Correspondence of course broke out anew, the moment the two were parted. Hurrell’s Greek reading progressed on his own summary lines. ‘Timæus gets worse and worse. I can see no point in which it is interesting, except as a fact to prove what stuff people have sucked down…. I have cut
Timæus,’ he announces a bit later, ‘and have nearly finished Gorgias, which is as elegant and clever and easy as possible.’ His weather comments (such being unavoidable in England) are concise and instructive. By way of letting Newman know that there had been a fortnight of fine weather since the latter’s own rainy experiences at Dartington, he throws out an abrupt postscript of July 29: ‘What a lie old Swith.[78] has told!’
The Rev. Thomas Mozley seems to have received conditional offers or promises from Hurrell of sharing with him a country cure. The former proposed first the vacant Moreton Pinkney, thirty miles north of Oxford, then the parish of S. Ebbe’s, within its ancient limits. But both projects failed of realisation. Hurrell’s strength had to be hoarded, and Archdeacon Froude was averse to any measure which would create new duties, and cause a stricter separation between them. Keble, on behalf of his friend, would have favoured Northamptonshire rather than the city. He saw Newman on August 10 of this Long Vacation of 1831. ‘He wishes you to have a country parish,’ Newman writes; ‘he did not give his reasons.’ Newman himself coveted Hurrell’s parochial co-operation. These plans for an active employment of superfluous energies, formed, one after another, by appreciators of them, were destined to be vain. Meanwhile, relish for historical study was indicating to him how he could be of use, in a day full of most unscholarly conceptions of the past, long before the documentary firmament had been unrolled by Government for the man in the street. Dandum est Deo eum aliquid facere posse. He knew the path he meant to take, and communicates his dream to Newman, prefacing it with a bit of encouraging domestic news: ‘W[illy] continues very steady, getting up at half-past five, and working without wasting time till two or three.’ His next surviving brother William was then twenty years old, and reading for Honours.
To the Rev. J. H. Newman, Aug. 16, 1831.
‘Since you wish to have a definite categorical answer to M[ozley’s] question, I will say, No; and having said this, will
proceed to my reasons and qualifications. First, whatever you may think, I have a serious wish, and (if I could presume to say so) intention of working at the ecclesiastical history of the Middle Ages. Now, my father assures me that such a parish as [S. Ebbe’s] would be a complete occupation of itself, so that I am unwilling at once, and without giving myself the trial, to give up the chance of doing what I cannot but think as clerical, as improving, and much better suited to my capacity, such as it is, than the care of a parish. A small parish, and a less bothering one, might be a recreation, almost; but such an absorbing one as this I should be sorry to take, till I found that I could not work at anything else. Secondly, my qualification of the ‘No’ is this: if you either feel very certain I shall do nothing else, or have a strong opinion as to the improvement I should get from the occupation you propose, believe me willing to be convinced that my present view is incorrect.
‘I have read a good deal of Plato, have stuck in Parmenides as in Timæus, but think all which keeps clear of metaphysics is as beautiful and improving as anything I ever read. As to Socrates, I can scarcely believe that he was not inspired, and feel quite confident that Plato is responsible for every tint of [puzzleheadedness] which shows itself in his arguments. One is apt, of course, to be carried away with a thing at the moment; but my present impression is, that Gorgias, Apologia Socratis, Crito, and Phædo, rank next to the Bible in point of the greatness of mind they show, and in grace of style and dramatic beauty surpass anything I have ever read. I think I am improved in composition, and attribute it to imitation of Plato. I am going to serve D[enbury?] for the next month, and shall have to write a number of sermons.
‘How atrociously the poor King of Holland[79] has been used; but nothing yet is so painful as the defection of the heads of the Church. I hear that the Bishop of Ferns[80] is dying: spes ultima.’
During the early autumn, Froude returns to the curacy
question, and reiterates the conviction which his own idiosyncrasy was strengthening in him every day, and which surely was as warranted as it was sincere.