would say to me, "I pray thee read no more; go, here is 100., walk with the help of that and a stick."'

Foster wrote (1864): 'The
He will go on all the vac. I

His friends laughed at him for what they considered an exaggerated enthusiasm. W. Professor raves about walking. expect. I don't envy him, as it is decidedly a case in which "there is limits."' Another friend wrote to him: 'I hope your career will never be temporarily cut short by your arrest as a tramp without visible means of subsistence.' When once he proposed to walk, I know not from where, to pay a promised visit at Foxearth, W. Foster wrote in serious remon

strance :

'Beloved P. F.,-You are a Hass! a Hidiot! a Howl. You are ruining your constitution. You will be seriously ill ! You will hinder your reading. You are tempting Providence, you old oaf! Don't be such a fool as to walk, but come in the train like a Christian. . . . The guv. thinks you very foolish, if not wicked, to attempt it. You are really very silly, dear P., to do such a wild thing.'

Portions of each vacation were spent at his home in Carlisle. There, as a rule, he managed to get through a great deal of reading. He did not get from the members of his family any sympathy in his special studies: he wrote, Everybody at home knows that my point of view is absolutely different, so we don't mind one another.' He said of his father a few years later: 'He never refused me anything in my life, though his manner made it difficult to ask for anything I did not decidedly want.' His sister, who was seven years younger than himself, was at school and much away from home, to his great regret. He interested himself in her studies and liked to direct her reading, and whenever she could she accompanied him on his long walks. His brother was in his father's business, and had little understanding of academic pursuits. Creighton wrote of him, August 16, 1865: 'He regards me as an impracticable dreamer-good enough at grubbing in books, but with theories utterly useless on every material point, and his only hope for me is that experience may put me right.' Ordinary society possessed no attraction for Creighton.

To R. T. Raikes

'Carlisle January 10, 1865.

'I live very quietly here, and know only few people, as we see very little society. The other day I went to a ball (night I should have said), and, oh, gracious, I was driven quite misanthropical for some time afterwards. I knew very few people, and never had such toil in my life in manufacturing conversation. I talked the very smallest talk I ever was compelled to do, and felt more or less like a squeezed orange for some days. It was my first go this winter, and I never felt it such a bore before; and I have long been meditating whether it is one's duty to undergo operations of that nature quietly, or steadfastly refuse to have anything to do with them at all. I cannot quite decide at present which is the righter course.'

The society of his chosen friends was all he needed, and he had not yet felt the call to enlarge his sympathies, though his utterances about society showed much more violent feelings than anyone would have gathered from his conduct, for he was never a recluse, and was always lively and talkative when with others.

To R. T. Raikes

'The Knowe, Aspatria: September 18, 1866. 'I must confess that "society," as generally understood, I detest and abhor: that you should talk to a man because you like and understand him is not only pleasant, but useful and right; but that you should entertain and be entertained by a series of people whose moral sentiments you disapprove of, whose pursuits you take no interest in, and whose intellectual capacities you are unable after some search to discover, and the sight of whom induces a fit of bad humour, during which you abuse them soundly and expose their feebleness so disgustingly forced upon your notice, and all this solely because they happen to live in the neighbourhood, seems to me to be an unparalleled monstrosity.'

'Carlisle : December 31, 1867.

'The sole thing to be said for "society" seems to me to be that it fills you with temporary vanity; vanity inspires you to effort of some sort; and effort is the sole source of pleasure. Pleasure, however, so obtained, stands to rational pleasure in the same relation that the pleasures of dram drinking do to those of a temperate life. Family enjoyments have not even that stimulus: everybody knows you too well to think you better-looking or cleverer or a better dancer

than you are and so you have no inducement to the requisite effort.'

Creighton as an undergraduate felt no desire for any but male friends. The 'grave tenderness' of which his friends speak was shown to them only. It happened that his most intimate friends had no sisters, his own sister was considerably younger than himself, and he had no experience of friendship with women of any age, and did not amuse himself by falling in love. To his friends he showed almost passionate love and tenderness, but women had no interest for him. He writes to R. T. Raikes :

Lynton August 8, 1866.

'I don't know what you think, but I find ladies in general are very unsatisfactory mental food: they seem to have no particular thoughts or ideas, and though for a time it is flattering to one's vanity to think one may teach them some, it palls after a while. Of course at a certain age, when you have a house and so on, you get a wife as part of its furniture, and find her a very comfortable institution; but I doubt greatly whether there were ever many men who had thoughts worth recounting, who told those thoughts to their wives at first, or who expected them to appreciate them. I should like to hear from Tennyson a comparison of his feelings towards Arthur Hallam and towards his wife. I believe men are driven into matrimony by the necessities of life, which tend to make friendship impossible by engrossing all a man's thoughts.'

