IFFLEY MILL
"Thames, the best loved of all old Ocean's sons,
Of his old sire, to his embraces runs . . .
Though deep, yet clear, through gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."
SIR J. DENHAM.
[Plate XXVI. Iffley : The Old Mill]
The subject of Plate XXVI is no longer in existence; it was burned
to the ground some years ago, and has never been rebuilt--for steam
has rendered unprofitable the old-fashioned water mills such as it
was. Yet the very fact that Iffley Mill is no more perhaps renders it
the more appropriate subject for a series of Oxford pictures. It
claims a place among them, not for its beauty, picturesque though it
was, but as a symbol of the open-air pursuits of Oxford, which play
so large a part in the lives of her sons. And as those pursuits are
so diverse, and cannot all be directly pictured, it is fitting that
they should be represented by a picture which is a symbol of them
all, by a picture of something no longer existing, not introduced for
itself, but suggesting whole fields of varied activity, different and
yet all akin.
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