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H U G H
But there is more than I can see,
And what I see I leave unsaid,
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made
His darkness beautiful with thee.
From Copyrighted Photo by Sarony, Inc., New York
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1912. A GED 40
In the robes of a Papal Chamberlain.


H U G H
MEMOIRS OF A BROTHER
EY
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
NEW IMPRESSION
LONG MAN S, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
1915
EX,
4 /O CŞ.
, B47
*º-a
* --
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gº
lº.
º
,”
COPYRIGHT, 1 g I 5, BY
LONG MAN S, GREEN, & CO.
A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D
First Edition, April, 1915
Reprinted, June, 1915
PREFACE
HIS book was begun with no hope
or intention of making a formal
and finished biography, but only to place
on record some of my brother's sayings
and doings, to fix scenes and memories
before they suffered from any dim oblitera-
tion of time, to catch, if I could, for my
own comfort and delight, the tone and
sense of that vivid and animated atmos-
phere which Hugh always created about
him. His arrival upon any scene was never
in the smallest degree uproarious, and still
less was it in the least mild or serene; yet
he came into a settled circle like a freshet
of tumbling water into a still pool!
I knew all along that I could not
attempt any account of what may be
called his public life, which all happened
since he became a Roman Catholic. He
passed through many circles — in England,
28452;
[v]
H U G. H.
in Rome, in America — of which I knew
nothing. I never heard him make a pub-
lic speech, and I only once heard him
preach since he ceased to be an Anglican.
This was not because I thought he would
convert me, nor because I shrank from
hearing him preach a doctrine to which
I did not adhere, nor for any sectarian
reason. Indeed, I regret not having heard
him preach and speak oftener; it would
have interested me, and it would have been
kinder and more brotherly; but one is
apt not to do the things which one thinks
One can always do, and the fact that I
did not hear him was due to a mixture of
shyness and laziness, which I now regret in
vain.
But I think that his life as a Roman
Catholic ought to be written fully and
carefully, because there were many people
who trusted and admired and loved him
as a priest who would wish to have some
record of his days. He left me, by a will,
which we are carrying out, though it was
not duly executed, all his letters, papers,
[vil
P. R. E. F. A C E
and manuscripts, and we have arranged
to have an official biography of him writ-
ten, and have placed all his papers in the
hands of a Catholic biographer, Father
C. C. Martindale, S.J.
Since Hugh died I have read a good
many notices of him, which have appeared
mostly in Roman Catholic organs. These
were, as a rule, written by people who had
only known him as a Catholic, and gave
an obviously incomplete view of his char-
acter and temperament. It could not well
have been otherwise, but the result was
that only one side of a very varied and
full life was presented. He was depicted
in a particular office and in a specific mood.
This was certainly his most real and eager
mood, and deserves to be emphasized.
But he had other moods and other sides,
and his life before he became a Catholic
had a charm and vigour of its own.
Moreover, his family affection was very
strong; when he became a Catholic, we all
of us felt, including himself, that there
might be a certain separation, not of
[vii I.
H U G H
affection, but of occupations and interests;
and he himself took very great care to
avoid this, with the happy result that we
saw him, I truly believe, more often and
more intimately than ever before. Indeed,
my own close companionship with him
really began when he came first as a
Roman Catholic to Cambridge.
And so I have thought it well to draw in
broad strokes and simple outlines a pic-
ture of his personality as we, his family,
knew and loved it. It is only a study, so
to speak, and is written very informally
and directly. Formal biographies, as I
know from experience, must emphasise a
different aspect. They deal, as they are
bound to do, with public work and official
activities; and the personal atmosphere
often vanishes in the process — that subtle
essence of quality, the effect of a man’s
talk and habits and prejudices and pre-
dispositions, which comes out freely in
private life, and is even suspended in his
public ministrations. It would be impos-
sible, I believe, to make a presentment of
D viii I.
P. R. E. F. A C E
Hugh which could be either dull or con-
ventional. But, on the other hand, his
life as a priest, a writer, a teacher, a con-
troversialist, was to a certain extent gov-
erned and conditioned by circumstances;
and I can see, from many accounts of him,
that the more intimate and unrestrained
side of him can only be partially discerned
by those who knew him merely in an
official capacity.
That, then, is the history of this brief
Memoir. It is just an attempt to show
Hugh as he showed himself, freely and
unaffectedly, to his own circle; and I am
sure that this deserves to be told, for the
one characteristic which emerges when-
ever I think of him is that of a beautiful
charm, not without a touch of wilfulness
and even petulance about it, which gave
him a childlike freshness, a sparkling zest,
that aerated and enlivened all that he did
or said. It was a charm which made itself
instantly felt, and yet it could be hardly
imitated or adopted, because it was so
entirely unconscious and unaffected. He
[ix]
H U G H
enjoyed enacting his part, and he was
as instinctively and whole-heartedly a priest
as another man is a soldier or a lawyer.
But his function did not wholly occupy
and dominate his life; and, true priest
though he was, the force and energy of
his priesthood came at least in part from
the fact that he was entirely and delight-
fully human, and I deeply desire that this
should not be overlooked or forgotten.
A. C. B.
TREMANs, HoRSTED KEYNES,
December 26, 1914.
[x]
CONTENTS
I
HARE STREET
Garden — House — Rooms — Tapestry — Hare
Street Discovered — A Hidden Treasure . .
II
CHILDHOOD
Birth—The Chancery — Beth . . . . . . . .
III
TRURO
Lessons—Early Verses — Physical Sensitiveness
— A Secret Society — My Father — A Pup-
pet-Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV
BOYHOOD
First Schooldays — Eton — Religious Impressions
— A Colleger. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
V
AT WREN's
Sunday Work—Artistic Temperament—Liturgy
—Ritual—Artistic Nature . . . . . . .
PAGES
15–24
25–41
H U G H
VI
CAMIBRIDGE
Mountain-climbing — Genealogy – Economy —
Hypnotism — The Call — My Mother —
Nelly . . . . . . . . . . .... e. e. e. e. e. e.
VII
LLANDAFF
Dean Vaughan — Community Life — Ordained
Deacon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VIII
THE ETON MISSION
Hackney Wick — Boys’ Clubs — Preaching —
My Father’s Death . . . . . . . . . .
- IX
ECEMISING AND MIRFIELD
Development — Mirfield — The Community—
Sermons—Preaching . . . . . . . . . .
THE CHANGE
Leaving Mirfield — Considerations — Argument
—Discussion—Roddy–Consultation .
XI
THE DECISION
Anglicanism — Individualism — Asceticism —A
Centre of Unity — Liberty and Discipline—
Catholicism — The Surrender — Reception
PAGES
66–81
82–88
89-99
100—113
. 114–129
130–151
C O N T E N T S
XII
CAMBRIDGE AGAIN PAGES
Llandaff House — Our Companionship – Rude-
ness—The Catholic Rectory—Spiritual Di-
rection — Mystery-Plays — Retirement . . 152–167
XIII
HARE STREET
Ren — Engagements — Christmas — Visits. . . 168–175
XIV
AUTHORSHIP
The Light Invisible—His Books—Methods of
Writing — Love of Writing—The Novels . I76–187
XV
FAILING HEALTH
Illness—Medical advice-Prieumonia . . . . 188–195
XVI
THE END
Manchester–Last Illness—Last Hours—Anx-
iety—Last Words– Passing on . . . . . 196–208
XVII
BURIAL
His Papers — After-Thoughts — The Bond of
- Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209–215
XVIII
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Courage—Humour — Manliness — Stammering
—Eagerness—Independence—Forward. . 216–230
[ xiii.
H U G H
XIX -
RETROSPECT PAGEs
Boyhood—Wocation—Independence—Self-Dis-
cipline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231–240
XX
ATTAINMENT
Priesthood—Self-Devotion—Sympathy—Power
–Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241–252
XXI.
TEMPERAMENT
Courtesy–Chivalry–Fearlessness—Himself .. 253–261
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263—265
[xiv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1912, AGED 40. In the
Robes of a Papal Chamberlain. . . . . Frontispiece
From copyrighted Photo by Sarony, Inc., New York.
HARE STREET Hous E Facing page
From the front, 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
From the garden, 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . 4
THE MASTER’s LODGE, WELLINGTON CoILEGE, 1868 16
ROBERT HUGH BENSON AND BETH AT THE CHAN-
CERY, LINCOLN, IN 1876, AGED 5. . . . . . . 20
THE THREE BROTHERs, 1882 . . . . . . . . . . 44
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1889, AGED 17. As
Steerer of the St. George, at Eton . . . . . . 48
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1893, AGED 21. As an
Undergraduate at Cambridge . . . . . . . . 68
MRs. BENSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1907, AGED 35 . . . . 158
AT HARE STREET, 1909 . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
HARE STREET, IN THE GARDEN, JULY 1911. . . . 174
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1910, AGED 39. . . . . 184
AT TREMANs, HoRSTED KEYNES, DECEMBER, 1913. 188
BISHOP's HousE, SALFORD . . . . . . . . . . . 200
THE CALVARY AT HARE STREET, 1913 . . . . . . 208
RoBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1912, AGED 40 . . . . 250
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1912, AGED 41 . . . . 258
[xv ||
“Then said Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for-Truth,
Thou hast worthily behaved thyself. Let me see
thy Sword. So he shewed it him. When he had
taken it in his hand, and looked thereon a while,
he said, Ha, it is a right Jerusalem Bladel.”
The Pilgrim’s Progress.
H U G H
I
HARE STREET
OW loudly and boisterously the wind
roared to-day across the low-hung,
cloud-smeared sky, driving the broken rack
before it, warm and wet out of the south!
What a wintry landscape! leafless trees
bending beneath the onset of the wind,
bare and streaming hedges, pale close-
reaped wheat-fields, brown ploughland,
spare pastures stretching away to left and
right, softly rising and falling to the hori-
zon; nothing visible but distant belts of
trees and coverts, with here and there the
tower of a hidden church overtopping them,
and a windmill or two; on the left, long
lines of willows marking the course of a
stream. The road soaked with rain, the
grasses heavy with it, hardly a human
being to be seen.
| 1 ||
H U G H
I came at last to a village straggling
along each side of the road; to the right,
a fantastic-looking white villa, with many
bow-windows, and an orchard behind it.
Then on the left, a great row of beeches
on the edge of a pasture; and then, over
the barns and ricks of a farm, rose the
clustered chimneys of an old house; and
soon we drew up at a big iron gate between
tall red-brick gateposts; beyond it a paling,
with a row of high lime trees bordering a
garden lawn, and on beyond that the irreg-
ular village street.
From the gate a little flagged pathway
leads up to the front of a long, low house,
of mellow brick, with a solid cornice and
parapet, over which the tiled roof is visible:
a door in the centre, with two windows on
each side and five windows above — just
the sort of house that you find in a cathe-
dral close. To the left of the iron gate are
two other tall gateposts, with a road lead-
ing up to the side of the house, and a yard
with a row of stables behind.
Let me describe the garden first. All
[2]
Photo by Bishop, Barkway
HARE STREET HOUSE
FROM THE FRONT 1914
The room to the left of the door is the dining room, with Hugh’s
bedroom over it. To the right of the door is the library.

G. A R D E N
along the front and south side of the house
runs a flagged pathway, a low brick wall
dividing it from the lawn, with plants in
rough red pots on little pilasters at inter-
vals. To the right, as we face the door,
the lawn runs along the road, and stretches
back into the garden. There are tall,
lopped lime-trees all round the lawn, in
the summer making a high screen of
foliage, but now bare. If we take the
flagged path round the house, turn the cor-
ner, and go towards the garden, the yew
trees grow thick and close, forming an
arched walk at the corner, half screen-
ing an old irregular building of woodwork
and plaster, weather-boarded in places,
with a tiled roof, connected with the house
by a little covered cloister with wooden
pillars. If we pass that by, pursuing the
path among the yew trees, we come out
on a pleasant orchard, with a few flower-
beds, thickly encircled by shrubs, beyond
which, towards the main road, lies a com-
fortable-looking old red-brick cottage, with
a big barn and a long garden, which evi-
[3]
H U G H
dently belongs to the larger house, because
a gate in the paling stands open. Then
there is another little tiled building behind
the shrubs, where you can hear an engine
at work, for electric light and water-
pumping, and beyond that again, but still
connected with the main house, stands
another house among trees, of rough-cast
and tiles, with an open wooden gallery, in
a garden of its own.
In the orchard itself is a large grass-
grown mound, with a rough wooden cross
on the top; and down below that, in the
orchard, is a newly-made grave, still cov-
ered, as I saw it to-day, with wreaths of
leaves and moss, tied some of them with
stained purple ribbons. The edge of the
grave-mound is turfed, but the bare and
trodden grass shows that many feet have
crossed and recrossed the ground.
The orchard is divided on the left from
a further and larger garden by a dense
growth of old hazels; and passing through
an alley you see that a broad path runs
concealed among the hazels, a pleasant
[4]
Tºm
º!||
Photo by Bishop, Barkway
HARE STREET HOUSE
FROM THE GARDEN 1914
The timbered building on the left is the Chapel;
in the foreground is the unfinished rose-garden.

HOUSE
shady walk in summer heat. Then the
larger garden stretches in front of you;
it is a big place, with rows of vegetables,
fruit-trees, and flower-borders, screened to
the east by a row of elms and dense shrub-
beries of laurel. Along the north runs a
high red-brick wall, with a big old-fash-
ioned vine-house in the centre, of careful
design. In the corner nearest the house
is a large rose-garden, with a brick pedestal
in the centre, behind which rises the back
of the stable, also of old red brick. -
But now there is a surprise; the back
of the house is much older than the front.
You see that it is a venerable Tudor build-
ing, with pretty panels of plaster embossed
with a rough pattern. The moulded brick
chimney-stacks are Tudor too, while the
high gables cluster and lean together with
a picturesque outline. The back of the
house forms a little court, with the cloister
of which I spoke before running round
two sides of it. Another great yew tree
stands there: while a doorway going into.
the timber and plaster building which I
[5]
H U G H
mentioned before has a rough device on it
of a papal tiara and keys, carved in low
relief and silvered.
A friendly black collie comes out of a
kennel and desires a little attention. He
licks my hand and looks at me with melt-
ing brown eyes, but has an air of expecting
to see someone else as well. A black cat
comes out of a door, runs beside us, and
when picked up, clasps my shoulder con-
tentedly and purrs in my ear.
The house seen from the back looks
exactly what it is, a little old family man-
sion of a line of small squires, who farmed
their own land, and lived on their own
produce, though the barns and rick-yard
belong to the house no longer. The red-
brick front is just an addition made for
the sake of stateliness at some time of
prosperity. It is a charming self-contained
little place, with a forgotten family tradi-
tion of its own, a place which could twine
itself about the heart, and be loved and
remembered by children brought up there,
when far away. There is no sign of wealth
[6]
R O O M S
about it, but every sign of ease and com-
fort and simple dignity.
Now we will go back to the front door
and go through the house itself. The door
opens into a tiny hall lighted by the glass
panes of the door, and bright with pic-
tures – oil paintings and engravings. The
furniture old and sturdy, and a few curi-
osities about — carvings, weapons, horns
of beasts. To the left a door opens into
a pleasant dining-room, with two windows
looking out in front, dark as dining-rooms
may well be. It is hung with panels of
green cloth, it has a big open Tudor fire-
place, with a big oak settle, some china
on an old dresser, a solid table and chairs,
and a hatch in the correr through which
dishes can be handed.
Opposite, on the other side of the hall,
a door opens into a long low library, with
books all round in white shelves. There
is a big grand piano here, a very solid
narrow oak table with a chest below, a
bureau, and some comfortable chintz-
covered chairs with a deep sofa. A per-
[7]
H U G H
fect room to read or to hear music in,
with its two windows to the front, and a
long window opening down to the ground
at the south end. All the books here are
catalogued, and each has its place. If you
go out into the hall again and pass through,
a staircase goes up into the house, the walls
of it panelled, and hung with engravings;
some of the panels are carved with holy
emblems. At the foot of the stairs a door
on the right takes you into a small sitting-
room, with a huge stone fireplace; a big .
window looks south, past the dark yew
trees, on to the lawn. There are little
devices in the quarries of the window, and
a deep window-seat. The room is hung
with a curious tapestry, brightly coloured
mediaeval figures standing out from a dark
background. There is not room for much
furniture here; a square oak stand for
books, a chair or two by the fire. Par-
allel to the wall, with a chair behind it
filling up much of the space, is a long,
solid old oak table, set out for writing. It
is a perfect study for quiet work, warm
[8]
T A P E S T R Y
in winter with its log fire, and cool in
summer heat.
To the left of the staircase a door goes
into a roughly panelled ante-room which
leads out on to the cloister, and beyond
that a large stone-flagged kitchen, with
offices beyond.
If you go upstairs, you find a panelled
corridor with bedrooms. The one over
the study is small and dark, and said to
be haunted. That over the library is a
big pleasant room with a fine marble
fireplace — a boudoir once, I should think.
Over the hall is another dark panelled
room with a four-post bed, the walls hung
with a most singular and rather terrible
tapestry, representing a dance of death.
Beyond that, over the dining-room, is
a beautiful panelled room, with a Tudor
fireplace, and a bed enclosed by blue cur-
tains. This was Hugh’s own room. Out.
of it opens a tiny dressing-room. Beyond
that is another large low room over the
kitchen, which has been half-study, half-
bedroom, out of which opens a little stair-
[9]
H U G H
way going to some little rooms beyond
over the offices.
Above that again are some quaint white-
washed attics with dormers and leaning
walls; one or two of these are bedrooms.
One, very large and long, runs along most
of the front, and has a curious leaden
channel in it a foot above the floor to
take the rain-water off the leads of the
roof. Out of another comes a sweet smell
of stored apples, which revives the memory
of childish visits to farm storerooms —
and here stands a pretty and quaint old
pipe-organ awaiting renovation.
We must retrace our steps to the build-
ing at the back to which the cloister leads.
We enter a little sacristy and vestry, and
beyond is a dark chapel, with a side-chapel
opening out of it. It was originally an old
brew-house, with a timbered roof. The
sanctuary is now divided off by a high
open screen, of old oak, reaching nearly
to the roof. The whole place is full of
statues, carved and painted, embroidered
hangings, stained glass, pendent lamps,
[10]
H A R E S T R E E T DISCO W E R E D
emblems; there is a gallery over the
sacristy, with an organ, and a fine piece
of old embroidery displayed on the gallery
front.
This is the house in which for seven
years my brother Hugh lived. Let me
recall how he first came to see it. He was
at Cambridge then, working as an assist-
ant priest. He became aware that his
work lay rather in the direction of speak-
ing, preaching, and writing, and resolved
to establish himself in some quiet country
retreat. One summer I visited several
houses in Hertfordshire with him, but
they proved unsuitable. One of these
possessed an extraordinary attraction for
him. It was in a bleak remote village,
and it was a fine old house which had
fallen from its high estate. It stood on
the road and was used as a grocer’s shop.
It was much dilapidated, and there was
little ground about it, but inside there
were old frescoes and pictures, strange
plaster friezes and moulded ceilings, which
had once been brightly coloured. But
[11]
H U G H
nothing would have made it a really
attractive house, in spite of the curious
beauty of its adornment.
One day I was returning alone from an
excursion, and passed by what we call
accident through Hare Street, the village
which I have described. I caught a
glimpse of the house through the iron
gates, and saw that there was a board up
saying it was for sale. A few days later
I went there with Hugh. It was all
extremely desolate, but we found a friendly
caretaker who led us round. The shrub-
beries had grown into dense plantations,
the orchard was a tangled waste of grass,
the garden was covered with weeds. I
remember Hugh’s exclamation of regret
that we had visited the place. “It is
eacactly what I want,” he said, “but it is
far too expensive. I wish I had never
set eyes on it!” However, he found that
it had long been unlet, and that no one
would buy it. He might have had the
pasture-land and the farm-buildings as
well, and he afterwards regretted that he
[12]
A H ID D E N T R E A S U R E
had not bought them, but his income
from writing was still small. However, he
offered what seems to me now an ex-
traordinarily low sum for the house and
garden; it was to his astonishment at
Once accepted. It was all going to ruin,
and the owner was glad to get rid of it
on any terms. He established himself
there with great expedition, and set to
work to renovate the place. At a later
date he bought the adjacent cottage, and
the paddock in which he built the other
house, and he also purchased some out-
lying fields, one a charming spot on the
road to Buntingford, with some fine old
trees, where he had an idea of building a
church.
Everything in the little domain took
shape under his skilful hand and ingenious
brain. He made most of the tapestries in
the house with his own fingers, working
with his friend Mr. Gabriel Pippet the
artist. He carved much of the panelling —
he was extraordinarily clever with his
hands. He painted many of the pictures
[13]
H U G H
which hang on the walls, he catalogued the
library; he worked day after day in the
garden, weeding, mowing, and planting.
In all this he had the advantage of the
skill, capacity, and invention of his fac-
totum and friend, Mr. Joseph Reeman,
who could turn his hand to anything and
everything with equal energy and taste;
and so the whole place grew and expanded
in his hands, until there is hardly a detail,
indoors or out-of-doors, which does not
show some trace of his fancy and his
touch.
There were some strange old traditions
about the house; it was said to be haunted,
and more than one of his guests had inex-
plicable experiences there. It was also said
that there was a hidden treasure concealed
in or about it. That treasure Hugh cer-
tainly discovered, in the delight which he
took in restoring, adorning, and laying it
all out. It was a source of constant joy
to him in his life. And there, in the midst
of it all, his body lies.
[14]
II
CHILDHOOOD
VERY well remember the sudden ap-
pearance of Hugh in the nursery
world, and being conducted into a se-
cluded dressing-room, adjacent to the
nursery, where the tiny creature lay, lost
in contented dreams, in a big, white-
draped, white-hooded cradle. It was just
a rather pleasing and exciting event to
us children, not particularly wonderful
or remarkable. It was at Wellington
College that he was born, in the Master’s
Lodge, in a sunny bedroom, in the south-
east corner of the house; one of its win-
dows looking to the south front of the
college and the chapel with its slender
spire; the other window looking over the
garden and a waste of heather beyond,
to the fir-crowned hill of Ambarrow. My
father had been Headmaster for twelve
[15]
H U G H
years and was nearing the end of his time
there; and I was myself nine years old,
and shortly to go to a private school,
where my elder brother Martin already
was. My two sisters, Nelly and Maggie,
were respectively eight and six, and my
brother, Fred, was four — six in all.
And by a freak of memory I recol-
lect, too, that at breakfast on the follow-
ing morning my father — half-shyly, half-
proudly, I thought – announced the fact
of Hugh’s birth to the boys whom he
had asked in, as his custom was, to
breakfast, and how they offered embar-
rassed congratulations, not being sure, I
suppose, exactly what the right phrase was.
Then came the christening, which took
place at Sandhurst Church, a mile or two
away, to which we walked by the pine-
clad hill of Edgebarrow and the heathery
moorland known as Cock-a-Dobbie. Mr.
Parsons was the clergyman — a little hand-
some old man, like an abbé, with a clear-
cut face and thick white hair. I am afraid
that the ceremony had no religious sig-
[16]
--º-º-º:
Photo by Hills & Saunders
THE MASTER'S LODGE, WELLINGTON COLLEGE, 1868
The room to the left of the porch is the study. In the room above it Hugh was born.

B I R TH
nificance for me at that time, but I was
deeply interested, thought it rather cruel,
and was shocked at Hugh’s indecorous
outcry. He was called Robert, an old
family name, and Hugh, in honour of St.
Hugh of Lincoln, where my father was a
Prebendary, and because he was born on
the day before St. Hugh’s Feast. And
then I really remember nothing more of
him for a time, except for a scene in the
nursery on some wet afternoon when the
baby — Robin as he was at first called —
insisted on being included in some game of
tents made by pinning shawls over the
tops of chairs, he being then, as always,
perfectly clear what his wishes were, and
equally clear that they were worth at-
tending to and carrying out.
Then I vividly recall how in 1875,
when we were all returning en famille from
a long summer holiday spent at Torquay in
a pleasant house lent us in Meadfoot Bay,
we all travelled together in a third-class
carriage; how it fell to my lot to have
the amusing of Hugh, and how difficult
[I7]
H U G H
he was to amuse, because he wished to
look out of the window the whole time,
and to make remarks on everything. But
at Lincoln I hardly remember anything of
him at all, because I was at school with
my elder brother, and only came back
for the holidays; and we two had more-
over a little sanctum of our own, a small
sitting-room named Bec by my father,
who had a taste for pleasant traditions,
after Anthony Bec, the warlike Bishop
of Durham, who had once been Chancellor
of Lincoln. Here we arranged our col-
lections and attended to our own concerns,
hardly having anything to do with the
nursery life, except to go to tea there and
to play games in the evening. The one
thing I do remember is that Hugh would
under no circumstances and for no con-
siderations ever consent to go into a room
in the dark by himself, being extremely
imaginative and nervous; and that on
one occasion when he was asked what
he expected to befall him, he said with a
shudder and a stammer: “To fall over a
[18]
THE CHANCERY
mangled corpse, squish! into a pool of
gore!”
When he was between four and five
years old, at Lincoln, one of his godfathers,
Mr. Penny, an old friend and colleague
of my father's at Wellington College, came
to stay at the Chancery, and brought
Hugh a Bible. My mother was sitting
with Mr. Penny in the drawing-room after
luncheon, when Hugh, in a little black
velvet suit, his flaxen hair brushed till
it gleamed with radiance, his face the
picture of innocence, bearing the Bible,
a very image of early piety, entered the
room, and going up to his godfather, said
with his little stammer: “Tha-a-ank you,
Godpapa, for this beautiful Bible! will
you read me some of it?”
Mr. Penny beamed with delight, and
took the Bible. My mother rose to leave
the room, feeling almost unworthy of being
present at so sacred an interview, but as
she reached the door, she heard Mr. Penny
say: “And what shall I read about?”
“The De-e-evil!” said Hugh without the
[19]
H U G H
least hesitation. My mother closed the
door and came back. -
There was one member of our family
circle for whom Hugh did undoubtedly
cherish a very deep and tender affection
from the time when his affections first
awoke — this was for the beloved Beth,
the old family nurse. Beth became nurse-
maid to my grandmother, Mrs. Sidgwick,
as a young girl; and the first of her
nurslings, whom she tended through an
attack of Smallpox, catching the complaint
herself, was my uncle, William Sidgwick,
still alive as a vigorous octogenarian.
Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Sidgwick, and
my mother were all under Beth’s care.
Then she came on with my mother to
Wellington College and nursed us all with
the simplest and sweetest goodness and
devotion. For Hugh, as the last of her
“children,” she had the tenderest love,
and lavished her care, and indeed her
money, on him. When we were all dis-
persed for a time after my father’s death,
Beth went to her Yorkshire relations, and
[20]
…
º
º
º
º
-
Photo by R. Slingsby, Lincoln
ROBERT HUGH BENSON AND BETH
AT THE CHANCERY, LINCOLN
IN 1876. Ag ED 5

B E TH
pined away in separation from her dear
ones. Hugh returned alone and earlier
than the rest, and Beth could bear it no
longer, but came up from Yorkshire just
to get a glimpse of Hugh at a station in
London as he passed through, had a few
words with him and a kiss, and gave him
some little presents which she thought he
might like, returning to Yorkshire tired
out but comforted. I have always thought
that little journey one of the most touching
and beautiful acts of love and service I
have ever heard of. She was nearly
eighty at the time.
In early days she watched over Hugh,
did anything and everything for him;
when he got older she used to delight to
wait on him, to pack and unpack for him,
to call him in the mornings, and secretly
to purchase clothes and toilet articles to
replace anything worn out or lost. In
later days the thought that he was com-
ing home used to make her radiant for
days before. She used to come tapping
at my door before dinner, and sit down
[21]
H U G H
for a little talk. “I know what you are
thinking about, Beth !” “What is it,
dear?” “Why, about Hugh, of course!
You don’t care for anyone else when he
is coming.” “No, don’t say that, dear —
but I am pleased to think that Master
Hugh is coming home for a bit — I hope
he won’t be very tired!” And she
used to smooth down her apron with her
toil-worn hands and beam to herself at
the prospect. He always went and sat
with her for a little in the evenings, in
her room full of all the old nursery treas-
ures, and imitated her smilingly. “Nay,
now, child! I’ve spoken, and that is
enough!” he used to say, while she laughed
for delight. She used to say farewell to
him with tears, and wave her handkerchief
at the window till the carriage was out
of sight. Even in her last long illness,
as she faded out of life, at over ninety
years of age, she was made perfectly happy
by the thought that he was in the house,
and only sorry that she could not look
after his things.
[22]
B E TH
Beth had had but little education; she
could read a little in a well-known book,
but writing was always a slow and difficult
business; but she used slowly to compile
a little letter from time to time to Hugh,
and I find the following put away among
the papers of his Eton days and schoolboy
correspondence:
ADDINGTON PARK,
[? Nov. 1887] Tuesday.
DEAREST, - One line to tell you I am
sending your Box to-morrow Wednesday.
I hope you will get it before tea-time. I
know you will like something for tea, you
can keep your cake for your Birthday. I
shall think about you on Friday. Every-
body has gone away, so I had no one to
write for me. I thought you would not
mind me writing to you. —Dearest love
from your dear BETH.
The dear Beth lived wholly in love and
service; she loved just as she worked,
[23 T
H U G. H.
endlessly and ungrudgingly; wherever
Beth is, she will find service to render and
children to love; and I cannot think that
she has not found the way to her darling,
and he to her.
[24 T
III
TRURO
E all went off again to Truro in
1877, when my father was made
Bishop. The tradition was that as the
train, leaving Lincoln, drew up after five
minutes at the first small station on the
line, perhaps Navenby, a little voice in
the corner said: “Is this Truro?” A
journey by train was for many years a
great difficulty for Hugh, as it always
made him ill, owing to the motion of the
carriage.
At Truro he becomes a much more
definite figure in my recollections. He was
a delicately made, light-haired, blue-eyed
child, looking rather angelic in a velvet
suit, and with small, neat feet, of which
he was supposed to be unduly aware. He
had at that time all sorts of odd tricks,
[25 J
H U G. H.
winkings and twitchings; and one very
aggravating habit, in walking, of putting
his feet together suddenly, stopping and
looking down at them, while he muttered
to himself the mystic formula, “Knuck,
Nunks.” But one thing about him was
very distinct indeed, that he was entirely
impervious to the public opinion of the
nursery, and could neither be ridiculed
nor cajoled out of continuing to do any-
thing he chose to do. He did not care the
least what was said, nor had he any mor-
bid fears, as I certainly had as a child,
of being disliked or mocked at. He went
his own way, knew what he wanted to do,
and did it. .
My recollections of him are mainly of
his extreme love of argument and the
adroitness with which he conducted it.
He did not intend to be put upon as the
youngest, and it was supposed that if he
was ever told to do anything, he always
replied: “Why shouldn’t Fred?” He in-
vented an ingenious device which he once,
and once only, practised with success, of
[26 I
L E S S O N S
goading my brother Fred by petty shafts
of domestic insult into pursuing him, bent
on vengeance. Hugh had prepared some
small pieces of folded paper with a view
to this contingency, and as Fred gave
chase, Hugh flung two of his papers on
the ground, being sure that Fred would
stop to examine them. The ruse was
quite successful, and while Fred was open-
ing the papers, Hugh sought Sanctuary in
the nursery. Sometimes my sisters were
deputed to do a lesson with him. My
elder sister Nelly had a motherly instinct,
and enjoyed a small responsibility. She
would explain a rule of arithmetic to
Hugh. He would assume an expression of
despair: “I don’t understand a word of
it — you go so quick.” Then it would be
explained again: “Now do you under-
stand?” “Of course I understand that.”
“Very well, do a sum.” The sum would
begin: “Oh, don’t push me — don’t come
so near — I don’t like having my face
blown on.” Presently my sister with an-
gelic patience would show him a mistake.
[27 J
H U G H
“Oh, don’t interfere — you make it all
mixed up in my head.” Then he would
be let alone for a little. Then he would
put the slate down with an expression of
despair and resignation; if my sister took
no notice he would say: “I thought
Mamma told you to help me in my sums?
How can I understand without having it
explained to me?” It was impossible to
get the last word; indeed he used to give
my sister Maggie, when she taught him,
what he called “Temper-tickets,” at the
end of the lesson; and on one occasion,
when he was to repeat a Sunday collect
to her, he was at last reported to my
mother, as being wholly intractable. This
was deeply resented; and after my sister
had gone to bed, a small piece of paper
was pushed in beneath her door, on which
was written: “The most unhappiest Sun-
day I ever spent in my life. Whose
fault?”
Again, when Maggie had found him ex-
tremely cross and tiresome one morning in
the lessons she was taking, she discovered,
[28 J
E. A. R. L. Y V E R S E S
when Hugh at last escaped, a piece of
paper on the schoolroom table, on which
he had written:
“Passionate Magey
Toodle Ha! Ha!
The old gose.”
There was another story of how he was
asked to write out a list of the things he
wanted, with a view to a birthday that
was coming. The list ended:
“A little compenshion goat, and
A tiny-winy train, and
A nice little pen.”
The diminutives were evidently intended
to give the requirements a modest air. As
for “compenshion,” he had asked what
some nursery animal was made of, a frac-
ture having displayed a sort of tough
fibrous plaster. He was told that it was
made of “a composition.”
We used to play many rhyming games
at that time; and Hugh at the age of
eight wrote a poem about a swarm of
gnats dancing in the sun, which ended:
[29]
H U G H
“And when they see their comrades laid
In thousands round the garden glade,
They know they were not really made
To live for evermore.”
In one of these games, each player
wrote a question which was to be answered
by some other player in a poem; Hugh,
who had been talked to about the necessity
of overcoming some besetting sin in Lent,
wrote with perfect good faith as his ques-
tion, “What is your sin for Lent?”
As a child, and always throughout his
life, he was absolutely free from any touch
of priggishness or precocious piety. He
complained once to my sister that when
he was taken out walks by his elders, he
heard about nothing but “poetry and civi-
lisation.” In a friendly little memoir of
him, which I have been sent, I find the
following passage: “In his early childhood,
when reason was just beginning to ponder
over the meaning of things, he was so won
to enthusiastic admiration of the heroes
and heroines of the Catholic Church that
he decided he would probe for himself the
[30 I
PHYSICAL SENSITIVEN Ess
Catholic claims, and the child would say
to the father, ‘Father, if there be such a
sacrament as Penance, can I go P’ And
the good Archbishop, being evasive in his
answers, the young boy found himself
emerging more and more in a woeful
Nemesis of faith.” It would be literally
tmpossible, I think, to construct a story
less characteristic both of Hugh’s own atti-
tude of mind as well as of the atmosphere
of our family and household life than this!
He was always very sensitive to pain and
discomfort. On one occasion, when his
hair was going to be cut, he said to my
mother: “Mayn’t I have chloroform for
it 2 ”
And my mother has described to me a
journey which she once took with him
abroad when he was a small boy. He was
very ill on the crossing, and they had only
just time to catch the train. She had some
luncheon with her, but he said that the
very mention of food made him sick. She
suggested that she should sit at the far end
of the carriage and eat her own lunch,
[31]
H U G H
while he shut his eyes; but he said that
the mere sound of crumpled paper made
him ill, and then that the very idea that
there was food in the carriage upset him;
so that my mother had to get out on the
first stop and bolt her food on the platform.
One feat of Hugh’s I well remember.
Sir James McGarel Hogg, afterwards Lord
Magheramorne, was at the time member
for Truro. He was a stately and kindly
old gentleman, pale-faced and white-
bearded, with formal and dignified man-
ners. He was lunching with us one day,
and gave his arm to my mother to conduct
her to the dining-room. Hugh, for some
reason best known to himself, selected that
day to secrete himself in the dining-room
beforehand, and burst Out upon Sir James
with a wild howl, intended to create con-
sternation. Neither then nor ever was he
embarrassed by inconvenient shyness.
The Bishop’s house at Truro, Lis Escop,
had been the rectory of the rich living of
Renwyn; it was bought for the see and
added to. It was a charming house about
[32]
A S E C R. E. T S O C I E T Y
a mile out of Truro above a sequestered
valley, with a far-off view of the little
town lying among hills, with the smoke
going up, and the gleaming waters of the
estuary enfolded in the uplands beyond.
The house had some acres of pasture-land
about it and some fine trees; with a big
garden and shrubberies, an orchard and a
wood. We were all very happy there, save
for the shadow of my eldest brother's
death as a Winchester boy in 1878. I was
an Eton boy myself and thus was only
there in the holidays; we lived a very
quiet life, with few visitors; and my recol-
lection of the time there is one of endless
games and schemes and amusements. We
had writing games and drawing games, and
acted little plays.
We children had a mysterious secret
society, with titles and offices and cere-
monies: an old alcoved arbour in the gar-
den, with a seat running round it, and
rough panelling behind, was the chapter-
house of the order. There were robes and
initiations and a book of proceedings.
[33]
H U G H
Hugh held the undistinguished office of
Servitor, and his duties were mainly those
of a kind of acolyte. I think he somewhat
enjoyed the meetings, though the difficulty
was always to discover any purpose for
which the society existed. There were sub-
scriptions and salaries; and to his latest
day it delighted him to talk of the society,
and to point out that his salary had never
equalled his subscription.
There were three or four young clergy,
Arthur Mason, now Canon of Canter-
bury, G. H. Whitaker, since Canon of
Hereford, John Reeve, late Rector of Lam-
beth, G. H. S. Walpole, now Bishop of
Edinburgh, who had come down with my
father, and they were much in the house.
My father himself was full of energy and
hopefulness, and loved Cornwall with an al-
most romantic love. But in all of this Hugh
was too young to take much part. Apart
from school hours he was a quick, bright,
clever child, wanting to take his part in
everything. My brother Fred and I were
away at school, or later at the University;
[34]
M Y F A T H E R.
and the home circle, except for the holidays,
consisted of my father and mother, my two
sisters, and Hugh. My father had been
really prostrated with grief at the death of
my eldest brother, who was a boy of quite
extraordinary promise and maturity of
mind. My father was of a deeply affec-
tionate and at the same time anxious
disposition; he loved family life, but he
had an almost tremulous sense of his pa-
rental responsibility. I have never known
anyone in my life whose personality was
so strongly marked as my father's. He
had a superhuman activity, and cared
about everything to which he put his hand
with an intensity and an enthusiasm that
was almost overwhelming. At the same
time he was extremely sensitive; and this
affected him in a curious way. A careless
word from one of us, some tiny instance
of childish selfishness or lack of affection,
might distress him out of all proportion.
He would brood over such things, make
himself unhappy, and at the same time
feel it his duty to correct what he felt to
[35]
H U G H
be a dangerous tendency. He could not
think lightly of a trifle or deal with it
lightly; and he would appeal, I now think,
to motives more exalted than the occasion
justified. A little heedless utterance would
be met by him not by a half-humourous
word, but by a grave and solemn remon-
strance. We feared his displeasure very
much, but we could never be quite sure
what would provoke it. If he was in a
cheerful mood, he might pass over with a
laugh or an ironical word what in a sad
or anxious mood would evoke an indignant
and weighty censure. I was much with
him at this time, and was growing to
understand him better; but even so, I
could hardly say that I was at ease in his
presence. I did not talk of the things that
were in my mind, but of the things which
I thought would please him; and when he
was pleased, his delight was evident and
richly rewarding.
But in these days he began to have a
peculiar and touching affection for Hugh,
and hoped that he would prove the be-
[36]
M Y F A T H E R.
loved companion of his age. Hugh used
to trot about with him, spudding up weeds
from the lawn. He used, when at home,
to take Hugh's Latin lessons, and threw
himself into the congenial task of teaching
with all his force and interest. Yet I have
often heard Hugh say that these lessons
were seldom free from a sense of strain.
He never knew what he might not be
expected to know or to respond to with
eager interest. My father had a habit, in
teaching, of over-emphasising minute de-
tails and nuances of words, insisting upon
derivations and tenses, packing into lan-
guage a mass of suggestions and associa-
tions which could never have entered into
the mind of the writer. Language ought
to be treated sympathetically, as the not
over-precise expression of human emotion
and wonder; but my father made it of a
half-scientific, half-fanciful analysis. This
might prove suggestive and enriching to
more mature minds. But Hugh once said
to me that he used to feel day after day
like a small china mug being filled out of a
[37]
H U G H
waterfall. Moreover Hugh’s mind was
lively and imaginative, but fitful and impa-
tient; and the process both daunted and
wearied him.
I have lately been looking through a
number of letters from my father to Hugh
in his schooldays. Reading between the
lines, and knowing the passionate affection
in the background, these are beautiful and
pathetic documents. But they are over-
full of advice, suggestion, criticism, anxious
inquiries about work and religion, thought
and character. This was all a part of the
strain and tension at which my father lived.
He was so absorbed in his work, found life
such a tremendous business, was so deeply
in earnest, that he could not relax, could
not often enjoy a perfectly idle, leisurely,
amused mood. Hugh himself was the
exact opposite. He could work, in later
days, with fierce concentration and im-
mense energy; but he also could enjoy,
almost more than anyone I have ever seen,
rambling, inconsequent, easy talk, consist-
ing of stories, arguments, and ideas just as
[38]
A PU P P E T – S HO W
they came into his head; this had no
counterpart in my father, who was always
purposeful.
But it was a happy time at Truro for
Hugh. Speaking generally, I should call
him in those days a quick, inventive,
active-minded child, entirely unsentimen-
tal; he was fond of trying his hand at
various things, but he was impatient and
volatile, would never take trouble, and as a
consequence never did anything well. One
would never have supposed, in those early
days, that he was going to be so hard a
worker, and still less such a worker as he
afterwards became, who perfected his gifts
by such continuous, prolonged, and con-
stantly renewed labour. I recollect his
giving a little conjuring entertainment as
a boy, but he had practised none of his
tricks, and the result was a fiasco, which
had to be covered up by lavish and unde-
served applause; a little later, too, at
Addington, he gave an exhibition of mari-
onettes, which illustrated historical scenes.
The puppets were dressed by Beth, our old
[39]
H U G H
nurse, and my sisters, and Hugh was the
showman behind the scenes. The little
curtains were drawn up for a tableau which
was supposed to represent an episode in the
life of Thomas à Becket. Hugh’s voice
enunciated, “Scene, an a-arid waste l’’
Then came a silence, and then Hugh was
heard to say to his assistant in a loud,
agitated whisper, “Where is the Arch-
bishop P” But the puppet had been mis-
laid, and he had to go on to the next
tableau. The most remarkable thing about
him was a real independence of character,
with an entire disregard of other people’s
opinion. What he liked, what he felt,
what he decided, was the important thing
to him, and so long as he could get his way,
I do not think that he troubled his head
about what other people might think or
wish; he did not want to earn good opin-
ions, nor did he care for disapproval or
approval; people in fact were to him at
that time more or less favourable channels
for him to follow his own designs, more or
less stubborn obstacles to his attaining his
[40 L
A PU P P E T - SHOW
wishes. He was not at all a sensitive or
shrinking child. He was quite capable of
holding his own, full of spirit and fearless,
though quiet enough, and not in the least
interfering, except when his rights were
menaced.
[41]
IV
BOYHOOD
E went to school at Clevedon, in
Somersetshire, in 1882, at Walton
House, then presided over by Mr. Cornish.
It was a well-managed place, and the
teaching was good. I suppose that all
boys of an independent mind dislike the
first breaking-in to the ways of the world,
and the exchanging of the freedom of home
for the barrack-life of school, the absence
of privacy, and the sense of being con-
tinually under the magnifying-glass which
school gives. It was dreadful to Hugh to
have to account for himself at all times, to
justify his ways and tastes, his fancies and
even his appearance, to boys and masters
alike. Bullying is indeed practically ex-
tinct in well-managed schools; but small
boys are inquisitive, observant, extremely
conventional, almost like savages in their
[42
FIRST SCHOOLD A Ys
inventiveness of prohibitions and taboos,
and perfectly merciless in criticism. The
instinct for power is shown by small boys
in the desire to make themselves felt,
which is most easily accomplished by mi-
nute ridicule. Hugh made friends there, but
he never really enjoyed the life of the place.
The boys who get on well at school from
the first are robust, normal boys, without
any inconvenient originality, who enjoy
games and the good-natured rough and
tumble of school life. But Hugh was not a
boy of that kind; he was small, not good
at games, and had plenty of private fancies
and ideas of his own. He was ill at ease,
and he never liked the town of straggling
modern houses on the low sea-front, with
the hills and ports of Wales rising shadowy
across the mud-stained tide.
He was quick and clever, and had been
well taught; so that in 1885 he won a
scholarship at Eton, and entered college
there, to my great delight, in the Septem-
ber of that year. I had just returned to
Eton as a master, and was living with
[43]
H U G H
Edward Lyttelton in a quaint, white-
gabled house called Baldwin’s Shore, which
commanded a view of Windsor Castle, and
overlooked the little, brick-parapeted, shal-
low pond known as Barnes’ Pool, which,
with the sluggish stream that feeds it,
separates the college from the town, and
is crossed by the main London road. It
was a quaint little house, which had long
ago been a boarding-house, and contained
many low-ceiled, odd-shaped rooms. Hugh
was Edward Lyttelton’s private pupil, so
that he was often in and out of the place.
But I did not see very much of him. He
was a small, ingenuous-looking creature in
those days, light-haired and blue-eyed; and
when a little later he became a steerer of
one of the boats, he looked very attractive
in his Fourth of June dress, as a middy,
with a dirk and white duck trousers, dan-
gling an enormous bouquet from his neck.
At Eton he did very little in the way of
work, and his intellect must have been
much in abeyance; because so poor was
his performance, that it became a matter
[44]
Photo by Elliott & Fry
THE THREE BROTHERS, 1882
E. F. Benson A. C. Benson R. H. Benson
at Marlborough. at Cambridge. at Mr. Cornish's School
Aged 15. Aged 21. at Clevedon. Aged 11.

E TO N
of surprise among his companions that he
had ever won a scholarship at all.
I have said that I did not know very
much about Hugh at Eton; this was the
result of the fact that several of the boys
of his set were my private pupils. It was
absolutely necessary that a master in that
position should avoid any possibility of
collusion with a younger brother, whose
friends were that master’s pupils. If it
had been supposed that I questioned
Hugh about my pupils and their private
lives, or if he had been thought likely to
tell me tales, we should both of us have
been branded. But as he had no wish to
confide, and indeed little enough to consult
anyone about, and as I had no wish for
sidelights, we did not talk about his
school life at all. The set of boys in which
he lived was a curious one; they were
fairly clever, but they must have been, I
gathered afterwards, quite extraordinarily
critical and quarrelsome. There was one
boy in particular, a caustic, spiteful, and
extremely mischief-making creature, who
[45]
H U G H
turned the set into a series of cliques and
parties. Hugh used to say afterwards that
he had never known anyone in his life
with such an eye for other people’s weak-
nesses, or with such a talent for putting
them in the most disagreeable light. Hugh
Once nearly got into serious trouble; a
small boy in the set was remorselessly and
disgracefully bullied; it came out, and
Hugh was involved — I remember that Dr.
Warre spoke to me about it with much
concern — but a searching investigation
revealed that Hugh had really had nothing
to do with it, and the victim of the bully-
ing spoke insistently in Hugh's favour.
Hugh describes how the facts became
known in the holidays, and how my father
in his extreme indignation at what he sup-
posed to be proved, so paralysed Hugh
that he had no opportunity of clearing
himself. But anyone who had ever known
Hugh would have felt that it was the last
thing he would have done. He was tena-
cious enough of his own rights, and argu-
mentative enough; but he never had the
[46]
R. E L I G I O U S I M P R E S S I O N S
faintest touch of the savagery that amuses
itself at the sight of another's sufferings.
“I hate cruelty more than anything in the
whole world,” he wrote later; “the exist-
ence of it is the only thing which reconciles
my conscience to the necessity of Hell.”
Hugh speaks in his book, The Confession
of a Convert, about the extremely negative
character of his religious impressions at
school. I think it is wholly accurate.
Living as we did in an ecclesiastical house-
hold, and with a father who took singular
delight in ceremonial and liturgical devo-
tion, I think that religion did impress itself
rather too much as a matter of solemn and
dignified occupation than as a matter of
feeling and conduct. It was not that my
father ever forgot the latter; indeed, be-
hind his love for symbolical worship lay a
passionate and almost Puritan evangelical-
ism. But he did not speak easily and
openly of spiritual experience. I was my-
self profoundly attracted as a boy by the
aesthetic side of religion, and loved its sol-
emnities with all my heart; but it was not
[47]
HUGH
till I made friends with Bishop Wilkinson
at the age of seventeen that I had any
idea of spiritual religion and the practice
of friendship with God. Certainly Hugh
missed it, in spite of very loving and
earnest talks and deeply touching letters
from my father on the subject. I suppose
that there must come for most people a
spiritual awakening; and until that hap-
pens, all talk of emotional religion and the
love of God is a thing submissively ac-
cepted, and simply not understood or
realised as an actual thing.
Hugh was not at Eton very long — not
more than three or four years. He never
became in any way a typical Etonian. If
I am asked to say what that is, I should
say that it is the imbibing instinctively
of what is eminently a fine, manly, and
graceful convention. Its good side is a cer-
tain chivalrous code of courage, honour,
efficiency, courtesy, and duty. Its fault is
a sense of perfect rightness and self-suffi-
ciency, an overvaluing of sport and games,
an undervaluing of intellectual interests,
[48]
Photo by Hills & Saunders
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1889. AGE. 17
As Steerer of the St. George, at Eton.

