Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's Proctorship."
This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) "But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House."
All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with a great opportunity.
From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends rejoice—and others lament—that he is much less of a partisan than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so passionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his own passionate love of God and man.
Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate—the same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives of all sorts, delight in young people—these never fail. He never seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well."
This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their lives.
By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
[Footnote *: Written in 1918.]
Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light—its revealing power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching school of Literœ Humaniores. Green had triumphed; he had made a philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer.