And now, before concluding this chapter, I take two much later letters written by Newman to Martineau; one is dated 1888 and the other 1892. The first one is written quite clearly—which is wonderful when one remembers that he was then eighty-three—and the other, four years later, is cramped and not so easy to decipher. Still, in the first of these letters he himself says, "I have to write as slow as any little schoolboy… and cannot help some blunders." He had been to Birmingham on the 20th June to see Cardinal Newman, and mentions how travelling by rail tried his head. The latter part of the letter relates to a big dinner composed chiefly of Anglo-Indians and their attachés. There is one lighted sentence near the end which brings before one's mental eye his often-expressed "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin," with regard to the Indian Empire, our past misgovernments, and our present failure to recognize old promises: "The glorification of our Indian policy only made me melancholy."
The "degree" which Martineau was to receive was no doubt his "Doctor of Divinity" degree which he took in 1884 (Edinburgh). Dr. Jowett, it will be remembered, was, throughout his whole life, closely identified with Balliol College. He was Fellow in 1838, tutor of his college from 1840 till 1870, when he was chosen as Master. Ruskin (to whom reference is made in the second letter) gave the larger part of his originally large fortune to the founding of St. George's Guild. This was intended to be a sort of agricultural community of "old-world virtues" for young and old, "and ancient and homely methods." One of his great aims was the promoting of home industries. As regards Newman's reference to politics at the end of letter No. 2 in 1888, Gladstone's Government was but just breathing after the sharp tussle they had been through with the Home Rule party, with Parnell at their head. In 1886 Gladstone had brought in the measure which was to give Ireland a "statutory parliament." This was practically the signal for a disastrous rent which tore his party in two, and was the precursor of their defeat at the next General Election.
Dr. Martineau from Newman.
"6th July, 1888.
"My dear Martineau,
"I did not know that the day of Oxford Convocation was June 20th. I was engaged to the Worcester College Gaudy for the 21st. Had I known that on the 20th you were to receive the degree, I should have been tempted to come and 'assist,' though I have always had an instinctive hatred of such mobs.
"I was at Birmingham on the 20th to see my brother. The noises on the rail greatly affected my brain and stomach. Noise was increased in the bedroom at Oxford, beside which heavy goods went to the rail, and I had two bad nights, partly from that cause, aided by the mental excitement up to midnight." [It is not difficult to understand this "excitement." The meeting between the brothers was never devoid of a certain mental reticence. It must almost have been impossible to forget the fact that about the subject on which each had always been most keenly exercised, they were worlds apart.]
"When I reached home I thought myself quite well, but soon found I could not write a word without one or more blunders in several letters, and a needful epistle became a heap of unsightly blots. This is only exaggeration of a weakness becoming normal with me. I have to write as slow as any little schoolboy. My housemaid was alarmed without my knowing it; but mere rest and sleep in some days removed my wife's alarms. But I still am forced to write very slowly, and cannot help some blunders…. On the morning of the 22nd I called on Jowett, who instantly said, 'Tonight is our Gaudy; you must come to it.' I had to beg off from my Worcester College host. (I was on my way to see friends in a neighbouring village.) I sat down to dinner with 102 guests; such a company as I never before looked at. I name chiefly high Anglo-Indians and their various attachés (members of Balliol College): oi peri Lords Northbrook, Ripon, and Lansdowne, three Viceroys of India, and Sir Gordon Duff, late Governor of Bombay." [It will not have been forgotten that the part played by Lord Lansdowne and Lord Ripon in 1833, with respect to the Bill for the discontinuance of the East India Company's trade, was not a very distinguished one.]
"Many smaller stars, Mr. Ilbert of name well known, and (long ago to me well known) General Richard Strachy, eager for bi-metallism. He began, but alas! could not finish his elucidation to me, how it would relieve Indian finance, without anyone losing _any_thing, or any lessening of payment, or dismissing officers, or the English Government paying anything, nor any unlucky last holder of coin or paper losing. The miracle (as to me it seemed) was to be wrought, not by a double standard—that was an ignorant mistake—but by a single standard metal, composed of gold and silver in fixed ratio. I was not happy enough (or unhappy enough) to learn how this was to result; but his eagerness and confidence were to me a surprising phenomenon.
"A Worcester College man told me that your Types of Morals had already left a strong impression on younger men. I think there has not yet been time for the second great book and work.