Read Ebook: Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments by Guiney Louise Imogen

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--'We returned to-day, and on reading over these resolutions, which I called a vow, I find I have acted very poorly up to them. I believe they have operated as a sort of check upon me in some respects, that I have been less of an epicure and less of an interferer than I should have been else. But yet, quite at starting, I suggested, when my father proposed going ashore, that it would take a longer time than he calculated on: but this was merely a suggestion. And on one of the evenings when we were by ourselves, I argued about people going to Church in a way very inconsistent with our relative situations; neither was I quite cordial in my acquiescence with propositions of my father's about minor excursions at S and feel as if I had pressed unpleasantly on him some of my opinions about tides, and names of places.'

--'Teach me to be ever mindful of the wants and wishes of others, and that I may never omit an opportunity of adding to their happiness; let each particular of their condition be present with me, what they are doing or suffering. I am most fearfully deficient in this mark of a child of God. Protect me from all covetous desires of the pleasant things which money can procure: the D cottage, the new dining-room window, nice furniture, equipage, musical instruments, or any other thing, in order to obtain which I must lessen my means of benefiting others.

--'I have done many things to-day that I ought to be ashamed of. For instance: I said to the I had not examined carefully an analysis that I had hardly read a word of. I have assumed, too, a harsh manner in examining. I feel too anxious to show my own knowledge of the subjects on which I am examining. Was very inattentive at morning Chapel, and not sorry to find that there was none in the evening. I believe the day before yesterday I made a bungle in examining W in Euclid, which made him appear to be doing wrong while he was quite right, but did not discover it in time to rectify it by confession .'

When Mr. Keble went down to his curacy at Southrop, at the beginning of the Long Vacation of 1823, Hurrell went with him to read for his B.A. degree, which he took in December of that year. The summer was to him, as to one of his companions there, Isaac Williams, the turning-point in his career. In those tranquil fields and winding roads and the solemn little village Church, where he found 'a man wholly made up of love, and religion a reality,' Hurrell began to see the Last Things: he never could forget the place, the person, and the occasion which meant so much to him in the Providence of God. His third companion, Robert Wilberforce, 'did not feel towards Keble,' wrote Isaac Williams, 'as we did at that time, having been brought up in an opposite school.' In all the fresh and brave happinesses of nature and of grace which were round Keble like an aureole wherever he went, Hurrell brightened and strengthened visibly.

'You are my Spring: and when you smile, I grow.'

He learned from him to follow conscience and to fear applause. As soon as he parted from Mr. Keble, their long correspondence began, and the home-loving pupil was proud indeed when the 'first man in Oxford,' as Newman enthusiastically called him, came on a visit to Dartington. We know from recent testimony of a delightful pen how dear the neighbourhood became to Mr. Keble, and how often he would wander away from the animated household of his friends to the fourteenth-century priest's-house hard by at Little Hempston, an almost unique survival, with its small quadrangle, its hall and solar, of Chaucer's time. The lovely old Vicarage, in its still secluded situation, had taken captive Hurrell's twenty-year old fancy, as a letter of 1823 to Mr. Keble shows.

Several months later, he is still in the descriptive vein.

'When I came home I found things looking most dismal. My father had cut all the laurels to the roots, in hopes of making them come up thicker. A field almost outside the windows, which had been put in tillage, was ploughed so extremely ill that we were afraid it would be forced to be tilled with turnips instead of clover.... The copse also, which overhung the river by the Little Hempston rocks, was in great part gone, "and the place thereof knew it no more." I hope the rest may be spared.'

The laurels he had planted gave the energetic Archdeacon some trouble. In his old age he had them all swept away, and made a needed if unromantic improvement in the outlook of the beautiful old house. Hurrell's implicit differences with his 'knowing, quick, and handy' father, so many of whose best qualities he shared, hinged laughably often on such things as the culture of trees and the make and management of boats. In all, he did his best to become what the epitaphs of the time call 'an humble obsequious son.'

Hurrell took only a second class in Classics and Mathematics during 1824. But he had exactly the sort of mind which, sooner or later, would come to grief with any curriculum.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, March 29, 1825.

'"Tuque vale, sedesque juvet meminisse meorum, Heu, nunquam rediture."'

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, May 13, 1825.

To the same 'holy friend' for whom Hurrell privately says on his knees his heartfelt thanksgiving, he writes often, from the first, in a mood of bantering and almost irreverent freedom.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, 1824.