A C O L L E G E R.
enthusiasm, ideas. It is not that the
sense of effortless superiority is to be em-
phasized or insisted upon — modesty en-
tirely forbids that — but it is the sort of
feeling described ironically in the book
of Job, when the patriarch says to the
elders, “No doubt but ye are the people,
and wisdom shall die with you.” It is a
tacit belief that all has been done for one
that the world can do, and that one’s
standing is so assured that it need never
be even claimed or paraded.
Still less was Hugh a typical Colleger.
College at Eton, where the seventy boys
who get scholarships are boarded, is a
school within a school. The Collegers
wear gowns and surplices in public, they
have their own customs and traditions
and games. It is a small, close, clever
society, and produces a tough kind of self-
confidence, together with a devotion to a
particular tradition which is almost like a
religious initiation. Perhaps if the typical
Etonian is conscious of a certain absolute
rightness in the eyes of the world, the
[49]
H U G H
typical Colleger has a sense almost of ab-
solute righteousness, which does not need
even to be endorsed by the world. The
danger of both is that the process is com-
pleted at perhaps too early a date, and
that the product is too consciously a fin-
ished one, needing to be enlarged and mod-
ified by contact with the world.
But Hugh did not stay at Eton long
enough for this process to complete itself.
He decided that he wished to compete for
the Indian Civil Service; and as it was
clear that he could not do this success-
fully at Eton, my father most reluctantly
allowed him to leave.
I find among the little scraps which sur-
vive from his schoolboy days, the follow-
ing note. It was written on his last night
at Eton. He says: “I write this on Thurs-
day evening after ten. Peel keeping pas-
sage.” “Peel” is Sidney Peel, the Speak-
er's son. The passages are patrolled by
the Sixth Form from ten to half-past, to
see that no boy leaves his room without
permission. Then follows:
[ 50 I
A C O L L E G E R
My feelings on leaving are —
Eaccitement.
Foreboding of Wren’s and fellows
there.
Sorrow at leaving Eton.
Pride as being an old Etonian.
Certain pleasure in leaving for many
trivial matters.
Feeling of importance.
Frightful longing for India.
Homesickness.
DEAR ME!
It was characteristic of Hugh that he
should wish both to analyse his feelings
on such an occasion, and to give expres-
sion to them.
[51]
V
AT WEEN’S
UGH accordingly went to Mr.
Wren’s coaching establishment in
London, living partly at Lambeth, when
my family were in town, and partly as a
boarder with a clergyman. It was a time
of hard work; and I really retain very
few recollections of him at all at this date.
I was myself very busy at Eton, and spent
the holidays to a great extent in travelling
and paying visits; and I think that Christ-
mas, when we used to write, rehearse,
and act a family play, was probably the
only time at which I saw him.
Hugh went abroad for a short time to
learn French, with a party of Indian Civil
Service candidates, and no doubt forgot to
write home, for I find the following char-
acteristic letter of my father’s to him:
[ 52 I
S UN DAY WO R. K
LAMBETH PALACE, S.E., 30th June 1889.
MY DEAREST HUGHIE, - We have been
rather mourning about not hearing one
word from you. We supposed all would
be right as you were a large party. But
one word would be so easy to those who
love you so, who have done all they could
to enable you to follow your own line,
against their own wishes and affection!
We hope at any rate you are writing
to-day. And we have sent off “Pioneers
and Founders,” which we hope will both
give you happy and interesting Sunday
reading, and remind you of us.
Mr. Spiers writes that you are back-
ward in French but getting on rather fast.
I want you now at the beginning of this
cramming year to make two or three Reso-
lutions, besides those which you know and
have thought of often and practised:
1. To determine never to do any secular
examination work on Sundays — to keep
all reading that day as fitting “The Lord’s
Day” and the “Day of Rest.”
I had a poor friend who would have
[53]
H U G H
done very well at Oxford, but he would
make no difference between Sunday and
other days. He worked on just the same
— and in the Examination itself, just as
the goal was reached, he broke down and
took no degree. The doctors said it was
all owing to the continuous nervous strain.
If he had taken the Sundays it would
just have saved him.
Lord Selborne was once telling me of his
tremendous work at one time, and he said,
“I never could have done it, but that I
took my Sundays. I never would work
on them.”
2. We have arranged for you to go
over to the Holy Communion one day
at Dinan. Perhaps some nice fellow will
go with you — Mr. Spiers will anyhow.
Tell us which Sunday, so that we may all
be with you èv Tveijuatu.
Last night we dined at the Speaker’s to
meet the Prince and Princess of Wales. It
was very interesting. The Terrace of the
House of Commons was lighted with elec-
tric light. A steamer went by and cheered'
[54]
A R T IS TI C T E M P E R A M E N T
The Shah will fill London with grand
spectacles, and I suppose his coming will
have much effect on politics — perhaps on
India too.
All are well. — Ever your most loving
father, - EDw. CANTUAR.
I am going to preach at the Abbey to-
night. .
Hugh failed, however, to secure a place
in the Indian Civil Service, and it was de-
cided that he should go up to Trinity Col-
lege, Cambridge, and read for classical
honours.
Up to this date I do not think that any-
thing very conscious or definite had been
going on in Hugh's mind or heart. He
always said himself that it astonished him
on looking back to think how purely nega-
tive and undeveloped his early life had
been, and how it had been lived on entirely
Superficial lines, without plans or ambi-
tions, simply taking things as they came.
I think it was quite true that it was so;
[ 55]
H U G H
his emotions were dormant, his powers
were dormant. I do not think he had
either great affections or great friendships.
He liked companionship and amusement,
he avoided what bored him; he had no
inclinations to evil, but neither had he any
marked inclinations to what was good.
Neither had any of his many and varied
gifts and accomplishments showed them-
selves. I used to think latterly that he
was one of the most gifted people I had
ever seen in all artistic ways. Whatever
he took up he seemed able to do, without
any apprenticeship or drudgery. Music,
painting, drawing, carving, designing —
he took them all up in turn; and I used
to feel that if he had devoted himself to
any one of them he could have reached a
high excellence. Even his literary gifts, so
various and admirable, showed but few
signs of their presence in the early days;
he was not in the least precocious. I
think that on the whole it was beneficial
to him that his energies all lay fallow. My
father, stern as his conception of duty was,
[ 56 I
L IT U R G Y
had a horror of applying any intellectual
pressure to us. I myself must confess that
I was distinctly idle and dilettante both as
a boy at Eton and as a Cambridge under-
graduate. But much as my father appre-
ciated and applauded any little successes,
I was often surprised that I was never
taken to task for my poor performances
in work and scholarship. The truth was
that my eldest brother’s death at Win-
chester was supposed partly to have been
due to his extraordinary intellectual and
mental development, and I am sure that
my father was afraid of over-stimulating
our mental energies. I feel certain that
what was going on in Hugh’s case all the
time was a keen exercise of observation.
I have no doubt that his brain was re-
ceiving and gaining impressions of every
kind, and that his mind was not really in-
active – it was only unconsciously amass-
ing material. He had a very quick and
delighted perception of human tempera-
ment, of the looks, gestures, words, man-
nerisms, habits, and oddities of human
[ 57]
H U G. H.
beings. If Hugh had been born in a
household professionally artistic, and had
been trained in art of any kind, I think
he would very likely have become an
accomplished artist or musician, and prob-
ably have shown great precocity. But
he was never an artist in the sense that
art was a torment to him, or that he made
any sacrifice of other aims to it. It was
always just a part of existence to him,
and of the nature of an amusement, though
in so far as it represented the need of self-
expression in forms of beauty, it underlay
and permeated the whole of his life.
The first sign of his artistic enthusiasm
awakening was during his time in London,
when he conceived an intense admiration
for the music and ceremony of St. Paul's.
Sir George Martin, on whom my father
had conferred a musical degree, was very
kind to him, and allowed Hugh to frequent
the organ-loft. “To me,” Hugh once
wrote, “music is the great reservoir of
emotion from which flow out streams of
salvation.” But this was not only a mu-
[58]
L IT U R G Y
sical devotion. I believe that he now
conceived, or rather perhaps developed,
a sense of the symbolical poetry of re-
ligious rites and ceremonies which remained
with him to the end. It is true to say that
the force and quality of ritual, as a prov-
ince of art, has been greatly neglected and
overlooked. It is not for a moment to be
regarded as a purely artistic thing; but
it most undoubtedly has an attraction
and a fascination as clear and as sharply
defined as the attraction of music, poetry,
painting or drama. All art is an attempt
to express a sense of the overwhelming
power of beauty. It is hard to say what
beauty is, but it seems to be one of the
inherent qualities of the Unknown, an
essential part of the Divine mind. In
England we are so stupid and so concrete
that we are apt to think of a musician as
One who arranges chords, and of a painter
as one who copies natural effects. It is not
really that at all. The artist is in reality º
struggling with an idea, which idea is a
consciousness of an amazing and adorable
[59]
H U G H
quality in things, which affects him pas-
sionately and to which he must give ex-
pression. The form which his expression
takes is conditioned by the sharpness of
his perception in some direction or other.
To the musician, notes and intervals and
vibrations are just the fairy flights and
dances of forms audible to the ear; to the
painter, it is a question of shapes and col-
ours perceptible to the eye. The drama-
atist sees the same beauty in the interplay
of human emotion; while it may be main-
tained that holiness itself is a passionate
perception of moral beauty, and that the
saint is attracted by purity and compas-
sion, and repelled by sin, disorder, and
selfishness, in the same way as the artist
is attracted and repelled by visible charm
and ugliness.
Ritual has been as a rule so closely an-
nexed to religion — though all spectacular
delights and ceremonies have the same
quality — that it has never been reckoned
among artistic predilections. The aim of
ritual is, I believe, a high poetry of which
[60 T.
R IT U A L
the essence is symbolism and mystery.
The movement of forms solemnly vested,
and with a background of architecture and
music, produces an emotion quite distinct
from other artistic emotions. It is a
method, like all other arts, through which
a human being arrives at a sense of mys-
terious beauty, and it evokes in mystical
minds a passion to express themselves in
just that way and no other, and to cele-
brate thus their sense of the unknown.
But there has always been a natural
terror in the religious mind of laying too
much stress on this, or of seeming to en-
courage too much an aesthetic emotion. If
the first business of religion is to purify life,
there will always be a suspicion of idola-
try about ritual, a fear of substituting a
vague desire for beauty for a practical
devotion to right conduct.
Hugh wrote to me some years later
what he felt about it all:
“. . . Liturgy, to my mind, is nothing
more than a very fine and splendid art,
[61
H U G. H.
conveying things, to people who possess
the liturgical faculty, in an extraordinarily
dramatic and vivid way. I further be-
lieve that this is an art which has been
gradually brought nearer and nearer per-
fection by being tested and developed
through nineteen centuries, by every kind
of mind and nationality. The way in
which it does, indisputably, appeal to such
very different kinds of people, and unite
them, does, quite apart from other things,
give it a place with music and painting.
“I do frankly acknowledge Liturgy to
be no more than an art — and therefore
not in the least generally necessary to sal-
vation; and I do not in the least “con-
demn” people who do not appreciate it.
It is only a way of presenting facts – and,
in the case of Holy Week Ceremonies,
these facts are such as those of the Passion
of Christ, the sins of men, the Resurrec-
tion and the Sovereignty of Christ.”
I have laid stress upon all this, because I
[62 I
R IT U A L
believe that from this time the poetry and
beauty of ritual had a deep and increasing
fascination for Hugh. But it is a thing
about which it is so easy for the enemy to
blaspheme, to ridicule ceremonial in reli-
gion as a mere species of entertainment,
that religious minds have always been in-
clined to disclaim the strength of its
influence. Hugh certainly inherited this
particular perception from my father. I
should doubt if anyone ever knew so much
about religious ceremonial as he did, or
perceived so clearly the force of it. “I am
almost ashamed to seem to know so much
about these things,” I have often heard
him say; and again, “I don’t ever seem
able to forget the smallest detail of ritual.”
My father had a very strong artistic na-
ture — poetry, sculpture, painting, archi-
tecture, scenery, were all full of fascination
to him — for music alone of the arts he
had but little taste; and I think that it
Ought to be realised that Hugh’s nature
was an artistic one through and through.
He had the most lively and passionate
[63 T.
H U G H
sensibility to the appeal of art. He had,
too, behind the outer sensitiveness, the
inner toughness of the artist. It is often
mistakenly thought that the artist is sensi-
tive through and through. In my experi-
ence, this is not the case. The artist has
to be protected against the overwhelming
onset of emotions and perceptions by a
strong interior fortress of emotional calm
and serenity. It is certain that this was
the case with Hugh. He was not in the
least sentimental, he was not really very
emotional. He was essentially solitary
within; he attracted friendship and love
more than he gave them. I do not think
that he ever suffered very acutely through
his personal emotions. His energy of out-
put was so tremendous, his power of con-
centration so great, that he found a
security here from the more ravaging
emotions of the heart. Not often did he
give his heart away; he admired greatly,
he sympathised freely; but I never saw
him desolated or stricken by any bereave-
ment or loss. I used to think sometimes
[64
A R T IS TI C N A T U R E
that he never needed anyone. I never saw
him exhibit the smallest trace of jealousy,
nor did he ever desire to possess anyone’s
entire affection. He recognised any sign of
affection generously and eagerly; but he
never claimed to keep it exclusively as
his own.
[65 I
VI
CAMBRIDGE
UGH went then to Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1890. He often
talked to me in later days about his time
there as an undergraduate. He found a
number of his Eton contemporaries up
there, and he had a very sociable time.
A friend and contemporary of his at
Trinity describes him as small, light, and
boyish-looking. “He walked fast, and
always appeared to be busy.” He never
cared much about athletics, but he was
an excellent steerer. He steered the third
Trinity boat all the time he was at Cam-
bridge, and was a member of the Leander
club. He was always perfectly cool, and
not in the smallest degree nervous. He
was, moreover, an excellent walker and
mountain-climber. He once walked up to
London from Cambridge; I have climbed
[66 I
M O U N T A IN - C L I M B I N G
mountains with him, and he was very
agile, quick, Surefooted, and entirely in-
trepid. Let me interpolate a little anecdote
of an accident at Pontresina, which might
have been serious. Hugh and I, with a
practised Alpine climber, Dr. Leith, left
Pontresina early one morning to climb a
rock-peak. We were in a light carriage
with a guide and porter. The young horse
which drew us, as we were rattling down
the high embanked road leading to Sama-
den, took a sharp turn to the right, where
a road branched off. He was sharply
checked by the guide, with the result that
the carriage collided with a stone post,
and we were all flung out down the
embankment, a living cataract of men,
ice-axes, haversacks, and wraps. The horse
fortunately stopped. We picked ourselves
ruefully up and resumed our places. Not
until we reached our destination did we
become aware that the whole incident had
passed in silence. Not one word of advice
or recrimination or even of surprise had
passed anyone’s lips!
[67 I
H U G H
But Hugh’s climbing was put a stop to
by a sharp attack of heart-failure on the
Piz Palú. He was with my brother Fred,
and after a long climb through heavy
snow, he collapsed and was with difficulty
carried down. He believed himself to be
on the point of death, and records in one
of his books that the prospect aroused no
emotion whatever in his mind either of fear
or excitement, only of deep curiosity.
While he was an undergraduate, he and
I had a sudden and overwhelming interest
in family history and genealogy. We went
up to Yorkshire for a few days one winter,
stayed at Pateley Bridge, Ripon, Bolton
Abbey, Ripley, and finally York. At
Pately Bridge we found the parish registers
very ancient and complete, and by the aid of
them, together with the printed register of
Fountains Abbey, we traced a family tree
back as far as to the fourteenth century,
with ever-increasing evidence of the pov-
erty and mean condition of our ancestral
stock. We visited the houses and cradles
of the race, and from comfortable granges
[68 I
Photo by Elliott & Fry
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1893. A GED 21
As an Undergraduate at Cambridge.

G E N E A L O G Y
and farmsteads we declined, as the record
conducted us back, to hovels and huts of
Quite conspicuous humility and squalor.
The thermometer fell lower and lower
every day in sympathy with our researches.
I remember a night when we slept in a
neglected assembly-room tacked on to a
country inn, on hastily improvised and
scantily covered beds, when the water
froze in the ewers; and an attempt to
walk over the moors one afternoon from
Masham into Nidderdale, when the springs
by the roadside froze into lumpy congeal-
ments, like guttering candles, and we were
obliged to turn back; and how we beguiled
a ten-mile walk to Ripon, the last train
having gone, by telling an enormous im-
provised story, each taking an alternate
chapter, and each leaving the knots to be
untied by the next narrator. Hugh was
very lively and ingenious in this, and proved
the most delightful of companions, though
we had to admit as we returned together
that we had ruined the romance of our
family history beyond repair.
[69 |
H U G H
Hugh did very little work at Cambridge;
he had given up classics, and was working
at theology, with a view to taking Orders.
He managed to secure a Third in the
Tripos; he showed no intellectual promise
whatever; he was a very lively and amus-
ing companion and a keen debater; I
think he wrote a little poetry; but he had
no very pronounced tastes. I remember
his pointing out to me...the windows of an
extremely unattractive set of ground-floor
rooms in Whewell’s Court as those which
he had occupied till he migrated to the
Bishop’s Hostel, eventually moving to the
Great Court. They look down Jesus Lane,
and the long, sombre wall of Sidney Sussex
Garden. A flagged passage runs down to
the right of them, and the sitting-room is
on the street. They were dark, stuffy, and
extremely noisy. The windows were high
up, and splashed with mud by the vehicles
in the street, while it was necessary to
keep them shut, because otherwise con-
versation was wholly inaudible. “What
did you do there?” I said. “Heaven
[70 I
E C O N O M Y
knows!” he answered. “As far as I can
remember, I mostly sat up late at night
and played cards!” He certainly spent a
great deal of money. He had a good
allowance, but he had so much exceeded
it at the end of his first year, that a
financial crisis followed, and my mother
paid his debts for him. He had kept no
accounts, and he had entertained profusely.
The following letter from my father to
him refers to one of Hugh’s attempts to
economise. He caught a bad feverish cold
at Cambridge as a result of sleeping in a
damp room, and was carried off to be
nursed by my uncle, Henry Sidgwick:
ADDINGTON PARK, CROYDON,
26th Jam. 1891.
DEAREST HUGHIE,- I was rather dis-
turbed to hear that you imagined that
what I said in October about not need-
lessly indulging was held by you to forbid
your having a fire in your bedroom on the
ground floor in the depth of such a winter
as we have had
[71]
H U G H
You ought to have a fire lighted at such
a season at 8 o’clock so as to warm and
dry the room, and all in it, nearly every
evening — and whenever the room seems
damp, have a fire just lighted to go out
when it will. It’s not wholesome to sleep
in heated rooms, but they must be dry.
A bed slept in every night keeps so, if the
room is not damp; but the room must not
be damp, and when it is unoccupied for
two or three days it is sure to get so.
Be sure that there is a good fire in it
all day, and all your bed things, mattress
and all, kept well before it for at least a
whole day before you go back from Uncle
Henry’s.
How was it your bed-maker had not your
room well warmed and dried, mattress dry,
etc., before you went up this time? She
ought to have had, and should be spoken
to about it — i.e. unless you told her not
to! in which case it would be very like
having no breakfast!
It has been a horrid interruption in the
beginning of term — and you’ll have diffi-
[72]
H Y P N O TISM
culty with the loss of time. Besides which
I have no doubt you have been very
uncomfortable.
But I don’t understand why you should
have “nothing to write about” because you
have been in bed. Surely you must have
accumulated all sorts of reflective and
imaginative stories there.
It is most kind of Aunt Nora and Uncle
Henry – give my love and thanks to
both. -
I grieve to say that many many more
fish are found dead since the thaw melted
the banks of swept snow off the sides of
the ice. It is most piteous; the poor
things seem to have come to the edge
where the water is shallowest — there is a
shoal where we generally feed the swans.
I am happy to say the goldfish seem all
alive and merry. The continual dropping
of fresh water has no doubt saved them —
they were never hermetically sealed in like
the other poor things.
Yesterday I was at Ringwould, near
Dover. The farmers had been up all night
[73]
H U G H
saving their cattle in the stalls from the
sudden floods.
Here we have not had any, though the
earth is washed very much from the hills
in streaks.
We are — at least I am – dreadfully
sorry to go to London – though the house
is very dull without “the boys.”
All right about the books.- Ever your
loving father, EDw. CANTUAR.
Hugh was much taken up with experi-
ments in hypnotism as an undergraduate,
and found that he had a real power of
inducing hypnotic sleep, and even of curing
small ailments. He told my mother all
about his experiments, and she wrote to
him at once that he must either leave this
off while he was at Cambridge, or that my
father must be told. Hugh at once gave
up his experiments, and escaped an un-
pleasant contretemps, as the authorities
discovered what was going on, and actu-
ally, I believe, sent some of the offenders
down.
[74]
T H E C A L L
Hugh says that he drifted into the idea
of taking Orders as the line of least resist-
ance, though when he began the study of
theology he said that he had found the
one subject he really cared for. But he had
derived a very strong half-religious, half-
artistic impression from reading John Ingle-
sant just before he came up to Cambridge.
He could long after repeat many passages
by heart, and he says that a half-mystical,
half-emotional devotion to the Person of
Our Lord, which he derived from the book,
seemed to him to focus and concentrate all
his vague religious emotions. He attended
the services at King's Chapel regularly,
but he says that he had no real religious
life, and only looked forward to being a
country clergyman with a beautiful garden,
an exquisite choir, and a sober bachelor
existence.
It was on an evening walk at Addington
with my mother that he told her of his
intention to take Orders. They had gone
together to evensong at a neighbouring
church, Shirley, and as they came back in
[75]
H U G H
the dusk through the silent woods of the
park, he said he believed he had received
the call, and had answered, “Here am I,
send me!” My mother had the words
engraved on the inside of a ring, which
Hugh wore for many years.
By far the closest and dearest of all the
ties which bound Hugh to another was his
love for my mother. Though she still lives
to bless us, I may say this, that never did
a mother give to her children a larger and
a wiser love than she gave to us; she was
our playmate and companion, but we
always gave her a perfectly trustful and
unquestioning obedience. Yet it was al-
ways a reasonable and critical obedience.
She never exacted silent submission, but
gave us her reasons readily. She never
curtailed our independence, or oppressed
us with a sense of over-anxiety. She never
demanded confidence, but welcomed it with
perfect understanding.
The result of this with Hugh was that he
came to consult her about everything,
about his plans, his schemes, his books, his
[76]
Photo by H. Walter Barnett, 12 Knightsbridge, S.W.
MRS. BENSON
1910
-
MAY

