Chapter XV: Part II: ――comments (4)

‘… There is a wide intermediate range of character among those who neither neglect nor rest in their fellow-men. With some, those feelings of reverence and admiration, which seem like the voice of God assigning to every man his province, are more deeply touched by the quiet holiness of domestic life, its little delicate self-sacrifices, its affectionate attentions and glad confidence. The idol of their hearts is one whom men love even when he is most severe, or, if they love him not they dare not avow it, knowing that the world would hold them self-condemned; whose enjoyment it is to confer enjoyment, who moves about with a heart and sympathies open to all he meets, expecting no evil; and, when encountered by vice, rebukes it with a mixture of horror, pity, and simplicity, which, if they fail to convince, at least never irritate or harden. Not that such an one need be wanting in the expression of just indignation, but he shows no intention to punish, no assumption of superiority. He speaks either by way of affectionate remonstrance, or to disburden his own conscience; and those who are too bad to be affected by mere goodness, only say of him “that he is as kind-hearted a man as can be; pity he should let his fancies run away with him.”

‘It need hardly be said that this is Christian love, but not its only form. Minds more bitterly alive to the unsatisfying nature of earthly things, will thirst after some more immediate form of self-devotion to God: and the same feelings which render their brethren less adequate representatives of their Heavenly Father in their hearts, imply capacities which render them less necessary. They will press as close to God as He will let them, anxious, if it were possible, to anticipate His purposes concerning them, watching for permission to throw away earthly comforts in His service, if He will give them the signal to take to themselves that honour; laborious, by meditation and mortification of the flesh, to root out from their hearts every idle desire that interferes with His presence there, and to bend to His direct service every high taste and faculty which He has given them: who would sing songs to His glory though there were none to hear them, and would adorn holy places though there were none to see them; anxious for no result, but for the mere happiness of devoting heart, head, and hand to His honour, if they have but an instinct or a word of His to tell them that He will be pleased with their little offering. These men will no more forget their brethren than the others will forget God; they will have their words of encouragement for the penitent, of courtesy for the stranger, of deep affection for their friends. But they do not go about, overflowing with kindness and confidence to all men. Perhaps circumstances have thrown upon them one of those great works which ever lie about the world unappropriated, and they are “straitened till it be accomplished.” Perhaps the work of their own salvation lies heavier on their spirits than on theirs who live and die in happy, quiet, uniform thankfulness. Perhaps their own renunciation of the lesser pleasures of life makes them less understand the value which others set on them. At any rate, their constant endeavour to realise within themselves their own high aspirations, tends to unfit them for sympathising with buoyant earthly merriment, or sanguine earthly wishes, except it be with the passing interest which we give to the careless gaiety of a child.

‘Again, the stern examination by which they purge their own hearts, that they may be worthy of God, opens to them the secrets of others. It shows them what is their own meanness in the sight of God, and what it may be in the sight of their fellow-men; but it lays upon them the painful power of seeing through profession and self-deceit, and it teaches them how, by word and eye, to silence and chastise as well as protest.

* * * * *

‘These men, it need scarcely be said, are not talked of as “kind-hearted fellows”; they are felt to be partisans, and are reverenced or hated accordingly. Their presence, when it does not deepen the interest of conversation, is apt to impose a check on its freedom. Men are afraid of being frivolous and unreal in their presence; doubtful what will offend them; or what degree of forbearance they may reckon on; suspicious of their motives, as of men who do not speak freely, unless they speak with authority, of what they most deeply mean; and cautious in accepting their friendship, for it is only firmly given to similarity of religious aim. But the loftiness of sentiment which confines, deepens also the flow of their sympathies; their power of severity gives meaning to their affection, and their singleness of aim a high harmony to their thoughts and tastes. Those who will take their hand and walk with them will find the fruit of their friendship rich according to its noble origin and tenure.

‘Now of these two characters it would perhaps be overbold to say which is holiest; at any rate, the loveliness of one is very different from the majesty of the other: different, not indeed in essentials, but in the hopes, fears, tastes, and sentiments, which it forces uppermost…. The later Church of England character is very decidedly of the former cast. Ours is the Church of Walton and Herbert, not of Athanasius and Ambrose. And truly we have been born into a beautiful inheritance. Our fathers have bequeathed to us the appreciation of a kindly and a holy spirit; a spirit of affectionate unobtrusive meekness, of considerate friendliness, of calm cheerfulness. And these are in their measure not only appreciated but realised amongst us: the domestic and social virtues of our clergy are in the mouths of every panegyrist of the Church of England, and are hardly denied by her enemies…. And it is true, that there are passages of Scripture which address themselves to a very different class of minds: passages which ὁ δυνάμενος χωρεῖν, χωρείτω, which “all men cannot receive, but they to whom it is given.” There are a whole class of expressions in the New Testament, which though surely they do not condemn the English Church, yet seem somehow not to have received their natural development in it.[342] “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast … and come, follow Me.” “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you.” “Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.” “Κάλον ἀνθρώπῳ γύναικος μὴ ἅπτεσθαι.” “Every one that hath forsaken brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, for My Name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” We seem afraid of these.

