Charles Snow - The Masters

Even Jago’s vitality was flagging. Brown’s eyes were not as bright as usual, Chrystal had fallen silent. The midnight chimes had sounded some time before. In the short lulls between Sir Horace’s disquisitions, one heard the rain tapping on the windows. Sir Horace had worn us all down, and went on uninterrupted. Suddenly he asked, quite casually: ‘Have you thought any more of expanding your activities?’

‘Certainly we have,’ said Chrystal, coming alertly to life.

‘I think someone suggested — correct me if I’m wrong — that for certain lines of development you might need a little help. I think you suggested that, Mr Chrystal.’

‘I did.’

‘We can’t do anything substantial placed as we are,’ said Brown. ‘We can only keep going quietly on.’

‘I see that,’ Sir Horace reflected. ‘If your college is going to make a bigger contribution, it will need some financial help.’

‘Exactly,’ said Chrystal.

‘I think you said, Mr Chrystal, that you needed financial help with no conditions attached to it. So that you could develop along your own lines. Well, I’ve been turning that over in my mind. I dare say you’ve thought about it more deeply than I have, but I can’t help feeling that some people wouldn’t be prepared to exert themselves for you on those terms. You know what I mean? Some people might be inclined to see if financial help could be forthcoming, but would be put off at just making it over to you for general purposes. Do you agree with me or don’t you?’

Brown got in first: ‘I’m sure I should be speaking for the college in saying that it would be foolish — it would be worse than that, it would be presumptuous — only to accept money for general purposes. But you see, Sir Horace, we have suffered quite an amount from benefactions which are tied down so much that we can’t really use them. We’ve got the income on £20,000 for scholarships for the sons of Protestant clergymen in Galway. And that’s really rather tantalizing, you know.’

‘I see that,’ said Sir Horace again. ‘But let me put a point of view some people might take. Some people — and I think I include myself among them — might fancy that institutions like this are always tempted to put too much capital into bricks and mortar, do you know what I mean? We might feel that you didn’t need to put up a new building, for instance.’

‘It’s the go-ahead colleges who are building,’ said Chrystal. ‘Take some examples. There are two colleges whose reputation is going up while we stay flat—’

Chrystal showed great deference to Sir Horace, a genuine humble deference, but he argued crisply. Just as Sir Horace’s tactics formed behind a cloud of vague words, Chrystal’s and Brown’s were hidden in detail. Sharp, precise, confusing details were their chosen weapon. Complete confidence in the value of the college: their ability to treat Sir Horace as the far more gifted man, but at the same time to rely on the absolute self-confidence of the college as a society: their practice at handling detail so that any course but their own became impossible: those were the means they opposed to Sir Horace’s obstinate imagination.

The argument became lively, and we all took a hand. Sir Horace shook his head: ‘I’m sorry, Mr Chrystal. For once I don’t agree with you.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ said Chrystal, with a tough, pleasant, almost filial smile.

Sir Horace had guessed completely right. If the college secured a benefaction, Chrystal and Brown were eager to put up a building: they were eager to see the college of their time — their college — leave its irremovable mark.

At the beginning Brown had, as he used to say, ‘flown a kite’ for compromise, and now Chrystal joined him. Clearly, any college would welcome thankfully a benefaction for a special purpose — provided it could be fitted into the general frame. Sir Horace was assenting cordially, his eyes at their most open and naive. All of a sudden, he looked at Chrystal, and his eyes were not in the least naive. ‘I also shouldn’t be very happy about thinking of financial help which might be used to release your ordinary funds for building,’ he said in his indefatigable, sustained, rich-sounding, affable voice. ‘I can imagine other people taking the same line. They might be able to think out ways of preventing it, don’t you agree with me? If people of my way of thinking got together some financial help, I’m inclined to believe it would be for men. This country is short of first-class men.’

‘What had you in mind?’ asked Brown.

‘I’m only thinking aloud, you know what I mean. But it seems to an outsider that you haven’t anything like your proper number of fellowships. Particularly on what I might call the side of the future. You haven’t anything like enough fellowships for scientists and engineers. And this country is dead unless your kind of institutions can bring out the first-rate men. I should like to see you have many more young scientific fellows. I don’t mind much what happens to them so long as they have their chance. They can stay in the university, or we shall be glad to take them in industry. But they are the people you want — I hope you agree with me.’

‘That’s most interesting,’ said Jago.

‘I’m afraid you’re doubtful, Dr Jago.’

‘I’m a little uncertain how much you want to alter us.’ Jago was becoming more reserved. ‘If you swamped us with scientific fellows — you see, Sir Horace, I’m at a disadvantage. I haven’t the faintest idea of the scale of benefaction you think we need.’

‘I was only thinking aloud,’ said Sir Horace. In all his negotiations, as Chrystal and Brown perfectly understood, an exact figure was the last thing to be mentioned. Sums of money were, so to speak, hidden away behind the talk: partly as though they were improper, partly as though they were magic. ‘Imagine though,’ Sir Horace went on, ‘people of my way of thinking were trying to help the college with — a fairly considerable sum. Do you see what I mean?’

‘A fellowship,’ said Chrystal briskly, ‘costs £20,000.’

‘What was that, Mr Chrystal?’

‘It needs a capital endowment of £20,000 to pay for a fellowship. If you add on all the perquisites.’

‘I fancied that must be about the figure,’ said Sir Horace vaguely. ‘Imagine that a few people could see their way to providing a few of those units—’ His voice trailed off. There was a pause.

‘If they were giving them for fellowships in general,’ said Chrystal at last, ‘it would be perfect. There are no two ways about that. If the fellowships were restricted to science—’

‘I am interested to hear what you think, Mr Chrystal.’

‘If they were, it might raise difficulties.’

‘I don’t quite see them.’

‘Put it another way,’ said Brown. ‘On the book, today, Sir Horace, we’ve got four scientific fellows out of thirteen. I wouldn’t maintain that was the right proportion, we should all agree it wasn’t enough. But if we changed it drastically at a single stroke, it would alter the place overnight. I should be surprised if you regarded that as statesmanlike.’

‘Even the possibility of a benefaction is exciting,’ said Jago. ‘But I do agree with my colleagues. If the fellowships were limited to one subject, it would change the character of our society.’

‘You will have to change the character of your society in twenty years,’ said Sir Horace, with a sudden dart of energy and fire. ‘History will make you. Life will make you. You won’t be able to stop it, Dr Jago, you know what I mean?’

He had heard from the others that Jago was likely to be the next Master, and all the evening had treated him with respect. Sir Horace was charmed, Jago had for him the fascination of the unfamiliar, he wanted to be sure of Jago’s unqualified approval. Brown and Chrystal he was more used to, he got on well with them, but they were not foreign, exciting, ‘up in the air’.