Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments

stands Newman’s early friend, Richard Hurrell Froude, the lost Pleiad of the Oxford Movement. Akin to some others, names earlier and later, ‘which carry a perfume in the mention,’ he left little to prove and approve himself. Such as he, in the pageant of eternity, are not the tallest harvesters with the most recognisable sheaves. Like Crichton and Falkland and Pergolesi, like Arthur Hallam and Henri Perreyve, he is known to history as it were by a smiling semi-private hint, or a sort of May-orchard coronal which the wind has no power to scatter, rather than by virtue of any personal innings in the complex game of life. He was a mere man of genius. His inheritance was richly varied: of mental currents possible in one cross-bred island, there could hardly be a more spirited blend. ‘The thinkers of the West,’ as an analytic pen has lately written,[6] ‘reveal a certain practical sagacity, a determination to see things clearly, a hatred of cant and shams, a certain “positive” tendency which is one of the notes of purely English thought.’ Exact in the wider application, the sentence has an almost startling appropriateness when it is narrowed down to fit the one ‘thinker of the West’ (not in Mr. Ellis’s lists) with whom these pages deal. Never to maunder, never to mince matters, never to pet an illusion, never to lay down arms while there are ‘cant and shams’ to fight,—all that is very Devonian; and Hurrell Froude, true at every point, was true Devon in this. His ancestral Speddings, on the other hand, had imagination and a love of letters, and were ironic and opinionative after another fashion. They had also, for generation after generation, as an unexpected corollary, a strong turn for science, and even for mechanical science, as the less bookish Froudes, to offset their hard common sense, were restless and romantic lovers of the open air and of the sea. The shy, critical, solitary, but ardent and adventurous character which belonged not only to our particular Fellow of Oriel, but in some measure to all his nearest kindred, seems to have been inherited equally from the contrasted streams which ran in their blood. All Hurrell’s religiousness, all his poetry and fire and penetrative thought, came straight from his beautiful and highly intelligent mother, whom he lost just as he really came to know her, and whom he worshipped during the rest of his life. His stature, colour, and expression, as also his delicacy of constitution, he received through her.

The Speddings were Anglo-Irish, migrating during the sixteenth century to Scotland, then, early in James II.’s time, to Cumberland. John Spedding and his wife Margaret were seated at Armathwaite Hall, in Bassenthwaite parish, Keswick, when their second daughter Margaret, afterwards Mrs. Froude, was born in 1774. Her elder sister Mary, her brothers John, James, Anthony, and William (in order of their age), comprised with her, her father’s family; and she was but seven when he died. Armathwaite Hall was left in the hands of trustees, who so wasted it that when John Spedding, the son, came of age he found his patrimony gone, and resolved to leave the country to join the army, then in the thick of the Peninsular War. Meanwhile, four miles away, at the head of Bassenthwaite Lake lay Mirehouse, the owner of which was Thomas Story, Esquire, a bachelor, attached to his Spedding neighbours. In the most opportune and romantic way, he made young John Spedding his heir, just in time to prevent his self-imposed exile, and in 1802 died, and was succeeded by him in the estate. It was thus that the Speddings, who had occupied Armathwaite Hall for over a century, came ultimately to live at the other end of the Lake. John Spedding married Miss Sarah Gibson of Newcastle. They lived to old age, and had a numerous issue. James Spedding, the distinguished scholar, the intimate friend of Tennyson, and leader of the famous Cambridge set ‘The Apostles,’ known afterwards in the world of letters as the vindicator of Bacon, was their third son. He spent most of his life (1808-1881) at Mirehouse, and is buried not far away, in the old churchyard of Bassenthwaite. He and his knew all the Froudes well; visits were constantly interchanged; and it was he who introduced James Anthony Froude, his cousin, and brother-in-law at one remove, as it were, to Carlyle. For James Spedding’s eldest brother, Thomas Story Spedding, married his cousin Phillis Froude, the second daughter of the household at Dartington.

