из мемуаров Гранди
Прочитал тут мемуары Джорджа Гранди, тьютора по древней истории в оксфордском колледже Корпус Кристи в 1903-31. Очень любопытная галерея персонажей, не только оксфордских: его дед, священник в рабочем поселке, греческие и болгарские крестьяне, с которыми он сталкивался в путешествиях по полям сражений греческой истории, будущие офицеры в подготовительной школе для Сэндхерста, где он преподавал в молодости, игроки в гольф, и многие другие. Если не поленюсь, набью несколько фрагментов оттуда.
Вот, например, Робинсон Эллис, профессор латыни и автор известных комментариев к Катуллу и к "Ибису" Овидия (Balliol 1854-58, Ireland Sch. and Latin Verse Prize 1855; 1st Lit.Hum. 1858; Boden Sanskrit Sch. 1858; Fellow of Trinity 1858-1913; Corpus Professor of Latin 1893-1913). И сам Эллис и манера повествования очень характерные. Он родился в 1834, т.ч. на момент знакомства с Гранди ему было уже 69 лет. Самое смешное -- в самом конце : )
"He had lived for a long time in a quiet little quadrangle in Trinity engaged in research on the works of obscure Latin authors which were not, I am afraid, of much interest to other Latin scholars in the University. His outward appearance was remarkable. He was a thin, tall figure with a pronounced stoop. His face was very thin and wrinkled, and adorned with a short, thin, straggling beard. He always wore a very ancient suit of black cloth whose sheen was mainly due to age, and a top hat which had the same characteristic. His feet were large, but his boots were so much larger that the toes of them turned up like the prow of a gondola.
He was reputed to be a miser. So he was; but not in the sense that he accumulated money for the pleasure of so doing, but because he suffered from that monomania which sometimes leads men to imagine that their financial position is so unsound that they must exercise the greatest care to provide for the future. At his death he left, it is said, £30,000 in current account at his bank. That bank must have wished for many depositors like him. Four times a year, about a week before quarter-day, he wrote to the Bursar to beg him to be sure and pay his quarter's salary punctually as he was very short of money. <...>.
Some people in Oxford who were not gifted with a sense of humour regarded him as being gifted with it. They either did not know, or forgot, that people without a sense of humour may say and do very amusing things which they would not have said or done had they possessed it.
When Ellis had arrived at an advanced age without having shown the slightest sign of yielding to or noticing the attractions of the other sex, his friends were amazed when rumours went about that he had been walking more than once with two elderly spinsters who had recently come to live in Oxford. Someone in Trinity Common Room happened to mention that it was reported that these ladies were exceedingly well-off. Ellis, who was present and had been dozing, woke up and said, 'Do you know, that is what I have been trying to discover.'
A surprising incident of a kindred nature took place one night in Corpus Common Room. Cuthbert Shields, who was a great and not infrequent critic of the looks of women, said in that way of his which seemed to mean in the words of the poet, 'And if the truth of this you will deny I simply answer that you tell a lie,' that he considered that Mrs. Vinogradoff was a very good looking woman. Women's looks were not a very favourite topic in Corpus Common Room, so no one took up the challenge, and there was an appreciable interval of silence. Ellis, who had apparently been asleep in the chair to my left, woke up at this and said across me to Lightfoot, who was sitting on my right, 'I sometimes think, Lightfoot, that your wife is quite a good-looking woman.' He was right, for Mrs. Lightfoot was at the time a very beautiful girl. It so happened that I was lunching at the Lightfoots' next day, and I said to Mrs. Lightfoot, 'I met an ardent admirer of yours last night. If I gave you a hundred guesses you would never guess who it was.' It would be an understatement to say that she was astonished when I told her it was Professor Robinson Ellis, and wanted to know what he said. I told her that he said that he 'sometimes -- mind you, not always -- thought you were quite a good-looking woman.'
Ellis had practically no knowledge of family life, but was very keen to inquire into details. So innocent was he that his questions on the subject tended to take that embarassing form which is sometimes taken by questions asked by children. At a certain dinner-party he happened to sit next to a lady who had recently produced twins, and to the intense embarrassment of the company spent a large part of the evening in cross-examining her on the respective merits of producing families by ones or twos, and which method she preferred.