* * * * *

‘Within our own Church, we are over-careful to soothe enthusiasm, and somewhat helpless in directing it. In judging foreign Churches, or other ages, we talk of a “misguided zeal for what they consider the glory of God,” “the fantastic rigours by which men render themselves callous to the sufferings of others,” “the extinction of the domestic affections to aggrandise one ambitious Church,” words which may be true or not, as they are applied, but which, as commonly used, are rather rashly bandied about, considering all the hints and recommendations that Scripture contains.[343] We can be warm enough in our censures of those who would call down fire from Heaven, or sit at the right hand of Christ, but have perhaps too much fellow-feeling with him who went away sorrowful when he found he must not only obey the law, but sell his property. The book now before us is, most unquestionably, not of the peculiar Church of England character, but of that cast which we are somewhat apt to depreciate, or to look on as a romantic unreality….

‘In his Private Journal, which was written chiefly in 1826, when he was about twenty-four, the feeling round which all others seem to group themselves, is a craving after an ideal happiness, real and attainable, though not yet, of which all our refined perceptions of beauty, nobility, and holiness are but indications and foretastes, and in which, as our character becomes equal to our capacities, they must eventually converge. With this is joined, as perhaps its necessary condition, a sensitive and pure taste for all that is beautiful or lofty to sight or mind; high, though unpractised, poetical powers; and an earnest appreciation of the reverence due to holy things, even to our own higher thoughts and deeper emotions.

‘This itself explains why these powers and feelings, lying, it seems, deepest, were unknown, almost unsuspected, by more than two or three of his nearest friends. His acquaintance more readily perceived and appreciated an unusually deep and true mode of dealing with mathematical questions; a subtlety, boldness and ingenuity of reasoning; a frank and accurate apprehension of the full force of an adverse argument; and a definiteness of conception and expression which seemed to cut through an intricate question, throwing off, rather than grappling with objections, with a clearness which one could hardly believe not to be sophistry.

‘But this book derives its commanding interest from the stern self-chastisement of body and mind, from which both reason and imagination receive their tone and substance. With this the Journal acquaints us; and there is something which really cows an ordinary reader, in the unsparing steadiness with which faults are sought for, the bitter self-abasement with which they are felt, and the unrelenting determination with which they are punished; all being recorded, except when addressed to God, with a plain and sometimes contemptuous homeliness of expression, which seems as if the author wished to do dishonour to himself and his thoughts, or held that a feeling which claimed to be deep and true, should not disdain to buy, by humiliation, the privilege of utterance….

‘… In 1825, in which year he took his degree, passages in his letters show the existence of those romantic views of religion which occupy so prominent a place in his character from that time forward. Of part of the intervening time, he speaks often in his Journal with very deep contrition: but anyone who observes the deep humiliation with which he confesses faults of which ordinary persons would think but little, (common indeed to all who have really high views of Christian excellence,) will be very cautious in inferring much as to the facts themselves, from this most bitter recollection of them. The Journal itself may perhaps be best introduced by some letters, giving an account of the first part of the time which it records.’

[To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, but not sent.]

Sept. 28, 1826.

‘“I have been meaning to write to you every day for a long time, and I do not suppose you would wish me to be influenced in putting off longer by the sad thing we have just heard.[344] At least, if I may judge from myself, there is so little difference between what are called real afflictions and imaginary ones, that it seems just as rational to go on in the common way when under the former as the latter. With me, this last summer, both at the time, and looking back on it, seems to have gone very strangely; and I do not see any ground why my reason should contradict my feelings, because the things which affect me are either, in their nature, confined to the person who feels them, or are thought trifles by people in general. I have been trying almost all the Long [Vacation] to discover a sort of common-sense romance: I am convinced there must be such a thing, and that Nature did not give us such a high capacity for pleasure without making some other qualification for it besides delusion. But the speculation has got much more serious, and runs out into many more ramifications than I expected at first; and it seems to me as if I might make it the main object of a long course of reading, the first step of which would be to follow your advice in learning Hebrew and reading the early Fathers. This I have determined upon doing immediately upon my return to Oxford; and the intervening space I shall pass away as I can, with I. and P.,[345] among the mountains and waterfalls. Since I wrote this in the morning, I have been walking with P., whose quietness of mind makes me quite ashamed of my speculations, and I hardly like sending you this letter; however, if I have been making myself a fool all the summer, it is better I should not go on brooding on it by myself; for letting somebody know the state of my thoughts is the only way of keeping them straight; and I know no one but you who would make sufficient allowance for me to venture on such things with. Perhaps you may think it very odd, but this is the first time I have had resolution to ask for the papers which they found of my mother’s after her death.”

