「我媽說，既然送我到寄宿學校要每年花50萬，一定要考入有名氣的學校才值！」一個學生曾跟我說。

家長希望孩子入讀名校的原因很多，其中當然包括可以在親朋戚友前炫耀。曾就讀於牛津大學的我，也會鼓勵學生報讀名校，但我的出發點自然比較簡單。我只想學生跟我有同樣的大學體驗：除了能受益於能力超凡的教授，更能受益於比自己優秀的同學，並在後者的感染下，自己也培養出高雅的志趣和堅強的心智。

為了點燃學生報讀名校的渴望，我喜歡跟他們分享我曾為一位跟我很要好的牛津同學寫的推薦書，因裏面也記錄了我在牛津學習的點滴。

以下是推薦書的原文，為了保護我同學的隱私，我稱她為「A」。

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Braque famously said of his relationship with Picasso that in the days when both were young and in the wonderful throes of breaking new grounds with Cubism, ‘we were like two mountain climbers roped together’

It is in my capacity as a mountain climber who was once roped together with A – in my capacity as an Oxford arts graduate who, like A, arrived in Oxford determined to climb this summit known as thesis completion – that I’m writing this reference.

Granted, at first glance, it is not at all apparent how an arts (philosophy) postgraduate and a science one can be said to be ‘roped together.’ Yet this was precisely what happened, and precisely why I strongly believe A can, too, richly bless the lives of the members of XX College the way she has so richly blessed mine.

The following are some of the upclose ‘A in action’ snapshots I took while mountain climbing with her.

Almost always climbing a bit ahead of me (she arrived in Oxford one year earlier, plus she did a D.Phil while I only did a Masters), A demonstrated to me – before it was my turn to experience my share of major failures and minor triumphs – that the reality of research life is one where (to quote a Michael Polanyi passage we both loved and drew strength from):

“most of the time is spent in fruitless efforts, sustained by a fascination which will take beating after beating for months on end, and produce ever new outbursts of hope, each as fresh as the last so bitterly crushed the week or month before. Vague shapes of surmised truth suddenly take on the sharp outlines of certainty, only to dissolve again in the light of second thoughts or of further experimental observations. Yet from time to time, certain visions of truth, having made their appearance, continue to gain strength both by further reflection and additional evidence. These are the claims which may be accepted as final by the investigator. This is how scientific propositions normally come into existence.”  (Michael Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society)

I’ve quoted from Polanyi at length because I want to show in detail some of the ‘shock’ A absorbed for me as my climbing leader: Because A was neither embarrassed nor afraid to share with me the ‘bad’ things that were happening to her work, I was able to psychologically prepare myself for the troubles that loomed ahead for me – when they finally hit, I wasn’t too surprised, and was able to get on with my work immediately.

Before I left Oxford, my thesis supervisor at Balliol, Dr. Timothy Endicott, told me that he ‘respected’ me because I ‘didn’t collapse’ even when work was sometimes so difficult. I am convinced that to a large degree, it was to A that I owed my resilience.

I am therefore also convinced that with her ability, generosity, and openness, A would be able to give members of XX College – especially the younger ones – straight talk on the rigours of research work and sound counsel on how to handle the emotional aspects of a thesis-grappling.

As a person, A is supremely capable of fighting for and then savouring what to me is the highest – the purest – form of happiness, the kind I suspect Marie Curie had in mind when, after reminiscing about the harsh conditions she endured for almost four years in her quest  to isolate radium, she added ‘and yet it was in this miserable old shed that the happiest years of our lives (hers and Pierre Curie’s) were spent, entirely consecrated to work…entirely absorbed by the new realm that was opening before us…we lived in our single preoccupation as if in a dream.’

When I think about my Oxford days, I realize – to my surprise – not only how intensely happy I was, but also how my intense happiness was intensified because of my friendship with A , who, unlike many postgraduate students I came across, was intensely happy – intensely happy on her own when I discovered her.

I therefore expect A to be capable of intensifying the ‘pure’ type of happiness of those she’ll be meeting at XX College.

I also find endearing and moving A’s readiness to take on difficulties without a fuss. On the extra hurdles any foreigner must surmount in order to ‘make it’ in her adopted homeland, A likes to quote approvingly the admonishment Lewis Carroll’s Alice receives from the Queen: ‘Now here, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’

Perhaps I should end this reference with an email A recently wrote to me. I am now venturing into the world of journalism, and had written to her asking whether fear will always accompany one in whatever one does. She replied”

“I am not able to give you a decisive answer, but what I understand is as long as we have immersed ourselves in a field long enough, we will feel less uneasy – this is not because uneasy situations don’t exist, but because we have learned to take things easy.”

Soothing words these were – A seems to instinctively know just what a friend needs.

Intelligence and wisdom are different things: one can be intelligent but not wise; one can be wise but not intelligent. A would have made a great friend even if she were only wise. But because she possesses both intelligence and wisdom, because I’ve been the ‘beneficiary’ of these qualities of hers and can thus picture how others may too be ‘beneficiaries,’ her Junior Research Fellowship application has my strongest support.

 

Michelle Ng

英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。

聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站： https://michellengwritings.com

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