also a lot of excellent by-play; the Greek was spoken distinctly and with the help of an acting edition with English I was able to follow quite well. I enjoyed it thoroughly and thought it quite worth the 6 hours travelling.

Dec. 21. We went to see Sanderson yesterday at the little shop in St. Martin's Court where he is learning book-binding, which he has taken to now as his trade. This is Grandmamma's 76th birthday.

Dec. 23. We all went in the morning to hear Boyd Carpenter preach which he did splendidly. I have been reading "Progress and Poverty."

T

CHAPTER XIV

JOWETT

HE freedom and happiness of all that young life at Oxford, the interest in and mastery of my studies, the untrammelled and unfettered discussions on everything in heaven and earth, my voracious reading of English literature, and a large circle of friends were an abiding delight to me. I find an entry in my journal in my early days of the intense satisfaction I felt at being sui juris. So far as the place and its influence is concerned I have always loved Winchester best, but quite the happiest days of my whole life were my two years at Oxford. They were days of expansion and growth and of development in every direction, and they were full of the ardour and zest of youth feeling its power and justifying the scornful epigram of envious age: "We are none of us infallible, even the youngest of us." My most intimate friends were all as studious, as virtuous and as eager as I was, and the extensions of those friendships in Cambridge which I mentioned in the last chapter made me almost as much at home at the sister University as at my own. I even had the joy of being twice proctorised for being without a cap and gown, and in answer to the standard challenge of " Name and college, please," replied with a smirk "Russell of Balliol." I need hardly say that P. L. remained sniffy-I appeared to enjoy myself, and therefore I must be doing something wrong-I could not mention the name of any of my friends without its being sniffed at. I remember one characteristic occasion when I mentioned the name of a virtuous and hard working Nonconformist who subsequently became a schoolmaster and who never in his life did or said anything that the most severe censor could not approve, about whom I was told afterwards: "Oh, we have heard something about So-and-so, and we think he's not quite a nice friend for you." Would it be believed that even at this age I was cross-examined about my private letters at breakfast, and after firmly refusing either to hand them round or to read them out, the discussion of course ended

with the usual sniff: "Well, if you don't care to show us your letters it must be because they are not quite nice." I had tried for years to open my heart to P. L. for I should have liked to have relations at home that I could love and trust, but I had found it impossible, and after '83 I remained completely and frigidly aloof, and kept myself to myself, alien as any kind of secretiveness was from my natural instincts and my former upbringing.

Among my older friends I have already mentioned George Brodrick the Warden of Merton, who used frequently to entertain me and was always charming. There were also the Max Müllers living near the Parks, who were very kind to me. Max Müller was much interested in my devotion to Buddhism, and prepared to discuss it, but of course generally from the philological point of view. There were some grown-up daughters who played lawntennis, and I remember Lascelles the Magdalen giant as a frequent visitor. Among my contemporaries I remember another Roberts, whom we called "Long Roberts," to distinguish him from my Cambridge friend, and who afterwards married my first cousin, Cecilia Howard, and became the member for Lincoln. There were several other men at college whose names I do not now remember, and one of them put me on to doing slum work in St. Giles. I also enjoyed attending the High Church services at St. Giles, and I once went to a Roman Catholic church, but I could not make out what they were saying. There was a charming Roman Catholic priest from the establishment at Dorchester whom I liked very much, and who, I believe, was optimistic enough to entertain hopes of my conversion. There was another funny little man who was a Swedenborgian and tried to interest me in his ideas.

On one occasion we had a great religious discussion in my rooms at which I collected all the different religions I could think of, and got them fighting and arguing. There was myself and I think Lane-Fox representing Buddhism, there was the Roman Catholic priest and the Swedenborgian, there was Hobhouse representing Mill, Maurice Davies representing a very much tempered Erastian Church of England, a Nonconformist and some other shades of religious opinion. We had quite an agreeable evening of quips and cranks, theological abuse, definite assertions and counter assertions, and its harmony was only marred by two unfortunate incidents. One was when the Swedenborgian in a sudden access of fury turned upon my poor little priest and denounced him as a scarlet woman, and had to be restrained by force until he was calm

enough to resume his pipe and his coffee. The other was when someone made a slighting reference to Mill, and Hobhouse begged us not to wound his feelings by using such language, with as much earnestness as the priest might have used in a similar appeal on behalf of the Virgin.