His friends' love affairs he watched with anxious interest and treated with a wisdom almost beyond his years and experience. He writes:

'Lynton: August 23, 1866.

I

'The sight of them [a young couple on their wedding tour] made Will quite maudlin; but I try my best to repress him, and he has not said anything about himself for some time. don't think anything will ever come of his attachment: in fact I don't mind whispering to you that I think his governor is quite right. She is older than he is, and by the time Will is old enough to think of marrying he will begin to see it it is therefore very advisable to prevent him talking about it, partly because talking on the subject tends to make the matter traditional, and fasten the external forms on a man's mind after the spirit has gone (a thing much to be feared in

VOL. I.

D

Will's case, as he is too honest to see the difference), partly too because a man feels ashamed of unsaying a thing he has said to many. I tell you this as a reason for not encouraging him more than necessary next term to talk on the subject: I should be glad to hear if you agree with me.'

'February 19, 1867.

'Will is very sad and solemn this term he is still in love, I am afraid, and thinks about it more than the ideal wise man ought to: I mean that I am rather unable to appreciate the point of view of grieving because your gov. objects to an engagement until you are in something resembling a position to marry; but I suppose it is necessary to keep a pet skeleton, and if Will chooses that one, why, I have no doubt it will answer admirably.'

Of the nature of Creighton's intercourse with his friends and of his talk, perhaps the best idea can be gathered from the words of Dr. Copleston, who writes:

'This is what I now consider the most remarkable feature in the Creighton of Merton as I remember him-his pleasure in discussing moral problems, or rather in announcing his verdicts on questions of conduct. His favourite beginning was, "You know, Cop., I'm quite clear that "-here followed some decision which he knew would surprise me.

"These verdicts were by no means always such as a riper judgment would ratify, but they were always suggestive. Their shrewdness was only surpassed by their vigour. I remember the great severity of his manner, though his language was not violent, in denouncing the conduct of some men who had used the Ash Wednesday holiday-this must have been early in 1865-for vicious indulgence. What moved his indignation was that they should have gone straight from the Commination Service to bring down a curse upon themselves. He once came into my room after a long Sunday walk with E. G. W., in the course of which they had lunched at an inn. W. had said during luncheon, "Do you think this is right that we are doing?" and Creighton had replied, "If it were not right, we should not be doing it." He found great interest in reporting this decision and challenging criticism. I owe him a great debt for the following, for it embodies a moral maxim of which the importance can hardly be overrated. I believe it to be only a specimen among many-though a conspicuously good one-of the wise sayings which he would blurt out, to the surprise of companions who

expected nothing so serious. I had said in regard to some action-I forget what-which I knew, I suppose, in my heart was better left undone : "Do you think there is any harm in doing so-and-so?" He replied, "No, there's no harm in it; but you'll go to the devil if you do it."

'I am afraid that what I have written might give the impression that Creighton at this time was a "prig." Nothing could be farther from the fact if by "prig" is meant one who obtrudes his moral judgment pretentiously. In the region of "the immensities" he was no doubt priggish, like any other clever young man steeped in "Sartor Resartus," but on the moral side he was neither obtrusive nor pretentious. His dogmatic manner, then as in after life, did not imply pretension it was rather the sipwveia of humility, it was never intended to be taken quite seriously. And sipwveía in every form was too dear to him, for him ever to obtrude advice: even in face of actual evil, a contemptuous silence or sarcastic expression of indifference was more common with him than the utterance of indignation. I think he scarcely ever as an undergraduate gave offence by his plain speaking. His sharp repartee would often hurt a friend for a moment, but then he was quick and tender to make amends; and when his paradoxes scandalised a weak brother, he would instantly assert that the contrary was equally true or more so.

'The tenderness which lay beneath what was abrupt or severe in him, may be illustrated by a little story which shows him as a shrewd observer of human nature at a stage in which it does not always command the sympathy of an undergraduate. In one of our walks a long way out of Oxford, we passed a mother or nurse who was trying in vain to quiet a crying baby. Creighton turned back after we had passed them, and clapped his hands loudly close to the face of the crying child, and rejoined me without a word. I was astonished both at the procedure and at its success; but he explained it as if he had done it before: "Anything that startles them will do: it changes the current of their thoughts."

'The favourite subject of his talk on these walks was, as I have implied, people and their conduct. He was fond of analysing the conduct of his friends, and estimating their ability. He would apply the like analysis to himself. Saintsbury told me one day that Creighton had said to him that morning: 'Do you know, Saint, I have come to the conclusion that you are an abler man than I am?' According to the measures by which we undergraduates estimated ability, literary facility, and aptitude for philosophical dis