A Room of One's Own: Oxymorons 1 key example

Toward the beginning of Chapter 1, as the narrator wanders the Oxbridge quadrangle, she muses on famous English essayist Charles Lamb. The narrator recalls that Lamb once wrote an essay about one of John Milton's poems, which he had viewed at Oxbridge. Curious to see if preserved copies of Milton's poem Lycidas and Thackeray's novel Esmond still dwell within the Oxbridge archives, the narrator attempts to enter the library. She is turned away at the gate for being a woman, by a "guardian," and the narrator's description of him is an example of both oxymoron and situational irony:

[H]ere I was actually at the door which leads into the library itself. I must have opened it, for instantly there issued, like a guardian angel barring the way with a flutter of black gown instead of  white wings, a deprecating, silvery, kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction.

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