Mr. Keble was settled in 1825 as Curate in sole charge of Hursley, Hampshire.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Aug. 16, 1825.

How well he loved a boat! He complains, in one entry of his Journal, that the thought of boats distracts him insufferably during his prayers.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Sept. 10, 1825.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Dec. 6, 1825.

'"Sir, my dear friend," you cannot tell how much I am obliged to you for your benevolence to my last letter, but that does not make me the less a fool for having expressed myself so; and what provokes me most of all is that I did not give myself fair play by not writing till my opinions had settled; for as far as my memory goes, I think they are now undergoing a revolution, and that if I were to see the pottery in question again, I should think quite differently of it. There is something about them which leaves

'"A sad remembrance fondly kept When all lighter thoughts are faded."

And though I cannot account for the fact, I have been much more sensible of this since a re-perusal of Genesis.--I wrote the foregoing not long after the receipt of your letter, but have been such a dawdle that I have not been able to collect materials for finishing it: and the circumstance which now at last helps me out is a melancholy one, no other than the decease of our friend and companion Johnny Raw: who was taken off, some days since, in the staggers. There was something peculiarly doleful in the poor fellow's exit; and there was a sort of dreariness diffused over all its circumstances, which set it off with almost a theatrical effect. As B says, it would have not been so much if he had wasted away by a long illness, or if he had heard of his death at a distance; but to have been using and admiring him till within a few days of his decease, to have watched all the stages of his rapid illness, seen him bled, given him his physic , and, after all, to have got up at two o'clock in the night, when the crisis was to take place, and come into the stable only a minute after his death, where we could just see him, by lantern-light, stretched out on the straw:--were incidents not calculated to excite pleasure. Add to this, it was one of those shivering cold stormy nights which make me feel as if I and the people with me were the only human beings in the world: a fact, by-the-by, which I am not yet sufficient psychologist to account for. And the next day, when we went out to bury him, the weather was just the same, and there was nothing to excite one cheerful association. Also, it was somewhat staggering to the speculatively inclined, not to be able to discover one single reason why he should not be able to gallop about as well as ever. He was evidently in good condition, his flesh hard, and his limbs sound: and why I should be able to walk any better than he, was more than I could elicit. We buried him under an elm tree in the lawn, and nailed his shoes to it for a monument.

The little implied joke, celibate and Greek, on his own name, is not the least adornment of this charming letter.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Jan. 12, 1826.

And again, a little later, winding up an intimate letter in Latin to Keble, there is more of this pleasant heroine-worship, coupled with some feeling analysis and amusing self-portrayal. Hurrell's repugnance to things German were a foregone conclusion, had he never expressed it.

'... I could not find the places you referred me to in Miss Smith, but am happy to find that we sympathise in the extent of our admiration, if not in the sources; though indeed, I am willing to believe, both. But as for old Klopstock, I cannot read about him and his wives; and am rather horrified at Miss S having taken so much trouble about him, or any other sentimental old German. What makes me admire Miss S so excessively, is more than I can give any intelligible account of: she either does not admire, or is not acquainted with my favourite books; and those that she fancies she admires are my inveterate enemies. Neither could I fix upon any passages in her own writings which would seem to justify me if I quoted them. But somehow I seem perfectly certain I know her intimately, and that I can trace the feelings in which all she says and does originates; and all this is so consistent, as far as it goes, with what I have imaged to myself as the archetype of human perfection, that I have invested her, in my imagination, with all its attributes....

'Lloyd's immense catalogue of books, that he recommends as necessary, has frightened me beyond measure: but I am getting to be of your opinion, that to be fully occupied is almost necessary, in order to get through life with tolerable ease and comfort....'

'My dreamy sensations have at length subsided, and I cannot think how I could have made myself such a fool as to be so upset! But it was altogether such a surprise to me, and I knew it would delight my father so much, that I could not stand it all. I do not mean that when the news was announced to me I did not contemplate the possibility of it; for you must know that I am the most superstitious of the species, and that on the first day of the examination I had a sort of indescribable sensation from which I augured the event. But such a confused prophesying as this is so very different from a sober expectation that it served rather to increase than to diminish my surprise at its being realised.'