To revert to the elder generation—Margaret Spedding, her own mother’s namesake, born, as we have seen, in 1774, was dearly loved at home for seven and twenty years; at that somewhat mature age (as it was considered in 1802), she married the Rev. Robert Hurrell Froude, Rector of Dartington in Devonshire. His own people were not less interesting, and even more ancient, than hers. Hurrells, an armigerous family, and Froudes, rising yeomen from Kent, had struck deep and wide roots in Devon soil at least as early as the reign of Elizabeth. The second of these was probably a place-name, though there are those who derive it from the Icelandic frod, wise, not from the likelier Celtic ffrwd, a rushing stream.[7] We find the race numerous and active, and settled chiefly about Kingston, and about Modbury, where in the year of Culloden, Richard Hurrell, gentleman, was married to Mistress Phillis[8] Collings. Their daughter, Phillis Hurrell, became the wife of Robert ffroud of Walkhampton, third son of John, to whom descended the Modbury manors of Edmerston and Gutsford; these two lived at Aveton Giffard, and are buried there in the Parish Church, where their monuments still exist. ‘Robert ffroud Armiger’ died young, four years after his marriage, which had for issue one son, and three daughters. Phillis the widow, a person of strong character, lived on for sixty-six years longer, and saw the grave opened, or opening, for nearly all her brilliant and fated grandchildren. Her babes, left fatherless in 1770, were Mary, Margaret, and Elizabeth; her son Robert Hurrell was a posthumous child. The latter was to rise to more than local eminence, known throughout an exceptionally long life as Rector of Dartington, and from 1820 on, as Archdeacon of Totnes in the diocese of Exeter.[9] He matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in January 1788, aged seventeen, and in due course, in 1795, proceeded Master of Arts. He came from Denbury, of which he was already Incumbent, to his new parish of Dartington, in 1799. Many children were born in Dartington Parsonage to him and to Margaret Spedding his wife, of whom Richard Hurrell Froude, named for his paternal grandfather Richard Hurrell of Modbury, was the eldest. His birth was on March 25, 1803. Certain critics who disliked the aroma, real or imaginary, of the Oxford Movement, seemed to harbour, in after years, a special grudge against Hurrell for his Marian circumstances. It was, as it were, piling offence on offence that he entered the world on the Feast of the Annunciation, and consciously, votively belonged to the College of S. Mary at Oxford. He was privately baptized at home, and with his next brother, carried up the hill to be received in the ancient Church at the Hall gates (again S. Mary’s), on the 17th of April, 1805. Hurrell seems to have been from the first a stormy sort of child, handsome, and odd, and adored by his relatives. Like the young Persians in their national prime, he learned ‘to ride, and to speak truth.’ He was sent early to the Free School at Ottery S. Mary, where he lived in his master’s house. This was the Rev. George May Coleridge, nephew of that poet who has made classic the lovely neighbourhood to all readers of English. He survived until 1847, dear to all the Froudes. (Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. James Anthony Froude, then in deacon’s orders, was responsible for Mr. Coleridge’s funeral sermon at S. Mary Church, Torquay.) Hurrell was as happy at his first School as a dreamy rebel boy always subject to moods and to home-sickness could well be. Everything was done, at any rate, to keep him happy. His own memories of the green village, with its great minster and its bright stream, seem to have been pleasant ones. A lady who was but a young child during his last months at Dartington recalls his frank smile at drawing in a lottery a picture of Ottery Church, which she had coveted, lotteries not being abhorred then, as now, by Christian folk. Had the winner known of the little girl’s envy, he would certainly have parted with his treasure on the spot; for he was a born de-collector. Hurrell began, almost as soon as he could hold a pen, to draw well, and to write agreeable letters. At thirteen he was sent to Eton. A year or two before, that is, in or about 1814, he sat for his portrait to that lovable interesting man and capable artist, William Brockedon, Archdeacon Froude’s particular protégé and most grateful friend.[10] It may have been begun as one of many thank-offerings; for some reason, it was left unfinished. Brockedon was a patient person, by all accounts. Perhaps wild little Master Froude, for all his innocent looks, may have been, in the immortal words of Pet Marjorie, ‘whot human nature cant indure.’ The Archdeacon, too, was critical, and thought his friend happiest in sketch-work, and that to finish, with him, was, sometimes, to over-refine. Who could have foreseen that the abandoned canvas was long to take on unique accidental value to persons then unborn who should be interested in his sitter? For though that childish sitter was to live over a score of years longer, and endear himself to men of a certain school of thought for ever, there was no discoverable hand but William Brockedon’s to tell them how he looked. There was not known until the other day a single other portrait, not so much as a silhouette, of a draughtsman associated with so many, both at home and at College, who could draw.