M. Y. M. O. T H E R.
beliefs. He read all his writings aloud to
her, and deferred much to her frankly
critical mind and her deeply human insight.
At the time when he was tending towards
Rome, she accompanied him every step of
the way, though never disguising from him
her own differences of opinion and belief.
It was due to her that he suspended his
decision, read books, consulted friends,
gave the old tradition full weight; he
never had the misery of feeling that she
was overcome by a helpless distress, be-
cause she never attempted to influence any
one of us away from any course we thought
it right to pursue. She did not conceal her
opinion, but wished Hugh to make up his
own mind, believing that everyone must do
that, and that the only chance of happiness
lies there.
There was no one in the world whom he
so regarded and admired and loved; but yet
it was not merely a tender and deferential
sentiment. He laid his mind open before
her, and it was safe to do that, because my
mother never had any wish to prevail by
[77]
H U G. H.
sentiment or by claiming loyalty. He
knew that she would be perfectly candid
too, with love waiting behind all conflict
of opinion. And thus their relation was
the most perfect that could be imagined,
because he knew that he could speak and
act with entire freedom, while he recog-
nised the breadth and strength of her mind,
and the insight of her love. No one can
really understand Hugh’s life without a
knowledge of what my mother was to
him — an equal friend, a trusted adviser,
a candid critic, and a tender mother as
well. And even when he went his own way,
as he did about health and work, though
she foresaw only too clearly what the end
might be, and indeed what it actually was,
she always recognised that he had a right
to live as he chose and to work as he de-
sired. She was not in the least blind to
his lesser faults of temperament, nor did
she ever construct an artificial image of
him. My family has, I have no doubt, an
unusual freedom of mutual criticism. I do
not think we have ever felt it to be disloyal
[78 |
N E L L Y
to see each other in a clear light. But I
am inclined to believe that the affection
which subsists without the necessity of
cherishing illusions, has a solidity about it
which more purely sentimental loyalties do
not always possess. And I have known
few relations so perfect as those between
Hugh and my mother, because they were
absolutely tender and chivalrous, and at
the same time wholly candid, natural, and
open-eyed.
It was at this time that my eldest sister
died quite suddenly of diphtheria. I have
told something of her life elsewhere. She
had considerable artistic gifts, in music,
painting, and writing. She had written a
novel, and left unpublished a beautiful
little book of her own experiences among
the poor, called Streets and Lames of the
City. It was privately printed, and is full
of charming humour and delicate observa-
tion, together with a real insight into vital
needs. I always believe that my sister
would have done a great work if she had
lived. She had strong practical powers and
[79 |
H U G H
a very large heart. She had been drawn
more and more into social work at Lam-
beth, and I think would have eventually
given herself up to such work. She had a
wonderful power of establishing a special
personal relation with those whom she
loved, and I remember realising after her
death that each of her family felt that they
were in a peculiar and individual relation
to her of intimacy and confidence. She
had sent Hugh from her deathbed a special
message of love and hope; and this had
affected him very much.
We were not allowed to go back at once
to our work, Fred, Hugh, and myself, be-
cause of the possibility of infection; and
we went off to Seaford together for a few
days, where we read, walked, wrote letters,
and talked. It was a strange time; but
Hugh, I recollect, got suddenly weary of it,
and with the same decision which always
characterised him, said that he must go to
London in order to be near St. Paul's. He
went off at once and stayed with Arthur
Mason. I was struck with this at the
[80 I
N E L L Y
time; he did not think it necessary to
offer any explanations or reasons. He
simply said he could not stand it, quite
frankly and ingenuously, and promptly
disappeared.
[81 I.
VII
LLANDAFF
N 1892 Hugh went to read for Orders,
with Dean Vaughan, who held the
Deanery of Llandaff together with the
Mastership of the Temple. The Dean
had been a successful Headmaster of Har-
row, and for a time Vicar of Doncaster.
He was an Evangelical by training and
temperament. My father had a high ad-
miration for him as a great headmaster, a
profound and accomplished scholar, and
most of all as a man of deep and fervent
piety. I remember Vaughan’s visits to
Lambeth. He had the air, I used to
think, rather of an old-fashioned and
highly-bred country clergyman than of a
headmaster and a Church dignitary. With
his rather long hair, brushed back, his
large, pale face, with its meek and smiling
air, and his thin, clear, and deliberate
[82 I
D E A N V A U G H A N
voice, he gave the impression of a much-
disciplined, self-restrained, and chastened
man. He had none of the brisk effective-
ness or mundane radiance of a successful
man of affairs. But this was a superficial
view, because, if he became moved or inter-
ested, he revealed a critical incisiveness of
speech and judgment, as well as a pro-
found and delicate humour.
He had collected about himself an in-
formal band of young men who read the-
ology under his direction. He used to
give a daily lecture, but there was no
college or regular discipline. The men
lived in lodgings, attended the cathedral
service, arranged their own amusements
and occupations. But Vaughan had a
stimulating and magnetic effect over his
pupils, many of whom have risen to high
eminence in the Church.
They were constantly invited to meals
at the deanery, where Mrs. Vaughan,
a sister of Dean Stanley, and as brilliant,
vivacious, and witty a talker as her
brother, kept the circle entranced and
[83]
H U G H
delighted by her suggestive and humorous
talk. My brother tells the story of how,
in one of the Dean’s long and serious ill-
nesses, from which he eventually recovered,
Mrs. Vaughan absented herself one day
on a mysterious errand, and the Dean sub-
sequently discovered, with intense amuse-
ment and pleasure, that she had gone to
inspect a house in which she intended to
spend her widowhood. The Dean told
the whole story in her presence to some of
the young men who were dining there, and
sympathised with her on the suspension
of her plans. I remember, too, that my
brother described to me how, in the course
of the same illness, Mrs. Vaughan, who
was greatly interested in some question
of the Higher Criticism, had gone to the
Dean's room to read to him, and had sug-
gested that they should consider and dis-
cuss some disputed passage of the Old
Testament. The Dean gently but firmly
declined. Mrs. Vaughan coming down-
stairs, Bible in hand, found a caller in the
drawing-room who inquired after the Dean.
[84 I
C O M M U NIT Y LIFE
“I have just come from him,” said Mrs.
Vaughan, “and it is naturally a melan-
choly thought, but he seems to have en-
tirely lost his faith. He would not let me
read the Bible with him; he practically
said that he had no further interest in the
Bible!”
Hugh was very happy at Llandaff. He
says that he began to read John Inglesant
again, and explored the surrounding coun-
try to see if he could find a suitable place
to set up a small community house, on
the lines of Nicholas Ferrar's Little Gid-
ding. This idea was thenceforth much in
his mind. At this time his day-dream
was that it should be not an ascetic order,
but rather devotional and mystical. It
was, I expect, mainly an aesthetic idea at
present. The setting, the ceremonial, the
order of the whole was prominent, with
the contemplation of spiritual beauty as
the central principle. The various strains
which went to suggest such a scheme are
easy to unravel. Hugh says frankly that
marriage and domesticity always appeared
[85 I
H U G H
to him inconceivable, but at the same time
he was sociable, and had the strong crea-
tive desire to form and express a definite
conception of life. He had always the
artistic impulse to translate an idea into
visible and tangible shape. He had, I
think, little real pastoral impulse at this,
if indeed at any time, and his view was
individualistic. The community, in his
mind, was to exist not, I believe, for dis-
cipline or extension of thought, or even
for solidarity of action; it was rather to be
a fortress of quiet for the encouragement
of similar individual impulses. He used
to talk a good deal about his plans for
the community in these days — and it is
interesting to compare with this the fact
that I had already written a book, never
published, about a literary community on
the same sort of lines, while to go a little
further back, it may be remembered that at
one time my father and Westcott used to
entertain themselves with schemes for
what they called a Caemobium, which was
to be an institution in which married
[86 I
O R D A IN E D D, E A C O N
priests with their families were to lead a
common life with common devotions.
But I used to be reminded, in hearing
Hugh detail his plans, of the case of a
friend of ours, whom I will call Lestrange,
who had at one time entered a Benedictine
monastery as a novice. Lestrange used
to talk about himself in an engaging way
in the third person, and I remember him
saying that the reason why he left the
monastery was “because Lestrange found
that he could only be an inmate of a
monastery in which Lestrange was also
Abbot!” I did not feel that in Hugh’s
community there would be much chance
of the independent expression of the indi-
vidualities of his associates!
He was ordained deacon in 1894 at
Addington, or rather in Croydon parish
church, by my father, whose joy in ad-
mitting his beloved son to the Anglican
ministry was very great indeed.
Before the ordination Hugh decided to
go into solitary retreat. He took two
rooms in the lodge-cottage of Burton Park,
[87 I
H U G H
two or three miles out of Lincoln. I sup-
pose he selected Lincoln as a scene en-
deared to him by childish memories.
He divided the day up for prayer, medi-
tation, and solitary walks, and often went
in to service in the cathedral. He says
that he was in a state of tense excitement,
and the solitude and introspection had an
alarmingly depressing effect upon him. He
says that the result of this was an appal-
ling mental agony: “It seemed to me after
a day or two that there was no truth in
religion, that Jesus Christ was not God,
that the whole of life was an empty sham,
and that I was, if not the chiefest of sin-
ners, at any rate the most monumental of
fools.” He went to the Advent services
feeling, he says, like a soul in hell. But
matters mended after that, and the ordina-
tion itself seemed to him a true consecra-
tion. He read the Gospel, and he remem-
bered gratefully the sermon of Canon
Mason, my father's beloved friend and
chaplain.
[88 I
VIII
THE ETON MISSION
HERE were many reasons why Hugh
should begin his clerical work at
Hackney Wick, though I suspect it was
mainly my father's choice. It was a large,
uniformly poor district, which had been
adopted by Eton in about 1880 as the
Scene of its Mission. There were certain
disadvantages attending the choice of that
particular district. The real raison d’être
of a School Mission is educative rather
than philanthropic, in order to bring boys
into touch with social problems, and to
give them some idea that the way of the
world is not the way of a prosperous and
sheltered home. It is open to doubt
whether it is possible to touch boys’ hearts
and sympathies much except by linking a
School Mission on to some institution for
the care of boys — an orphan school or a
[89 I
H U G H
training ship. Only the most sensitive are
shocked and distressed by the sight of hard
conditions of life at all, and as a rule boys
have an extraordinarily unimaginative way
of taking things as they see them, and not
thinking much or anxiously about mending
... them.
In any case the one aim ought to be to
give boys a personal interest in such prob-
lems, and put them in personal touch with
them. But the Eton Mission was planted
in a district which it was very hard to
reach from Eton, so that few of the boys
were ever able to make a personal ac-
Quaintance with the hard and bare condi-
tions of life in the crowded industrial
region which their Mission was doing so
much to help and uplift, or to realise the
urgency of the needs of a district which
most of them had never visited.
But if the Mission did not touch the
imagination of the boys, yet, on the other
hand, it became a very well-managed
parish, with ample resources to draw upon;
and it certainly attracted the services of a
[90 I
H A C KNEY WICK
number of old Etonians, who had reached
a stage of thought at which the problem
of industrial poverty became an interesting
OD162. -
Money was poured out upon the parish;
a magnificent church was built, a clergy-
house was established, curates were sub-
sidised, clubs were established, and excel-
lent work was done there. The vicar at
this time was a friend and contemporary
of my own at Eton, St. Clair Donaldson,
now Archbishop of Brisbane. He had
lived with us as my father's chaplain for a
time, but his mind was set on parish work
rather than administration. He knew
Hugh well, and Hugh was an Etonian
himself. Moreover, my father was glad
that Hugh should be with a trusted friend,
and so he went there. St. Clair Donald-
son was a clergyman of an Evangelical
type, though the Mission had been pre-
viously conducted by a very High Church-
man, William Carter, the present Arch-
bishop of Capetown. But now distinctive
High Church practices were given up, and
[91]
H U G H
the parish was run on moderate, kindly,
and sensible lines. Whether such an in-
stitution is primarily and distinctively
religious may be questioned. Such work
is centred rather upon friendly and helpful
relations, and religion becomes one of a
number of active forces, rather than the
force upon which all depends. High-
minded, duty-loving, transparently good
and cheerful as the tone of the clergy was,
it was, no doubt, tentative rather than
authoritative. *
Hugh’s work there lay a good deal in
the direction of the boys’ clubs; he used
to go down to the clubs, play and talk
with the boys, and go out with them
on Saturday afternoons to football and
cricket. But he never found it a con-
genial occupation, and I cannot help feel-
ing that it was rather a case of putting
a very delicate and subtle instrument to
do a rough sort of work. What was
needed was a hearty, kindly, elder-broth-
erly relation, and the men who did this
best were the good-natured and robust
[92 ||
B O Y S ’ C L U B S
men with a generic interest in the young,
who could set a clean-minded, wholesome,
and hearty example. But Hugh was not
of this type. His mind was full of mys-
tical and poetical ideas of religion, and
his artistic nature was intent upon ex-
pressing them. He was successful in a
way, because he had by this time a great
charm of frankness and simplicity; he
never had the least temptation to draw
social distinctions, but he desired to find
people personally interesting. He used to
say afterwards that he did not really be-
lieve in what involved a sort of social
condescension, and, like another incisive
missioner, he thought that the giving up
a few evenings a week by wealthy and
even fashionable young men, however
good-hearted and earnest, to sharing the
amusements of the boys of a parish, was
only a very uncomfortable way of showing
the poor how the rich lived There is no
sort of doubt about the usefulness and
kindliness of such work, and it obviously
is one of the experiments which may tend
[93 I
H U G H
to create social sympathy: but Hugh came
increasingly to believe that the way to
lead boys to religion was not through
social gatherings, but by creating a strong
central nucleus of Christian instruction
and worship; his heart was certainly not
in his work at this time, though there
was much that appealed to him particu-
larly to his sense of humour, which was
always strongly developed.
There was an account he gave of a
funeral he had to conduct in the early
days of his work, where, after a large
congregation had assembled in the church,
the arrival of the coffin itself was delayed,
and he was asked to keep things going.
He gave out hymns, he read collects, he
made a short address, and still the under-
taker at the door shook his head. At last
he gave out a hymn that was not very
well known, and found that the organist
had left his post, whereupon he sang it
alone, as an unsustained solo.
He told me, too, that after preaching
written sermons, he resolved to try an
[94 I
P. R. E. A C H IN G
extempore one. He did so with much
nervousness and hesitation. The same
evening St. Clair Donaldson said to him
kindly but firmly that preachers were of
two kinds — the kind that could write a
fairly coherent discourse and deliver it
more or less impressively, and the kind
that might venture, after careful prepara-
tion, to speak extempore; and that he
felt bound to tell Hugh that he belonged
undoubtedly to the first kind. This was
curious, because Hugh afterwards became,
by dint of trouble and practice, a quite
remarkably distinguished and impressive
preacher. Indeed, even before he left the
Church of England, the late Lord Stan-
more, who was an old friend of my father’s,
said to me that he had heard all the great
Anglican preachers for many years, and
that he had no hesitation in putting my
brother in the very first rank.
However his time was very full; the
parish was magnificently organised; be-
sides the clubs there were meetings of all
sorts, very systematic visiting, a ladies’
[ 95T
H U G H
settlement, plays acted by children, in
which Hugh took a prominent part both
in composing the libretto and rehearsing
the performances, coaching as many as
seventy children at a time.
He went to a retreat given by a Cowley
Father in the course of his time at the Eton
Mission, and heard Father Maturin unfold,
with profound enthusiasm and inspiring
eloquence, a scheme of Catholic doctrine,
worship, and practice, laying especial stress
on Confession. These ideas began to take
shape in Hugh’s mind, and he came to the
conclusion that it was necessary in a place
like London, and working among the har-
assed and ill-educated poor, to materialise
religion – that is to say, to fit some defi-
nite form, rite, symbol, and practice to
religious emotion. He thought that the
bright, dignified, and stately adjuncts of
worship, such as they had at the Eton
Mission, were not adequate to awaken the
sense of the personal and intimate relation
between man and God.
In this belief he was very possibly right.
[96]
M Y F A T H E R S D E A T H
Of course the dangers of the theory are
obvious. There is the ultimate danger of
what can fairly be called superstition, that
is to say giving to religion a magical kind
of influence over the material side of life.
Rites, relics, images tend to become, in
irrational minds, invested with an inherent
and mechanical sanctity, instead of being
the symbols of grace. But it is necessary
to risk something; and though the risk of
what may be called a sort of idolatry is
great, the risk of not arousing the sense of
personal religion at all is greater still.
Hugh’s ordination as a priest followed in
1895; and he then made a full confession
before a clergyman. -
In 1896, in October, my father, who had
paid a state visit to Ireland, on his return
went to stay with Mr. Gladstone at
Hawarden, and died there in church on a
Sunday morning.
I can never forget the events of that
terrible day. I received a telegram at
Eton which summoned me to Hawarden,
but did not state explicitly that my father
[97 ||
H U G H
was dead. I met Hugh at Euston, who
told me the fact, and I can recollect walk-
ing up and down the half-deserted station
with him, in a state of deep and bewildered
grief. The days which followed were so
crowded with business and arrangements,
that even the sight of my father's body, ly-
ing robed and still, and palely smiling, in the
great library of the rectory failed to bring
home to me the sense that his fiery, eager,
strenuous life was over. I remember that
Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone came to the
church with us, and that Hugh celebrated
and gave us the Communion. But the day
when we travelled south with the coffin,
the great pomp at Canterbury, which was
attended by our present King and the
present King of Norway, when we laid
him to rest in a vault under the north-
western tower, and the days of hurried and
crowded business at Addington are still
faint and dream-like to me.
My mother and sister went out to Egypt
for the winter; Hugh’s health broke down;
he was threatened with rheumatic fever,
[98 ||
M Y FA T H E R S D E AT H
and was ordered to go out with them. It
was here that he formed a very close and
intimate companionship with my sister
Maggie, and came to rely much on her
tender sympathy and wise advice. He
never returned to the Eton Mission.
[99]
IX
ECEMSING AND MIRFIELD
HE change proved very beneficial to
Hugh; but it was then, with return-
ing health and leisure for reflection, that
he began to consider the whole question of
Anglicanism and Catholicism. He de-
scribes some of the little experiences which
turned his mind in this direction. He
became aware of the isolation and what he
calls the “provincialism” of the Anglican
Church. He saw many kinds of churches
and varieties of worship. He went on
through the Holy Land, and at Jerusalem
celebrated the Communion in the Chapel
of Abraham; at Damascus he heard with a
sort of horror of the submission of Father
Maturin to Rome. In all this his scheme
of a religious community revived. The cere-
monial was to be Caroline. “We were to
wear no eucharistic vestments, but full sur-
[ 100 I
D E V E L O PM E N T
plices and black scarves, and were to do
nothing in particular.” -
When he returned, he went as curate to
Kemsing, a village in Kent. It was de-
cided that for the sake of his health his
work must be light. The Rector, Mr.
Skarratt, was a wealthy man; he had
restored the church beautifully, and had
organised a very dignified and careful
musical service. Hugh lived with him at
the vicarage, a big, comfortable house, with
a succession of interesting guests. He had
a very happy year, devoting much atten-
tion to preaching, and doing a great deal of
work among the children, for which he had
a quite singular gift. He had a simple and
direct way with them, equally removed
from both petting and authoritativeness.
His own natural childlikeness came out —
and indeed all his life he preserved the
innocence, the impulsiveness, the mingled
impatience and docility of a child more
than any man I ever saw.
I remember a conversation I had with
Hugh about this time. An offer had been
[ 101 T.
H U G H
made to him, through me, of an important
country living. He said that he was ex-
traordinarily happy at Kemsing but that he
was too comfortable — he needed more dis-
cipline. He said further that he was begin-
ning to find that he had the power of
preaching, and that it was in this direction
rather than in the direction of pastoral
activity that his life was going to lie.
It was rather a pettish conversation. I
asked him whether he might not perhaps
find the discipline he needed in doing the
pastoral work which did not interest him,
rather than in developing his life on lines
which he preferred. I confess that it was
rather a priggish line to take; and in any
case it did not come well from me because
as a schoolmaster I think I always pursued
an individualistic line, and worked hard on
my own private basis of preferences rather
than on the established system of the
school. But I did not understand Hugh at
this date. It is always a strain to find one
whom one has always regarded as a boy,
almost as a child, holding strong and defi-
[102 I
MI R F I E L D
nitely matured views. I thought him self-
absorbed and wilful — as indeed he was —
but he was pursuing a true instinct and
finding his real life.
He then received an invitation to be-
come a mission preacher, and went to con-
sult Archbishop Temple about it. The
Archbishop told him, bluffly and decisively,
that he was far too young, and that before
he took it upon himself to preach to men
and women he ought to have more experi-
ence of their ways and hearts.
But Hugh with his usual independence
was not in the least daunted. He had an
interview with Dr. Gore, now Bishop of
Oxford, who was then Head of the House
of the Resurrection at Mirfield, and was
accepted by him as a probationer in the
Community. Hugh went to ask leave of
Archbishop Maclagan, and having failed
with one Primate succeeded with another.
The Community of the Resurrection was
established by Bishop Gore as an Anglican
house more or less on Benedictine lines. It
acquired a big house among gardens, built,
[ 103 ||
H U G H
I believe, by a wealthy manufacturer. It
has since been altered and enlarged, but
Hugh drew an amusing set of sketches to
illustrate the life there, in which it appears
a rueful and rather tawdry building, of
yellow stone and blue slate, of a shallow and
falsetto Gothic, or with what may be called
Gothic sympathies. It is at Mirfield, near
Bradford, in the Calder valley; the country
round full of high chimneys, and the sky
much blurred with smoke, but the grounds
and gardens were large, and suited to a
spacious sort of retirement. From the
same pictures I gather that the house was
very bare within and decidedly unpleasing,
with no atmosphere except that of a
denuded Victorian domesticity.
Some of the Brothers were occupied in
definitely erudite work, editing liturgical,
expository, and devotional works; and for
these there was a large and learned library.
The rest were engaged in evangelistic mis-
Sion work with long spaces of study and de-
votion, six months roughly being assigned
to outside activities, and six to Community
[104
T H E C O M M U N IT Y
life. The day began early, the Hours were
duly recited. There was work in the morn-
ing and after tea, with exercise in the after-
noon. On Saturday a chapter was held,
with public confession, made kneeling, of
external breaches of the rule. Silence was
kept from Compline, at ten o’clock, until
the next day’s midday meal; there was
manual work, wood-chopping, coal-break-
ing, boot-cleaning and room-dusting. For
a long time Hugh worked at step-cutting
in the quarry near the house, which was
being made into a garden. The members
wore cassocks with a leather belt. They
were called “Father” and the head of the
house was “Senior” or “Superior.”
The vows were simple, of poverty, chas-
tity, and obedience, but were renewed
annually for a period of thirteen months,
accompanied by an expression of an inten-
tion, only, to remain in the community for
life. As far as I remember, if a Brother
had private means, he was bound to hand
Over his income but not his capital, while
he was a member, and the copyright of all
[ 105 ||
H U G H
books written during membership belonged
absolutely to the Community. Hugh wrote
the book of mystical stories, The Light
Invisible, at this time; it had a continuous
sale, and he used humorously to lament
the necessity of handing over the profits to
the Order, long after he had left it and
joined the Church of Rome. The Brothers
were not allowed, I think, to possess any
personal property, and received clothing
and small luxuries either as gifts, or pur-
chased them through orders from the
Bursar. Our dear old family nurse, Beth,
to whom Hugh was as the apple of her eye,
used to make him little presents of things
that he needed — his wardrobe was always
scanty and threadbare — and would at
intervals lament his state of destitution.
“I can’t bear to think of the greedy
creatures taking away all the gentlemen’s
things!”
There was a chapel in the house, of a
High Anglican kind, where vestments and
incense were used, and plainsong sung.
There were about fourteen Brothers.
[106 I
S E. R. M. O N S
Hugh was obviously and delightfully
happy at Mirfield. I remember well how
he used to describe the pleasure of return-
ing to it from a Mission, the silence, the
simplicity of the life, the liberty underlying
the order and discipline. The tone of the
house was admirably friendly and kindly,
without gossip, bickering or bitterness, and
Hugh found himself among cheerful and
sympathetic companions, with the almost
childlike mirthfulness which comes of a life,
strict, ascetic, united, and free from worldly
cares. He spent his first two years in study
mainly, and extended his probation. It
illustrates the fact that he was acquainting
himself strangely little with current theo-
logical thought that the cause of his delay
was that he was entirely taken aback by a
sermon of Dr. Gore’s on the Higher Criti-
cism. The whole idea of it was completely
novel to Hugh, and upset him terribly, so
that he thought he could hardly recover
his balance. Neither then nor later had
he the smallest sympathy with or interest
in Modernism. Finally he took the vows
[107 |
H U G H
in 1901; my mother was present. He was
installed, his hand kissed by the Brethren,
and he received the Communion in entire
hopefulness and happiness. I was always
conscious, in those days, that Hugh radi-
ated an atmosphere of intense rapture and
ecstasy about him: the only drawback
was that, in his rare visits to home, he
was obviously pining to be back at Mir-
field.
Then his work began; and he says that
refreshed and reinvigorated as they were
before going on a Mission, by long, quiet,
and careful preparation, they used to
plunge into their work with ardent and
eager enthusiasm. The actual mission
work was hard. Hugh records that once
after a Mission in London they spent four
days in interviewing people and hearing
confessions for eleven hours a day, with
occasional sermons interspersed.
At times some of the Brothers went into
residence at Westminster, in Dr. Gore’s
house – he was a Canon of the Abbey —
and there Hugh preached his only sermon
[108 I
S.E. R. M. O N S
in the Abbey. But he was now devoting
himself to Mission preaching, and perfect-
ing his system. He never thought very
highly of his gift of exposition. “I have a
certain facility in preaching, but not
much,” he once said, adding, “I have far
more in writing.” And I have heard him
say often that, if he let himself go in
preaching, his tendency was to become
vulgar. I have in my possession hundreds
of his skeleton notes. They consist of
the main points of his argument, written
out clearly and underlined, with a certain
amount of the texture indicated, sentence-
summaries, epigrammatic statements, dicta,
emphatic conclusions. He attained his
remarkable facility by persistent, continu-
ous, and patient toil; and a glance at his
notebooks and fly-leaves would be the best
of lessons for anyone who was tempted to
depend upon fluid and easy volubility. He
used to say that, after long practice, a
sermon would fall into shape in a very few
moments; and I remember his once taking
a carefully written address of my own,
[109]
H U G. H.
summarising and denuding it, and present-
ing me with a little skeleton of its essence,
which he implored me to use; though I
had not the courage to do so. He said, too,
that he believed that he could teach any-
one of ordinary brain-power and choice of
language to preach extempore on these
lines in six months, if only he would
rigidly follow his method. His arguments,
in the course of his sermons, did not always
seem to me very cogent; but his applica-
tion of them was always most clear and
effective. You always knew exactly what
he was driving at, and what point he had
reached; if it was not good logic, it was
extremely effective logic, and you seemed
to run hand in hand with him. I remem-
ber a quite admirable sermon he preached
at Eton at this date — it was most simple
and moving. But at the same time the
effect largely depended upon a grace of
which he was unconscious – quaint, naïve,
and beautiful phrasing, a fine poetical
imagination, tiny word-pictures, and a
youthful and impetuous charm. His ges-
[110 T
P. R. E A C H IN G
tures at that time were free and uncon-
strained, his voice resonant, appealing, and
clear.
He used to tell innumerable stories of his
sermon adventures. There was a story of
a Harvest Festival sermon near Kemsing,
in the days when he used a manuscript; he
found on arriving at the church that he
had left it behind him, and was allowed to
remain in the vestry during the service,
writing out notes on the inside of envelopes
torn open, with the stump of a pencil
which would only make marks at a certain
angle. The service proceeded with a shock-
ing rapidity, and when he got to the pulpit,
spread out his envelopes, and addressed
himself to the consideration of the blessings
of the Harvest, he found on drawing to an
end that he had only consumed about four
minutes. He went through the whole
again, slightly varying the phraseology,
and yet again repeated the performance;
only to find, on putting on his coat, that
the manuscript was in his pocket all the
time.
[111 T
H U G. H.
He used to say that the most nervous
experience in the world was to go into a
street or market-place of a town where he
was to hold a Mission with open-air ser-
mons, and there, without accompaniment,
and with , such scanty adherents as he
could muster, strike up a hymn. By-
standers would shrug their shoulders and
go away smiling. Windows would be
opened, figures would lean out, and pres-
ently withdraw again, slamming the case-
ment.
Hugh was always extremely nervous
before a sermon. He told me that when
he was about to preach, he did not gener-
ally go in for the service, but remained in
the vestry until the sermon; and that he
would lie on a sofa or sit in a chair, in
agonies of nervousness, with actual attacks
of nausea, and even sickness at times, until
he was summoned, feeling that he could not
possibly get through. This left him after
speaking a few words: but he also main-
tained that on the rare occasions when he
felt quite confident and free from nervous-
[112 I
P. R. E. A C H IN G
ness, the result was a failure: he said that
a real anxiety as to the effect of the sermon
was a necessary stimulus, and evoked a
mental power which confidence was apt to
leave dormant.
I 113 I
X
THE CHANGE
UGH has himself traced in full detail,
in his book The Confessions of a
Convert, how he gradually became con-
vinced that it was his duty to make his
submission to the Church of Rome; and I
will not repeat the story here. But I can
recall very distinctly the period during
which he was making up his mind. He
left Mirfield in the early summer of 1903,
so that when I came home for the summer
holidays, he was living there. I had my-
self just accepted from King Edward the
task of editing Queen Victoria’s letters, and
had resigned my Eton mastership. Hugh
was then engaged in writing his book By
What Authority with inconceivable energy
and the keenest possible enjoyment. His
absorption in the work was extraordinary.
He was reading historical books and any
[114 I
L E A V IN G M I R F I E L D
books bearing on the history of the period,
taking notes, transcribing. I have before
me a large folio sheet of paper on which he
has written very minutely hundreds of pic-
turesque words and phrases of the time, to
be worked into the book. He certainly
soaked himself in the atmosphere of the
time, and I imagine that the details are
correct, though as he had never studied
history scientifically, I expect he is right
in saying that the mental atmosphere
which he represented as existing in Eliza-
bethan times was really characteristic of a
later date. He said of the book: “I fear
it is the kind of book which anyone
acquainted with the history, manners, and
customs of the Elizabethan age should find
no difficulty in writing.” He found many
faults subsequently with the volume, but
he convinced himself at the time that the
Anglican post-Reformation Church had no
identity or even continuity with the pre-
Reformation Church.
He speaks of himself as undergoing an
experience of great unhappiness and unrest.
[ 115 T.
H U G H
Undoubtedly leaving the Mirfield Com-
munity was a painful severance. He val-
ued a friendly and sympathetic atmosphere
very much, and he was going to migrate
from it into an unknown society, leaving
his friends behind, with a possibility of
suspicion, coldness, and misunderstanding.
It was naturally made worse by the fact
that all my father’s best and oldest friends
were Anglicans, who by position and tra-
dition would be likely to disapprove most
strongly of the step, and even feel it, if not
an aspersion on my father's memory, at all
events a disloyal and unfilial act – as
indeed proved to be the case. But I doubt
if these considerations weighed very much
with Hugh. He was always extremely
independent of criticism and disapproval,
and though he knew many of my father's
friends, through their visits to our house,
he had not made friends with them on his
own account — and indeed he had always
been so intent on the life he was himself
leading, that he had never been, so to
speak, one of the Nethinims of the sanc-
[116 I
C O N S I D E R A TI O N S
tuary; nor had the dependent and dis-
cipular attitude, the reverential attachment
to venerable persons, been in the least
congenial to him. He had always rather
effaced himself in the presence of our eccle-
siastical visitors, and had avoided the con-
straint of their dignity. Indeed, up to
this time he had not much gone in search
of personal relationships at all except with
equals and contemporaries.
But the ignorance of the world he was
about to enter upon was a more serious
factor in his outlook. He knew that he
would have to enter submissively and
humbly an entirely strange domain, that
he would have to join a chilly and even
suspicious circle — for I suppose a convert
to any new faith is apt to be regarded,
until he is fully known, as possibly weak,
indeterminate, and fluctuating, and to be
treated with compassion rather than admi-
ration. With every desire to be sympa-
thetic, people in conscious possession of
security and certainty are naturally in-
clined to regard a claimant as bent on
[ 117 T
H U G H
acquisition rather than as a hero eager for
self-sacrifice.
Certainly Hugh’s dejection, which I
think was reserved for his tired moments,
was not apparent. To me, indeed, he
appeared in the light of one intent on a
great adventure, with all the rapture of
confidence and excitement about him. As
my mother said, he went to the shelter of
his new belief as a lover might run to the
arms of his beloved. Like the soldier in the
old song, he did not linger, but “gave the
bridle-reins a shake.” He was not either
melancholy or brooding. He looked very
well, he was extremely active in mind and
in body.
I find the following extract from my
diary of August:
“August 1903.− In the afternoon walked
with Hugh the Paxhill round. Hugh is in
very good cheerful spirits, steering in a
high wind straight to Rome, writing a his-
torical novel, full of life and jests and
laughter and cheerfulness; not creeping in,
under the shadow of a wall, sobbing as the
[118 I
A R G U M E N T
old cords break; but excited, eager, jubi-
lant, enjoying.” *
His room was piled with books and pa-
pers; he used to rush into meals with the
glow of suspended energy, eat rapidly and
with appetite — I have never seen a human
being who ate so fast and with so little
preference as to the nature of what he
ate — then he would sit absorbed for a
moment, and ask to be excused, using the
old childish formula: “May I get down?”
Sometimes he would come speeding out of
his room, to read aloud a passage he had
written to my mother, or to play a few
chords on the piano. He would not as a
rule join in games or walks – he went out
for a short, rapid walk by himself, a little
measured round, and flew back to his work.
He generally, I should think, worked about
eight hours a day at this time. In the
evening he would play a game of cards
after dinner, and would sit talking in the
Smoking-room, rapidly consuming ciga-
rettes and flicking the ash off with his fore-
finger. He was also, I remember, very
[119 T
H U G H
argumentative. He said once of himself
that he was perpetually quarrelling with
his best friends. He was a most experi-
enced coat-trailer! My mother, my sister,
my brother, Miss Lucy Tait who lives with
us, and myself would find ourselves en-
gaged in heated arguments, the disputants
breathing quickly, muttering unheeded
phrases, seeking in vain for a loophole or
a pause. It generally ended by Hugh
saying with mournful pathos that he could
not understand why everyone set on him —
that he never argued in any other circle,
and he could only entreat to be let alone.
It is true that we were accustomed to argue
questions of every kind with tenacity and
even with invective. But the fact that
these particular arguments always dealt
with the inconsistencies and difficulties of
ecclesiastical institutions revealed their ori-
gin. The fact was that at this time Hugh
was accustomed to assert with much
emphasis some extremely provocative and
controversial position. He was markedly
scornful of Anglican faults and manner-
[ 120 I
D IS C U S S I O N
isms, and behaved both then and later as
if no Anglicans could have any real and
vital belief in their principles, but must be
secretly ashamed of them. Yet he was
acutely sensitive himself, and resented
similar comments; he used to remind me
of the priest who said to Stevenson:
“Your sect — for it would be doing it too
much honour to call it a religion,” and
was then pained to be thought discourteous
or inconsiderate.
Discourteous, indeed, Hugh was not. I
have known few people who could argue so
fiercely without personal innuendo. But,
on the other hand, he was both triumphant
and sarcastic. There was an occasion at a
later date when he advanced some highly
contestable points as assumptions, and my
aunt, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, in an agony
of rationality, said to him, “But these
things are surely matters of argument,
Hugh?” To which Hugh replied, “Well,
you see, I have the misfortune, as you
regard it, of belonging to a Church which
happens to know.” -
[121 I
H U G H
Here is another extract from my diary
at this time:
“August 1903.— At dinner Hugh and I
fell into a fierce argument, which became
painful, mainly, I think, because of Hugh’s
vehemence and what I can only call vio-
lence. He reiterates his consciousness of
his own stupidity in an irritating way.
The point was this. He maintained that
it was uncharitable to say, ‘What a bad
sermon So-and-so preached,’ and not un-
charitable to say, ‘Well, it is better than
the sickening stuff one generally hears’;
uncharitable to say, ‘What nasty soup
this is!” and not uncharitable to say,
‘Well, it is better than the filthy pigwash
generally called soup.’ I maintained that
to say that, one must have particular
soups in One's mind; and that it was
abusing more sermons and soups, and abus-
ing them more severely, than if one found
fault with one soup or one sermon.
“But it was all no use. He was very
impatient if one joined issue at any point,
and said that he was interrupted. He
[122
A R G U M E N T
dragged all sorts of red herrings over the
course, the opinions of Roman theologians,
and differences between mortal and venial
sin, &c. I don’t think he even tried to
apprehend my point of view, but went off
into a long rigmarole about distinguishing
between the sin and the sinner; and said
that it was the sin one ought to blame, not
the sinner. I maintained that the consent
of the sinner’s will was of the essence of
the sin, and that the consent of the will of
the sinner to what was not in itself wrong
was the essence of sin — e.g. not sinful to
drink a glass of wine, but sinful if you had
already had enough.
“It was rather disagreeable; but I get
so used to arguing with absolute frankness
with people at Eton that I forget how
unpleasant it may sound to hearers —
and it all subsided very quickly, like a
boiling pot.”
I remember, too, at a later date, that he
produced some photographs of groups of, I
think, Indian converts at a Roman Cath-
olic Mission, and stated that anyone who
[ 123
H U G H
had eyes to see could detect which of
them had been baptized by the expression
of their faces. It was, of course, a matter
which it was impossible to bring to the
test; but he would not even admit that
catechumens who were just about to be
baptized could share the same expression
as those who actually had been baptized.
This was a good instance of his provoca-
tive style. But it was always done like a
game. He argued deftly, swiftly, and in-
conclusively, but the fault generally lay
in his premisses, which were often wild
assumptions; not in his subsequent argu-
ment, which was cogent, logical, and ad-
mirably quick at finding weak points in
his adversary’s armour At the same time
he was wholly placable. No one could so
banish and obliterate from his mind the
impression of the harshest and fiercest
arguments. The effervescence of his mind
subsided as quickly as it arose. And my
whole recollection of the period is that he
was in a state of great mental and spir-
itual excitement, and that he was experi-
[124
A R G U M E N T
encing to the full the joys of combat and
action.
While the interest of composition lasted,
he remained at home, but the book was
soon done. He was still using the oratory
in the house for celebrations, and I believe
that he occasionally helped in the services
of the parish church. The last time I
actually heard him preach was at the pre-
vious Christmas, when the sermon seemed
to me both tired and hard, as of one whose
emotions were strained by an interior strife.
Among his diversions at this time he
painted, on the casement windows of the
oratory, some figures of saints in water-
colour. The designs were quaint, but in
execution they were the least successful
things he ever did; while the medium he
employed was more apt to exclude light
than to tinge it.
These strange figures became known in
the village as “Mrs. Benson’s dolls.”
They were far more visible from outside
than from within, and they looked like
fantastic puppets leaning against the panes.
[125I]
H U G H
What use my mother was supposed to
make of them, or why she piled her dolls,
tier above tier, in an upper window was
never explained. Hugh was very indig-
nant when their artistic merit was called
in question, but later on he silently ef-
faced them.
The curious intensity and limitation of
Hugh’s affections were never more exempli-
fied than in his devotion to a charming
collie, Roddy, belonging to my sister, the
most engaging dog I have ever known.
Roddy was a great truant, and went away
sometimes for days and even weeks.
Game is carefully preserved on the sur-
rounding estates, and we were always
afraid that Roddy, in his private hunting
expeditions, might fall a victim to a con-
Scientious keeper's gun, which, alas, was
doubtless the cause of his final and deeply
lamented disappearance. Hugh had a
great affection for Roddy, and showed it,
when he came to Tremans, by keeping
Roddy constantly at his heels, having him
to sleep in his room, and never allowing
[ 126 I
R O D D Y
him out of his sight. For the first day or
two Roddy enjoyed these attentions, but
gradually, as the visit lasted, became more
and more restive, and was for ever trying
to give Hugh the slip; moreover, as soon
as Hugh went away, Roddy always dis-
appeared for a few days to recover his
sense of independence and liberty. I can
see Hugh now walking about in his cas-
sock, with Roddy at his heels; then they
would join a circle on the lawn, and Roddy
would attach himself to some other mem-
ber of the family for a little, but was al-
ways sternly whistled away by Hugh,
when he went back to his room. More-
over, instead of going back to the stable
to sleep snugly in the straw, which Roddy
loved best, he had to come to the smoking-
room, and then go back to sleep in a
basket chair in Hugh’s bedroom. I can
remember Hugh departing at the end of
his visit, and saying to me, “I know it’s
no use asking you — but do try to keep an
eye on Roddy! It makes me miserable
to think of his getting into the woods and
[ 127 T
H U G H
being shot.” But he did not think much
about Roddy in his absence, never asked
to take Roddy to Hare Street; nor did he
manifest deep emotion when he finally
disappeared, nor make long lamentation
for him. Hugh never wasted any time in
vain regrets or unavailing pathos.
He paid visits to certain friends of my
mother’s to consult about his position. He
did this solely out of deference to her
wishes, but not, I think, with any hope
that his purpose would be changed. They
were, I believe, John Reeve, Rector of
Lambeth, a very old and dear friend of
our family, Bishop Wilkinson, and Lord
Halifax. The latter stated his position
clearly, that the Pope was Vicar of Christ
jure ecclesiastico but not jure divino, and
that it was better to remain an Anglican
and promote unity so. Hugh had also
a painful correspondence with John Words-
worth, late Bishop of Salisbury, a very
old friend of my father's. The Bishop
wrote affectionately at first, but eventually
became somewhat indignant, and told
[128 I
C O N S U L T A TI O N
Hugh plainly that a few months’ work
in a slum parish would clear his mind of
doubt; the correspondence ended by his
saying emphatically that he regarded con-
version almost as a loss of sanity. No
doubt it was difficult for one of immense
patristic and theological learning, who was
well versed in the historical aspect of the
affair as well as profoundly conscious of
the reality of his own episcopal commis-
sion, to enter the lists with a son of his old
friend. But neither sympathy nor harsh-
ness could have affected Hugh at this time,
any more than advice to return could alter
the position of a man who had taken a leap
and was actually flying through the air.
Hugh then went off on a long bicycle
tour by himself, dressed as a layman. He
visited the Carthusian Monastery of St
Hugh, near West Grinstead, which I after-
wards visited in his company. He spent a
night or two at Chichester, where he re-
ceived the Communion in the cathedral;
but he was in an unhappy frame of mind,
probably made more acute by solitude.
I 129 I
XI
THE DECISION
Y this time we all knew what was
about to happen. “When a man’s
mind is made up,” says the old Irish
proverb, “his feet must set out on the
way.”
Just before my brother made his pro-
fession as a Brother of the Mirfield Com-
munity, he was asked by Bishop Gore
whether he was in any danger of becoming
a Roman Catholic. My brother said hon-
estly, “Not so far as I can see.” This
was in July 1901. In September 1903
he was received into the Church of Rome.
What was it which had caused the change?
It is very difficult to say, and though I
have carefully read my brother’s book, the
Confessions of a Convert, I find it hard to
give a decisive answer. I have no inten-
tion of taking up a controversial attitude,
[130 I
A N G L I C A N IS M
and indeed I am little equipped for doing
so. It is clear that my brother was, and
had for some time been, searching for
something, let us call it a certainty, which
he did not find in the Church of England.
The surprise to me is that one whose re-
ligion, I have always thought, ran upon
such personal and individualistic lines,
should not have found in Anglicanism the
very liberty he most desired. The dis-
tinguishing feature of Anglicanism is that
it allows the largest amount of personal
liberty, both as regards opinion and also
as regards the use of Catholic traditions,
which is permitted by an ecclesiastical
body in the world. The Anglican Church
claims and exercises very little authority
at all. Each individual Bishop has a con-
siderable discretionary power, and some
allow a far wider liberty of action than
others. In all cases, divergences of doc-
trine and practice are dealt with by per-
sonal influence, tact, and compromise, and
force majeure is invoked as little as possible.
In the last hundred years, during which
[131I]
H U G H
there have been strong and active move-
ments in various directions in the Church
of England both towards Catholic doc-
trine and Latitudinarianism, such synodical
and legal action as has been taken has
generally proved to be a mistake. It is
hard to justify the system logically and
theoretically, but it may be said that the
methods of the Church have at least been
national, in the sense that they have
suited the national temperament, which
is independent and averse to coercive
discipline. It may, I believe, be truly
asserted that in England any Church
which attempted any inquisition into the
precise doctrine held by its lay members
would lose adherents in large numbers. Of
late the influence of the English Church
has been mainly exerted in the cause of
social reform, and her tendency is more
and more to condone divergences of doc-
trine and opinion in the case of her min-
isters when they are accompanied by
spiritual fervour and practical activity.
The result has certainly been to pacify
[132 I
IN DIVID U A LISM
the intellectual revolt against religious
opinion which was in full progress some
forty years ago. When I myself was at
the university some thirty years ago, the
attitude of pronounced intellectuals against
religious opinion was contemptuous and
even derisive. That is not the case now.
The instinct for religion is recognised as a
vital part of the human mind, and though
intellectual young men are apt at times
to tilt against the travesty of orthodoxy
which they propound for their own satis-
faction, there is a far deeper and wider
tolerance and even sympathy for every
form of religious belief. Religion is rec-
ognised as a matter of personal preference,
and the agnostic creed has lost much of
its aggressive definiteness.
It appears to me that, so far as I can
measure the movement of my brother’s
mind, when he decided first to take Orders
his religion was of a mystical and aesthetic
kind; and I do not think that there is any
evidence that he really examined the scien-
tific and agnostic position at all. His
[ 133 T.
H U G H
heart and his sense of beauty were already
engaged, and life without religion would
have seemed an impossibility to him.
When he took Orders, his experience was
threefold. At the Eton Mission he was
confronted by an Anglicanism of a devout
and simple kind, which concentrated itself
almost entirely on the social aspect of
Christianity, on the love of God and the
brotherhood of man. The object of the
workers there was to create comradeship,
and to meet the problems of conduct which
arose by a faith in the cleansing and up-
lifting power of God. Brotherly love was
its first aim. -
I do not think that Hugh had ever any
real interest in social reform, in politics,
in causes, in the institutions which aim at
the consolidation of human endeavour and
sympathy. He had no philosophic grasp
of history, nor was he a student of the
psychology of religion. His instincts were
all individualistic and personal; and in-
deed I believe that all his life he was an
artist in the largest sense, in the fact that
I 134 I
A S C E T I C IS M
his work was the embodiment of dreams,
the expression of the beauty which he
constantly perceived. His ideal was in
one sense a larger one than the technically
artistic ideal, because it embraced the con-
ception of moral beauty even more ar-
dently than mere external beauty. The
mystical element in him was for ever
reaching out in search of some Divine
essence in the world. He was not in
search at any time of personal relations.
He attracted more affection than he ever
gave; he rejoiced in sympathy and kindred
companionship as a flower rejoices in sun-
shine; but I think he had little taste of
the baffled suffering which accompanies all
deep human passion. He once wrote:
“God has preserved me extraordinarily
from intimacies with others. He has done
this, not I. I have longed for intimacies
and failed to win them.” He had little
of the pastoral spirit; I do not think that
he yearned over unshepherded souls, or
primarily desired to seek and save the lost.
On the other hand he responded eagerly
[ 135T
H U G. H.
to any claim made to himself for help
and guidance, and he was always eager not
to chill or disappoint people who seemed
to need him. But he found little satis-
faction in his work at the Eton Mission,
and I do not think he would ever have
been at home there.
At Kemsing, on the other hand, he had
an experience of what I may fairly call the
epicureanism of religion. The influences
there were mainly aesthetic; the creation
of a circle like that at Kemsing would
have been impossible without wealth.
Beautiful worship, refined enjoyment, cul-
tivated companionship were all lavished
upon him. But he soon tired of this,
because it was an exotic thing. It was a
little paradise of a very innocent kind,
from which all harsh and contradictory
elements had been excluded. But this
mere sipping of exquisite flavours became
to him a very objectless thing, because it
corresponded to no real need. I believe
that if at this time he had discovered his
literary gifts, and had begun seriously to
D 136 I
A C E N T R E O F U N IT Y
write, he might have been content to
remain under such conditions, at all events
for a time. But he had as yet no audi-
ence, and had not begun to exercise his
creative imagination. Moreover, to a na-
ture like Hugh's, naturally temperate and
ardent, and with no gross or sensuous
fibre of any kind, there was a real craving
for the bareness and cleanness of self-
discipline and asceticism. There is a high
and noble pleasure in some natures to-
wards the reduction and disregard of all
material claims and limitations, by which
a freedom and expansiveness of the spirit
can be won. Such self-denial gives to the
soul a freshness and buoyancy which, for
those who can pursue it, is in itself an
ecstasy of delight. And thus Hugh found
it impossible to stay in an atmosphere
which, though exquisitely refined and quiet,
yet hampered the energy of aspiration
and adventure.
And so he came to the Mirfield Com-
munity, and for a time found exactly
what he wanted. The Brotherhood did
[ 137 I
H U G H
not mainly concern itself with the organ-
isation of social reform, while it reduced
the complications of life to a spare and
rigorous simplicity. The question is, why
this life, which allowed him to apply all
his gifts and powers to the work which
still, I think, was the embodiment of his
visions, did not completely satisfy him?
I think, in the first place, that it is
probable that, though he was not conscious
of it, the discipline and the subordination
of the society did not really quite give
him enough personal freedom. He con-
tinued for a time to hanker after com-
munity life; he used to say, when he first
joined the Church of Rome, that he
thought he might end as a Carthusian,
or later on as a Benedictine. But he
spoke less and less of this as the years
went on, and latterly I believe that he
to contemplate it, except as a possibility
in case his powers of speech and writing
should fail him. I believe that he really,
though perhaps unconsciously, desired a
freer hand, and that he found that the
[ 138 I
L I B E R T Y A N D D IS C.I.P L IN E
community life on the whole cramped his
individuality. His later life was indeed
a complete contrast to anything resem-
bling community life; his constant restless-
ness of motion, his travels, his succession
of engagements both in all parts of Eng-
land as well as in Rome and America,
were really, I do not doubt, more con-
genial to him; while his home life ulti-
mately became only his opportunity for
intense and concentrated literary work.
But beyond and above that lay the
doctrinal question. He sums up what he
came to believe in a few words, that the
Church of Rome was “the divinely ap-
pointed centre of unity,” and he felt the
“absolute need of a Teaching Church to
preserve and to interpret the truths of
Christianity to each succeeding genera-
tion.” Once convinced of this, argument
mattered little. Hugh was entirely fear-
less, adventurous, and independent; he
had no ambitions in the ordinary sense of
the word; that is to say he made no
frontal attack upon promotion or respect.
[ 139 I
H U G H
He was not what is called a “safe” man;
he had neither caution or prudence, nor
any regard for average opinion. I do not
think he ever gave allegiance to any per-
sonality, nor took any direct influence
from anyone. The various attempts he
made to consult people of different schools
of thought, all carefully recorded in his
Confessions, were made courteously and
deferentially; but it seems to me that
any opposition or argument that he en-
countered only added fuel to the fire, and
aroused his reason only to combat the sug-
gestions with which he did not instinctively
agree. Indeed I believe that it was his
very isolation, his independence, his lack
of any real deference to personal authority,
which carried him into the Church of
Rome. One who knew Hugh well and
indeed loved him said to me a little bit-
terly that he had become a Roman Cath-
olic not because his faith was strong, but
because it was weak. There was a touch
of truth in this. Hugh did with all his
heart desire to base his life upon some
[140 I
C A T H O L I C IS M
impersonal unquestionable certainty; and
where a more submissive mind might have
reposed, as a disciple, upon the strength of
a master, Hugh required to repose upon
something august, age-long, overpowering,
a great moving force which could not be
too closely or precisely interrogated, but
which was a living and breathing reality, a
mass of corporate experience, in spite of
the inconsistencies and irrationalities which
must beset any system which has built
up a logical and scientific creed in eras
when neither logic nor science were fully
understood.
The fundamental difference between
Catholicism and Protestantism lies ulti-
mately in the old conflict between liberty
and discipline, or rather in the degree to
which each is valued. The most ardent
lover of liberty has to admit that his own
personal inclinations cannot form a satis-
factory standard of conduct. He must
in certain matters subjugate his will and
his inclination to the prevailing laws and
principles and beliefs, and he must sacri-
[ 141
H U G H
fice his private aims and desires to the
common interest, even when his reason and
will may not be convinced. That is a
simple matter of compromise, and the
sacrifice is made as a matter of expediency
and duty rather than as a matter of emo-
tion. But there are other natures to
whom it is essential to live by emotion,
and to whom it is a relief and delight to
submerge their private inclinations in some
larger national or religious emotion. We
have seen of late, in the case of Germany,
what tremendous strength is generated in
a nation which can adore a national ideal
so passionately that they can only believe
it to be a blessing to other nations to have
the chance given them, through devasta-
tion and defeat, of contributing to the
triumph of German ideals. I do not mean
that Catholicism is prepared to adopt
similarly aggressive methods. But what
Hugh did not find in Anglicanism was a
sense of united conviction, a world-policy,
a faith in ultimate triumph, all of which
he found in Catholicism. The Catholic
[142
T H E S U. R. R. E. N. D. E. R.
believes that God is on his side; the
Anglican hopes that he is on the side of
God. Among Anglicans, Hugh was fretted
by having to find out how much or how
little each believed. Among Catholics,
that can be taken for granted. They are
indeed two different qualities and types
of faith, and produce, or perhaps express,
different types of character. Hugh found
in the Roman Church the comfort of
corporate ideals and corporate beliefs;
and I frankly admit that the more we
became acquainted with Catholicism the
more did we recognise the strong and
simple core of evangelicalism within it,
the mutual help and counsel, the insistence
on reparation as the proof of penitence,
the insight into simple human needs, the
paternal indulgence combined with gentle
authoritativeness. All this is eminently
and profoundly Christian. It is not nec-
essary here to say what the Anglican does
not find in it or at what point it seems to
become inconsistent with reason and lib-
erty. But I desire to make it clear that
[143 I
H U G. H.
what Hugh needed was an emotional sur-
render and a sense of corporate activity,
and that his conversion was not a logical
one, but the discovery of a force with
which his spirit was in unison, and of a
system which gave him exactly the impetus
and the discipline which he required.
It is curious to note that Father Tyrrell,
whom Hugh consulted, said to him that he
could not receive officially any convert into
the Church except on terms which were
impossible to persons of reason; and this is
so far true that I do not believe that
Hugh’s conversion was a process of either
intellect or reason. I believe that it was
a deep instinctive and emotional need for
a basis of thought so strong and vivid
that he need not question it. I believe he
had long been seeking for such a basis, and
that he was right to accept it, because he
did so in entire simplicity and genuineness.
My brother was not sceptical nor analytic;
he needed the repose of a large submission,
of obedience to an impersonal ideal. His
work lay in the presentment of religious
[144 ||
THE SURRENDER
emotion, and for this he needed a definite
and specific confidence. In no other
Church, and least of all in Anglicanism,
could this be obtained. I do not mean for
a moment that Hugh accepted the Catholic
faith simply as a conscious relief; he was
convinced frankly and fully that the
Church of Christ could not be a divided
society, but must have a continuity of
doctrine and tradition. He believed that
to be the Divine plan and method. Hav-
ing done this, his duty and his delight
were one. He tasted the full joy of obedi-
ence, the relief of not having to test, to
question, to decide; and thus his loyalty
was complete, because his heart was satis-
fied, and it was easier to him to mistrust
his reason rather than to mistrust his
heart. He had been swayed to and fro by
many interests and ardours and influences;
he had wandered far afield, and had found
no peace in symbolism uncertain of what
it symbolised, or in reason struggling to
reconcile infinite contradictions. Now he
rowed no more against the stream; he had
[145 ||
H U G H
found no human master to serve, and now
he had found a great ancient and living
'force which could bear him on. That was,
I think, the history of his spiritual change;
and of one thing I am sure, that no sur-
render was ever made so guilelessly, so
disinterestedly, and in so pure and simple
a mood.
He has told the story of his own recep-
tion very simply and impressively. He
wrote to my mother, “It has happened,”
and I see that he wrote also just before it
to me. I quote from my diary:
“September 9, 1903. — Also a note from
Hugh, from the Woodchester Dominican
Convent, saying that he thinks he will be
received this week, very short but affec-
tionate. He says he won’t attempt to say
all that is in his mind. I replied, saying
that I could not wish, knowing how he felt,
that he should do otherwise — and I
blessed him in a form of words.”
It may be frankly said that however
much we regretted his choice, we none of
us had the slightest wish to fetter it, or
[146 I
R. E. C. E. PT I O N
to discourage Hugh from following his
true and conscientious convictions. One
must recognise that the sunshine and the
rain of God fall in different ways and at
different times upon those who desire to
find Him. I do not wholly understand in
my mind how Hugh came to make the
change, but Carlyle speaks truly when he
says that there is one moral and spiritual
law for all, which is that whatever is
honestly incredible to a man that he may
only at his direst peril profess or pretend
to believe. And I understand in my heart
that Hugh had hitherto felt like one out on
the hillside, with wind and mist about him,
and with whispers and voices calling out
of the mist; and that here he found a fold
and a comradeship such as he desired to
find, and was never in any doubt again.
And I am sure that he soon began to feel
the tranquillity which comes from having
taken, after much restlessness and anxiety,
- a hard course and made a painful choice.
At first, however, he was deeply con-
scious of the strain through which he had
[147, I
H U G H
passed. He wrote to me in answer to
the letter mentioned above:
- Sept. 23, '03.
. . . Thank you so very much for your
letter. It was delightful to get it. I can’t
tell you what happiness it has been through
everything to know that you, as well as
the others, felt as you did; and now your
letter comes to confirm it.
There is surprisingly little to say about
myself; since you ask —
I have nothing more than the deepest
possible conviction — no emotionalism or
sense of relief or anything of the kind.
As regards my plans — they too are tol-
erably vague. . . . All the first week I
was with the Dominicans — who, I im-
agine, will be my final destination after
two or three years.
. . . I imagine that I shall begin to read
Theology again, in view of future Ordina-
tion: and either I shall go to Rome at
the beginning of November; or possibly
to Prior Park, near Bath — a school, where
[148 I
R O M E
I shall teach an hour a day, and read
Theology. -
Mamma and I are meeting in London
next week. She really has been good to
me beyond all words. Her patience and
kindness have been unimaginable.
Well — this is a dreary and egotistical
letter. But you asked me to write about
myself.
Well — I must thank you again for your
extreme kindness — I really am grateful:
though I am always dumb about such
things when I meet people.
I remember taking a walk with Provost
Hornby at Eton at this date. My diary
Says:
“October 1903. — We talked of Hugh.
The Provost was very kind and wise. He
said, ‘Such a change is a testimony of
sincerity and earnestness’; he went on to
tell a story which Jowett told him of Dr.
[ 149 |
H U G H
Johnson, who said, when a husband and
wife of his acquaintance went over to
Rome, ‘God bless them both.’ At the
end of the walk he said to me, ‘When you
write to your brother, remember me very
kindly to him, and give him, as a message
from me, what Johnson said.’ This I
thought was beautiful — more than courte-
ous.” *
I sent this message to Hugh, who was
deeply touched by it, and wrote the Provost
an affectionate and grateful letter.
Soon after this he went out to Rome to
prepare himself for the Orders which he
received nine months later. My mother
went to see him off. As the train went out
of the station, and Hugh was lost to view,
my mother turned round and saw Bishop
Wilkinson, one of our dearest friends, wait-
ing for her. She had told him before that
Hugh was leaving by that train, and had
asked him to bear both herself and Hugh
in mind. He had not intruded on the
parting, but now he drew my mother's
hand into his arm and said, “If Hugh’s
[150 T
R O M E
father, when he was here on earth, would
— and he would — have always wished
him to follow his conscience, how much
more in Paradise!” and then he went
away without another word.
[151 I
XII
CAMBRIDGE AGAIN
UGH went to the College of San
Silvestro in Rome, and there he
found many friends. He said that on first
joining the Catholic Church, he felt like
a lost dog; he wrote to me:
ROME, Nov. 26, ’03.
My own news is almost impossible to
tell, as everything is simply bewildering:
in about five years from now I shall know
how I felt; but at present I feel nothing
but discomfort; I hate foreign countries and
foreign people, and am finding more every
day how hopelessly insular I am: because
of course, under the circumstances, this
is the proper place for me to be: but it is
a kind of dentist’s chair.
[152 J
L L A N D A F F. H. O U S E
But he soon parted once and for all with
his sense of isolation; while the splendours
of Rome, the sense of history and state
and world-wide dominion, profoundly im-
pressed his imagination. He was deeply
inspired, too, by the sight of simple and
and unashamed piety among the common
folk, which appeared to him to put the
colder and more cautious religion of Eng-
land to shame. Perhaps he did not allow
sufficiently for the temperamental differ-
ences between the two nations, but at any
rate he was comforted and reassured.
I do not know much of his doings at
this time; I was hard at work at Windsor
on the Queen’s letters, and settling into a
new life at Cambridge; but I realised that
he was building up happiness fast. One
little touch of his perennial humour comes
back to my mind. He was describing to
me some ceremony performed by a very
old and absent-minded ecclesiastic, and
how two priests stood behind him to see
that he omitted nothing, “With the look
in their eyes,” said Hugh, “that you
I 153 I
H U G H
can see in the eyes of a terrier who is
standing with ears pricked at the mouth
of a burrow, and a rabbit preparing to
bolt from within.”
He came back a priest, and before long
he settled at Cambridge, living with
Monsignor Barnes at Llandaff House.
Monsignor Barnes was an old Eton con-
temporary and friend of my own, who
had begun by going to Woolwich as a
cadet; then he had taken orders in the
Church of England, and then had joined
the Church of Rome, and was put in
charge of the Roman Catholic undergradu-
ates at Cambridge. Llandaff House is a
big, rather mysterious mansion in the
main street of Cambridge, opposite the
University Arms Hotel. It was built by
the famous Bishop Watson of Llandaff,
who held a professorship at Cambridge in
conjunction with his bishopric, and never
resided in his diocese at all. The front
rooms of the big, two-gabled house are
mostly shops; the back of the house re-
mains a stately little residence, with a
[154 ||
L L A N D A F F H O U S E
chapel, a garden with some fine trees, and
opens on to the extensive and quiet park
of Downing College.
Hugh had a room which looked out on
to the street, where he did his writing.
From that date my real friendship with
him began, if I may use the word. Before
that, the difference in our ages, and the
fact that I was a very busy schoolmaster
only paying occasional visits to home, had
prevented our seeing very much of each
other in anything like equal comradeship.
But at the beginning of 1905 I went into
residence at Magdalene as a Fellow, and
Hugh was often in and out, while I was
made very welcome at Llandaff House.
Hugh had a small income of his own, and
he began to supplement it by writing. His
needs and tastes were all entirely simple.
He seems to me, remembering him, to
have looked extremely youthful in those
days, smaller in some ways than he did
later. He moved very rapidly; his health
was good and his activity great. He
made friends at several of the colleges, he
[155 J
H U G H
belonged to the Pitt Club, and he used
to attend meetings of an undergraduates’
debating club — the Decemviri — to which
he had himself belonged. One of the
members of that time has since told me
that he was the only older man he had ever
known who really mixed with undergradu-
ates and debated with them on absolutely
equal terms. But indeed, so far as looks
went, though he was now thirty-four, he
might almost have been an undergraduate
himself.
We arranged always to walk together
on Sunday afternoons. As an old member
of King's College, I had a key of the gar-
den there in the Backs, and a pass-key
of the college gates, which were locked on
Sunday during the chapel service. We
always went and walked about that beau-
tiful garden with its winding paths, or sat
out in the bowling-green. Then we gener-
ally let ourselves into the college grounds,
and went up to the south porch of the
chapel, where we could hear the service
proceeding within. I can remember Hugh
[156]
O U R C O M P A N I O N S H I P
saying, as the Psalms came to an end:
“Anglican double chants — how comfort-
able and delicious, and how entirely irre-
ligious!”
We talked very freely and openly of all
that was in our minds, and sometimes even
argued on religion. He used to tell me
that I was much nearer to his form of faith
than most Anglicans, and I can remember
his saying that the misery of being an
Anglican was that it was all so rational —
you had to make up your mind on every
single point. “Why not,” he said, “make
it up on one point — the authority of the
Church, and have done with it?” “Be-
cause I can’t be dictated to on points in
which I feel I have a right to an opinion.”
“Ah, that isn’t a faith !” “No, only a
faith in reason.” At which he would
shrug his shoulders, and smile. Once I
remember his exhibiting very strong emo-
tion. I had spoken of the worship of the
Virgin, and said something that seemed
to him to be in a spirit of levity. He
stopped and turned quite pale. “Ah,
[157 I
H U G H
don’t say that!” he said; “I feel as if
you had said something cynical about
someone very dear to me, and far more
than that. Please promise not to speak of
it again.” -
It was in these days that I first per-
ceived the extraordinary charm of both
mind and manner that he possessed. In
old days he had been amusing and argu-
mentative enough, but he was often silent
and absorbed. I think his charm had
been developed by his new experiences, and
by the number of strangers he had been
brought into contact with; he had learned
an eager and winning sort of courtesy,
which grew and increased every year. On
one point we wholly and entirely agreed —
namely, in thinking rudeness of any kind
to be not a mannerism, but a deadly sin.
“I find injustice or offensiveness to myself
or anyone else,” he once wrote, “the hard-
est of all things to forgive.” We con-
curred in detesting the habit of licensing
oneself to speak one’s mind, and the un-
pleasant English trait of confusing sincerity
[158 T
Photo by Russell & Sons
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1907. A GED 35

