TLS on the cult of Oxbridge donnishness: "The only professors without private incomes who have ever lived a genteel life are those who were once resident fellows of rich colleges."
Much truth to that, even at the far end of the scale. I still remember the summer in summerstock at one of the Seven Sisters. Long afternoons reading in the parlor. And jobbing in as a technician (just after receiving a top conservatory masters in performance) at a theatre based in Edith Wharton's old estate, where I lingered in the library when not figuring out the electric wiring in the horse stables (where Raquel Welch was shortly to do some Bernard Shaw).
The piece closes with a quote from a Wittgenstein disciple. Cantab ascendnt, now that they hold no. 10. Rumor has it that some of the mannerisms in the Philosophers sketch in Beyond the Fringe have their roots in common-room impressions of W.
The notion of a distant Christminster (or two) is useful. In addition to Hardy, I've plowed through C.P. Snow and Iris Murdoch, and still return to them as a sort of ongoing mental frame. But as useful as the distant fiction might be, one hopes that the thing itself doesn't do too much damage.