The boy, with his half-indolent, half-clairvoyant way of studying, and his high spirits in and out-of-doors, got on fairly well at Eton,[11] though his years there seem to have made no great impress on his mind and character. He developed, perhaps, too slowly, and too much by instinct and intuition, to be much harmed or helped by a Public School. Winthrop Mackworth Praed was one of his memorable contemporaries there; Edward Bouverie Pusey, though in an upper Form, was another.[12] Like Pusey, Hurrell had a talisman and a safeguard in the love of a pious mother. The extreme natural sympathy between them was heightened by the boy’s fickle health, and his unconscious appeal for continued care. One experience of early invalidism and its results, lasting for some time, drew from Margaret Froude an oblique comment or protest which is enough to make one love and admire her womanliness. She drew up a letter to an imaginary correspondent, which was really intended for her tall son himself. It sounds wholly like a page from the Spectator, in Steele’s tenderest whimsical vein; and it would be an ungenerous lad (her Hurrell certainly knew not how to be ungenerous) who would not be touched by the genuine foreboding sorrow breathing through it. Whether it was ever actually left in his way is doubtful; a passage in his Journal may imply that he knew nothing of it until after her death. Its date lies early in 1820.

‘Sir,—I have a son who is giving me a good deal of uneasiness at this time, from causes which I persuade myself are not altogether common; and having used my best judgment about him for seventeen years, I at last begin to think it incompetent to the case, and apply to you for advice. From his very birth his temper has been peculiar: pleasing, intelligent, and attaching, when his mind was undisturbed, and he was in the company of people who treated him reasonably and kindly; but exceedingly impatient under vexatious circumstances; very much disposed to find his own amusement in teasing and vexing others; and almost entirely incorrigible when it was necessary to reprove him. I never could find a successful mode of treating him. Harshness made him obstinate and gloomy; calm and long displeasure made him stupid and sullen; and kind patience had not sufficient power over his feelings to force him to govern himself. His disposition to worry made his appearance the perpetual signal for noise and disturbance among his brothers and sisters; and this it was impossible to stop, though a taste for quiet, and constant weak health, made it to me almost insupportable. After a statement of such great faults, it may seem an inconsistency to say that he nevertheless still bore about him strong marks of a promising character. In all points of substantial principle his feelings were just and high. He had (for his age) an unusually deep feeling of admiration for everything which was good and noble; his relish was lively, and his taste good, for all the pleasures of the imagination; and he was also quite conscious of his own faults, and, untempted, had a just dislike to them. On these grounds I built my hope that his reason would gradually correct his temper, and do that for him which his friends could not accomplish. Such a hope was necessary to my peace of mind; for I will not say that he was dearer to me than my other children, but he was my first child, and certainly he could not be dearer. This expectation has been realised, gradually, though very slowly. The education his father chose for him agreed with him; his mind expanded and sweetened; and even some more material faults (which had grown out of circumstances uniting with his temper) entirely disappeared. His promising virtues became my most delightful hopes, and his company my greatest pleasure. At this time he had a dangerous illness, which he bore most admirably. The consequences of it obliged him to leave his School, submit for many months to the most troublesome restraints, and to be debarred from all the amusements and pleasures of his age, though he felt, at the same time, quite competent to them. All this he bore not only with patience and compliance, but with a cheerful sweetness which endeared him to all around him. He returned home for the confirmation of his health, and he appeared to me all I could desire. His manners were tender and kind, his conversation highly pleasing, and his occupations manly and rational. The promising parts of his character, like Aaron’s rod, appeared to have swallowed up all the rest, and to have left us nothing but his health to wish for.—After such an account, imagine the pain I must feel on being forced to acknowledge that the ease and indulgence of home is bringing on a relapse into his former habits. I view it with sincere alarm as well as grief, as he must remain here many many months, and a strong return to ill-conduct, at his age, I do not think would ever be recovered. I will mention some facts, to show that my fears are not too forward. He has a near relation, who has attended him through his illness with extraordinary tenderness, and who never made a difference between night and day, if she could give him the smallest comfort, to whom he is very troublesome, and not always respectful. He told her, in an argument, the other day, that “she lied, and knew she did,” without (I am ashamed to say) the smallest apology. I am in a wretched state of health, and quiet is important to my recovery, and quite essential to my comfort; yet he disturbs it, for what he calls “funny tormenting,” without the slightest feeling, twenty times a day. At one time he kept one of his brothers screaming, from a sort of teasing play, for near an hour under my window. At another, he acted a wolf to his baby brother, whom he had promised never to frighten again. All this worry has been kept up upon a day when I have been particularly unwell. He also knows at the same time very well, that if his head does but ache, it is not only my occupation, but that of the whole family, to put an end to everything which can annoy him.