Jowett was always exceedingly kind to me and constantly asked me to breakfast, and also to dinner when he was entertaining distinguished people at the week-end. In this way I met in his house Sir Robert Morier, who was or had been British Ambassador at Constantinople, Russell Lowell who told us many stories of Abe Lincoln, Rhoda Broughton, who was supposed to be very daring, and whose book "Belinda" was supposed to be about Sir Charles Dilke, and many other distinguished people. He also took me for those desolating tête-à-tête walks about the Oxford country which have been described by so many others. I had been brought up in a tradition of great admiration for him, but I could not share it although I listened several times to his sermons in chapel to try and get at the real man. Years before he had fallen under the suspicion of the orthodox for his share in "Essays and Reviews," and before I went up my very serious minded and Christian cousin, the wife of the Master of the Temple, who suffered from the unfortunate theatrical name of Kate Vaughan, had said to me with a sigh: "So you are going to Balliol. Oh, my dear boy, beware of Jowett; he will turn you out a polished infidel." On the other hand R. S. Wright, my Uncle Lyulph, and people of that generation, held him almost in reverence for the greatness and nobility of his character. I did not find it so, I found him unspiritual.* Never at any time during my association with him did I feel any of that devotion which I felt for Freddy Morshead or of that great admiration I had for the character of Ridding. He always seemed to me far too much concerned with worldly success rather than with the inner life, and the inner life was very real to me at that time, while worldly success has never appealed to me either then or since. The outcome of this want of sympathy had serious results.

So working hard, taking exercise, talking, laughing, playing, discussing, and full of youth and high spirits my second year at

Since writing the above I have discovered this curiously similar expression of feeling in a letter of 1866 from Cobden-Sanderson to my mother: "I do not like Jowett the more I see of him. He is too prudential and does not reveal the world to me so as to make it stir and spring, bounding within me, but harps eternally on the compromise one is compelled to make between Truth absolute and Truth expedient. And so let him go." ("Amantium Irae," p. 89.)

Oxford was drawing to a close when suddenly there fell a bolt from the blue. Jowett, who was, it will be remembered, both the Master of Balliol and the Vice-Chancellor, sent for me and told me he had been informed that I had been guilty of disgusting conduct in writing some scandalous letter, but that he thought that it was probably only a piece of thoughtlessness, and he suggested that I should go down for a month as a punishment, and come back in June to take my examination in Honour Mods which was approaching. I was startled beyond belief by such an accusation, and I was also infuriated by his calm way of talking to me as if it could possibly be true. So remote was it from the truth that I was entirely possessed by that white virginal flame of innocence which I think is even stronger in adolescent boys than in girls, and I was horrified that it should be possible for anyone in close relation with me to think otherwise. For the reasons I have mentioned in the last paragraph I was indisposed to throw myself into Jowett's arms as I should have done if he had been Ridding, and I instantly froze, while my pride and indignation flamed sky high. I demanded with indignation that I should be shown the supposed letter on which so atrocious an accusation was founded. I pledged myself to defend and stand by every word I had ever written; and I declined to submit to any kind of punishment or possible action which might in any conceivable way be interpreted into an admission. I said that of course he could send me down if he liked, that being within his power, but I refused to go down voluntarily. I told him the accusation was most infamous, and I again demanded to see the letter, but he refused to produce it. I then said that I demanded an inquiry with evidence before the Vice-Chancellor's court, and refused to be any party to Star Chamber methods. Jowett again refused to show me the letter or even tell me what was in it, and he refused me any inquiry. I then completely lost my temper, told him that he was no gentleman, that he was behaving in an autocratic way, indefensible even in the head of an Oxford college, and that I refused to have anything more to do with him. Jowett's reply was to tell me that I should be sent down for a year, and that at the end of that time he would graciously consider the question of re-admitting me. I told him that nothing of the sort would happen and that I should not be sent down for a year because I should then and there take my name off the college books, and shake the dust of Oxford off my feet.

And I did. Thus the autocratic injustice of an old man and the