[Letters and Correspondence—1834]REV. B. HARRISON TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 1, 1834. J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 1, 1834. Your letter gives, on the whole, a flourishing account. What do you mean by the Norris party? I am glad to find the address from the laity is progressing. There is no time to lose. Between this and February 4 you occupy a favourable position which you will never occupy again, at least, till some great change has taken place in the condition of things. I am very glad to hear of the Bishops being drawn into your vertex, and presenting the petitions to the Primate. Like you, I am not sanguine about your arresting, by your Movement, the flowing tide of innovation, but you are doing your duty; and the Church, if it does fall, I trust will fail with honour. I shall be anxious to see your sermons; I suppose I shall about meet them on my return to the south ... on the (ever-memorable) 21st of February. I have read 'Hildebrand' (by Voigt). It is not a thing to translate; rather dull in style, and often very prolix. The character of Hildebrand comes out, when studied, very finely; you must have a history of him published ... He was, when you consider his character (as you ought) by itself, and separate its individual lineaments from the general physiognomy of the times, a truly great man. I wish I had seen the Castle of Salerno, where he died exclaiming, 'I have loved justice,' &c. When I come to the catastrophe, I shall look to you for a picturesque account of the place. I was glad to find at Ainwick that almost all the clergy of the neighbourhood had signed the address to the Archbishop. The Duchess of Northumberland was highly delighted with the tracts. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ. Oriel: January 3, 1834. I have today undertaken for the Clarendon Press an edition of Dionysius Alexandrinus; so, you see, I have enough to do. A friend, rendered testy by a passive opposition to his arguments, begins a letter: REV. —— —— TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 4, 1834. I think it would be as well to introduce a petition for extraordinary powers to be granted to the Bishops, and extraordinary facilities in using their present powers; but this is a thing so likely to be suggested that I will make a virtue of inserting it on the Suggestion of others. REV. W. PALMER (OF WORCESTER) TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 8, 1834. I send the lay declaration just printed—there will be large papers for signing, and then we must all work away. There is the finest spirit among the laity. You will observe in the {16} last paragraph the 'Integrity of the Church's rights and privileges,' so that we need not dread the following phrase of 'Alliance with the State.' REV. THOS. MOZLEY TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 9. I think I shall write to the newspaper on the Church rate topic, and leave it to work its way. Mr. G—— anticipates the immediate and utter downfall of Dissent as soon as this pretended grievance is moved out of the way. REV. SIR GEORGE PREVOST TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Stinchcombe: January 10, 1834. REV. H. W. WILBERFORCE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 11, 1834. REV. THOS. FALCONER TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 14, 1834. I was delighted to find in your book [the 'Arians'] what I have been looking for a long time—some account of the Disciplina Arcani. Porson should have given some pages on it in his answer to Travis. Oxlee in his letters to Nolan does {17} not refer to authorities so as to assist me. The point I wish to ascertain is when it originated, and how long it continued, and how it was applied. Can its rise and termination be accurately traced? REV. D. I. EYRE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 14, 1834. The following letter bears upon the feeling towards clerical marriages understood to exist in Mr. Newman and Mr. Hurrell Froude. In their absorption, heart and brain, in the 'Movement'—or rather in the train of thought that led to it—private plans, hopes, prospects, seemed an interference with the great public work and devotion of a life. The Church seemed to them to demand the whole mind of her ministers; they were not to encumber themselves with this world's cares. Not that it was doubted, to use Mr. Newman's words, that the clergy 'had a perfect right to marry,' but marriage and home ties were supposed to be a hindrance to the full surrender of self to the one object. If the followers of these two leaders did not acquiesce in, or at least did not act on, this sterner view, they might feel in a difficulty. The intimacy Mr. Newman encouraged in his younger friends, and the sympathy which won their affection, made reserve unnatural, and yet in this case 'Cato was not a proper person' for such confidences, and there seems in one of his most devoted adherents to have been a slowness to confide, at which Mr. Newman professed to be astonished to the point of unbelief. {18} REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO F. ROGERS, ESQ. Oriel College: January 14, 1834. Mr. Newman's attitude of unbelief was reported to the person most concerned—the offending party, who