‘You will readily see, dear Sir, that our situation is very difficult and very distressing. He is too old for any correction but that of his own reason; and how to influence that, I know not! Your advice will greatly oblige

Hurrell Froude was admitted Commoner by the University of Oxford and matriculated at Oriel College, within a few weeks of his mother’s death, on April 13, 1821. His delicate health had kept him back: his father and his brothers all matriculated at seventeen. Robert Froude, ‘Bob,’ was then entering upon his Sixth Form at Eton. Little Margaret began at once, under guidance, her tender and long continued task of comforting her father and mothering the motherless. She found no time to seek her own happiness, till her marriage in 1844,[13] when only her father and herself, William and Anthony, survived. John Spedding Froude died in 1841, thirty-four years old, and, like his two elder brothers, unmarried. Of Phillis, William, Mary, and (James) Anthony, Hurrell’s own annals will have more to say. Beside one of the leafy winding roads of Dartington rose afterwards a little grey almshouse, and over the doorway a stone tablet with this inscription:

‘Impensis Mariae Spedding
pia recordatione sororis suae
Margaretae Froude
haec domus
in perpetuam eleemosynam
extructa est.
Agellum circumjacentem in
eosdem usus erogavit
Henricus Champernowne.

A.D. MDCCCXXXV.’

It must have been building during the last year of Hurrell’s life, and no doubt with his ‘very managing sort of mind’ he worked into it some of his rather primitive Gothic theories. There still is the home which Mary Spedding’s love built, where age and poverty have privacy and peace, and roses at every window, and thankful sweet remembrance of human kindness, as in the ancient time.

Away from home, and without his mother, Hurrell fell silent enough; and his sadness would have hurt and corroded him, had it not been for the exquisite friendship which sprang up between him and his tutor at Oriel. That tutor was John Keble. It is pleasant to think of these two, with their spiritual foreheads and strong chins, in that fashionable Georgian College full of decanters and gold tufts, and ‘rows in quad.’ No one in all England whom Hurrell Froude in his youth was likely to know could have so fostered in him, even by his unconscious presence, whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. According to Mr. J. A. Froude’s Short Studies account, there was no very high level of supernatural religion at Dartington Parsonage. ‘My father,’ he says, ‘was a High Churchman of the old school. The Church itself he regarded as part of the Constitution, and the Prayer-Book as an Act of Parliament which only folly or disloyalty could quarrel with.’ This theory perfectly harmonised with the wonted order and general practice fixed for a century before. The Royal Arms, flanked by the lamentable monuments of all the local gentry, dominated the chancel; the Squire’s pew had its fat cushions, and a stove in the middle, and was walled away from any view of the ignored Communion-table chastely covered with green baize; plebeian hats were piled in the Font, and there was a ‘national custom of bending forward in Church,’ as an almost too fond concession to Christian etiquette. Truthful observers have given us the whole catalogue in print; and it has been corroborated on every side within living memory. The finer spirits who did not turn infidel must have felt all this ugliness to be dreary and hideous enough, though perhaps necessary to feed the sacred spite against the Middle Ages, so Popishly ‘dark’ with candles and incense-coals, pageants and bright Alleluias, brought into the service of God. But to no one in the Church of England before the Oxford Movement, did it seem an abnormal state of things. Nor was it so, dogma being dead. When poor Hurrell’s decided opinions had formed, he must have felt himself in some domestic difficulty. Ritual was nothing to him except as the language of belief: scant where that is feeble, full where that is steadfast and profound; how it can be anything else to man is not quite apparent to an inquiring mind. As he never lived to work out his beliefs very far, he had no drastic changes to suggest in the local ordinances, but he must have dedicated some uphill work to the excellent parent whom he truly reverenced, and ended by making over into a valuable defender of sacramentalism. The numerous clerical progeny of Squire Western, worthies like the famous fox-hunting ‘Păsson Freüde’[14] of his own blood, in another part of Devon, remained faithful to the Constitution and Parliament, to pay up for the Archdeacon’s partial defection.