R U D E N E S S
with frank brutality. There is a sort of
Englishman who thinks he has a right, if
he feels cross or contemptuous, to lay bare
his mood without reference to his com-
panion’s feelings; and this seemed to us
both the ugliest of phenomena.
Hugh saw a good deal of academic so-
ciety in a quiet way — Cambridge is a hos-
pitable place. I remember the consterna-
tion which was caused by his fainting
away suddenly after a Feast at King’s.
He had been wedged into a corner, in
front of a very hot fire, by a determined
talker, and suddenly collapsed. I was
fetched out to see him and found him
stretched on a form in the Hall vestibule,
being kindly cared for by the Master of a
College, who was an eminent surgeon and
a professor. Again I remember that we
entered the room together when dining
with a hospitable Master, and were intro-
duced to a guest, to his bewilderment, as
“Mr. Benson” and “Father Benson.” “I
must explain,” said our host, “that Father
Benson is not Mr. Benson’s father!” “I
[ 159 |
H U G H
should have imagined that he might be
his son!” said the guest.
After Hugh had lived at Llandaff House
for a year he accepted a curacy at the
Roman Catholic church at Cambridge. I
do not know how this came about. A
priest can be ordained “to a bishop,” in
which case he has to go where he is sent,
or “on his patrimony,” which gives him a
degree of independence. Hugh had been
ordained “on his patrimony,” but he was
advised to take up ministerial work. He
accordingly moved into the Catholic rec-
tory, a big, red-brick house, with a great
cedar in front of it, which adjoins the
church. He had a large sitting-room,
looking out at the back over trees and
gardens, with a tiny bedroom adjoining.
He had now the command of more money,
and the fitting up of his rooms was a great
delight to him; he bought some fine old
oak furniture, and fitted the walls with
green hangings, above which he set the
horns of deer, which he had at various
times stalked and shot — he was always a
[160 T.
T H E C A T H O L I C R. E. C T OR Y
keen sportsman. I told him it was too
secular an ornament, but he would not
hear me.
Canon Scott, the rector, the kindest and
most hospitable of men, welcomed me to
the rectory, and I was often there; and
our Sunday walks continued. Hugh be-
came known at once as the best preacher
in Cambridge, and great congregations
flocked to hear him. I do not think he had
much pastoral work to do; but now a com-
plication ensued. A good many under-
graduates used to go to hear him, ask to
see him, discuss religious problems with
him. Moreover, before he left the Anglican
communion, Hugh had conducted a mis-
sion at Cambridge, with the result that
several of his hearers became Roman
Catholics. A certain amount of Orthodox
alarm was felt and expressed at the new
and attractive religious element which his
sermons provided, and eventually repre-
sentations were made to me that I should
use my influence with Hugh that he should
leave Cambridge. This I totally declined
[161 I
H U G H
to do, and suggested that the right way to
meet it was to get an Anglican preacher to
Cambridge of persuasive eloquence and
force. I did eventually speak to Hugh
about it, and he was indignant. He said:
“I have not attempted, and shall not
attempt, any sort of proselytisation of
undergraduates — I do not think it fair,
or even prudent. I have never started the
subject of religion on any occasion with
any undergraduate. But I must preach
what I believe; and, of course, if under-
graduates consult me, I shall tell them
what I think and why I think it.” This
rule he strictly adhered to; and I do not
know of any converts that he made.
Moreover, it was at this time that
strangers, attracted by his sermons and
his books, began to consult him by letter,
and seek interviews with him. In this
relation he showed himself, I have reason
to know, extraordinarily kind, sympathetic,
and straightforward. He wrote fully and
as often as he was consulted; he saw an
ever-increasing number of inquirers. He
[ 162
S PIR IT U A L DIR. E. CT I O N
used to groan over the amount of time he
had to spend in letters and interviews, and
he used to say that it often happened that
the people least worth helping took up the
most time. He always gave his very best;
but the people who most vexed him were
those engaged in religious inquiry, not out
of any profound need, but simply for the
emotional luxury; and who argued round
and round in a circle for the pleasure of
being sympathised with. Hugh was very
clear and practical in his counsels, and he
was, I used to think, like a wise and even
stern physician, never influenced by senti-
ment. It was always interesting to discuss
a “case” with him. I do not mean that
he discussed his cases with me, but I used
to ask him how to deal with some intel-
lectual or moral problem, and his insight
seemed to me wonderfully shrewd, sensible,
and clear. He had a masterly analysis,
and a power of seeing alternatives and
contingencies which always aroused my
admiration. He was less interested in the
personal element than in the psychological;
[ 163 T.
H U G H
and I used to feel that his strength lay in
dealing with a case scientifically and
technically. Sometimes he had desperate,
tragic, and even alarming cases to deal with;
and here his fearlessness and toughness
stood him in good stead. He never shrank
appalled before any moral enormity. He
told me once of a series of interviews he
had with a man, not a Catholic, who ap-
pealed to him for help in the last extremity
of moral degradation. He became aware
at last that the man was insane, but he
spared no pains to rescue him.
When he first began this work he had a
wave of deep unhappiness; the responsi-
bility of the priesthood so overwhelmed
him that for a time, I have learned, he
used to pray night after night, that he
might die in his sleep, if it were possible.
I saw and guessed nothing of this, but I
think it was a mood of exhaustion, because
he never exhibited anything but an eager
and animated interest in life.
One of his pleasures while he was
at Cambridge and ever after was the
[ 164 I
M. Y S T E R Y - P L A YS
writing, staging, and rehearsing of little
mystery-plays and sacred scenes for the
children of St. Mary’s Convent at Cam-
bridge and for the choir boys of West-
minster Cathedral. These he thoroughly
enjoyed; he always loved the companion-
ship of children, and had exactly the right
way with them, treating them seriously,
paternally, with a brisk authority, and
never sentimentally. They were beautiful
and moving little dramas, reverently per-
formed. Unhappily I never saw one of
them. Even now I remember with a stab
of regret that he came to stay with me at
Cambridge for one of these, and besought
me to go with him. But I was shy and
busy, and though I could easily have
arranged to go, I did not and he went off
alone. “Can’t you really manage it?” he
said. “Pray-a-do!” But I was obdurate,
and it gives me pain now to think that I
churlishly refused, though it is a false
pathos to dwell on such things, and both
foolish and wrong to credit the dead with
remembering trifling grievances.
[ 165 I
H U G H
But I do not think that his time at the
Catholic rectory was a really very happy
one. He needed more freedom; he became
gradually aware that his work lay in the
direction of writing, of lecturing, of preach-
ing, and of advising. He took his own
measure and knew his own strength. “I
have no pastoral gift,” he once said to me
very emphatically. “I am not the man to
prop,” he once wrote; “I can kindle some-
times, but not support. People come to
me and pass on.” Nor was he at ease in
the social atmosphere of Cambridge – it
seemed to him bleak, dry, complacently
intellectual, unimaginative. He felt himself
what the law describes as “a suspected
person,” with vague designs on the spir-
itual life of the place. -
At first, he was not rich enough to live
the sort of life he desired; but he began to
receive larger incomes from his books, and
to see that it would soon be in his power
to make a home for himself. It was then
that our rambles in search of possible
houses began, while at the same time he
[ 166 I
RETIRE MENT
curtailed his own personal expenditure to
the lowest limits, till his wardrobe became
conspicuous for its antiquity. This, how-
ever, he was wholly indifferent about; his
aim was to put together a sufficient sum to
buy a small house in the country, and there
to settle “for ever,” as he used to say. “A
small Perpendicular chapel and a white-
washed cottage next door is what I want
just now,” he wrote about this time. “It
must be in a sweet and secret place—pref-
erably in Cornwall.” Or again, “I want
and mean – if it is permitted —to live in
a small cottage in the country; to say mass
and office, and to write books. I think
that is honestly my highest ideal. I hate
fuss and officialdom and backbiting — I
wish to be at peace with God and man.”
This was his dream. The house at Hare
Street was the result.
[167]
XIII
HARE STREET
HAVE no doubt at all that Hugh’s
seven years at Hare Street were the
happiest of his life. He generally had
some companion living there — Mr. Gabriel
Pippet, who did much skilful designing and
artistic work with and for him; Dr. Ses-
sions, who managed his household affairs
and acted as a much needed secretary;
Father Watt, who was in charge of the
Hormead Mission. At one time he had
the care of a little boy, Ken Lindsay,
which was, I think, the greatest joy he
ever had. He was a most winning and
affectionate child, and Hugh’s love of
children was very great. He taught Ken,
played with him, told him stories. Among
his papers are little touching trifles which
testify to his love of the child — a withered
flower, or some leaves in an envelope,
[168 I
tuosuºſi 'H （Hnuº XIºuetu ººxſ 'ſ ºu IN
6061 （ILGIGIHALS GIHVH JLV