‘The writer seems to have shrunk from allowing this letter to reach his friend. In its stead, the following was sent:

‘“I have made three attempts to write, but all of them ran off into something wild, which, upon reflection, I thought would be better kept to myself. The fact is, that I have been in a strange way all the summer, and having had no one to talk to about the things which have bothered me, I have been every now and then getting into fits of enthusiasm or despondency. But the result has been in some respects a good one, and I have got to take very great pleasure in what you recommended me when we were together at F.,[346] the evening before I left you, our first summer, _i.e._ good books; and I feel [I] understand places in the Psalms in a way I never used to. I go back to Oxford with a determination to set to at Hebrew and the early Fathers, and to keep myself in as strict order as I can: a thing which I have been making ineffectual attempts at for some time, but which never once entered my head for a long time of my life….

‘“And now I must drop back to myself. I wish you would say anything to me that you think would do me good, however severe it may be. You must have observed many things very contemptible in me, but I know worse of myself, and shall be prepared for anything. I cannot help being afraid that I am still deceiving myself about my motives and feelings, and shall be glad of anything on which to steady myself.”

‘It is exceedingly interesting to trace in the Journal the actual working day by day of the feelings to which these letters refer. The following extract is, in effect, its opening:

‘“_July 1, 1826._――I think it will be a better way to keep a Journal for a bit, as I find I want keeping in order about more things than reading. I am in a most conceited way, besides very ill-tempered and irritable. My thoughts wander very much at my prayers, and I feel hungry for some ideal thing of which I have no definite idea. I sometimes fancy that the odd bothering feeling which gets possession of me is affectation, and that I appropriate it because I think it a sign of genius: but it lasts too long, and is too disagreeable to be unreal.”

‘“_July 5._――I do not know how it is, but it seems to me as if the consciousness of having capacities for happiness, with no objects to gratify them, seems to grow upon me, and puts me in a dreary way. Lord, have mercy upon me!”

‘These feelings continue occasionally to appear, assuming, more and more, a distinct and practical shape, till his return to Oxford in October, 1826 (the period when the Letters before quoted were written), when they gave rise to the following resolutions:

‘“I have been coming to a resolution, that as soon as I am out of the reach of observation, I will begin a sort of monastic austere life, and do my best to chastise myself before the Lord; that I will attend Chapel regularly; eat little and plainly, drink as little wine as I can, consistently with the forms of society; keep the fasts of the Church, as much as I can, without ostentation; continue to get up at six in the winter; abstain from all unnecessary expenses, in everything; give all the money I can save in charity, or for the adorning of religion. That I will submit myself to the wishes of the [Provost?] as to one set over me by the Lord, but never give in to the will or opinion of anyone from idleness, or false shame, or want of spirit. That I will avoid society as much as I can, except those I can do good to, or from whom I may expect real advantage; and I will, in all my actions, endeavour to justify that high notion of my capabilities of which I cannot divest myself. That I will avoid all conversation on serious subjects, except with those whose opinions I revere, and content myself with exercising dominion over my own mind, without trying to influence others. The studies which I have prescribed to myself are Hebrew and Ante-Nicene Fathers….”

‘We extract the following philosophical reflections, taken from the Occasional Thoughts of about the same date, as similarly characteristic of the author’s steady and systematic procedure:

‘“_Dec. 1, 7_, and _17_.――It is the object of our lives, by patient perseverance in a course of action prescribed to us, so to shape and discipline our desires that they may, through habit, be excited to the same degree by the objects which are presented to our understanding, as they would by nature, if we had senses to relish them; that is, that the degree of our appetites for these objects should so far exceed that which we feel for sensible objects, as the known value of the former exceeds that of the latter. The former field of existence is what I think St. Paul had in his mind when he spoke (Heb., vi. 19) of ‘that which is within the veil,’ into which Jesus Christ had gone before us: the veil signifying our unconsciousness, in spite of which, ‘by two immutable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled to lay hold of the hope set before us.’ All this seems the real meaning of faith, as insisted on so much in the New Testament.

‘“Of the objects which we pursue or avoid, some we immediately perceive to be either present or absent; some we only believe to be so through the intervention of the understanding. The various dispositions of our fellow-creatures towards us are of the latter sort. We have no faculties for perceiving love or admiration; but being conscious of the feeling ourselves, and recognising in others the effects which we know to proceed from them, we believe their presence upon evidence, and are affected therewith. Of being in society we cannot be conscious, if by society we mean not that of certain shapes doing certain things, but of beings which feel in some respects as we do. The existence of such beings we only believe on evidence, having observed effects like those which proceed from our own feelings, in so many instances as to make it appear that the causes are likewise similar. The same sort of evidence we have of the existence of other beings, in some respects like, and in others different from ourselves. That a Being exists endued with power and wisdom, the limits of which we cannot reach to, is, I think, more certain than that we have fellow-creatures.[347] All men, whether they know it or not, act as if they believed in a Being endued with intelligence and power and will, superior to any interference. They count on the course of Nature continuing as it is, because they know that what they have long continued to do they go on with; and rely without any doubt on its skill and ability for perfecting their undertaking, where their own skill and ability fall short. That this Being has any other attributes, we have not the same evidence. These are the ‘things within the veil’; they are κυρίως, the objects of faith. But consideration will show that the difference is not in kind but in degree, and that among what we call the things visible, motives are proposed to us to be acted on, approaching to it by degrees imperceptible.”

‘“Isa. xxv. 7, 9. ‘And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations…. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him: we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation….’