Hurrell’s attitude towards the mother for whom his heart ached, and towards those who won his fealty at home, discovered itself day by day in letters to Mr. Keble, a record of occasional thoughts, and the private journals which he kept for his own conscience to whet itself upon. Sacred as these pages are, they have been printed before in the opening volume of his Remains; and they prove how very far he was from being a mere intellectual theoriser, oblivious of daily duty and common ties. His strife for perfection, a difficult and joyless one at best, began with these. Some excerpts, scattered or consecutive, will serve to show his sincerity and thoroughness: how his thoughts ran; how he fed upon his mother’s memory; with what lowliness he prayed for the divine help, and with what merciless constancy he learned to discipline himself, arraign his own motives, and master the bitter and sovereign science of self-knowledge.

—‘Read my mother’s journal till half-past twelve: here and there I think I remember allusions. Everything I see in it sends me back to her in my childhood: it gets such hold of me that I can hardly think of anything else. It is a bad way to give a general account of oneself at the end of a day: people at that time are not competent judges of their actions; besides, everyone ought to be dissatisfied with himself always: it is better to give a detailed account like my mother’s by means of which I may hereafter have some idea of what was my standard of virtue, rather than my opinion of myself.’

—‘Perhaps you may think it very odd, but this summer[15] has been the first time I have had resolution to ask for the papers which they found of my mother’s after her death. The most interesting to me are some prayers, and two fragments of [a] journal, one for the year 1809, I think, and the other in 1815. The prayers seem to have been a good deal later.’

—‘I have confessed to myself a fresh thing to be on my guard against. Every now and then I keep feeling anxious that by bringing myself into strict command, I may acquire a commanding air and manner, and am in a hurry to get rid of the punishment of my former weakness. I sometimes try to assume a dignified face as I meet men, and am never content to be treated as a shilly-shally fellow. I must not care the least, or ever indulge a thought, about the impression I make on others;[16] but make myself be what I would, and let the seeming take its course; or, rather, be glad of slights, as from the Lord. This will be a hard struggle. O Lord, give me strength to go through with it!’

—‘I felt as if I have got rid of a great weight from my mind, in having given up the notion of regulating my particular actions, by the sensible tendency I could perceive in them to bring me towards my τὸ καλόν. I had always a mistrust in this motive; and it seems quite a happiness to yield the direction of myself to a Higher Power Who has said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”’

—‘It seems to me a great help towards making myself indifferent to present things, to conjure up past events, and distant places and people before me: things that happened at Eton, or Ottery, or in the very early times of childhood. I felt again to-day as if … the secret world of new pleasures and wishes to which I am trying to gain admittance, is a mere fancy. I must be careful to check high[17] feelings, [as] they are certain to become offences in a day or two, and must regulate my practice by faith, and a steady imitation of great examples: in hopes that, by degrees, what I now have only faint and occasional glimpses of may be the settled objects on which my imagination reposes, and that I may be literally hid in the presence of the Lord.’

—‘I might not indeed be too penitent, but penitent in a wrong way. Abstinences and self-mortifications may themselves be a sort of intemperance: a food to my craving after some sign that I am altering. They ought not to be persevered in, farther than as they are instrumental to a change of character in things of real importance: … how hard it is to keep a pure motive for anything!… I will refrain, rather, by forcing myself to talk, and attend to the wants of others [at table] than by constantly thinking of myself.’

—‘Made good resolutions about behaviour when I go home. Never to argue with my father, or remonstrate with him, or offer my advice, unless in cases where I feel I should do so to the [Provost?]. For even if it subjects me to unnecessary inconvenience, it would do so equally in both cases; and, if I would submit to it in one case through pusillanimity, I ought in the other for a punishment. It would be a good way to make opposite vices punish each other so, and be likely to cure both in time. In the same way to behave to Bob and my sisters as I would to [College equals?]: to comply with their wishes, and not interfere with their opinions, except where I would with the latter. I must try at home to be as humble, and submissive, and complying, as I can; and here as resolute and vigorous, till I get to be the same in all places and all company. I do not preclude myself from making amendments in this resolution, till I have left Oxford.’

—‘It has turned out a beautiful day, and fasting will cost but little pain. I have just been shocked at hearing that ——’s acquaintance, Mr. ——, had shot himself yesterday. How strongly it reminds me that I understand little of the things invisible which I talk and think about, when the most terrible occurrences having taken place quite close to me affect me so little! I could work up my feelings easy enough, but it is enthusiasm[18] to anticipate in this way the steady effects of moral discipline; even supposing both effects are, whilst they last, the same. I could not help crying violently just now, on reading over my mother’s paper. The ideas somehow mixed up together, and forced on my thoughts what a condition I may be in as to things unseen, and yet be unconscious of it. O God, keep up in my mind a feeling of true humility, suitable to my blindness and the things that I am among.’

—‘I have just been reading over my account of the time I spent at home last summer…. The great root of all my complicated misdeeds seems to have been (1) A want of proper notions respecting my relations to my father. (2) A notion that I was a competent judge how to make other people happy, by giving a tone to their pursuits. (3) A craving after the pleasures which I admire. (4) Arrogant pretensions to superiority. (5) A wish to make my conduct seem consistent to myself and others. The first is the main point, and when I have carried that, the rest will all go easily. The only way we can ever be comfortable is by our all uniting to make his will our law, and what little I can do towards this will be better accomplished by example than by presumptuous advice…. Nor do I see how I can so well repress my arrogance as by always keeping in mind that I am in the presence of one who is to me the type of the Most High.’

(To Keble.)

—‘Among the other lights which have been gradually dawning on me, one from following the guidance of which I hope I may derive great comfort, has made me conscious of the debt of reverence that I owe my father: not only in that, bearing his sacred name, he is proposed to me as a type of the Almighty upon earth, but that he has, in his high character, so demeaned himself as to become a fortress and rock of defence to all those who are blessed with his protection. Under his shadow I will, by God’s blessing, rest in peace, and will endeavour for the future to esteem his approbation as the highest earthly honour and his love as the highest reward. I feel in this resolution real peace; and while I am conscious of endeavouring to act up to it, will try, as you advise me, to quiet my gloomy apprehensions.’

—‘O my God! I dare no longer offer to Thee my diseased petitions in the words by which wise and holy men have shaped their intercourse between earth and Heaven. Suffer me, with whose vileness they can have had no fellowship, to frame for myself my isolated supplication. O my Father, by Thy power I began to be, and by Thy protection Thou hast continued to me my misused existence: yet I have forsaken Thee, my only Strength, and forgotten Thee, my only Wisdom. I have neglected to obey Thy voice, and gone a-whoring after my own inventions. As soon as I was born, I went astray and spake lies. I loved the delights which Thou hast given me more than Thee who gavest them; and I dreaded the might which Thou hast delegated to man more than Thee the Almighty…. Yet, praised be Thy holy Name, Thou hast not even thus utterly left me destitute; but with hideous dreams Thou hast affrighted me; and with perpetual mortifications Thou hast disquieted me; and with the recollections of bright things fascinated me; and with a holy friend Thou hast visited me. Thou hast sought Thy servant while astray in the wilderness; Thou hast shown me the horrible pit, the mire and clay in which I am wallowing: O mayest Thou, of Thy great goodness, set my feet upon a rock, and order my goings. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Turn Thy face from my sins, and put out all my misdeeds. Make me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. O give me the comfort of Thy help again, and stablish me with Thy free Spirit…. Bless, O Lord, with Thy constant favour and protection that high spirit whom, as Thy type upon this earth, Thou hast interposed between me and the evils I have merited. Fill him, O Lord, with the fulness of Thy grace, that, running with patience the race which has been set before him, he may finish his course at Thy good time with joyfulness, and find a rest from his labours in the portion of the righteous.’

—‘Just now, at breakfast,[19] I felt the inconvenience of not omitting an oath in a story I told of Sheridan. I felt directly that I lost ground, and should be unable to make a stand, if conversation were to take a turn I disliked. I must be watchful and strict with myself in this respect: for, if I comply with my father’s wishes, and enter freely into society, I shall have much harder work to fight off my old shuffling vanity, and shall be drawn, from not feeling my own ground, into foolishness and flash, and everything that is disgusting.’

—‘I used to speculate on the delight of keeping fasts upon the river in fine weather, among beautiful scenery, rather than in my dull rooms at Oxford; but last Friday was a real fine day, yet I did not at all turn it to this account. Though I ate little, it was something very different from my Oxford fasts, and still more so from what I then used to picture to myself, when I should get home. I waste time in preparing boats, and thoughts in speculating on schemes for expeditions, and for improving our appointments. Also, I observe other bad effects resulting from my misconduct, which I cannot but regard as signs that good spirits are deserting me. The other evening I had an argument with my father, almost in a sort of tone which I used to feel ashamed of last summer, and which, in the Christmas vacation, I think I was not even tempted to; and when I caught myself getting untuned, it cost me a [severe[20]] effort to check myself; nor was it till the next morning that all the effects of it subsided, and I felt quite good-natured and humble again. In this fight I was greatly helped by the experience of former conflicts, and recollecting the ways I had caught myself in self-deceit, so that it gives me some hope as well as humiliation. I pray God that He will not suffer all my feeble efforts to be wasted, and prove quite ineffectual, and that He will enable me to lie down to-night with a better conscience.’

—‘Just now, in riding home from Denbury,[21] I got arguing with my father about the little chance anyone has of doing good, in a way rather inconsistent with our relative condition; yet, when I thought I was going rather too far, could hardly convince myself that, at any particular moment, it was incumbent on me to stop. It is this self-deceiving disposition that I am afraid of.’

—‘I will brace myself and keep my attention on the alert on this S[alcombe?] expedition, by a vow about my food: I will make my meals as simple as I can, without being observed upon; will take no command upon myself, but obey my father’s instructions to the utmost of my power; will try to make no objections or propositions unless called upon; and that no one may be able to put me out of the way [of self-denial] everyone shall have theirs, however disagreeable they may seem to me.’

—‘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[alcombe?] and feel as if I had pressed unpleasantly on him some of my opinions about tides, and names of places.’

—‘Yesterday, I was talking to [Phill?] about [Peg?[22]]; and among other things, when I said how considerate she was about everybody’s wants, and how she was always on the lookout for an opportunity to relieve them, I said (and have reason enough to say it) that things of that sort did not come into my head. But I am afraid I must confess that I was a little annoyed at [Phill? allowing] that she did not think they did! I cannot accuse myself of having been so insincere as to have laid a trap for a compliment; but I was not quite prepared to find that my negligence was such as to obtrude itself on the observation of those who would always make the best of one. O God! give me grace to look on this as a warning voice from Thee, and let the remembrance of it brace my energies for the future…. Also, I yesterday gave way to a covetous inconsistent wish for a beautiful colt that we happened to see, and which my father had half a mind I should get for my own. I feel all these selfish wishes crowding on me, and have no clear decided rule by which to check them. I think I will always ask myself, when I wish for an elegant superfluity, what business I have to be so much better off than my sisters, and will not allow myself anything I can avoid till I have got them all the things they are reasonably in want of.’

—‘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[enbury?] 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 [Provost?] 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[illy] 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 (which I hope I should have done).’