E. E. N.
“flower which Ken gave me,” “leaves
with which Ken tried to make a crown,”
and there are broken toys of Ken’s put
away, and little games and pictures which
Hugh contrived for his pleasure, memories
of happy days and hours. He used to talk
about Ken and tell stories about his sayings
and doings, and for a time Ken's presence
gave a sense of home about Hare Street,
and filled a part of Hugh’s heart as nothing
else did. It was a pleasure to see them
together; Hugh’s whole voice and bearing
changed when Ken was with him, but he
did not spoil him in the least or indulge
him foolishly. I remember sitting with
Hugh once when Ken was playing about,
and how Hugh followed him with his eyes
or listened to Ken’s confidences and dis-
coveries. But circumstances arose which
made it necessary that Ken should go, and
the loss of him was a great grief to Hugh—
though even so, I admired the way in
which he accepted the necessity. He
always loved what he had got, but did not
miss it if he lost it. w
[ 169 I
H U G H
He made friends, too, with the people
of the village, put his chapel at their dis-
posal for daily use, and had a Christmas
festival there for them. He formed pleas-
ant acquaintances with his country neigh-
bours, and used to go to fish or shoot with
them, or occasionally to dine out. He
bought and restored a cottage which bor-
dered on his garden, and built another
house in a paddock beyond his orchard,
both of which were let to friends. Thus
it was not a solitary life at all.
He had in his mind for a long time a
scheme which he intended to carry out as
soon as he had more leisure, for it must
be remembered that much of his lecturing
and occasional writing was undertaken
simply to earn money to enable him to
accomplish his purposes. This was to
found a community of like-minded people,
who desired more opportunity for quiet
devotion and meditation, for solitary work
and contemplation, than the life of the
world could afford them. Sometimes he
designed a joint establishment, sometimes
[170 I
E N G A G E M E N T S
small separate houses; but the essence of
it all was solitude, cheered by sympathy
and enough friendly companionship to
avoid morbidity. At one time he planned
a boys’ home, in connection with the work
of his friend Mr. Norman Potter, at
another a home of rest for troubled and
invalided people, at another a community
for poor and sensitive people, who “if they
could get away from squalor and conflict,
would blow like flowers.” With his love of
precise detail, he drew up time-tables, so
many hours for devotion and meditation,
so many for work and exercise, so many
for sociability.
But gradually his engagements increased
so that he was constantly away, preaching
and lecturing; and thus he was seldom at
home for more than two or three days at
a time. Thrice he went to Rome to preach
courses of sermons, and thrice he went to
America, where he made many friends.
Until latterly he used to go away for holi-
days of various kinds, a motor tour in
France, a trip to Switzerland, where he
[ 171 T
H U G H
climbed mountains; and he often went to
stay with Lord Kenmare at Killarney,
where he stalked deer, shot and fished, and
lived an out-of-door life. I remember his
describing to me an incident on one of
those visits, how he was returning from a
deer-stalk, in the roughest clothes, when he
saw a little group of people in a by-lane,
and presently a message arrived to say
that there was a dying woman by the road-
side, and could he go to her. He went in
haste, heard her confession, and gave her
absolution, while the bystanders withdrew
to a distance, that no word might be over-
heard, and stood bareheaded till the end
C3,DOl62.
His engagement-books, of which I have
several, show a dangerous activity; it is
difficult to see how any man could have
done so much of work involving so much
strain. But he had a clear idea in his
mind. He used to say that he did not
expect to have a long life. “Many
thanks,” he wrote to a friend in 1905, in
reply to a birthday letter. “I certainly
[ 172 I
C H R IS T M A S
want happy returns; but not very many.”
He also said that he was prepared for a
break-down in his powers. He intended to
do his work in his own way, and as much
as he could while his strength lasted. At
the same time he was anxious to save
enough money to enable him to live
quietly on at Hare Street whatever hap-
pened. The result was that even when he
came back from his journeys the time at
Hare Street was never a rest. He worked
from morning to night at some piece of
writing, and there were very few commis-
sions for articles or books which he refused.
He said latterly, in reply to an entreaty
from his dear friend Canon Sharrock, who
helped him to die, that he would take a
holiday: “No, I never take holidays now
— they make me feel so self-conscious.”
He was very careful to keep up with his
home and his family ties. He used to pay
regular visits to Tremans, my mother’s
house, and was generally there at Christ-
mas or thereabouts. Latterly he had a
Christmas festival of his own at Hare
[ 173 I
H U G H
Street, with special services in the chapel,
with games and medals for the children,
and with presents for all alike — children,
tenants, servants, neighbours, and friends.
My sister, who lately spent a Christmas
with him, says that it was more like an ideal
Christmas than anything she had ever seen,
and that he himself, full of eagerness and
kindness and laughter, was the centre and
mainspring of it all. He used to invite
himself over to Cambridge not infrequently
for a night or two; and I used to run over
for a day to Hare Street to see his improve-
ments and to look round. I remember
Once going there for an afternoon and sug-
gesting a stroll. We walked to a hamlet a
little way off, but to my surprise he did
not know the name of it, and said he had
never been there. I discovered that he
hardly ever left his own little domain, but
took all his exercise in gardening or work-
ing with his hands. He had a regular
workroom at one time in the house, where
he carved, painted, or stitched tapestries —
but it was all intent work. When he came
[174 I
ºsuoissøS “I （I ºu (I tuosuoſ I · H （XI
1161 vint
NGICI （IV:) GIHAL NI ‘LOIGHRIALS GIHVH
aoſ sowo）) （) （ſuºdno