‘“The business of our life seems to be, to acquire the habit of acting in such a manner as we should do, if we were conscious of all we know; and in this respect no action of our lives can be indifferent, but must either tend to form this habit or a contrary one: so that those whose attempt to act right does not commence with their power of acting at all, have much to undo, as well as to do. The craving, and blankness of feeling, which attends the early stages of this habit (‘show some token upon me for good’), makes anything acceptable which can even in fancy fill it; and it is delightful to see things turn out well, whose case seems, in some sort, to represent to us our indistinct conceptions of our own. Animals fainting under the effect of exercise, and then again recovering their strength, which that very exercise has contributed to increase; the slow and uncertain degrees in which this exercise is effected, and yet the certainty that it is effected;――the growth of trees sometimes tossed by winds and checked by frosts, yet, by the evil effects of these winds directed in what quarter to strike their roots, so as to secure themselves for the future, and by these frosts hardened and fitted for a new progress the next summer:――in things of this sort I am [altered in the MS. from ‘we are’] so constituted, as to see brethren in affliction evidently making progress towards release….”

* * * * *

‘The impression left on the mind after a first perusal of the Journal is doubtless a depressing one, both from the unhappiness which it records, and (it may be) from a fear that if we would exercise the same strict vigilance over our own hearts, or would aim at the same high mark, we might find cause for disquiet too. It is a real satisfaction to find, both at the end of the Journal that the author considers himself to have passed into a happier state, and in his Letters, that he gradually ceases to speak of his own despondency, either openly to his nearest friend, or in those half-jesting hints of which his other friends must only now feel the meaning. His external demeanour, both from natural disposition and from his contempt for any display of feeling, seems always to have been so full of life and energy, that from it alone, perhaps, no change in this respect could have been inferred. This despondency we have not attempted to show in the extracts, though it does slightly appear there; but rather his high desires to “enter within the veil,” to be “hidden in the presence of the Lord,” and the mode which he took to realise them. This forms a remarkable contrast with the self-confidence and unreality which too frequently springs from the consciousness of high views. It is, unfortunately, not often that we see men of bold and independent minds, subtle and comprehensive powers of reasoning, and romantic desires, giving up, till they shall be fit for it, all notion of “influencing others”; checking, without throwing aside, their own high feelings; subduing, with a systematic humility, their impulses to express them, and submitting to learn their duty by the slow and common-sense process of “following great examples,” “studying Hebrew and the Ante-Nicene Fathers,” and in the meantime obeying scrupulously the voices of those whom they feel to be better than themselves….

‘The volume before us touches the magic keys with a bold hand; and though some of the notes which come forth are rather startling, and may be untruly struck, yet there is a meaning in them which deserves to be analysed by those defenders of the English Church who are looking about for weapons to wield, and ground to stand on. Two principal wants, then, the author seems to have felt in the English Church: authority, and richness; and that not in the spirit of a dreaming philosopher, but of one who knew that we were here not to think only, but to act; that evil was given us that we might strive against it; Truth, that we might uphold or restore it; Revelation and moral instincts, that we might know both one and the other; Talent and energy, that we might form projects, recommend, and execute them. Nor would the restraints he set on his impulses to influence others, till circumstances and a conscious fitness should call him to it, make him likely to shrink from his task when he felt it given him. He seems early to have thought that his powers would enable him to serve the Church more effectually as a reader and writer than as a parochial clergyman: by acting on those minds which are to guide the masses, [rather] than on the masses themselves. To this his position as College Fellow seemed also to invite him; and the following extracts illustrate part of the spirit in which he devoted himself to this task, and the tastes he sacrificed to it.

‘“_July 27, 1827._――

‘What is home, you silly, silly wight,
That it seems to you to shine so bright?
What is home?――’Tis a place so gay,
Where the birds are singing all the day;
Where a wood is close by, and a river dear,
And the banks they sleep in the water clear;
Where the roses are red and the lilies pale;
And the little brooks run along every vale.

Is it nowhere but home, you silly-billee,
That the thrushes sing in each shady tree?
That the woods are deep, and the rivers too,
And the roses and lilies laugh at you?
O there are thousands of places as well!
So be quiet, I pray, and no nonsense tell.

Oh yes, but faces of kindness are there,
Which brighten the flowers and freshen the air;
Sweetly at morn our eyes do rest
On those whom waking thoughts have blest,
And guarded in sleep by a magic spell,
O’er which “Good-nights” are sentinel.

Is kindness, then, so dainty a flower,
That it grows alone in one chosen bower?
Hast thou not many a brother dear,
With thee to hope, and with thee to fear,
Owning a common Father’s aid,
Resting alike in a common shade?

Yes, friends may be kind, and vales may be green,
And brooks may sparkle along between;
But it is not Friendship’s kindest look,
Nor loveliest vale, nor clearest brook,
That can tell the tale which is written for me
On each old face and well-known tree.’”

‘“_July 28._――This stagnant effusion was enough for one day, and I must not put off any longer,” etc.

