ABSTRACT
In the ante-chapel of New College, Oxford, is the window designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds representing the Nativity, and beneath the manger and the Holy Family the seven virtues, in the form of seven women’s figures that are the triumph of the great painter’s imagination and skill. Right and left are the four cardinal virtues, Temperance and Fortitude to the left, to the right Justice and Prudence ; in the centre, just beneath the Infant Saviour, are the three evangelic virtues, as they have been called, Love in the midst, Faith on the left, and Hope on the right. Having the good fortune to be educated at New College, I have felt this western window of the ante-chapel as a shining presence all through my life. When the sinking sun shone through the window those exquisite forms stood out translucent, and the jewelled light penetrated beyond the high-built organ, into the recesses of the chapel, where is kept the crozier of William of Wykeham, the founder of the College. Those seven virtues came home to me as the perfection of beauty, sank into my heart as desirable beyond the love of women : the virtues honoured in antiquity, and called cardinal because they are the very hinges on which noble character turns, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, and the three virtues which came with the gospel, which in a sense were the gospel, Faith and Hope and Love.