VIS IT S
to Cambridge for a day, he would collect
books from all parts of the house, read
them furiously, “tearing the heart out of
them.” like Dr. Johnson. Everything was
done thus, at top speed. His correspond-
ence was enormous; he seldom failed to
acknowledge a letter, and if his advice were
asked he would write at great length, quite
ungrudgingly; but his constant writing told
On his script. Ten years ago it was a very
distinctive, artistic, finely formed hand,
very much like my father’s, but latterly it
grew cramped and even illegible, though it
always had a peculiar character, and,
as is often the case with very marked hand-
writings, it tended to be unconsciously imi-
tated by his friends.
I used to wonder, in talk with him, how
he found it possible to stay about so much
in all sorts of houses, and see so many
strange people. “Oh, one gets used to it,”
he said, adding: “besides, I am quite
shameless now — I say that I must have a
room to myself where I can work and smoke,
and people are very good about that.”
[I75I]
XIV
AUTHORSHIP
S to Hugh’s books, I will here say a
few words about them, because they
were a marked part of himself; he put
much skill and care into making them, and
took fully as much rapture away. When
he was writing a book, he was like a man
galloping across country in a fresh Sunny
morning, and shouting aloud for joy. But
I do not intend to make what is called an
appreciation of them, and indeed am little
competent to do so. I do not know the
conventions of the art or the conditions of
it. “Oh, I see,” said a critical friend to me
not long ago in much disgust, “you read a
novel for the ideas and the people and the
story.” “What do you read it for?” I
said. “Why, to see how it is done, of
course,” he replied. Personally I have
never read a book in my life to see how it
[176 I
T H E L I G HT IN VIS I B L E
is done, and what interests me, apart from
the book, is the person behind it — and
that is very elementary. Moreover, I have
a particular dislike of all historical novels.
Fact is interesting and imagination is
interesting; but I do not care for webs of
imagination hung on pegs of fact. His-
torical novels ought to be like memoirs,
and they are never in the least like mem-
oirs; in fact they are like nothing at all,
except each other.
The Light Invisible always seemed to me
a beautiful book. It was in 1902 that
Hugh began to write it, at Mirfield. He
says that a book of stories of my own,
The Hill of Trouble, put the idea into his
head — but his stories have no resem-
blance to mine. Mine were archaic little
romances, written in a style which a
not unfriendly reviewer called “painfully
kind,” an epigram which always gave
Hugh extreme amusement. His were mod-
ern, semi-mystical tales; he says that he
personally came to dislike the book in-
tensely from the spiritual point of view, as
[ 177
H U G H
being feverish and sentimental, and de-
signed unconsciously to quicken his own
spiritual temperature. He adds that he
thought the book mischievous, as laying
stress on mystical intuition rather than
Divine authority, and because it sub-
stituted the imagination for the soul.
That is a dogmatic objection rather than
a literary objection; and I suppose he
really disliked it because it reminded him
later on of a time when he was moving
among shadows. But it was the first book
in which he spread his wings, and there
is, I think, a fresh and ingenuous beauty
about it, as of a delighted adventure
among new faculties and powers.
I believe that the most beautiful book
he ever wrote was Richard Raymal, Solitary;
and I know he thought so himself. Of
course it is an archaic book, and written,
as musicians say, in a mode. It is easier
in some ways to write a book in a style
which is not authentically one’s own, and
literary imitation is not the highest art;
but Richard Raymal has the beauty of a
[ 178 I
T H E N O V E L S
fine tapestry designed on antique lines,
yet replenished and enriched by modern
emotion, like Tennyson’s Mort d’Arthur.
Yet I am sure there is a deep charm of
pure beauty in the book, both of thought
and handling, and I believe that he put
into it the best essence of his feeling and
imagination.
As to his historical books, I can feel their
vigour and vitality, and their deft use of
old hints and fragments. I remember once
discussing one of them with him, and say-
ing that his description of Queen Elizabeth
seemed to me very vivid, but that it re-
minded me of a not very authentic picture
of that queen, in Spangled crimson and
lace, which hung in the hall at Addington.
Hugh laughed, and said: “Well, I must
confess that very picture was in my
mind!”
With regard to his more modern stories
it is impossible not to be impressed by
their lightness and swiftness, their flashes
of beauty and emotion, their quick rippling
talk; but it is hard, at times, not to feel
[179 I
H U G H
them to be vitiated by their quite uncon-
scious tendency to represent a point of
of view. They were once called by a
malign reviewer “the most detestable
kind of tract,” and though this is what
the French call a saugrenu criticism, which
implies something dull, boorish, and pro-
vincial, yet it is easy to recognise what
is meant. It is not unjust to resent the
appearance of the cultivated and sensitive
Anglican, highly bred and graceful, who is
sure to turn out hard and hollow-hearted,
or the shabby, trotting, tobacco-scented
Roman Catholic priest, who is going to
emerge at a crisis as a man of inspired
dignity and solemnity. Sometimes, un-
doubtedly, the books are too intent upon
expunging other forms of religious life,
rather than in tracing the movements of
the soul. Probably this was inseparable
from the position Hugh had taken up, and
there was not the slightest pose, or desire
to improve the situation about his mind.
The descriptions, the lightly-touched de-
tails, the naturalness and ease of the talk
I 180 I
M ET H O D S O F W R IT IN G
are wholly admirable. He must have been
a very swift observer, both of nature and
people, because he never gave the least
impression of observing anything. I never
saw him stop to look at a view, or go into
raptures over anything beautiful or pictur-
esque; in society he was either silent and
absorbed, or more commonly extremely
animated and expansive. But he never
seemed to be on the look-out for any im-
pressions at all, and still less to be record-
ing them.
I believe that all his books, with the ex-
ception, perhaps, of Richard Raymal, can
be called brilliant improvisations rather
than deliberate works of art. “I write
best,” he once said, “when I rely most on
imagination.” The time which elapsed
from his conception of an idea to the time
when the book was completed was often in-
credibly short. I remember his telling me
his first swift thought about The Coward;
and when I next asked him about it, the
book had gone to the publishers and he
was writing another. When he was actu-
[ 181 I
H U GH
ally engaged in writing he was oblivious
of all else, and lived in a sort of dream.
I have several sketches of books which he
made. He used to make a rough outline,
a kind of scenario, indicating the gradual
growth of the plot. That was done rap-
idly, and he always said that the moment
his characters were conceived, they began
to haunt his mind with emphatic vivid-
ness; but he wrote very fast, and a great
quantity at a time. His life got fuller and
fuller of engagements, but he would get
back to Hare Street for a day or two,
when he would write from morning to
night with a brief interval for gardening
or handicraft, and briefer intervals for
meals. He was fond of reading aloud
bits of the books, as they grew. He read
all his books aloud to my mother in MS.,
and paid careful heed to her criticisms,
particularly with reference to his female
characters, though, it has been truly said
that the women in his novels are mostly
regarded either as indirect obstacles or as
direct aids to conversion.
[ 182 I
M ET H O D S OF W R IT IN G
Mr. Belloc once said, very wisely and
truly, that inertia was the breeding-ground
of inspiration. I think, on the whole,
that the total and entire absence of any
species of inertia in Hugh’s temperament
reacted in a way unfavourably on his
books. I do not think they simmered in
his mind, but were projected, hot and
smoking, from the fiery crucible of thought.
There seems to me a breathless quality
about them. Moreover I do not think that
there is much trace of the subtle chemis-
try of mutual relations about his char-
acters. In life, people undergo gradual
modifications, and other people exert
psychological effects upon them. But
in Hugh’s books the characters are all
fiercely occupied in being themselves from
start to finish; they have exhausted
moods, but they have not dull or vacant
moods; they are always typical and
emphatic. This is really to me the most
interesting thing about his books, that
they are all projections of his own per-
sonality into his characters. He is behind
[ 183 I
H U G H
them all; and writing with Hugh was, like
so many things that he did, a game which
he played with all his might. I have
spoken about this elsewhere, because it
accounted for much in his life; and when
he was engaged in writing, there was al-
ways the delicious sense of the child,
furiously and absorbingly at play, about
him. $ -
It is said that no artist is ever really
interested in another artist’s work. My
brothers, Fred and Hugh, my sister and
myself would sometimes be at home to-
gether, and all writing books. Hugh
was, I think, always the first inclined to
produce his work for inspection; but we
had a tacit convention which was not
in the least unsympathetic, not to feel
bound to be particularly interested in
each other’s books. My books, I felt,
bored Hugh more than his bored me; but
there was this advantage, that when we
read each other's books, as we often did,
any critical praise that we could offer was
much more appreciated than if we had
[ 184 I
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Aged 39
IN 1910.

L O V E O F W R IT IN G
felt bound to proffer conventional ad-
miration. Hugh once told me that he
envied my Sostenuto; but on another oc-
casion, when I said I had nothing to write
about, and feared I had written too many
books, Hugh said: “Why not write a book
about having nothing to write about?”
It was good advice and I took it. I can
remember his real and obvious pleasure
when I once praised Richard Raymal to
him with all my might. But though he
enjoyed praise, it was always rather be-
cause it confirmed his own belief that his
work was worth doing. He did not de-
pend in the smallest degree either upon
applause or sympathy. Indeed, by the
time that a book was out, he had generally
got another on the stocks, and did not
care about the previous one at all.
Neither do I think that his books
emanated from a high artistic ideal. I
do not believe that he was really much
interested in his craft. Rather he visual-
ised a story very vividly, and then it
seemed to him the finest fun in the world
[185 I
H U G H
to spin it all as rapidly as he could out of
his brain, to make it all alert with glanc-
ing life. It was all a personal confession;
his books bristle with his own dreams, his
own dilemmas, his own social relations;
and when he had once firmly realised the
Catholic attitude, it seemed to him the
one thing worth writing about.
While I write these pages I have been
dipping into The Conventionalists. It is
full of glow and drama, even melodrama;
but somehow it does not recall Hugh to
my mind. That seems strange to me,
but I think of him as always larger than
his books, less peremptory, more tolerant,
more impatient of strain. The book is
full of strain; but then I remember that
in the old days, when he played games,
he was a provoking and even derisive
antagonist, and did not in the least resent
his adversaries being both; and I come
back to my belief in the game, and the
excitement of the game. I do not, after
all, believe that his true nature flowed
quite equably into his books, as I think
[ 186 I.
T H E N O V E L S
it did into The Light Invisible and Richard
Raymal. It was a demonstration, and he
enjoyed using his skill and adroitness;
he loved to present the Smouldering and
flashing of passions, the thrill and sting
of which he had never known. Saved as
he was by his temperament alike from deep
suffering and tense emotion, and from any
vital mingling either with the scum and
foam or with the stagnancy and mire of
life, the books remain as a brilliant illusion,
with much of the shifting hues and chang-
ing glimmer of his own ardent and restless
mind rippling over the surface of a depth
which is always a little mysterious as to
the secrets it actually holds.
[ 187 I
XV h'
FAILING HEALTH
UGH’S health on the whole was
good up to the year 1912, though
he had a troublesome ailment, long ig-
nored, which gave him a good deal of
malaise. He very much disliked being
spoken to about his health, and accepted
no suggestions on the subject. But he
determined at the end of 1912, after en-
during great pain, to have an operation,
which was quite successful, but the shock
of which was considerable. He came down
to Tremans just before, and it was clear
that he suffered greatly; but so far from
dreading the operation, he anticipated it
with a sense of immense relief, and after
it was over, though he was long unwell, he
was in the highest spirits. But he said
after he came back from Rome that he felt
ten years older; and I can recall his com-
[ 188 ||
º
- - -
Photo by H. Abbott, Lindfield
-
-
AT TREMANS, HORSTED KEYNES
DECEMBER, 1913
A. C. Benson. R. H. Benson. E. F. Benson.
Aged 51. Aged 42. Aged 46.

IL. L N E SS
ing down to Cambridge not long after and
induging one evening in an immense series
of yawns, for which he apologised, saying,
“I’m tired, I’m tired — not at the top, but
deep down inside, don’t you know?”
But it was not until 1914 that his health
really declined. He came over to Cam-
bridge at the beginning of August, when
the war was impending. He stayed with
me over the Sunday; he was tired and
overstrained, complained that he felt un-
able to fix his mind upon anything, and
he was in considerable depression about
the possibility of war. I have never seen
him so little able to throw off an anxiety;
but he dined in Hall with me on the Sun-
day night, met some old friends, and was
full of talk. He told me later in the even-
ing that he was in much anxiety about
some anonymous menace which he had re-
ceived. He would not enter into details,
but he spoke very gravely about it. How-
ever, later in the month, I went over with
a friend to see him at Hare Street, and
found him in cheerful spirits in spite of
[ 189 I
H U G H
everything. He had just got the place,
he said, into perfect order, and now all it
wanted was to be left alone. It was a day
of bright hot sunlight, and we lunched out
of doors near the chapel under the shade of
the yew trees. He produced a peculiar
and pleasant wine, which he had made
on the most scientific principles out of
his own grapes. We went round and
looked at everything, and he showed me
the preparation for the last adornment,
which was to be a rose garden near the
chapel. We walked into the orchard and
stood near the Calvary, little thinking
that he would be laid to rest there hardly
two months later.
The weeks passed on, and at the end of
September I went to stay near Ambleside
with some cousins, the Marshalls, in a
beautiful house called Skelwith Fold,
among lovely woodlands, with the moun-
tains rising on every side, and a far-off
view down Langdale. Here I found Hugh
staying. He was writing some Collects
for time of war, and read many of them
[ 190 I
I L L N E S S
aloud to me for criticism. He was also
painting in oils, attempting very difficult
landscapes with considerable success. They
stood drying in the study, and he was
much absorbed in them; he also was fish-
ing keenly in a little trout lake near the
house, and walking about with a gun.
His spirits were very equable and good.
But he told me that he had gone out
shooting in September over some fields
lent him by a neighbour, and had had to
return owing to breathlessness; and he
added that he suffered constantly from
breathlessness and pain in the chest and
arms, that he could only walk a few paces
at a time, and then had to rest to recover
his breath. He did not seem to be anxious
about it, but he went down one morning
to celebrate Mass at Ambleside, refusing
the offer of the car, and found himself in
such pain that he then and there went to
a doctor, who said that he believed it to
be indigestion.
He sat that morning after breakfast
with me, Smoking, and complaining that
[ 191 I
H U G H
the pain was very severe. But he did
not look ill; and the pain suddenly left
him. “Oh what bliss!” he said. “It’s
gone, suddenly and entirely – and now
I must go out and finish my sketch.”
The only two things that made me feel
anxious were that he had given up smoking
to a considerable extent, and that he said he
meant to consult our family doctor; but
he was so lively and animated — I remem-
ber one night the immense Zest and inten-
sity with which he played a game of
throwing an old pack of cards across the
room into the grate — that it was
impossible to think that his condition was
serious.
Indeed, I said good-bye to him when he
went off, without the least anticipation of
evil. My real hope was that he would be
told he had been overdoing it, and ordered
to rest; and a few days later, when I
heard that this was what the doctor ad-
vised, I wrote to him suggesting that he
should come and settle at Cambridge for a
couple of months, do exactly what he
[192 I
M E D I C A L A D VI C E
liked, and see as much or as little of people
as he liked. It seems that he showed this
letter to one of the priests at Manchester,
and said, “There, that is what I call a real
invitation — that is what I shall do!”
Dr. Ross-Todd saw him, and told him
that it was a neuralgic affection, “false
angina,” and that his heart was sound, but
that he must diminish his work. He
pleaded to be allowed to finish his imminent
engagements; the doctor said that he
might do that, if he would put off all sub-
sequent ones. This was wisely done, in
order to reassure him, as he was an excit-
able though not a timid patient. He was
at Hare Street for a day or two, and his
trusted servant, Mr. Reeman, tells me that
he seemed ill and out of spirits. The last
words he said as he drove away, looking
round the lime-encircled lawn, were, “Ah!
the leaves will all be gone when I come
home again.”
He preached at Salford on October 4, and
went to Ulverston on October 5, where he
conducted a mission. On October 10 he
[193 I
H U G H
returned, and Canon Sharrock says that
he arrived in great pain, and had to move
very slowly. But he preached again on
October 11, though he used none of the
familiar gestures, but stood still in the
pulpit. He suffered much after the ser-
mon, and rested long in a chair in the
sacristy. He started to go to London on
the Monday morning, but had to return in
the taxi, feeling too ill to travel. Then fol-
lowed days of acute pain, during which he
no doubt caught a severe chill. He could
not sleep, and he could only obtain relief
by standing up. He wandered restlessly
one night about the corridors, very lightly
clad, and even went out into the court.
He stood for two or three hours leaning
on the mantelpiece of his room, with
Father Gorman sitting near him, and try-
ing in vain to persuade him to retire to
bed.
When he was not suffering he was full
of life, and even of gaiety. He went one of
these afternoons, at his own suggestion, to
a cinema show with one of the priests, but
[ 194 I
P N E U M O N IA
though he enjoyed it, and even laughed
heartily, he said later that it had exhausted
him.
He wrote some letters, putting off many
of his autumn and winter engagements.
But he grew worse; a specialist was called
in, and, though the diagnosis was entirely
confirmed, it was found that pneumonia
had set in.
[195 T.
XVI
THE END
HAD spent a long day in London at a
business meeting, where we discussed a
complicated educational problem. I came
away alone; I was anxious to have news of
my sister, who had that morning under-
gone a slight operation; but I was not
gravely disquieted, because no serious com-
plications were expected.
When I reached my house there were
two telegrams awaiting me, one to say
that the operation had gone well, the other
from Canon Sharrock, of Salford, to say
that my brother was dangerously ill of
pneumonia. I wired at once for a further
report, and before it arrived made up my
mind that I must go to him. I waited till
the reply came — it was a little more
favourable — went up to London, and
caught a midnight train for Manchester.
[196 ||
M A N C H E S T E R.
The news had the effect which a sudden
shock is apt to have, of inducing a sense of
curious unreality. I neither read nor slept,
nor even thought coherently. I was just
aware of disaster and fear. I was alone in
my compartment. Sometimes we passed
through great, silent, deserted stations, or
stopped outside a junction for an express
to pass. "At one or two places there was a
crowd of people, seeing off a party of sol-
diers, with songs and cheers. Further
north I was aware at one time that the
train was labouring up a long incline, and
I had a faint sense of relief when suddenly
the strain relaxed, and the train began to
run swiftly and smoothly downwards; I
had just one thought, the desire to reach
my brother, and over and over again the
dread of what I might hear.
It was still dark and chilly when I
arrived at Manchester. The great station
was nearly empty. I drove hurriedly
through dimly-lit streets. Sometimes great
factories towered up, or dark house-fronts
shuttered close. Here there were high steel
[197
H U G H
networks of viaducts overhead, or parapets
of bridges over hidden waterways. At last
I came to where a great church towered up,
and an iron-studded door in a blank wall
appeared. I was told this was the place,
and pushing it open I went up a stone-
flagged path, among beds of soot-stained
shrubs, to where a lantern shone in the
porch of a sombre house. There was a
window high up on the left, where a
shaded lamp was burning and a fire flick-
ered on the ceiling, and I knew instinct-
ively that this was my brother's room. I
rang, and presently a weary-eyed, kindly
priest, in a hastily-donned cassock, ap-
peared. He said at once that my brother
was a little better and was asleep. The
doctors were to see him at nine. I asked
where I could go, and he advised a hotel
hard by. “We did not expect you,” he
said, “ or we would have had a room
ready, but now I fear we could hardly
make you comfortable.”
I went to the hotel, a big, well-equipped
place, and was taken to a bedroom, where
[198 I
L. A S T I L L N E S S
I slept profoundly, out of utter weariness.
Then I went down to the Bishop’s House
again at nine o’clock. By daylight Man-
chester had a grim and sinister air. It was
raining softly and the air was heavy with
smoke. The Bishop’s House stood in what
was evidently a poor quarter, full of mean
houses and factories, all of red brick,
smeared and stained with soot. The house
itself appeared like a great college, with
paved corridors, dark arches, and many
doors. There was a lighted room like a
sacristy, and a faint scent of incense drifted
in from the door which led into the church.
Upstairs, in a huge throne-room with a
gilded chair of state and long, bare tables,
I met the doctors — Dr. Bradley, a Catho-
lic, and Professor Murray, a famous Man-
chester physician, in khaki uniform, both
most gentle and kind. Canon Sharrock
joined us, a tall, robust man, with a
beautiful tenderness of manner and a
brotherly air. They gave me a better
report, but could not disguise from me
that things were very critical. It was
[ 199 T
H U G H
pneumonia of a very grave kind which had
supervened on a condition of overwork and
exhaustion. I see now that they had very
little hope of recovery, but I did not
wholly perceive it then. w
Then I went with the Canon to the end
of the room. I saw two iron cylinders on
the table with brass fittings, and somehow
knew that they contained oxygen.
The Canon knocked, and Hugh’s voice
said, clearly and resonantly, “Come in.”
I found him in bed, in a big library, the
Bishop’s own room. There were few signs
of illness except a steam-kettle and a few
bottles; a nurse was in the adjoining room.
He was unable to speak very much, as his
throat troubled him; but he was full of
humour and brightness. I told him such
news as I could think of. He knew that I
was very busy, but was pleased that I had
come to see him. He said that he felt
really better, and that I should be able to
go back the next day. He said a few words
about a will he had made, but added,
“Mind, I don’t think I am going to die! I
[200 I
Photo by Lofthouse, Crosbie & Co.
BISHOP'S HOUSE, SALFORD
The Church on the left is the transept of St. John's Cathedral,
Salford, where Hugh preached his last sermon. The room
in which he died was the Bishop's Library. One of its win-
dows is visible on the first floor to the left of the porch.

