’s Night…”
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Ode to a Library
As part of my ongoing autumnal nostalgia, I’ve been dwelling in particularly vivid memories of Oxford libraries, and none more so than the Old Bodleian. I spent the better part of my Oxford time in the Upper Reading Room, looking out over the Radcliffe Camera while reflecting over The Exeter Book of Old English poems, or cloistered in a glowing corner of Duke Humphrey’s writing about Sea Voyages in ancient literature. I remember piles of dusty volumes, and the way the blue Camera dome looked in every light. I remember watching mist roll over the Exeter College gardens and Radcliffe square, and the particular echo of footsteps up the lonely, turning stairway. I remember looking out over the library as the sky turned deep blue in evening and the windows glowed golden, gazing at the spires dusted in snow, and wandering beneath the vaults of the Divinity Schools. I remember the smell and texture of vellum, the feeling of drawing my coat close against the cold inside, the way the shadows gathered between book stacks as night fell early in winter, and how every corner seemed to hold some secret enchantment, and every moment within was transformed into the beautiful, mysterious realm of the fairy tale.
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Flora and Fauna
I spent the better part of one year down in Oxford’s Special Collections room reading medieval medical manuscripts. Most of the herbals, lapidaries and bestiaries were simple household guides, dashed off with ongoing notes, marginalia and things crossed out. But every once in a while I came upon something truly spectacular—rare and richly illustrated manuscripts, carefully crafted and copied, and far from practical. All manner of fantastic flora and fauna brightly graced the velum pages. Amidst the poppies and yarrow were mandrakes and monsters, prowling beasts and imaginatively rendered plants. Nary a leech was seen.
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Botanical
With all the vibrant colours of spring around, I find myself turning back to these golden winter flowers and grasses. I saw these in the Oxford Botanical Gardens on a day not long before Christmas, when the ground was frosty and the gardens empty. There was a low winter sun in the sky, and the muted December palette seemed every bit as lovely as a verdant spring meadow. Just something to think about as you weave daisy chains in the sun this May Day (which you should be doing right now, by the way)…
