He keeps on rallying Newman in his old animated strain, on Dec. 21, winning the quick official contradiction: ‘As to our being out of joint here! No, no; we are doing well.’
‘By Rogers’ account, things don’t go exactly as they ought at Oxford. Golius[250] has rebelled, he says; and Ben Harrison[251] has jibbed; and the Theological meetings go flat; and old Mozley[252] won’t work. Harpsfield is the writer on the Breviary services whose name I could not remember. Rogers says that Sancta Clara is rich. Wilson,[253] for your comfort, is much less tender in the finger’s end than he was last spring, though I hear Keble does complain of his being rather soft. I very much wish to hear of your putting into execution your plan of a campaign in London, and enlarging the basis of operations.
‘… When you write, tell me if you think there was any of the “nasty irony”[254] you used to complain of? I tried to avoid it…. I am entirely confined to the house, which we succeed in keeping very warm, though out-of-doors it is a sharp windy frost.’
Frederic Rogers wrote to Newman from Dartington, where, according to Newman’s arrangement, he was spending Christmas with Hurrell:
‘I am excessively amused at the alternations of treatment Miss Froude is subject to from Hurrell and Mr. B[ogue].[255] In fact, I can hardly help being in a constant half-laughter when anything is going on between Froude and his sister.’
‘Mary Froude,’ adds Newman’s annotating hand in or about 1860, ‘was one of the sweetest girls I ever saw. She was at this time engaged to Mr. B[ogue]. He used to come with a great consciousness of his situation, much gravity, and great reverence for her. Hurrell, on the other hand, treated his sister, in a good-humoured way, as a little child, calling her “Poll,” and sending her about on messages, etc., to Mr. B[ogue’s] seeming scandal and distress. Mary Froude all the while was the very picture of naturalness and simplicity, receiving with equal readiness and equability the homage of the one, and the playful rudeness of the other.’ Mr. Bogue won his bride only to lose her. Her strength had been greatly impaired by her devoted attendance on her favourite brother; nor did she long outlive him. She was the youngest of Archdeacon Froude’s three daughters. The inscription over the vault in the old beautiful churchyard next Dartington Hall, on the slope of the hill, thus includes her name:
‘Also Mary Isabella Froude, wife of the Rev. Richard Bogue, [who] died August 7, 1836, in her 22nd year.’
Shortly after the loss of his young wife, Mr. Bogue bought the patronage of Denbury from the Duke of Bedford, and enlarged the old Rectory House. He was Curate there for a good while to Archdeacon Froude.
‘The most important year in the history of the Oxford Movement was the year 1836,’[256] the Hampden year. The great fight at Arques was coming on, with ‘brave Crillon’ far away. Newman duly wished a Happy New Year to Hurrell at Dartington. Sadly welcome are such conventions, when nothing less may be said, and nothing more can be said. He sends divers comments, with a postscript: ‘T. Mozley cannot come to you. His brother is going to marry my younger sister.’[257] There was the usual prompt answer, touching on the testimonial to Wellington, then Chancellor of the University, as ‘abominable’ and doctrinaire; and on the 16th Mr. Rogers wrote from Bridehead, as he knew well that Newman would be anxious for personal news, as soon as might be:
‘I have left Froude, who professes to remain much as he has been, rather weaker than when you were with him, from never being in the open air, but not worse than he has been from the beginning of his confinement. I am afraid, too, he is not quite in such good spirits as he used to be. You ought to send Harrison down to him, to take lessons on the subject of the Reformers; for certainly he has a way of speaking which carries conviction in a very extraordinary way, over and above the arguments he uses. Did Froude tell you that some good lady who has read you wonders how it is that you and Arnold should have any difference between you, your sentiments and general tone so perfectly agreeing? (!)’