answers his friend: REV. H. W. WILBERFORCE TO F. ROGERS, ESQ. January 1834. It is needless to say that 'Neander' did not 'cut' the writer of this letter, whose first-born was subsequently his godson. The mutual friend, receiver of both confidences, replies to Mr. Newman's attitude of incredulity: {19} FREDERIC ROGERS, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 20, 1834. All your other pieces of news, barring the Duke's nomination for Chancellor, I am delighted to hear; your sermons, Dionysius, professorship (moral philosophy), 'Record,' and journey to Derby, and Beethoven are most satisfactory. I wish I could hope to join you in the last in any moderate time. However, I do expect you will take me to Rose Hill to hear some of it again, if it were only to remind me of those evenings I used to spend with you when at Iffley. I am afraid you will have enough of my bass to satisfy you without Beethoven in the course of next term. [N.B.—He was to be in Froude's room over my head.] REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE January 25, 1834. I am determined to be avenged on you for refusing to let {20} me put yours and your brother's initials [to your tracts?], and so leaving me in the lurch in my chivalrous support of Pusey. We are going to put the tracts absolutely in Turrill's hands, to print and to sell. They are selling very well in town. Thanks for your tract on the Eucharist. [I think Pusey, who had not yet joined the Tract Movement, objected to the absence of the initials of each writer at the end. His own tracts in the sequel always had his initials, and it was thus that he became identified with all the tracts, for he was the only acknowledged writer of them. N.B.—Pusey fell ill in February 1834, and could not take part in anything if he would.—J. H. N.] Mr. Newman always speaks of Mr. Keble as the chosen censor of the tracts. The following letter shows him in that position:— REV. J. KEBLE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN January 30, 1834. I am rather horrified at having sent back your sermon without an opinion. I was in such a hurry that, I suppose, it escaped me; but I assure you I meant no such conclusion as you have come to. I want the sermon re-written, and then printed with a note, certifying that such an operation was performed. For I think the sentiments most good and seasonable, but the composition too hurried. Thank you for sending back that fog, which I have sent to Chalford, to see whether Tom (his brother) and Prevost, can extract any sunbeams from it. Somehow, I am in a very foggy condition, but a spirt to London may help me. Pray go up with me, and let us be like the political union, and arrange a regular plan of operations. If you are not there, there is no saying how the Establishment men may corrupt me. As to the initials, we are both of us [he and his brother, Mr. T. Keble] decidedly of opinion that they will hurt the effect, if not the sale, of the tracts. One of people's reasons {21} for reading such things is the pleasure of guessing who wrote this or that. For the same reason T. K. is disquieted at 'Richard Nelson's' being known. I hope you approve our Gloucester doings. I only fear we have given up the temporalities too much. MRS. PUSEY TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Spring 1834. In order to show when Dr. Pusey's connexion with the Movement really began, it is well to extract the following entries from the private journal: January 25, 1834.—I returned to Oxford. J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN February 4, 1834. [N.B.—Before the penny post letters were few, and long, which, I think, will explain my silence. One did not like to write without a good deal to say, and (a second obstacle) saying a good deal.—J. H. N.] I am truly happy that my little contingent to the Oxford Tracts is approved of. I was aware it was out of print. {22} Here, on the very frontiers of episcopacy, I do think I could do some little good with more copies. In the packet, about the middle of last mouth, I got your tracts up to No. 17, and your records to No. 12. I have given copies of each to the clergyman of the parish, and am amused by tracing slight touches of their effect in every one of his sermons which I hear. They have, I am sure, been useful to me, in the way of instruction. The 'Ember weeks' I was in a state of the most profound ignorance about, without having in the least a valid excuse for being so. Is the chair of moral philosophy an object to you? is it to be carried by votes of masters? and, if so, is it likely to be sharply contested? Give me timely notice, and I will be in Oxford to keep a certain anniversary with you. Now do not scruple to answer. With the new Chancellor [Note 1], as things go, and with the fear of a Liberal before my eyes, I am disposed to be satisfied. The history of his election I, of course, could not divine till I received your letter. If not a true friend of the Church, the Duke has for two or three years, and those critical ones, been the first honest and consistent enemy of its enemies—and his election gives no sanction to the proceedings of the slighters of Church discipline or the plunderers of Church property. REV. H. W. WILBERFORCE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN February 5, 1834. The Bishop of Edinburgh begged me to thank you for the tracts, which he exceedingly admired both for their talent and for their Apostolical principles. So the Duke is in—we might be much worse off. The following letter is written under a feeling of progress, and has a hopeful tone: REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ. Oriel: February 9, 1834. You have seen, I suppose, the lay declaration. I know nothing about it. They seem getting on very well ... I still think there ought to be letters in the 'British,' or somewhere, on the genius of the Catholic polity, the relation of the Church, as such, to the world and the civil power, the various aspects which it has been seen under at different times, the methods of reconciling contending claims, &c. &c. Do you know Warburton's 'Alliance'? All should be connected with our present prospects, to show the importance of such considerations. For myself, I have all along said I would do nothing to disturb existing relations; but it is hard if we may not prepare for contingencies; and doubtless in proportion as the relations are altered by the civil power, it is the duty of the Church to demand corresponding alterations in its favour. it is a remarkable fact (which a friend tells me) that, of the concessions mutually made on Warburton's theory of Church and State, the State has resumed all hers, yet retained all the Church's. February 9. Poor Duke! Every one must feel for him; we owe him so much, and there is something so great about him; but it is strange how vexed every one is at the election. Ch. Ch., because it has been outwitted; Merton, &c., because the winning party is the Tory, &c. Numbers say now, 'O that it had been the Archbishop!' and some ask why Keble and I did not bring him forward—which we did as far as in us lay. REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Spring, 1834. I wished much to talk with you about many things—specially about the Sacrament of Baptisim. Men need to be taught that it is a Sacrament, and that a Sacrament is not merely an outward badge of a Christian man's profession; and all union, I think, must be hollow which does not involve agreement, on principles at least, as to the Sacraments. Great good also would be done by showing the true doctrine of Baptism in its warmth and life, whereas the Low Church think it essentially cold. Could not this be done, avoiding technical terms? I know nothing, or little, as to the reception such a tract would meet with, but you have to decide whether holding back is Christian prudence or compromise. [N.B.—Pusey had not yet cordially joined the Tract Movement. The above is a gentle protest against the first tracts. He had written, I think, the one on Fasting already.—J. H. N.] Can you tell me whether the poor are invited to sign the lay petition, or those only who have some sort of property? I am writing into the country about it. {25} J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN March 12, 1834. … Did you read in the last 'Edinburgh' the article 'A Rhymed Plea for Tolerance'? It contains the most open and unblushing avowal of the 'Liberal' creed which the reviewers have yet, I think, hazarded. Nothing, I believe, will open the eyes of the bulk of their adherents. It is astonishing how few people can perceive or trace a gradual change, either in their own opinions or in those of the world around them. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO J. H. BOWDEN, ESQ. March 14, 1834. The tracts have been delayed from several causes, chiefly from the necessity of reprints, and, since our object is to scatter information, the same, if there is a demand, do as well as new tracts. And now that they are known, there is not that violent hurry about publishing on. We have, indeed, the prospect of a regular sale. If we publish new ones, it would, of course, be an experiment, whereas we are sure of these selling—that is, we know they are called for … I am coming to town the second week in April to attend the Christian Knowledge Society meeting on Tuesday, April 8. Rose, too, will be in town, and there are several other persons I wish to talk to. The Duke has begun his campaign by advising us strenuously to resist the London University granting degrees in arts and divinity, and there is to be a convocation next week about it. Indeed, it does seem a little too bad that the Dissenters are to take our titles. Why should they call themselves {26} M.A., except to seem like us? Why not call themselves Licentiates, &c.? And what is to hinder the Bishops being bullied into putting up with a London M.A.? Certainly they would soon. We are preparing an agitation against some of the details of the Marriage Bill; but I trust the Dissenters will settle this for us without our trouble. J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN March 19, 1834. At this time Mr. Keble was engaged upon his 'Ode on the Duke of Wellington's Installation,' for which Dr. Crotch was composing the music. Mr. Newman had written on this point: 'I hope Crotch will do your Ode justice.' Later on, hearing of some difficulties on the part of the composer, he writes to Mr. Keble: I like your Ode uncommonly. I would not budge one step for Dr. Crotch. His letter most amusing, and your counter-suggestions are amusing, too ... I would go so far for Dr. C. as to offer him your frigate, which certainly does better for music than the long ode. In a following letter he inquires, 'How do you and Crotch get on?' Mr. Keble answers, 'Crotch has swallowed the frigate whole.' At this time the proposed Marriage Bill was exciting much attention. Sir R. Inglis and Mr. Gladstone were consulted by the Church party. Mr. Newman had put (March 3) the following questions to Mr. Keble: {27} 1. Can clergymen lawfully give out in church a mere secular matter—the marriage of Dissenters? 2. Can a religious M.P. vote for a measure which allows of marriage by any, and therefore, if so be, merely civil rites? 3. Supposing the Bill to pass, might we not get some quid pro quo—that is, that no clergyman need marry any but Churchmen—an important principle. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE March 18, 1834. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE March 21, 1834. What do I gain by this? It is a further step in bringing together and organising (drilling) men who think alike, which has been one's object all along. Besides, a petition with Rose's name to it will make us heard. And, after all, the act of resisting on conscience is what we want to force on men's minds, and, if it is really done, no matter whether the words of the petition are a little stronger or weaker. As to the House of Commons, let us give them the chance of treating our protest well. Has any Bishop in the Upper House ever manfully protested? We must bear the burden of our rulers. On sending the petition on the Marriage Act Mr. Newman turns to another subject—the Eucharist. {28} REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE Oriel: March 24, 1834. Next, I should like a tract against Hoadley, giving and refuting his view, showing how it had influenced the 'Companion to the Altar,' &c.; and then at length I should like yours to come. I say all this to explain my publishing Cosin first, and hope I have not overdone my view. On March 11, 1834, Mr. Newman's first volume of sermons came out—published by Messrs. Rivingtons. The following letter to Mr. Rose is from a draft preserved by Mr. Newman, the original of his letter not having been returned to him. Mr. Rose seems to have expressed annoyance at the question of the Association: REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. H. J. ROSE March 30, 1834. Really I am deeply pained at your annoyance. As to what you think I meant by 'sudden conservatism,' it really never entered into my imagination. Indeed I cannot master what you think I meant. Whatever I meant certainly was nothing which I should not be quite willing any one should say of me any day. REV. JOHN KEBLE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN April 1, 1834. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. R. F. WILSON Oriel College: April 3, 1834. In giving the following letter to Mr. Keble on Mr. Rose's state of feeling, it must be remembered that Mr. Rose had on his hands an amount of work and responsibility that would try the most vigorous constitution, and that his health was rapidly failing. Such a state of health was no doubt enough to account for any irritability that we are to gather his letters had betrayed, and which Mr. Newman treats tenderly in the following letter: REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE Oriel: April 3, 1834. I wrote him as kind a letter as ever I could, and did not say anything by way of vindication, thinking it best to wait. However I am not sure he is not sick of the Magazine, and finds the Chaplaincy in the way of it. If so, he would be likely to magnify any little vexation ... so that I do not look at his frettings as against us so much as against his occupation. Your name has not been even hinted at. I cannot tell whether he thinks of you or not. There are many besides you, and they on the spot [which you are not], whom he might name to himself—Williams, Copeland, Pusey, Christie, &c. As to consistency, what you say is quite true. Really I should say that consistency is one of the properties of an inspired teacher, and none but him. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. R. F. WILSON March 31, 1834. … The Church is certainly in a wretched state; but not a gloomy one to those who regard every symptom of dissolution as a ground of hope. Not that I would do anything towards the undoing, or will fail both tooth and nail (so be it) to resist every change and degradation to which it is subjected. But, after all, I see a system behind the existing one, a system indeed which will take time and suffering to bring us to adopt, but still a firm foundation. Those who live by the breath of State patronage, who think the clergy must be gentlemen, and the Church must rest on the great, not the {32} multitude, of course are desponding. Woe to the profane hands who rob us of privilege or possession! but they can do us no harm. In the meantime, should (by any strange accident) the course of events fall back into its old channel, I will not be a disturber of the Church, though it is difficult to see how this return can be ... REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. J. KEBLE April 9. Rivington has taken