Woods, the President of Trinity, married, and in due course his wife produced her first child. Ellis, feeling he must congratulate his old friend, wrote, 'My dear Woods, I must congratulate you on the recent event which took me quite by surprise. You no doubt were better informed.'"
G.B. Grundy, Fifty-Five Years at Oxford: An Unconventional Autobiography (London 1945), 111-13.
Вот, например, Робинсон Эллис, профессор латыни и автор известных комментариев к Катуллу и к "Ибису" Овидия (Balliol 1854-58, Ireland Sch. and Latin Verse Prize 1855; 1st Lit.Hum. 1858; Boden Sanskrit Sch. 1858; Fellow of Trinity 1858-1913; Corpus Professor of Latin 1893-1913). И сам Эллис и манера повествования очень характерные. Он родился в 1834, т.ч. на момент знакомства с Гранди ему было уже 69 лет. Самое смешное -- в самом конце : )
"He had lived for a long time in a quiet little quadrangle in Trinity engaged in research on the works of obscure Latin authors which were not, I am afraid, of much interest to other Latin scholars in the University. His outward appearance was remarkable. He was a thin, tall figure with a pronounced stoop. His face was very thin and wrinkled, and adorned with a short, thin, straggling beard. He always wore a very ancient suit of black cloth whose sheen was mainly due to age, and a top hat which had the same characteristic. His feet were large, but his boots were so much larger that the toes of them turned up like the prow of a gondola.
He was reputed to be a miser. So he was; but not in the sense that he accumulated money for the pleasure of so doing, but because he suffered from that monomania which sometimes leads men to imagine that their financial position is so unsound that they must exercise the greatest care to provide for the future. At his death he left, it is said, £30,000 in current account at his bank. That bank must have wished for many depositors like him. Four times a year, about a week before quarter-day, he wrote to the Bursar to beg him to be sure and pay his quarter's salary punctually as he was very short of money. <...>.
Some people in Oxford who were not gifted with a sense of humour regarded him as being gifted with it. They either did not know, or forgot, that people without a sense of humour may say and do very amusing things which they would not have said or done had they possessed it.
When Ellis had arrived at an advanced age without having shown the slightest sign of yielding to or noticing the attractions of the other sex, his friends were amazed when rumours went about that he had been walking more than once with two elderly spinsters who had recently come to live in Oxford. Someone in Trinity Common Room happened to mention that it was reported that these ladies were exceedingly well-off. Ellis, who was present and had been dozing, woke up and said, 'Do you know, that is what I have been trying to discover.'
A surprising incident of a kindred nature took place one night in Corpus Common Room. Cuthbert Shields, who was a great and not infrequent critic of the looks of women, said in that way of his which seemed to mean in the words of the poet, 'And if the truth of this you will deny I simply answer that you tell a lie,' that he considered that Mrs. Vinogradoff was a very good looking woman. Women's looks were not a very favourite topic in Corpus Common Room, so no one took up the challenge, and there was an appreciable interval of silence. Ellis, who had apparently been asleep in the chair to my left, woke up at this and said across me to Lightfoot, who was sitting on my right, 'I sometimes think, Lightfoot, that your wife is quite a good-looking woman.' He was right, for Mrs. Lightfoot was at the time a very beautiful girl. It so happened that I was lunching at the Lightfoots' next day, and I said to Mrs. Lightfoot, 'I met an ardent admirer of yours last night. If I gave you a hundred guesses you would never guess who it was.' It would be an understatement to say that she was astonished when I told her it was Professor Robinson Ellis, and wanted to know what he said. I told her that he said that he 'sometimes -- mind you, not always -- thought you were quite a good-looking woman.'
Ellis had practically no knowledge of family life, but was very keen to inquire into details. So innocent was he that his questions on the subject tended to take that embarassing form which is sometimes taken by questions asked by children. At a certain dinner-party he happened to sit next to a lady who had recently produced twins, and to the intense embarrassment of the company spent a large part of the evening in cross-examining her on the respective merits of producing families by ones or twos, and which method she preferred.
Woods, the President of Trinity, married, and in due course his wife produced her first child. Ellis, feeling he must congratulate his old friend, wrote, 'My dear Woods, I must congratulate you on the recent event which took me quite by surprise. You no doubt were better informed.'"
G.B. Grundy, Fifty-Five Years at Oxford: An Unconventional Autobiography (London 1945), 111-13.