Froude's allotted rooms were directly over Newman's, in the Chapel angle of the Great Quad of Oriel College. The new Fellow did not, as such, come into residence until after the Easter vacation; during the following month, April, we find him still luxuriating in Devonshire and plunging deep into abstract metaphysics. 'I have been taken with a fit of writing,' he confesses to Keble. 'I am happier than I ever was at Oxford, far: but that is not saying much.' Apparently, he had posted manuscripts for criticism, and received it as gratefully and as combatively as usual. 'I am infinitely indebted to you,' he writes, 'for your expeditious attention to my concern, and will try my best to set to rights the places you row . However, I still maintain that my end is both relevant and true and my puzzle-headed antithesis a good one; but I bow my head in implicit confidence, as far as practice goes. Distinctions and refinements are growing on me, and I am all in a maze; and it is delightful to have the shadow of a great rock in a weary land to which I may turn for temporary shelter. If I had a year more, I could not make it at all to my satisfaction; so I must make the best of it.'

His note-books for this year and the next are full of the contemned 'distinctions and refinements.' In trying to beat out his conceptions of moral growth , he jots down some striking and arresting thoughts. Two or three which lie metaphysically not far apart, must suffice for transcription. They show the coherence, the synthetic power with which Froude's philosophy knit all worlds into one.

--'Yesterday, before breakfast, while the vacancy produced by fasting was still on me, and I was reading the Psalms, and craving for a comprehension of the things which I could only look on as words, and was worked up to such a pitch that I felt trying to see my soul, and make out how it was fitted to receive an impression from them,--Merton bell began to go; and it struck me that if such a trifle as that could give me such a vivid idea, my soul must be a most intricate thing; and that when senses were given to the blind part of it, what things would those appear, the apprehension of which I was struggling after! This is as near what passed in my mind as I can find expressions to shape my memory by. This blindness of heart is what, by habit and patience, it is our work practically to remove. We are to shape our souls for its removal, by making it in harmony with the things invisible.'

These passages mark a great point of divergence between the writer and the 'religious genius' with whom his memory is identified to all generations. It is something of an anomaly, even, to find the young Froude, and not the young Newman , developing so strong a habit of purely speculative thought; but it was that which gave him his silent leadership. He combined with his turn for abstractions an unexpected power of philosophical application of scientific ideas. All these half-mystical gymnastics of the reflective faculty are going to tell in 1833 and after, when the hour of action strikes, and when, by his already gathered impetus, Hurrell Froude is going to dart ahead in a still level flight, like a gull's. He will seem external, as if talking more than he thinks, talking somewhat to the bewilderment of those others who can hardly think for his talking. He will be gay; he will be glib; he will pass care-free amid the sweat of horses and men, simply because of these long hard mental vigils, pen in hand, up Oriel Staircase No. 3, while he is hearing Merton bell, and trying to see his soul.

To Keble, who was still at home during the spring of 1826, Hurrell confides impressions of the Newman who had already conceived so lofty an opinion of him, and had probably not taken pains to conceal it: the Newman who dearly loved, to the last, to be 'disvenerated.' Many important Fellows of Oriel, such as Arnold, Hampden, Jelf, Jenkyns, Pusey, were absent from Oxford: hence they lack mention in our critic's roster.

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, May 25, 1826.

'I should like to detail to you our proceedings, but no striking features occur to my mind at present; so I will favour you with my general impressions. is the only one with whom I have got to be at all intimate; he is not the least of a Don, and I like him very much indeed. is a person for whom I have a very great veneration: but he is such an immense person that I hardly dare bring myself in contact with him. is, to my mind, by far the greatest genius of the party, and I cannot help thinking that, sometime or other, I may get to be well acquainted with him: but he is very shy, and dining with a person now and then does not break the ice so quickly as might be wished. I venerate but dislike him: I like but disvenerate him. Old is very funny, good-natured, and, I think, very much improved. And now for my ill-fated inconsistent self; I have been trying to be diligent, and have been horribly idle; trying to be contented, and yet constantly fidgety; trying to be matter-of-fact, and have nearly cracked myself with conceited metaphysics. This last is principally attributable to Lucretius, whom I have been reading with considerable attention, and intense admiration; I shall very soon have finished him, as I have got on some way in the Sixth Book. In the end of the Book, about the mortality of the soul, there are some magnificent extraordinary reflections on our longings for something indescribable, and beyond our reach; on our having affections which have no adequate object, and which we long to forget and smother, because we cannot gratify them: which make a striking preface to Bishop Butler's sermons on the Love of God.'

