Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

11. CHAPTER XI: MRS PROUDIE'S RECEPTION--CONCLUDED (continued)

'No,' said the archdeacon; 'you've only drawn our teeth and cut out our tongues; you've allowed us still to breathe and swallow.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the bishop; 'it's not quite so easy to cut out the tongue of an Oxford magnate,--and as for teeth,--ha, ha, ha! Why, in the way we've left the matter, it's very odd if the heads of colleges don't have their own way quite as fully as when the hebdomadal board was in all its glory; what do you say, Mr Dean?'

'An old man, my lord, never likes changes,' said the dean.

'You must have been sad bunglers if it is so,' said the archdeacon; 'and indeed, to tell the truth, I think you have bungled it. At any rate, you must own this; you have not done the half what you boasted you would do.'

'Now, as regards your system of professors--' began the chancellor slowly. He was never destined to get beyond the beginning.

'Talking of professors,' said a soft clear voice close behind the chancellor's elbow; 'how much you Englishmen might learn from Germany; only you are all too proud.'

The bishop looking round, perceived that abominable young Stanhope had pursued him. The dean stared at him, as though he was some unearthly apparition; so also did two or three prebendaries and minor canons. The archdeacon laughed.

'The German professors are men of learning,' said Mr Harding, 'but--'

'German professors!' groaned out the chancellor, as though his nervous system had received a shock which nothing but a week of Oxford air would cure.

'Yes,' continued Ethelbert; not at all understanding why a German professor should be contemptible in the eyes of an Oxford don. 'Not but what the name is best earned at Oxford. In Germany the professors do teach; at Oxford, I believe they only profess to do so, and sometimes not even that. You'll have those universities of yours about your ears soon, if you don't consent to take a lesson from Germany.'