Page 27 - Life of Gertrude Bell

SOCIETY AND OXFORD 15
In a note of self-appraisal she commented: ‘The fault of my essay
is that I tried to prove that Cromwell was right when I need only
have proved that he was not wrong which is a very different thing.’
She also enclosed for her father’s interest an old essay marked by
the other master. ‘I don’t think it is at all good myself, but Mr
Rankinc told me that lie liked it very much. I don’t believe much
in Mr Rankinc ... He’s got a sort of delusion that he always has
to give me Exc.’ She was about to take more examinations. ‘I’m
in despair about my modern history; it’s so difficult or else I am
so stupid, but at any rate that horrid history won’t go into my
head. I can’t keep the German Protestants and the French
Protestants and the Moravian Protestants distinct and the Swiss
and the Hungarians distinct... I’m rather quaking at the exams.
I hope I shall pull through not too disgracefully somehow ...
Bother!—what a smudge!’
Before leaving school at the end of term she heard that her
grandfather had been made a baronet. ‘I know about Grandpapa,’
she told her father. ‘I have written to congratulate him. I mayn’t
say to anyone else but I may say to you I suppose that I am very
sorry indeed, it’s a great pity. I think he quite deserves to have it
only I wish it could have been offered and refused.’
Her father had mixed feelings about a university education for
his daughter but he acceded to Mr Cramb’s advice and she was
enrolled at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in 1886.

‘I’ve done Milton most of today. I always feel I could stand on
my head for want of a better oudet for my delight after Lycidas
or Comus. It’s very difficult to keep the knowledge of all that
exquisite beauty to myself without discussing it with anyone.’
The joy of learning expressed in letters to her mother and father
during the two years at Queen’s College was to last all her life
and Oxford was but another stage in a long and loving pursuit.
Only the piano ever really defeated her—she pleaded with her
parents to let her give it up—though singing and other forms of
music gave her pleasure in her earlier years: ‘I am singing
Lascia ch’io pianga and Verdi Prati (are they right spelt).’
She was just eighteen when she arrived at Lady Margaret Hall.
There were only two colleges at the university which women
could attend in her time, Somerville and L.M.H., and ladies were
forbidden to walk beyond the confines of the college unchaperoned.
At lectures they were separated from the men, usually being placed