‘“_Sept. 9, 1832._――Also I am getting to be a sawney, and not to like the dreary prospects which you[348] and I have proposed to ourselves. But this is only a feeling; depend upon it, I will not shrink, if I buy my constancy at the expense of a permanent separation from home.”

‘“_Sept. 27._――As to my sawney feelings, I own that home does make me a sawney, and that the first _Eclogue_ runs in my head absurdly; but there is more in the prospect of becoming an ecclesiastical agitator than in――_At nos hinc, alii_,” etc.

‘And this introduces us to a side of his character on which we have as yet scarcely touched: the fertility, buoyancy, boldness, and versatility of his mind. It has been left unnoticed, partly because no one who was ever so little acquainted with the author, or who would read ever so cursorily the book before us, could well overlook it, partly because the peculiarities on which we have dwelt seem to have exercised a far deeper influence in making him what he was. Both the Journal and the Occasional Thoughts, though principally interesting as showing the processes by which his character and opinions formed themselves, and the depth of thought and determination of purpose on which they were based, cannot but in part show those too; but in the Letters we are flooded with the pointed suggestions, the bold historical views of a keen-sighted politician, the vigorous statements and earnest queries of one who was seeking and contending for divine Truth, and the ingenious hints, on questions of taste or science, of a man of genius who thought nothing unworthy to employ his powers which could be pressed into the service of religion….

‘From what has been already said, some general notion may be gained of the author’s formal opinions. It may be added, that he was one of those who, feeling strongly the inadequacy of their own intellects to guide them to religious Truth, are prepared to throw themselves unreservedly on Revelation wherever found, in Scripture or Antiquity. Any more definite account it would be difficult to give without unfairness either to the author or to the reader: to the reader, if we omitted his more startling views; to the author, if we stated them detached and unsupported. His Letters seem to show that his opinions ran somewhat in advance of those to whom he was most closely bound. Still less should we venture to pledge ourselves to every statement and suggestion contained in the two volumes; yet we cannot but express our hope that they will be very generally read and weighed, as likely to suggest thoughts on doctrine, on Church policy, and on individual conduct, most true, and most necessary for these times.’

From ‘THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ISAAC WILLIAMS, B.D.’ Edited by his
Brother-in-Law, the Ven. Sir GEORGE PREVOST. London: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1892.

[By the kind permission of the Rev. G. A. Williams, and of Messrs
Longmans, Green & Co.]

‘Keble took us into his house,[349] where I formed a most valued friendship with Froude. He was an Eton man, and at Oriel of a little older standing than myself. [We found] religion a reality, and a man wholly made up of love…. Here were many of us, taught with much pains and care by one till then a stranger, and altogether gratuitously…. Each of us was always delighted to walk with him, Wilberforce,[350] to gather instruction for the Schools, and the rest of us for love’s sake…. I spent all this vacation [1823] at Southrop, and, I think, all my subsequent ones. It was, I think, on this occasion that John Keble said: “Since you have shown me your Latin poems, I shall be vain enough to show you my English ones,” and he then lent me to read what has since been called _The Christian Year_. It was carefully written out in small red books. I read it a great deal, but did not much enter into it. No more did Froude, when he saw it; and, I think, even long after he was averse to the publication of it. Among other things he said: “People will take Keble for a Methodist!” At that time I told Keble my favourite poet was Collins: he said there was not enough thought in him to please himself. Froude was always maintaining some argument with Keble, occasionally some monstrous paradox. He was considered a very odd fellow at College, but clever and original; Keble alone was able to appreciate and value him. If he had not at this time fallen into such hands, his speculations might have taken a very dangerous turn; but as his father, the Archdeacon, told me, from this time it was much otherwise: he continued to throw out strong paradoxes, but always for good.

‘On returning to Oxford, Froude had now taken the place of my former companions, Keble being a great bond between us. I think he took more to me than I did to him, because I had been used to more of worldly refinement and sentiment, whereas he was unworldly, and real. But still, we were much united, and became more and more so…. Froude told me, many years after, that Keble once, before parting from him, seemed to have something on his mind which he wished to say, but shrunk from saying. At last, while waiting, I think, for a coach, he said to him before parting: “Froude, you said one day that Law’s _Serious Call_ was a clever” (or “pretty,” I forgot which) “book: it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement would be a pretty sight.” This speech, Froude told me, had a great effect on his after-life; and I observed that in the published Letters in Froude’s _Remains_, he twice alludes to it…. Henry Ryder (like Wilberforce) had been brought up in a strict Evangelical school of the better kind; and on one occasion got up and left a College party in consequence of something that Froude had said that seemed to him to be of a light kind. But when he afterwards came to know the deep self-humiliation and depth of devotion there was in Froude’s character, which was engaged in the discipline of the heart, he became so shocked with himself and his own opinions, that he adopted the opposite course….

