For some three years he was in great repute among them: his mental gifts were invalidated to them, later, by his aimlessness and instability. To his practical acquaintance with the Roman Breviary, often demonstrated in his own rooms, after dinner, to Froude, Newman, Pusey, and Wilberforce, Hurrell owed much, especially in conjunction with the able lectures on liturgical subjects being delivered by Dr. Lloyd.
Hurrell’s most intimate letter of all those addressed to Keble, beating and surging with the pathos which is inseparable from a young man’s interior life, ends sadly and bravely on Jan. 8, 1827:
‘I am glad of your advice about penance, for my spirit was so broken down that I had no vigour to go on even with the trifling self-denials I had imposed on myself; besides, I feel that though it has in it the colour of humility, it is in reality the food of pride. Self-imposed, it seems to me quite different from when imposed by the Church; and even fasting itself, to weak minds, is not free from evil, when, however secretly it is done, one cannot avoid the consciousness of being singular…. I have not much more to say, and when anything comes over me, will put it down on a large sheet, and send it off when it is full. I am so very unequal to my feelings, that sometimes I suspect all to be hypocrisy; but the tide has by this time so often returned after its ebbing, that finding myself again on the dry land does not make me so much doubt the reality of all His waves and storms which have gone over me.’
To his dear Robert Isaac Wilberforce, an approaching guest, Hurrell indites on the same day a more mundane theme:
‘I must prepare you to find me a great humbug about cock-shooting; for, though I will not recede from my assertions concerning the pre-eminent qualifications of our woods in that line, yet, as our sporting establishment does not go beyond the bare appointments for what Bob calls hedge-popping, the vicinity of the cocks will serve no other purpose than to make you feel more acutely the disadvantages of a connection with such unknowing people.’
His Tutorship was not an unmixed enjoyment to him, after taking his M.A. Of it he writes thus seriously, humbly, and characteristically:
To the Rev. John Keble, Oct. 23, 1827.
‘Perhaps it may amuse you to hear something of my proceedings in my new line of life. I have six Lectures in all: three each day…. I have now got through two days and seen the general aspect of affairs, and as yet no liberties have been taken with me, to my knowledge: however, this is the thing against which I endeavour to arm myself, and from which I expect a fruitful harvest of moral discipline. I look upon it as one of the best opportunities which can be given me to put my elements into order and harmony. It is a quick and efficacious refreshment to me to think of the south-westerly waves roaring round the Prawle after our stern, or the little crisp breakers that we cut through, when you cruised with us off Dartmouth Harbour. Somehow or other, without having exposed myself that I know of, in any flagrant way, there remains upon my mind a more vivid impression of my incompetence than I expected to await my entrance into the office. I feel called on to act a part for which neither my habits nor my studies have fitted me. I am, and always have been, childishly alive to the pain of being despised, and I cannot but feel that I have not the sort of knowledge to give me any command over the men’s attention, or even power of benefiting the attentive; and, if it was not that I know how good it is for myself, I believe I should give it up at once!… Two more tedious days are over; I am not a bit more in love with my occupation, so that this letter, instead of suggesting to you some ludicrous ideas and reminiscences, will terminate in a concatenation of dolefulness, and ask for a consolatory answer.
‘Lloyd gave us his introductory Lecture to-day, i.e., settled the books we were to do, and the times of coming, and was very good-natured, as usual, in his reception of all of us. I am afraid my time and spirits will be so much drawn upon in another quarter, that I shall not have much left of either for him. Otherwise an historical account of the Liturgy, tracing all the prayers, through the Roman Missals and Breviaries, up to their original source, for one Lecture, and the Epistle to the Romans and First of Corinthians for the other, would be a very
eligible subject to spend a good deal of time on…. I go to the Tyrolese singers, who perform some national music in the Town-Hall at eight o’clock. I hope they will help to lull me into a momentary forgetfulness; and that I may dream myself among lakes and mountains, far, far away from the vulgar crowd.’