the tracts. Turrill is, I suppose, honest, but he is stupid and puzzle-headed. When he will settle with us I cannot form a conjecture. My friend Bowden is so desirous of meeting you; he would come down any day he heard you were likely to be here. REV. R. H. FROUDE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN April 8, 1834. I don't admire the 'Voice from North America,' whose-ever it is. Also I think Rose is turning a Z again. What business has he to put Whewell in the 'British Magazine,' and to talk so much of Church rates? You may like to know {33} of my health; I really think I am getting well. I left England in the impression that I was [minunthadios]. Since I have conceived hopes I have become much more careful. I should not wonder, if I stayed here, if I get quite rid of my cough. The Bishop's library is a great piece of luck. I don't think I am wasting my time here, independent of my health. I don't ask how any one is, for I shall certainly be gone before I can have an answer; and when I shall go to Yankland I do not know. REV. J. KEBLE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN April 1834. What a wise, old letter! Well, good-bye. REV. R. W. JELF TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Berlin: April 1834. REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ. Oriel: April 21, 1834. P.S.—It is as clear as day that the Vice-Chancellor is bound by oath to administer the statutes; though the Legislature makes tests illegal at matriculation, he has sworn to impose them till Convocation rescinds the statute. [At this time the Vice-Chancellor imposed the Thirty-nine Articles, and the observance of the statutes, by oath, on every undergraduate on matriculation.—J. H. N.] Qu.: How will you induce to do so a body consisting of irresponsible individuals, numbers of them coming up from the country to vote, and then returning, voting too by ballot? The Legislature could only take away our charter if we were obstinate, and it would virtually be taken away by yielding; for the admission of Dissenters would be a repeal, not of one, but of all our statutes. The feeling in Oxford against the admission of Dissenters is shown in the following letter to his friend Mr. Bowden. After details of the universal stir the letter goes on: May 2, 1834. Mr. Bowden writing with some objection to the 'Parents' Declaration,' Mr. Newman announces at once: REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ. I am too much hurried to argue now about the Parents' Declaration; but, though feeling the force of what you say, do {35} not repent it. Curious enough, Rose writes down to praise it, and condemn the plan of petitions. I trust all will be well; we have 460 names in about four days. T. D. ACLAND, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Bologna: May 11, l834. The following form of approval of Mr. Newman's sermons (the writer's name not given) stands among his letters: REV. —— —— TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Post Office, Bath: May 11, 1834. TO HIS SISTER, J. C. N. [Note 6] May 18, 1834. I talked to you about Hoadley because Rickards's great ground against us is that language about the Eucharist which was allowable in the Fathers, is dangerous since the Popish corruption. To this Keble answers, and I think well, that Hoadleysm has introduced a new era, and that Protestantism, though allowable three centuries since, is dangerous now. You will do a good work if you talk over Rickards and make him take in and recommend the tracts, but I cannot {37} retract one single step from what I have said in them. I cannot say with truth that I repent of any one passage in them. If it were all to come over again (I do not think I should have the courage, for attacks make one timid, but) I should wish to do just the same. If he says anything against the 'Week-day Lecture,' do not argue, merely speak of Hoadleysm, and get him to read Bishop Cosin; not as if Bishop Cosin was a defence of us, but as containing a true view. A book like his gradually imbues the mind with the truth, so that, when it comes back to what offended it at first, it is no longer startled. REV. E.—— B—— TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN May 27, 1834. REV. H. W. WILBERFORCE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN May 27, 1834. The proceedings of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, as has been shown in one or two preceding letters, were now occupying the attention of Mr. Newman and his friends, certain changes in the management which indicated a desire to meet the liberal tendencies of the day, exciting their suspicion or disapproval. The following letter from Mr. Bowden describes the proceedings at a monthly meeting: J. W. BOWDEN, ESQ., TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN June 4, 1834. I had some talk with Joshua Watson. He said: 'I believe you are in correspondence with Pusey. I wish you would ask him what we are to do with our University petition, which lies at Rivington's and which has about 200 names.' He afterwards, upon the principle that 'all Newman's friends should know each other,' introduced me to Rose, with whom I had only time to shake hands. REV. A. P. PERCEVAL TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN June 7, 1834. Considering the enormous difficulty in getting tracts into circulation that have to make their way without the sanction of an accredited Society, it may be matter of surprise that the 'Tracts for the Times' succeeded in gaining attention at once. Mr. Bowden did his best, working with great intelligence, but of course without experience. Mr. Turrill, the first publisher, failed to satisfy necessary requirements, and leading publishers were almost unpersuadable on the point. Thus Mr. Newman writes pathetically to Mr. Bowden: I find Parker here has an insuperable objection to selling the tracts, which he says are not in his way. When you see Rivington, will you suggest the possibility of his throwing them into other channels? for what Parker feels, I suppose, other booksellers will. {40} Probably they never got into circulation through ordinary trade machinery. They were read by thinkers and talkers, they were widely distributed, and universally discussed; but at a vast expense of money, trouble, and worry to the writers, and with real difficulty to the readers, who could rarely procure them through the ordinary channels. No doubt it was the influence of what has been described as 'that wonderful personality,' already known by report and widely felt beyond the circle to whom Mr. Newman was known even by sight, which overcame obstacles that under ordinary circumstances would have been insurmountable. Mr. Newman thus relieves his mind on this subject, in a postscript to a letter bearing the date June 10, 1834: I am full of disgust of all sorts. I am quite put out about the tracts. That they have done good I quite feel, but such large sums have been subscribed for their printing that I wish to do as much with them as ever I can. REV. H. F. LYTE [Note 8] TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN Oxford, June 12. ARCHDEACON FROUDE TO REV. J. H. NEWMAN June 16, 1834. The following letter shows how securely Mr. Newman's friends might reckon on his sympathy and thoughtful counsels {41} in their private difficulties, however his time and interest might be supposed to be absorbed by the demands and anxieties of the 'Movement': REV. J. H. NEWMAN TO REV. R. F. WILSON Oriel College: June 15, 1834. So much then generally, though you tell me not to speak in that way. Then as to your coldness which you complain of, I am sorry I can give no recipe here. I can only say that I have much to lament in that way myself; that I am continually very cold and unimpressed, and very painful it is but what can be done? Would we could so command our minds as to make them feel as they ought! But it is their very disease that they are not suitably affected according to the intrinsic value of the objects presented to them; that they are excited by objects of this world, not by the realities of death and judgment, and the mercies of the Gospel. Meanwhile, it is our plain duly to speak, to explain and to pray, even while we find ourselves cold, and, please God, while we thus do what is a plain duty, perchance He may visit us and impress us with the realities of the subjects we are speaking upon. Certain it is (looking at things merely humanly) the oftener you go to a sick person, the more you are likely at last to get interested in him. How can you expect to feel anything the first or second time, when you as yet know nothing of his state? Interest will grow upon you, as you ascertain his {42} state of mind. It is an irrational despondency and an impatience to complain because nothing comes of your first visit. Be sure also that what he is to get from you is not communicated all at once—nay, not in words. What he will first gain will be the sight of your earnestness ... and will thence be impressed with the reality of that which makes you earnest, your coming day by day to him, sacrificing your own ease, &c. A passage in the 'Apologia' throws light on the allusion in the following letter: At that time [Note 9] I was specially annoyed with Dr. Arnold, though it did not last into later years. Some one, I think, asked in conversation at Rome, whether a certain interpretation of Scripture was Christian? It was answered that Dr. Arnold took it; I interposed, 'But is he a Christian?' The subject went out of my head at once; when afterwards I was taxed with it, I could say no more in explanation than (what I believe was the fact) that I must have had in mind some free views of Dr. Arnold about the Old Testament—I thought I must have meant 'Arnold answers for that interpretation, but who is to answer for Arnold?' ('Apologia pro Vita sua,' p. 33.) Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Notes1. The Duke of Wellington. 2.
See letter to Bowden, November 13, 1833. 3.
Than the Moral Philosophy Professorship. 4.
Epist. St. Thom. Ep. cxliv. 5.
Early in the following year there occurs the following sentence in the
'Chronological Notes': 'During this spring (1835) I for the first
time read parts of Coleridge's works; and I am surprised how much
I thought mine, is to be found there. 6.
Then visiting at Stowlangloft. 7.
For answer to this letter see p. 51. 8.
Author of the hymn 'Abide with me.' 9.
In 1833 when Mr. Newman was in Rome. Top | Contents | Biographies | Home Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman |