Here is evidence of his deep enjoyment of Nature. He writes, October 31st, from Dereen, Kenmare:—
“I return to London most reluctantly at the end of the week. The summer refuses to leave us, and while you are shivering in the North wind we retain here the still blue cloudlessness of August. This morning is the loveliest I ever saw here. The woods swarm with blackbirds and thrushes, the ‘autumn note not all unlike to that of spring.’ I am so bewitched with the place that (having finished my History) I mean to spend the winter here and try to throw the story of the last Desmond into a novel.”
In reply to a request that he would attend an Anti-vivisection meeting at Lord Shaftesbury’s house, he wrote:—
“Vivisection is a hateful illustration of the consequences of the silent supersession of Morality by Utilitarianism. Until men can be brought back to the old lines, neither this nor any other evil tendency can be really stemmed. Till the world learns again to hate what is in itself evil, in spite of alleged advantages to be derived from it, it will never consent to violent legal restrictions.”
His last letter from Oxford is pleasant to recall:—
“I am strangely placed here. The Dons were shy of me when I first came, but all is well now, and the undergraduates seem really interested in what I have to tell them. I am quite free, and tell them precisely what I think.”
I do not think that Mr. Froude was otherwise than a happy man. He was particularly so as regarded his feminine surroundings, and a most genial and indulgent husband and father. He had also intense enjoyment both of Nature and of the great field of Literature into which he delved so zealously. He once told me that he had visited every spot, except the Tower of London (!) where the great scenes of his History took place, and had ransacked every library in Europe likely to contain materials for his work; not omitting the record chambers of the Inquisition at Simancas, where he spent many shuddering days which he vividly described to me. He also greatly enjoyed his long voyages and visits to the West Indies and to New Zealand; and especially the one he made to America. He admired almost everything, I think, in America; and more than once remarked to me (in reference particularly to the subject of mixed education in which I was interested): “The young men are so nice! What might be difficult here, is easy there. You have no idea what nice fellows they are.” There was, however, certainly something in Mr. Froude’s handsome and noble physiognomy which conveyed the idea of mournfulness. His eyes were wells of darkness on which, by some singularity, the light never seemed to fall either in life or when represented in a photograph; and his laugh, which was not infrequent, was mirthless. I never heard a laugh which it was so hard to echo, so little contagious.
The last time I ever saw Mr. Froude was at the house of our common friend, Miss Elliot, where he was always to be found at his best. Her other visitors had departed and we three old friends sat on in the late and quiet Sunday afternoon, talking of serious things, and at last of our hopes and beliefs respecting a future life. Mr. Froude startled us somewhat by saying he did not wish to live again. He felt that his life had been enough, and would be well content not to awake when it was over. “But,” said he, in conclusion, with sudden vigour, “I believe there is another life, you know! I am quite sure there is.” The clearness and emphasis of this conviction were parallel to those he had used before to me in talking of the probable extension of Atheism in coming years. “But, as there IS a God,” said Mr. Froude, “Religion can never die.”
CHAPTER
XVIII.
MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES.
SOCIAL
I must not write here any personal sketch however slight of my revered friend Dr. Martineau, since he is still,—God be thanked for it!—living, and writing as profoundly and vigorously as ever, in his venerable age of 89. But the weekly sermons which I had the privilege of hearing from his lips for many years, down to 1872, beside several courses of his Lectures on the Gospels and on Ethical Philosophy which I attended, formed so very important, I might say, vital a part of my “Life” in London, that I cannot omit some account of them in my story.