noon
I floated out into the untenanted meadows . Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour , trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall . The scent of these meadows ' moisture is the scent of Oxford . Even in hottest noon , one feels that the sun has not dried THEM . Always there is moisture drifting across them , drifting into the Colleges . It , one suspects , must have had much to do with the evocation of what is called the Oxford spirit -- that gentlest spirit , so lingering and searching , so dear to them who as youths were brought into ken of it , so exasperating to them who were not . Yes , certainly , it is this mild , miasmal air , not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings , that has helped Oxford to produce , and foster eternally , her peculiar race of artist-scholars , scholar-artists .