To the Rev. John Keble, July 16, 1837.
‘… Williams has suggested the publication of extracts from Hurrell’s letters. I feared at first they would be too personal
as regards others; but then I began to think that if they could be given, they would be next best to talking with him, and would show him in a light otherwise unattainable. Then there are so many clever things in those he sent me: the first hints of principles which I and others have pursued, and of which he ought to have the credit. Moreover, we have often said the Movement, if anything comes of it, must be enthusiastic. Now here is a man fitted above all others to kindle enthusiasm. I have written to William Froude about it, who caught at the idea, which he said had already struck him. Considering the state of the University, everything which can tell against Hampdenism[270] will be a gain.’
Newman continued sanguine.
To J. W. Bowden, Esq., Hursley, Oct. 6, 1837.
‘… I am here for a week to consult with Keble about Froude’s papers, which are now in the press, and require a good deal of attention. You will, I think, be deeply interested in them. His father has put some into my hands of a most private nature. They are quite new even to Keble, who knew more about him than anyone…. All persons of unhackneyed feelings and youthful minds must be taken with them; others will think them romantic, scrupulous, over-refined, etc.’
The ‘papers of a most private nature’ dated chiefly from Hurrell’s twenty-third to his twenty-seventh year. ‘They have taught me,’ Mr. Keble writes to that friend, his own earliest biographer, whom they were to disturb and shock when once in print, ‘they have taught me things concerning him which I never suspected myself, as to the degree of self-denial which he was practising when I was most intimate with him. This
encourages me to think that there may be many such whom one dreams not of.’
How Froude came to leave these secret manuscripts behind him is not perfectly clear. Mr. Keble had advised burning them, long before. During the months and even years when there was natural opportunity for disposing of all his affairs, Froude had abstained from destroying his papers. The only explanation is that he was too completely indifferent, in all such matters, to make a move of any sort. He belonged to a journal-keeping age and a journal-keeping family: to write, and to dismiss the writing from memory, were to him easy matters. Neither his kind of memory, nor his degree of self-attentiveness, would have helped him to produce an Apologia. His diaries, properly speaking, have absolutely no egotism: he is merely dramatically concentrated on R. H. F. as a moral ‘dummy’ convenient for observation and correction, and it was quite in keeping with his habit that he should have taken no thought whatever of a testamentary nature, towards the end. He could, of course, have had no suspicion of the ultimate use to which his confessions were soon to be put. Besides, he would harbour no fear of depreciation, but would rather have desired that, even in the grave.
On the fly-leaf of the finished book they placed a sweet motto from the Adeste, sanctæ conjuges, the midnight hymn appointed for the Office of the Commemoration of Holy Women. It came from the Parisian Breviary, in which Froude had delighted. Newman was editing the Hymns included in it at this very time.