Newman

“ In America, Newman reflected, lads of twenty-five and thirty have old heads and young hearts, or at least young morals; here they have young heads and very aged hearts, morals the most grizzled and wrinkled.
“What I envy you is your liberty,” observed M. de Bellegarde, “your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you. I live,” he added with a sigh, “beneath the eyes of my admirable mother.”
“It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?” said Newman. ”

“ The wrong occasion was a part of his pastime in Europe as well as the right, and his tour was altogether a pastime. But there is sometimes nothing like the imagination of those people who have none, and Newman now and then, in an unguided stroll through a foreign city, before some lonely, sad-towered church or some angular image of one who had rendered civic service in an unknown past, had felt a singular deep commotion. ”

“ Newman's habit of mind and way of writing, his ease, his frankness, his candour, his impatience of conventionality, his piercing insight into the very centre of questions, his ever-ready recognition of nature and reality, his range of thought, his bright and clear and fearless style of argument, his undisplayed but never unfelt consciousness of the true awfulness of anything connected with religion, any stiff and heavy way of treating questions which he had treated would have seemed unattractive and unpersuasive. ”

“ Frank Newman could, and would, take any trouble to help any dull student over some mathematical or classical stile, but he was not an adept at quickly getting into touch with that Presence which has moved, in whimsical measure, through the ways and by-ways of this life since the world began with coat of many colours, upon which the sun of merry imagination was always sparkling, and cap and bells which could for the moment ring sudden, spontaneous mirth across the shadows of the darkest day. ”

“ He had never been a man of strong personal aversions; his nerves had not been at the mercy of the mystical qualities of his neighbors. But here was a man towards whom he was irresistibly in opposition; a man of forms and phrases and postures; a man full of possible impertinences and treacheries. M. de Bellegarde made him feel as if he were standing bare-footed on a marble floor; and yet, to gain his desire, Newman felt perfectly able to stand. He wondered what Madame de Cintré thought of his being accepted, if accepted it was. ”

“ But I maintain he must be brave. A stout heart, sir!” And he offered Newman his hand.
“I shall not come to see you; I shall come to see Madame de Cintré,” said Newman.
“You will need all the more courage.”
“Ah, Valentin!” said Madame de Cintré, appealingly.
“Decidedly,” cried Madame de Bellegarde, “I am the only person here capable of saying something polite! Come to see me; you will need no courage,” she said.
Newman gave a laugh which was not altogether an assent, and took his leave. ”

“ They are the feeling that, after all, though I am a good fellow, I have been in business; the feeling that your mother’s looks are law and your brother’s words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that it’s a part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand in everything you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; you are right. And what I feel here,” and Newman struck his heart and became more poetical than he knew, “is a glowing fire!” ”

“ What is this but to give up the only question of any importance to humanity,—which is not what are Mr. Newman's spiritual phenomena; if they are known to himself, it is well; he has been very long in discovering them, in spite of the clearness of the internal revelation;—but what are those of man? In the former be all, Mr. Newman is safe indeed; he is intrenched in his own peculiar consciousness, of which I am quite willing to admit that all other men (as well as I) are inadequate judges. But the monograph of a solitary enthusiast is of the least possible consequence to humanity. ”

“ Like any other good American, Newman thought it as well not to truckle to the foreigner. “Oh, so-so,” he answered.
M. de Bellegarde puffed his cigar again in silence. “For myself,” he said at last, “I am entirely at your service. Anything I can do for you I shall be very happy to do. Call upon me at your convenience. Is there anyone you desire to know—anything you wish to see? It is a pity you should not enjoy Paris.” ”

“ Among the religious writers of the age the first place belongs unquestionably to Cardinal Newman. Whether we consider him as a man, with his powerful yet gracious personality, or as a religious reformer, who did much to break down old religious prejudices by showing the underlying beauty and consistency of the Roman church, or as a prose writer whose style is as near perfection as we have ever reached, Newman is one of the most interesting figures of the whole nineteenth century. ”

“ Her presence of mind, her perfect equilibrium, struck Newman as portentous, and he inclined to agree with Valentin that the young lady was very remarkable. "No, to tell the truth, I did n't come for you," he said, "and I did n't expect to find you. I was told," he added in a moment, "that you had left your good father."
"Quelle horreur!" she cried with the brightest of all her smiles. "Does one ever leave one's good father? You've the happy proof of the contrary."
"Yes, convincing proof," said Newman with his almost embarrassed eyes on M. Nioche. ”

“ And Newman paused a moment. "You've something on your mind and on your conscience, your mother and you—some thing in your life that you've kept as much as possible in the dark because it would n't look well in the light of day. You've a skeleton, as they say, in your closet." M. de Bellegarde continued to look at him hard, but it was a question if his eyes betrayed anything; the expression of his eyes was always so strange. Newman paused again and then went on. ”

“ He was “distinguished” to the tips of his polished nails, and there was not a movement of his fine, perpendicular person that was not noble and majestic. Newman had never yet been confronted with such an incarnation of the art of taking one’s self seriously; he felt a sort of impulse to step backward, as you do to get a view of a great façade. ”

“ If Newman was attaching enough, I must have argued, his tangle would be sensible enough; for the interest of everything is all that it is his vision, his conception, his interpretation: at the window of his wide, quite sufficiently wide, consciousness we are seated, from that admirable position we "assist." He therefore supremely matters; all the rest matters only as he feels it, treats it, meets it. A beautiful infatuation this, always, I think, the intensity of the creative effort to get into the skin of the creature ”

“ Newman ingenuously asked.
"Oh, I'm not a failure to wring your heart," the young man returned. "I've not fallen from a height, and my fiasco has made no noise and luckily no scandal. But you stand up, so very straight, for accomplished facts. You've made a fortune, you've raised an edifice, you're a financial, practical power, you can travel about the world till you've found a soft spot and lie down on it with the consciousness of having earned your rest. ”

