Gertrude Herdle Letter 7-13-1921 London

              National Hotel
Upper Bedford Row
London, England
July 13, 1921

My dear family,

We have wonderful week-end behind us, which started Friday afternoon in Oxford, centered around Leamington, from which Kenilworth Castle and Warwick Castle, Coventry, where Lady Godiva rode through the streets and Peeping Tom has a statue of Himself, and Stratford-on-Avon, are within short distance, and finally was Kithie and me leave Dexter's sheltering presence and proceed northward to Ely, Peterborough and Lincoln.

It was very interesting to see Oxford and Cambridge within a few days of each other and compare them, as we delighted in doing, from the point of view of age, atmosphere, and beauty.  I have arrived at no decision in the matter, however, for this is the way they rank in my mind - Oxford gives the impression of greater age, although Cambridge is more beautiful and has more interesting facts connected with it.  Of course nothing can equal the lovely gardens of Magdalen College (pronounced "Maudlin") at Oxford, which are flower borders along the River Isis and Addison's Walk along and cinder old ivy-hung trees.  Nor have we found at Cambridge the dignity of All Souls College, founded for the purpose of praying for the souls of the dead of the Hundred Years' War.  It is now only a graduate school, admitting no one without a doctor's degree, and not receiving more than two scholars a year.  We loved its old chapel and the equisite [sic] reredos behind the altar, and marveled at the beautiful proportions of its Italian Library, where have been entertained the greatest personages of the time- Wilson,