June 15, 1826, was the five hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Oriel College. Perhaps the observance of it served to stimulate Hurrell's filial piety and his spontaneous regard for the past. Few Fellows of Colleges, then or since, 'supinely enjoying the gifts of the Founder,' as Gibbon says, would have offered, after such an occasion, this private prayer, found among Hurrell's papers:

--'Almighty God, Father of all Mercies, I beg to offer Thee my deep and unfeigned thanks for all the blessings which Thou hast bestowed upon me; but in addition to those of Thy favours which I enjoy in common with all mankind, I more particularly bless Thy Holy Name for those of which I partake as member of this College; for the means Thou hast given me of daily sustenance, and of a continual admission to Thy house and service, through the pious charity of holy men of old. I bless Thee, O Lord, in that Thou didst put into their heart the desire of erecting to themselves a memorial, and of leaving to posterity a great example in the foundation and endowment of a seminary of religious learning; and I pray Thee that, as it has fallen to my lot to succeed to this their institution, I may fulfil my part in it as I believe they would approve if they could be present with me; that I may not waste in foolish or gross indulgences the means afforded me of obtaining higher ends; or allow myself to consider as my own that time which I receive their wages for dedicating to Thy service, by the advancement of useful learning, and adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour. But more especially do I beg of Thee to accept my thankfulness for those merciful dispensations of Thy Providence which affect my lot in particular. That it has pleased Thee to bring me into the world under the shadow of my holy mother, in the recollection of whose bright society Thou hast given me, as it were, a consciousness of that blessedness which Thou hast taught us to look for in the presence of Saints and Angels. Also, that my lot has been so cast that I should fall into the way of one whose good instructions have, I hope, in some degree, convinced me of the error of my ways, and may, by Thy grace, serve to reclaim me from them; with whose high friendship I have most unworthily been honoured, and in whose presence I taste the cup of happiness.'

The correspondence with Keble continued implicitly confidential at all times. But Hurrell writes freely at the close of his first Long Vacation as Fellow, and after his return to Oriel, of his scruples and self-dissatisfactions and aspirations: 'thoughts that do wander through eternity.'

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Oct. 14, 1826.

'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. Since I have been here I have been getting more comfortable than I had been for a good bit, from the society of I and P whom I get to like more and more every day.... We were to have wandered over North Wales together, but have been obliged to relinquish that scheme for this time, and perhaps it is a good thing, as far as I am concerned, to have a less exciting life for the present. I have had one bit of romance, viz., a walk early in the morning up the Vale of Rydal to Devil's Bridge. The W wanted us to ride, but I thought I should remember it better by walking.... I shall always like scrambling expeditions as long as I can recollect ours up the Wye. Those few days seem like a bright spot in my existence; or perhaps it would be a more apt similitude to compare it to what you quoted as we were going in the boat to Tintern: "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

To the Rev. JOHN KEBLE, Nov. 5, 1826.

'It may seem an odd sort of thing to say, but I got from your letter something more like happiness than I have known since my mother died. Since that time it seems as if I had been ????? ?? ?? ?????; but I hope I may yet get right at last. It is a great comfort to find so many expressions in the Psalms like "O tarry thou the Lord's leisure," as they serve to keep up the hope that, weary and unsatisfactory as are my attempts to be religious, they may in time "comfort my heart." And now I can talk to you about myself, I feel a sort of security against bewildering my mind with vague thoughts, which I did not know where to check, because I could not get anyone to sympathise with them at all.

'I will write you down some horridly-expressed verses which call themselves to the tune of "Allan Water" and "Rousseau's Dream"; the first sketched in autumn, 1825, but undergoing changes for a long time, poor as is the result; the second written at W. I have not shown them to anyone, and they may give you a sort of guess at the things my mind has been running upon.'

'On the Banks of Allan Water' was his favourite air.

'Ere the buds their stores deliver, Have ye watched the springtime gay? Have ye seen the sere leaves shiver In an autumn day?

Have ye loved some flower appearing, Tulip, or pale lily tall, Day by day its head uprearing, But to mourn its fall?

Have ye on the bosom rested Of some friend that seemed a god? Have ye seen her relics vested In their long abode?

With the years that ye have numbered, With the flowers that gaily blow, With the friends whose sleep is slumbered, Ye shall perish too.'

'Oh, can it be that this bright world Was made for such dull joys as ours? Dwells there not aught in secret furled 'Mid Nature's holy bowers?

Is it for naught that things gone by Still hover o'er our wondering mind, And dreamy feelings, dimly high, A dwelling-place within us find?

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