“ I am not intellectual.”
“One doesn’t expect it of you,” Mrs. Tristram answered. Then in a moment, “Besides, you are!”
“Well, I mean to have a good time, whether or no,” said Newman. “I am not cultivated, I am not even educated; I know nothing about history, or art, or foreign tongues, or any other learned matters. But I am not a fool, either, and I shall undertake to know something about Europe by the time I have done with it. I feel something under my ribs here,” he added in a moment, “that I can’t explain—a sort of a mighty hankering, a desire to stretch out and haul in.” ”

“ I want you to feel I'm strong, because if you do that will be enough. There; I have said what I had on my heart. It was better to get it off. I'm very sorry if it worries you; but the air's clearer—don't you already see? If I've made a mistake we had better not have met at all; and I can't think that, Madame de Cintré, can you?" Newman asked. "Don't answer me now, if you don't wish it. Think about it; think about it only a little at a time, if you want. ”

“ When one remembers in how many questions of social reform, of theology, of written matter, Newman had been concerned, this short sentence strikes one's eyes strangely enough. For what is an "event"? Surely it does not mean only something which is a carnal happening: a material outbreak in some form or other which occurs before our eyes? Surely there are far greater spiritual "events" than physical ones? And of this kind of event Newman's life had been full. Originality of thought, of conception, of aim, is the Event which takes precedence of all other. ”

“ Newman rejoined. "A visit to London in the Season is certainly a sign of prosperity."
M. Nioche, in answer to this superior dig, lifted the puppy up to his face again, peering at his critic from his small blank eye-holes. There was something inane in the movement, and Newman hardly knew if he were taking refuge in an affected failure of reason or whether he had in fact paid for his base accommodation by the loss of his wits. In the latter case, just now, he felt little more tenderly to the foolish old man than in the former. ”

“ Newman himself was again over-busied and ailing. No reader can fail to notice the deepening tenderness of the 183 correspondence between the two during these last months, where yet sportiveness and candour, and a certain mutual deference, keep their old due order. Words go quickly and lightly, without emphasis or strain, as if driven willingly on the rising wind which is the eternal silence. ”

“ Newman declared; "I'm sure he believes in you."
"He's afraid of me, poor dear. I go on painting badly, as you say, because it passes the time. I like being here; it's a place to come to every day; it's better than sitting in a little dark damp room on a court or than selling buttons and whalebones over a counter."
"Of course it's much more amusing," said Newman. "But for a poor girl is n't it rather an expensive amusement?" ”

“ He walked away through the city, beside the Seine and over it, and took the direction of the Rue d’Enfer. The day had the softness of early spring; but the weather was gray and humid. Newman found himself in a part of Paris which he little knew—a region of convents and prisons, of streets bordered by long dead walls and traversed by a few wayfarers. At the intersection of two of these streets stood the house of the Carmelites—a dull, plain edifice, with a high-shouldered blank wall all round it. From without Newman could see its upper windows, its steep roof and its chimneys. ”

“ And when one thinks how Francis Newman looked up in faith—even though it was an absolutely undogmatic, formless faith—to a God who watched over mankind, one may hope that he too "believed more than he knew he did."
This life is only a short chapter in our existence. Personality is in its essence immortal, though not unchanging in its presentment. ”

“ All this admitted, Newman enjoyed his journey, when once he had fairly entered the current, as profoundly as the most zealous dilettante. One’s theories, after all, matter little; it is one’s humor that is the great thing. Our friend was intelligent, and he could not help that. He lounged through Belgium and Holland and the Rhineland, through Switzerland and Northern Italy, planning about nothing, but seeing everything. ”

“ Newman got up. “Well, we shall see,” he said smoothing his hat with his coat-cuff.
“Brother,” said Madame de Cintré, “invite Mr. Newman to come again.”
The Count Valentin looked at our hero from head to foot with his peculiar smile, in which impudence and urbanity seemed perplexingly commingled. “Are you a brave man?” he asked, eying him askance. ”

“ Rarely, however, have topics as speculative as are many of Newman’s been treated with so much of the wayward charm and pliant grace of friendly discourse as Newman reaches. His style, at its best, has the urbanity, the affability, the winning adroitness, even the half-careless desultoriness of the familiar talk of a man of the world with his fellows. ”

“ His glance found quick reassurance; he liked the young man's face; it strongly resembled that of Madame de Cintré, whose brother he would clearly be. The young man, on his side, had made a rapid inspection of Newman's person. He had taken the card and was about to enter the house with it when another figure appeared on the threshold—an older man, of a fine presence, habited in evening-dress. He looked hard at Newman and Newman met his examination. "Madame de Cintré," the younger man repeated as an introduction of the visitor. ”

“ Lord Deepmere wiped his forehead and departed, and Madame de Bellegarde took Newman’s arm. “Yes, it’s a very pleasant, sociable entertainment,” the latter declared, as they proceeded on their circuit. “Everyone seems to know everyone and to be glad to see everyone. The marquis has made me acquainted with ever so many people, and I feel quite like one of the family. It’s an occasion,” Newman continued, wanting to say something thoroughly kind and comfortable, “that I shall always remember, and remember very pleasantly.” ”

“ It is a case of Newman's own intimate experience all, that being my subject, the thread of which, from beginning to end, is not once exchanged, however momentarily, for any other thread; and the experience of others concerning us, and concerning him, only so far as it touches him and as he recognises, feels or divines it. There is our general sense of the way things happen—it abides with us indefeasibly, as readers of fiction, from the moment we demand that our fiction shall be intelligible ”