‘It was in August, 1825, that I first went with Froude into Devonshire. We went by a steamer from Cowes to Plymouth, as described in a letter in Froude’s _Remains_ (Part i., Vol. i., p. 181). From Totnes, we walked up the Dart by Dartington House to the Parsonage: that place which ever since has been to me dearer than my native vales, of which I always say:

‘_Ille terrarum mihi præter omnes Angulus ridet._

‘The Froudes were eight in family, and the Archdeacon became a great friend. But the people after my own heart were at Dartington House.[351] … With the Archdeacon and Hurrell we rode along the coast, being very hospitably entertained at different houses; and at last, from the Holdsworths’ house at Dartmouth we came up the river Dart by boat…. Prevost, [the] summer of 1826, came to Cwm,[352] and was engaged to my sister; and afterwards Froude came there too, and gives an account of his stay there in his published Journal, where I am mentioned under the letter I., and Prevost under that of P. All this time I was very unwell, and preying on my own mind. I went to Oxford to reside my Bachelor’s term, and lived with Sir Charles Anderson, and saw much of Froude, who was very kind to me. I went to Dartington, with the Archdeacon, from Oxford, and spent the Easter there…. When I went to reside in Oxford, in October, [1831], as College Tutor, I felt what a great change had come on my mind since residing there before, on account of the influence of Bisley[353] and Windrush,[354] and I found this the more on returning to the society of Froude, for I was become so much more soft and practical, and he more theoretical and speculative…. Yet this change that had been going on, from difference of circumstances, in no way lessened my friendship and intimacy with Froude, but rather increased it; for though naturally inclined to speculation, he was himself entirely of the Keble school, which in opposition to the Oriel or Whatelian, set ἦθος above intellect…. Living at that time so much with Froude, I was now, in consequence, for the first time, brought into intercourse with Newman; we almost daily walked and dined together. Newman and Froude were just then turned out of their tutorships at Oriel, together with Robert Wilberforce, who left Oxford for his living of East Farleigh. Their course had, as yet, been chiefly academical, but now, released from College affairs, their thoughts were more open to the state of the Church…. I was greatly charmed and delighted with Newman, who was extremely kind to me; but [I] did not altogether trust his opinions. Although Froude was in the habit of stating things in an extreme and paradoxical manner, yet one always felt conscious of a thorough foundation of truth and principle in him, a ground of entire confidence and agreement; but this was not so with Newman, even although one appeared more in unison with his more moderate statements.[355] … At this time he was coming to look to Keble altogether, as he received him second-hand through Froude…. But I always thought Froude an unfair exponent of Keble’s opinions: they were stated by him in a manner so much his own, so startling and original, and put in so extreme a light, that I could hardly recognise them as the same, so different was his from Keble’s manner of expressing himself. [_Note._――Froude used to defend his startling way of putting facts and arguments on the ground that it was the only way to rouse people, and get their attention; and he said that when you had once done this, you might modify your statements. There is, of course, some truth in this, but it always seemed, and still seems to me, a dangerous line. John Keble could not do so: his great humility and diffidence would prevent it, and that strict conscientiousness which hindered him from even willingly overstating any fact, or pressing any argument, beyond what he said it really did prove….]

‘… The circumstance which I most remember about that time[356] was a conversation with Froude which was the first commencement of the _Tracts for the Times_. He returned full of energy and of a prospect of doing something for the Church; and we walked in the Trinity College gardens, and discussed the subject. He said, in his manner: “Isaac, we must make a row in the world! Why should we not? Only consider what the Peculiars” (_i.e._ the Evangelicals) “have done with a few half-truths to work upon! And with our principles, if we set resolutely to work, we can do the same.” I said: “I have no doubt we can make a noise, and may get people to join us; but shall we make them really better Christians? If they take up our principles in a hollow way, as the Peculiars” (this was a name Froude had given the Low Church party) “have done theirs, what good shall we do?” To this Froude said: “Church principles, forced on people’s notice, must work for good. However, we must try; and Newman and I are determined to set to work as soon as he returns, and you must join with us. We must have short tracts, and letters in _The British Magazine_, and verses (and these you can do for us), and get people to preach sermons on the Apostolical Succession and the like. And let us come and see old Palmer” (_i.e._ the author of the _Origines Liturgicæ_) “and get him to do something.” We then called on Palmer, who was one of the very few in Oxford (indeed, the only one at that time) who sympathised with us; and although he did not altogether understand Froude, or our ways and views (the less so as he was not himself an Oxford, but a Dublin man), yet he was extremely hearty in the cause, looking more to external visible union and strength than we did, for we only had at heart certain principles. We, _i.e._, Froude, Keble, and myself, immediately began to send some verses to _The British Magazine_, since published [in] the _Lyra Apostolica_….

‘… From this time forth, after Newman’s return, I was thrown more and more entirely into his society for about seven years, Froude waning more and more away, and disappearing from Oxford….

‘… I much regretted not being with poor Froude at or nearly before his death…. Poor Froude! he was peculiarly _vir paucorum hominum_: I thought that knowing him, I better understood Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Froude was a person most natural, but so original as to be unlike anyone else, hiding depth of delicate thought in apparent extravagances. _Hamlet_ and the _Georgics_ of Virgil, he used to say, he should have bound together. Many have imagined, and Newman endeavoured to persuade himself, that if Froude had lived he would have joined the Church of Rome, as well as himself. But this I do not at all think. There was a seriousness and steadfastness, at the bottom, in Froude, so that I had always confidence in him:[357] Newman told me once, half-seriously, that the publication of Froude’s _Remains_ was owing to me, as I had said to him, if persons could have so much brought before them that they could thoroughly understand Froude’s character, then they might enter into his sayings; but unless they knew him as we did, they could not understand them. For, indeed, one constantly trembled for him in mixed society, both in Common Rooms and in other places, feeling that he would not be understood…. On the day of the book coming out, I went into Parker the bookseller’s with Copeland; and there we were startled at seeing one who then was the chief opponent of the Church principles of Newman and ourselves. It was Ward of Balliol, author of the _Ideal_. He sat down with the book in his hands, evidently much affected; and then we afterwards heard, to our astonishment, that he had been very much taken by the book, had bought a copy for himself and another to give away, and was, in fact, quite converted.’

From ‘ORIGIN OF THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES,’ A POEM IN THE 1852
EDITION OF ‘THOUGHTS IN PAST YEARS,’ by ISAAC WILLIAMS.[358]

‘It was before the summer holidays,
A noon I well remember, as we sat
Conversing in my College rooms, my thoughts
Mingling unconscious with the trembling leaves
Of poplars from the window; and meanwhile,
In converse still unbroken, thence we passed
Into the stately garden-walks, and there
Paced to and fro beside the aged yews
Which once like living guardians of the lawn
Had marshalled all the place with verdant walls:
Now, mere memorials of their former sway.
’Twas a dark vapoury noon, while ruddy gleams
Were mingling with the sun, and fell athwart
The cloistral lime-tree avenue beyond;
And like a curtain, the moist atmosphere
Hung heavily around us, yet withal
Glowing and warm, not adverse to my friend
(Lately returned from genial Italy,
Death in his frame and cheek), and to his eye
Lent more than its own brightness. He was one
I loved: ah, would that I had loved him more!
For he was worthy of a good man’s love.
“Yes,” said he, with my name, as he was wont,
Sportfully playing, “we must make a noise
In the large world; why should we not? How they
Of Low Church views, Peculiar, through the land
Make themselves felt and heard; and ring aloud
With a few truths, half-truths! and shall not we
With the whole Truth forgotten for our theme,
The pillar and the ground of all our hopes,
Or, rather, say the Faith entire and one
In all its due proportions, and the Church
Our witness of old time,――why should we not
Lift up, as like a trumpet through the land,
With no uncertain sound, our warning voice?”

My answer I remember: “Noise abroad
I doubt not we can make as well as they.
And then to be as hollow partisans,
Supporters,――this were easy, and the Church
To be familiar in men’s mouths; but then
Will they beneath all this be better men,
More humble?”

“They will be so,” he replied.
“For the great Truths themselves, depend on it,
Will work, and work for good; but hollow men
There will be, and needs must.”

Yet, to and fro,
I urged the adverse part: “I fear the weight
On spirits unprepared, undisciplined;
Of others and ourselves I am afraid.
Could men be fuller leavened with the thought
Of Judgement and Hereafter, could we lay
Foundations deep in honesty, ’twere well;
But else, mere superstructure on the sand!
Fashion, religious fashion, and the tide
Of popular feelings,――I can never wish
To have them with us. We must walk in doubt
And fear, and do our parts, come what come may.”

“Yes,” said he, pausing, “very true”: with look
Half-loving and half-pitying. “My friend,
You now must creep no more; for all too long
You have in country hamlets shady grown.
For part of this our duty, ere we die,
Is to be up and stirring; we must rise
Or be for ever fallen: God will help.

Else all that’s good and holy in the land,
Beneath the blasting influence of the State
Will wither and dry up and droop and die,
As neath the upas-tree. We must be up,
And moving, now, at once; and when our friend
Shall have returned from ancient Sicily,”
(He spake of one whom he had left behind
Bound for the classic shores of Syracuse),
“Tracts we must have, and, by what means we can,
Launch them abroad, short Tracts; we must begin,
And you, too, you must aid, and with your verse.
Come, see what you have ready for our hand.
The _Monthly_, as you know, _The British_ named,
Is open for our letters, prose, and rhyme.
But deeper the foundations must be laid
In these our Tracts; subsidial aid we need,
Full many: to get friends (if here and there
One may be found, or two) to bring to aid
Their pulpits, and proclaim there is a Church
Planted by Christ’s own hand within our isle.――
And let us now to Worcester.” Then of one
He spake, well-honoured for good service done
Linking our Liturgies unto the past.
“Hearty he is, and earnest; though not meet
Throughout to understand and sympathise,
Yet in his line will lend us his good aid,
Though looking for external front, and powers,
More than on principles which we are bent
To scatter broad and deep. Let’s now to him.”
And thus, full-sailed in academic garb,
Through the Collegiate gates, archway, and porch
We passed in conversation, bent to raise
The Signal: ’twas the day of little things.

