Balliol College, Harry explains, is the crème de la crème of the 20 outstanding colleges at Oxford.  In 1905, 20 Rhodes Scholars applied for entrance at Balliol; only Stevens of Connecticut and Steger of Texas were admitted.  The campus is regal--"beautiful beyond the power of words to describe," Steger says.  He finds the formal, conventional traditions to be irksome and daily amusement comes to the Fannin County native as he watches ancient routines carried out in what Harry feels is an overly dignified manner.  For example, every Sunday evening chapel closes with a prayer for "John Balliol and his wife, Devoguilla, the founder of this college." 

"The amusing mockery of it," Steger states,” is that John Balliol, brother to the king of Scotland, was a rowdy knight, who, in a spirit of adventure, sacked several churches in Oxfordshire and, in addition to being publicly scourged therefore, was compelled to found a college!  Such was the beginning of Balliol in 1263; and this same prayer has been offered up for hundreds of years."

Harry's closest friends are a young Englishman named Wilkinson; a brilliant Persian nobleman named Ameer Ali; Matsudairi, a Japanese Marquis; Orr, a native of Tasmania; an Aussie named Leslie; Lewis, from South Africa; and an American named Hutchins.  Steger points out that most Americans avoid being too clannish in order to absorb the influence of a myriad of cultures assimilating at Balliol.

A few Americans, adds Steger, have gone to the other extreme and ape the English to the point of disgust.

But, snobbery aside, life at Oxford allowed Steger to learn from historical figures.  In November Lord Roberts stopped by to lecture on The Northern Frontier of India and the annual Rhodes Dinner featured Rudyard Kipling.

Over the Christmas break, Harry headed back to the land of the Teutons to participate in the pageantry of a German Christmas with the Kubes.

In January, Lady Monkswell ("one of the swellest of the English nobility") invited Harry to a reception at her townhouse in London.

"My curiosity bids me go," Harry writes to his parents, "but my wardrobe, with more force, bids me stay.  You see, to be observed, in London, on the streets, in the afternoon, or even in a home, without a frock coat and a high silk hat, or else a Prince Albert, would be as rude as appearing in pajamas.  I tell you this because I think it will amuse you.  There is never a place in the world where formality in dress counts for as much as it does in London.  Of course, it is all silly rot."

But there is much about Balliol to admire.  The dean of the college, a man of independent means, accepts no salary and instead dedicates his pay to the upkeep of the historical buildings.

"Most American professors are complaining, and justly, of poor pay," Steger tells his parents.  "But these chaps, though paid no more, seem to love their work so intensely that the money consideration assumes a more secondary place.  Then, too, it is very seldom, with us in America, that a man of means goes into educational work."

Then, on January 13, 1906, there is a letter with that old familiar salutation.  Evidently Steger had caught up with Bedichek.

Dear Bedi,

I have a message for you.  In 1815 Great Britain annexed three little islands, called the Tristan d' Acunha group, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,500 miles from Cape Colony.  When annexed, the islands were uninhabited.  In 1814, a small garrison was put on the largest of the three; in 1817, the garrison was withdrawn, but an English corporal remained behind with his wife and ten children.  Eight years later, when the Colonial Office in London sent a boat thither, there were only 12 people on the island--the corporal had evidently not done so well as King David in "spreading his Maker's image through the land." 

A few years later a party of Welsh sailors was shipwrecked there; and, today, the Colonial Office informs me there are a hundred people on this little island, which, by the way, is two and a half miles in diameter and boasts a bully climate.  The temperature averages 68 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and 55 degrees in the winter.  There is not a cent of coinage on the island. 

There are two other islands; one is called The Inaccessible, and, the other, Nightingale Island.  On the latter, two Germans lived for two years and then died.  The islanders have a patriarchal government, raise a good crop of goats and sheep and speak a mixture of Welsh and English. 

In spite of the fact that some of my utterances seem facetious, I would tell you seriously that none, absolutely none, of the data I have given is false, or stretched or tinted by fancy.  It is, to me, nothing short of remarkable that, in this day of irrepressible civilization, a little cake of mud could have so long existed in its state of Nature, without any yeast of ferment thrown into it. 

Does it not appeal to you as a delightful refuge from your future?  To me, for whom the hopes and ambitions of others interested in me have for years been goads and pricks that foretold me of a future struggle to make good, the place seems an Elysium.  There is no money there; therefore, we need no money.  If I can get the British Government to give us transportation and a little authority, will you join me? 

My first plan is to revolt from the Crown.  The Crown wouldn't give a copper damn; the Tristanians would be glad to revolt, as a relief from the monotony of thinking themselves subjects of a power that never remembered them; it is not a disagreeable thought to me, to you, that the way to a gentle dictatorship among these exotic Arcadians will be easy.  Not an inhabitant of this island has ever been off it.

I am afraid of a future that keeps me linked with people who expect achievements of me in realms of morbidity (all education is morbid).  The Cecil Rhodes Scholarship heaps the mighty mountain over me.  I speak German now with ease and rapidity.  To satisfy my natural liking for linguistics, I shall graft Teutonic idioms onto the Anglo Saxon and Welsh potpourri that already passes muster in this Eden left virgin for you and me.

Of course I shall request the Colonial Office to give me an appropriation of money wherewith I may make it worth the while of two (at least two; better, three) buxom, hefty, husky maidens; for much I fear me that our loyal subjects have ere now lost all distinctions of family and that many a man has, in the maze, become his own uncle.

Remember that you, as well as I, have a future to evade.

Harry

Previous Steger articles:

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