That friend with whom I thus in council walked,
Associate of my earlier years, long since
Is in his peaceful grave; nor did he live
To see our sorrows. There was that in him
Wherein one might cast anchor. Often wont

To talk in paradox, it was his mood
Of playfulness, as one that inly smiled
Mocking at the conceptions which the tongue
Is weak to utter; venting heart-felt truths
In startling shape preposterous; with a smile
At incongruity of our poor thoughts
To match our endless weight of destiny;
Yea, at himself, to see intention yoked
So strangely with performance, which still paced
Unequally, and limped or dragged behind.
His intellect was keen-edged as the sword
Of Saladin, well-matched with battle-axe
Of Cœur de Lion; while in poetry
And arts, his judgement was the sculptor’s nail;
But, like the royal Dane of Shakespeare wrought,
One by himself, not of a class or kind:
Like to himself alone and no one else.
There was within him such repose on Truth,
Absence of self, such heart-controlling fear,
I feel that, had he lived, he had not been
The sport of his own sails, or popular winds
That he had courted for our object’s sake.
Men hurry to and fro; but he the while
Hath found the Haven where he fain would be.’

From ‘CARDINAL NEWMAN,’ by RICHARD H. HUTTON. London: Methuen & Co.,
1891. [English Leaders of Religion.]

[By the kind permission of the executors of Mr. Hutton, and of
Messrs. Methuen & Co.]

‘The friendship between Newman and Mr. Hurrell Froude, the elder brother of the historian, which commenced in 1826, and became intimate in 1829, lasting thence to Mr. Froude’s death from consumption in 1836, was certainly one of the most important influences which acted on Newman’s career at the most critical period of his life. Newman’s was one of the minds which mature slowly; and it was not till he was twenty-six years of age that it became clear whether he would be, in the main, a religious leader, or one of the pillars of the Whately party; that is, the party who threw their influence into the scale of minimising the spiritual aspect and spiritual significance of Revelation, rather than of maximising it. Newman himself mentions that for two or three years before 1827, he was “beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral,” or, in other words, “drifting in the direction of Liberalism.” “I was rudely awakened from my dream, at the end of 1827, by two great blows, illness and bereavement.” And then, in 1829, came fuller intimacy with Hurrell Froude, which seems to have fully determined, if anything were then needed to determine, the direction in which his mind would proceed. Mr. Hurrell Froude was, as Newman describes him, a man of the highest gifts, gentle, tender, playful, versatile and “of the most winning patience and considerateness in discussion.” … I feel little doubt that Dr. Newman’s wrath against “Liberalism” (as for many years afterwards he always called it, identifying, as he did, Liberalism with Latitudinarianism) was, to a very considerable extent, a moral contagion caught from Hurrell Froude.

‘There are a few singularly beautiful lines, added by Newman after Hurrell Froude’s death, to the exquisite poem called “Separation of Friends,” written in 1833; and these sufficiently prove the tenderness of Newman’s friendship for Hurrell Froude, and the intimacy of the relation between them. The poem, as it was first written, on the separation of friends caused by death, ran thus:

‘“Do not their souls, who neath the altar wait
Until their second birth,
The gift of patience need, as separate
From their first friends of earth?
Not that earth’s blessings are not all outshone
By Eden’s angel flame,
But that earth knows not that the dead has won
That crown which was his aim.
For when he left it, ’twas a twilight scene
About his silent bier,
A breathless struggle Faith and Sight between,
And Hope and sacred Fear.
Fear startled at his pains and dreary end,
Hope raised her chalice high;
And the twin-sisters still his shade attend,
Viewed in the mourner’s eye.
So, day by day, for him, from earth ascends
As dew in summer even,
The speechless intercession of his friends,
Towards the azure heaven.”

‘This was an abrupt close. Nearly three years later, it appeared that the true close had but been reserved till the friend with whom, in his illness, Newman had been travelling, had left him alone here to offer this “speechless intercession” on behalf of him who had departed. Then, after Froude’s death on February 28, 1836, Newman added the final lines:

‘“Ah, dearest! with a word he could dispel
All questioning, and raise
Our hearts to rapture, whispering all was well,
And turning prayer to praise.
And other secrets, too, he could declare,
By patterns all divine,
His earthly creed retouching here and there,
And deepening every line.
Dearest! he longs to speak, as I to know,
And yet we both refrain.
It were not good: a little doubt, below,
And all will soon be plain.”

‘Such was Newman’s feeling for the friend (already suffering from the commencement of the consumption of which he died three years later) with whom he visited the Mediterranean between December, 1832, and April, 1833, when they separated at Rome…. They visited Ithaca, but in his poems written “off Ithaca” Newman never mentions the name of Ulysses, though in passing Lisbon he had recalled that strong pagan figure, in the lines which he headed “The Isles of the Sirens”:

‘“Cease, stranger, cease those piercing notes,
The craft of siren choirs;
Hush the seductive voice that floats
Upon the languid wires.

Music’s ethereal fire was given
Not to dissolve our clay,
But draw Promethean beams from heaven,
And purge the dross away.

Weak self, with thee the mischief lies!
Those throbs a tale disclose:
Nor age nor trial has made wise
The man of many woes.”