L. A S T H O U R S
did yesterday, but I feel really better.
This is only by way of precaution.” We
talked about a friend of mine in Man-
chester, a militant Protestant. “Yes,”
said Hugh, “he spoke of me the other day
as a “hell-hound’— not very tactful!” He
said that he could not sleep for long
together, but that he did not feel tired —
only bored. I was told I must not stay
long with him. He said once or twice,
“It’s awfully good of you to have come.”
I went away after a little, feeling very
much reassured. He did not give the
impression of being gravely ill at all, he
was so entirely himself. I wrote a few
letters and then returned, while he ate his
luncheon, a baked apple — but this was
painful to him and he soon desisted. He
talked again a little, with the same liveli-
ness, but as he began to be drowsy, I left
him again.
Dr. Bradley soon came to me, and con-
fessed he felt anxious. “It may be a long
and critical business,” he said. “If he can
maintain his strength like this for several
[201 T.
H U G H
days, he may turn the corner — he is a
difficult patient. He is not afraid, but he
is excitable, and is always asking for relief
and suggesting remedies.” I said some-
thing about summoning the others. “On
no account,” he said. “It would give him
the one impression we must try to avoid –
much depends upon his own hopefulness.”
I went back to my hotel, slumbered over
a book, went in for a little to the cathedral
service, and came back about five o’clock.
The nurse was not in the room at the mo-
ment. Hugh said a few words to me, but
had a sudden attack of faintness. I gave
him a little whisky at his own request, the
doctor was fetched, and there followed a
very anxious hour, while various remedies
were tried, and eventually oxygen revived
him. He laid his head down on the pillow,
smiled at me, and said, “Oh, what bliss!
I feel absolutely comfortable — it’s won-
derful.”
The doctor beckoned me out, and told
me that I had better move my things
across to the house and sleep there. “I
[202 ||
A N XI E T Y
don’t like the look of things at all,” he
said; “your place is certainly here.” He
added that we had better wait until the
morning before deciding whether the others
should be sent for. I moved my things in,
and had supper with the priests, who were
very kind to me. They talked much about
Hugh, of his gaiety and humour; and I
saw that he had given his best to these
friends of his, and lived with them in
brotherly simplicity.
I did not then think he was going to die,
and I certainly expected no sudden change.
I ought, no doubt, to have realised that
the doctors had done their best to prepare
me for his death; but the mind has an
instinctive way of holding out the shield of
hope against such fears.
I was told at this time that he to was be
left quiet, so I merely slipped in at ten
o'clock. Hugh was drowsy and resting
quietly; he just gave me a nod and a smile.
The one thing which made me anxious,
on thinking over our interviews in the
course of the day was this — that he
I 203 |
H U G H
seemed to have a preoccupation in his
mind, though he had spoken cheerfully
enough about various matters. It did not
seem either a fear or an anxiety. It was
rather that he knew that he might die, I
now believe, and that he desired to live,
and was thinking about all the things he
had to do and wished to do, and that his
trains of thought continually ended in the
thought —“Perhaps I may not live to do
them.” He wished too, I thought, to reas-
sure himself, and was pleased at feeling
better, and at seeing that I thought him
better than I had expected. He was a
sensitive patient, the doctor said, and often
suggested means of keeping up his strength.
But he showed no fear at any time,
though he seemed like one who was facing
a foe; like a soldier in the trenches with
an enemy opposite him whom he could
not quite discern.
However, I went off to bed, feeling sud-
denly very tired — I had been for thirty-
six hours almost without sleep, and it
seemed to me as if whole days had passed
[204]
L A S T W O R D S
since I left Cambridge. My room was far
away, a little plain cell in a distant corridor
high up. I slept a little; when suddenly,
through the glass window above my door,
I saw the gleam of a light, and became
aware that someone was rapidly drawing
near in the corridor. In a moment Canon
Sharrock tapped and entered. He said:
“Mr. Benson, your brother is sinking fast
— he has asked for you; he said, ‘Is my
brother anywhere near at hand?’ and when
I said yes, that you were in the house, he
said, ‘Thank God!’ Do not lose any time;
I will leave the nurse on the stairs to light
you.” He went out, and I put on a few
things and went down the great dark
arches of the staircase, with a glimmering
light below, and through the throne-room
with the nurse. When I came in I saw
Hugh sitting up in bed; they had put a
chair beside him, covered with cushions,
for him to lean against. He was pale and
breathing very fast, with the nurse spong-
ing his brow. Canon Sharrock was stand-
ing at the foot of the bed, with his stole on,
[205 T.
H U G H
reading the last prayers from a little book.
When I entered, Hugh fixed his eyes on me
with a strange smile, with something tri-
umphant in it, and said in a clear, natural
voice, “Arthur, this is the end l’” I knelt
down near the bed. He looked at me, and
I knew somehow that we understood each
other well, that he wanted no word or
demonstration, but was just glad I was
with him. The prayers began again.
Hugh crossed himself faintly once or twice,
made a response or two. Then he said:
“I beg your pardon — one moment – my
love to them all.” The big room was
brightly lit; something on the hearth boiled
over, and the nurse went across the room.
Hugh said to me: “You will make certain
I am dead, won’t you?” I said “Yes,”
and then the prayers went on. Suddenly
he said to the nurse: “Nurse, is it any
good my resisting death — making any
effort?” The nurse said: “No, Mon-
signor; just be as quiet as you can.” He
closed his eyes at this, and his breath came
quicker. Presently he opened his eyes
[206 I
P A S S I N G O N
again and looked at me, and said in a low
voice: “Arthur, don’t look at me! Nurse,
stand between my brother and me!” He
moved his hand to indicate where she
should stand. I knew well what was in
his mind; we had talked not long before
of the shock of certain sights, and how a
dreadful experience could pierce through
the reason and wound the inner spirit; and
I knew that he wished to spare me the pain
of seeing him die. Once or twice he drew
up his hands as though trying to draw
breath, and sighed a little; but there was
no struggle or apparent pain. He spoke
once more and said: “I commit my soul
to God, to Mary, and to Joseph.” The
nurse had her hand upon his pulse, and
presently laid his hand down, saying: “It
is all over.” He looked very pale and boy-
ish then, with wide open eyes and parted
lips. I kissed his hand, which was warm
and firm, and went out with Canon
Sharrock, who said to me: “It was won-
derful! I have seen many people die, but
no one ever so easily and quickly.”
[207 ||
H U G H
It was wonderful indeed! It seemed to
me then, in that moment, strange rather
than sad. He had been himself to the very
end, no diminution of vigour, no yielding,
no humiliation, with all his old courtesy
and thoughtfulness and collectedness, and
at the same time, I felt, with a real adven-
turousness — that is the only word I can
use. I recognised that we were only the
spectators, and that he was in command of
the scene. He had made haste to die, and
he had gone, as he was always used to do,
straight from one finished task to another
that waited for him. It was not like an
end; it was as though he had turned a
corner, and was passing on, out of sight but
still unquestionably there. It seemed to
me like the death of a soldier or a knight,
in its calmness of courage, its splendid
facing of the last extremity, its magnificent
determination to experience, open-eyed and
vigilant, the dark crossing. -
[208 T
THE CALWARY AT HARE STREET, 1913
The grave is to the left of the mound.

XVII
BURIAL

E had thought that he should be
buried at Manchester; but a paper
of directions was found saying that he
wished to be buried at Hare Street, in his
own orchard, at the foot of his Calvary.
My mother arrived on the Monday even-
ing, and in the course of Tuesday we saw
his body for the last time, in biretta
and cassock, with a rosary in his hands.
He looked strangely young, like a statue
carved in alabaster, with no trace of pain
or weariness about him, simply asleep.
His coffin was taken to the midnight
train by the clergy of the Salford Cathedral
and from Buntingford station by my
brother Fred to his own little chapel, where
it rested all the Thursday. On the Friday
the Cardinal came down, with Canons from
Westminster and the choir. A solemn
[ 209 |
H U G H
Requiem was sung. The Cardinal con-
secrated a grave, and he was laid there, in
the sight of a large concourse of mourners.
It was very wonderful to see them. There
were many friends and neighbours, but
there were also many others, unknown to
me and even to each other, whom Hugh
had helped and comforted in different ways,
and whose deep and visible grief testified
to the sorrow of their loss and to the
loyalty of their affection.
I spent some strange solitary days at
Hare Street in the week which followed,
going over from Cambridge and returning,
working through papers and letters. There
were all Hugh’s manuscripts and notes,
his books of sermons, all the written evi-
dences of his ceaseless energy. It was an
astonishing record of diligence and patient
effort. It seemed impossible to believe
that in a life of perpetual travelling and
endless engagements he yet had been able
to accomplish all this mass of work. His
correspondence too — though he had evi-
dently destroyed all private spiritual con-
[210 |
H IS P A P E R S
fidences — was of wide and varied range,
and it was difficult to grasp that it yet
represented the work of so comparatively
few years. The accumulation also of little,
unknown, unnamed gifts was very great,
while the letters of grief and sympathy
which I received from friends of his, whose
very names were unknown to me, showed
how intricate and wide his personal rela-
tions had been. And yet he had carried all
this burden very lightly and easily. I
realised how wonderful his power must
have been of storing away in his mind the
secrets of many hearts, always ready to
serve them, and yet able to concentrate
himself upon any work of his own.
In his directions he spoke of his great
desire to keep his house and chapel as
much as possible in their present state.
“I have spent an immense amount of time
and care on these things,” he said. It
seemed that he had nearly realised his
wish, by careful economy, to live at Hare
Street quietly and without anxiety, even
if his powers had failed him; and it was
[211 I
H U G H
strange to walk as I did, one day when
I had nearly finished my task, round about
the whole garden, which had been so
tangled and weed-choked a wilderness,
and the house at first so ruinous and bare,
and to realise that it was all complete and
perfect, a setting of order and peace.
How insecure and frail the beautiful hopes
of permanence and quiet enjoyment all
seemed ! I passed over the smooth lawn,
under the leafless limes, through the yew-
tree walk to the orchard, where the grave
lay, with the fading wreaths, and little
paths trodden in the grass; by the hazel
hedge and the rose-garden, and the ranked
vegetable rows with their dying flower-
borders; into the chapel with its fantasy
of ornament, where the lamp burned before
the shrine; through the house, with its
silent panelled rooms all so finely ordered,
all prepared for daily use and tranquil
delight. It seemed impossible that he
should not be returning soon in joyful
haste, as he used to return, pleased to
show his new designs and additions. But
[212 I
A F T E R - T H O U G H TS
I could not think of him as having any
shadow of regret about it all, or as coming
back, a pathetic revenant, to the scene of
his eager inventiveness. That was never
his way, to brood over what had been
done. It was always the new, the un-
touched, the untried, that he was in search
of. Hugh never wished that he had done
otherwise, nor did he indulge in the pas-
sion of the past, or in the half-sad, half-
luxurious retrospect of the days that are
no more. “Ah,” I could fancy him say-
ing, “that was all delightful while it lasted
— it was the greatest fun in the world!
But now!” — and I knew as well in my
heart and mind as if he had come behind
me and spoken to me, that he was moving
rapturously in some new experience of
life and beauty. He loved indeed to speak
of old days, to recall them vividly and
ecstatically, as though they were actually
present to him; and I could think of him
as even delighting to go over with me
those last hours of his life that we spent
together, not with any shadow of dread
[213 I
H U G H
or shrinking, but just as it pleased Odys-
seus to tell the tale of how he sped down
the whirlpool, with death beneath and
death above, facing it all, taking it all in,
not cherishing any delusion of hope, and
yet enjoying it as an adventure of real
experience which it was good to have
tasted even so.
And when I came to look at some of his
letters, and saw the sweet and generous
things which he had said of myself in the
old days, his gratitude for trifling kind-
nesses and gifts which I had myself for-
gotten, I felt a touch of sorrow for a
moment that I had not been even nearer
to him than I was, and more in his en-
livening company; and I remembered how,
when he arrived to see me, he would come
lightly in, say a word of greeting, and
plunge into talk of all that we were doing;
and then I felt that I must not think of
him unworthily, as having any grievance
or shadow of concern about my many
negligences and coldnesses: but that we
were bound by ties of lasting love and
[214
T H E B O N D OF L O V E
trust, and shared a treasure of dear mem-
ories and kindnesses; and that I might
leave his spirit in its newly found activities,
take up my own task in the light of his
vivid example, and look forward to a day
when we might be again together, sharing
recollection and purpose alike, as cheer-
fully and gladly as we had done in the
good days that were gone, with all the
added joy of the new dawn, and with
the old understanding made more perfect.
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StºA out 10& ‘pooj on quoroſſipur KIOUA od
O1 pouloos Uroljo put od pinoo ouſ Ujnoun
put fonoose KeAA ou uſ stºw opp uſ.IOJIun.
stu SoxHI IoIpſos tº St. ‘oinouſo uosum to
put XIoosseo pošpo-pol stu ‘oid.Ind sºloušIS
GI ov I no o
[ LI& T
H U G H
him against the hedge on the opposite
side of the road. -
He liked a degree of comfort, and took
great pleasure in having beautiful things
about him. “I do not believe that lovely
things should be stamped upon,” he once
wrote to a friend who was urging the dan-
gers of a strong sense of beauty; adding,
“should they not rather be led in chains?”
Yet his taste was not at all severe, and
he valued things for their associations
and interest as much as he did for their
beauty. He had a great accumulation
of curious, pretty, and interesting things
at Hare Street, and took a real pleasure
in possession. At the same time he was
not in the least dependent on such things,
and could be perfectly happy in bare and
ugly rooms. There was no touch of
luxuriousness about him, and the adorn-
ment of his house was one of the games
that he played. One of his latest amuse-
ments was to equip and catalogue his
library. He was never very much of a
reader, except for a specific purpose. He
[218 I
H U M O U R.
read the books that came in his way, but
he had no technical knowledge of English
literature. There were many English clas-
sics which he never looked into, and he
made no attempt to follow modern devel-
opments. But he read books so quickly
that he was acquainted more or less with
a wide range of authors. At the same time
he never wasted any time in reading books
which did not interest him, and he knew
by a sort of intuition the kind of books
he cared about.
He was of late years one of the liveliest
and most refreshing of talkers. As a boy
and a young man he was rather silent
than otherwise in the family circle, but
latterly it was just the opposite. He
talked about anything that was in his
mind, but at the same time he did not
wish to keep the talk in his own hands,
and had an eager and delighted recogni-
tion of his companion’s thoughts and
ideas.
His sense of humour was unfailing, and
when he laughed, he laughed with the
[219 |
H U G. H.
whole of himself, loudly and contagiously,
abandoning himself with tears in his eyes
to helpless paroxysms of mirth. There was
never the smallest touch of affectation or
priggishness about his attitude, and he
had none of the cautious and uneasy
reverence which is apt to overshadow
men of piety. He was intensely amused
by the humorous side of the people and
the institutions which he loved. Here
are two slight illustrations which come
back to my mind. He told me these two
stories in one day at Tremans. One was
that of a well-known Anglican Bishop who
attended a gathering of clergy, and in his
valedictory speech said that they would
expect him to make some allusion to the
fact that one who had attended their last
meeting was no longer of the Anglican
communion, having joined the Church of
Rome. They would all, he said, regret
the step which he had thought fit to take;
but they must not forget the serious fall
their poor friend had had from his bicycle
not long before, which had undoubtedly
[220 J
M A N L IN E S S
affected gravely his mental powers. Then
he told me of an unsatisfactory novice
in a religious house who had been expelled
from the community for serious faults.
His own account of it was that the reason
why he was expelled was that he used to
fall asleep at meditation, and Snore so
loud that he awoke the elder brethren.
Though Hugh held things sacred, he
did not hold them inconveniently sacred,
and it did not affect their sacredness if
they had also a humorous side to them.
He had no temptation to be easily shocked,
and though he hated all impure suggestive-
ness, he could be amused by what may be
called broad humour. I always felt him
to be totally free from prudishness, and
it seemed to me that he drew the line in
exactly the right place between things that
might be funny and unrefined, and things
which were merely coarse and gross. The
fact was that he had a perfectly simple
manliness about him, and an infallible
tact, which was wholly unaffected, as to
the limits of decorum. The result was
[221 I
H U G H
that one could talk to him with the utmost
plainness and directness. His was not a
cloistered and secluded temperament. He
knew the world, and had no fear of it or
shrinking from it.
He dearly loved an argument, and could
be both provoking and incisive. He was
vehement, and hated dogmatic statements
with which he did not agree. When he
argued, he used a good deal of gesture,
waving his hands as though to clear the
air, emphasising what he said with little
sweeps and openings of his hands, some-
times covering his face and leaning for-
wards, as if to gain time for the onset.
His arguments were not so much clear
as ingenious, and I never knew anyone
who could defend a poor case so vigorously.
When he was strained and tired, he would
argue more tenaciously, and employ fan-
tastic illustrations with great skill; but
it always blew over very quickly, and as
a rule he was good-tempered and reason-
able enough. But he liked best a rapid
and various interchange of talk. He was
S T A M M E R IN G
bored by slow-moving and solemn minds,
but could extract a secret joy from pom-
pous utterances, while nothing delighted
him more than a full description of the
exact talk and behaviour of affected and
absurd people.
His little stammer was a very charac-
teristic part of his manner. It was much
more marked when he was a boy and a
young man, and it varied much with his
bodily health. I believe that it never
affected him when preaching or speaking
in public, though he was occasionally
nervous about its doing so. It was not,
so to speak, a long and leisurely stammer,
as was the case with my uncle, Henry
Sidgwick, the little toss of whose head as
he disengaged a troublesome word, after
long dallying with a difficult consonant,
added a touch of friandise to his talk.
Hugh’s stammer was rather like a vain
attempt to leap over an obstacle, and
showed itself as a simple hesitation rather
than as a repetition. He used, after a
slight pause, to bring out a word with a
H U G H
deliberate emphasis, but it never ap-
peared to suspend the thread of his talk.
I remember an occasion, as a young man,
when he took sherry, contrary to his wont,
through some dinner-party; and when
asked why he had done this, he said that
it happened to be the only liquid the name
of which he was able to pronounce on that
evening. He used to feel humiliated by
it, and I have heard him say, “I’m sorry
— I’m stammering badly to-night!” but
it would never have been very noticeable,
if he had not attended to it. It is clear,
however, from some of his letters that he
felt it to be a real disability in talk, and
even fancied that it made him absurd,
though as a matter of fact the little out-
ward dart of his head, as he forced the
recalcitrant word out, was a gesture which
his friends both knew and loved.
He learned to adapt himself to persons
of very various natures, and indeed was
so eager to meet people on their own
ground that it seems to me he was to a
certain extent misapprehended. I have
[224
E A G E R N E S S
seen a good many things said about him
since his death which seem to me to be
entire misinterpretations of him, arising
from the simple fact that they were re-
flections of his companion’s mood mir-
rored in his own sympathetic mind. Fur-
ther, I am sure that what was something
very like patient and courteous boredom
in him, when he was confronted with some
sentimental and egotistical character, was
interpretated as a sad and remote un-
worldliness. Someone writing of him spoke
of his abstracted and far-off mood, with
his eyes indwelling in a rapture of hal-
lowed thought. This seems to me wholly
unlike Hugh. He was far more likely to
have been considering how he could get
away to something which interested him
ICOLOI’62.
Hugh’s was really a very fresh and
sparkling nature, never insipid, intent
from morning to night on a vital enjoy-
ment of life in all its aspects. I do not
mean that he was always wanting to be
amused — it was very far from that.
[225 I
H U G H
Amusement was the spring of his social
mood; but he had a passion too for silence
and solitude. His devotions were eagerly
and rapturously practised; then he turned
to his work. “Writing seems to me now
the only thing worth doing in the world,”
he says in one of his letters when he was
deep in a book. Then he flung himself
into gardening and handicraft, back again
to his writings, or his correspondence, and
again to his prayers.
But it is impossible to select one of his
moods, and to say that his true life lay
there. His life lay in all of them. If
work was tedious to him, he comforted
himself with the thought that it would
soon be done. He was an excellent man
of affairs, never “slothful in business,”
but with great practical ability. He made
careful bargains for his books, and looked
after his financial interests tenaciously
and diligently, with a definite purpose
always in his mind. He lived, I am sure,
always looking forward and anticipating.
I do not believe he dwelt at all upon the
[226 I
IND EP E N D E N C E
past. It was life in which he was inter-
ested. As I walked with my mother about
the beautiful garden, after his funeral, I
said to her: “It seems almost too pathetic
to be borne that Hugh should just have
completed all this.” “Yes,” she said,
“but I am sure we ought to think only
that it meant to him seven years of very
great happiness.” That was perfectly
true! If he had been called upon to leave
Hare Street to take up some important
work elsewhere, he would certainly not
have dwelt on the pathetic side of it him-
self. He would have had a pang, as when
he kissed the doorposts of his room at
Mirfield on departing. But he would
have gone forward, and he would have
thought of it no more. He had a supreme
power of casting things behind him, and he
was far too intent on the present to have
indulged in sentimental reveries of what
had been.
It is clear to me, from what the doctors
said after his death, that if the pneumonia
which supervened upon great exhaustion
[227 I
H U G H
had been averted, he would have had to
give up much of his work for a long time,
and devote himself to rest and deliberate
idleness. I cannot conceive how he would
have borne it. He came once to be my
companion for a few days, when I was
suffering from a long period of depression
and overwork. I could do nothing except
answer a few letters. I could neither write
nor read, and spent much of my time in
the open air, and more in drowsing in
misery over an unread book. Hugh, after
observing me for a little, advised me to
work quite deliberately, and to divide up
my time among various occupations. It
would have been useless to attempt it, for
Nature was at work recuperating in her
own way by an enforced listlessness and
dreariness. But I have often since then
thought how impossible it would have been
for him to have endured such a condition.
He had nothing passive about him; and I
feel that he had every right to live his life
On his own lines, to neglect warnings, to
refuse advice. A man must find out his
[228 I
F O R. W. A. R. D
own method, and take the risks which it
may involve. And though I would have
done and given anything to have kept him
with us, and though his loss is one which
I feel daily and constantly, yet I would not
have it otherwise. He put into his life an
energy of activity and enjoyment such as I
have rarely seen. He gave his best lavishly
and ungrudgingly. Even the dreadful and
tragical things which he had to face he
took with a relish of adventure. He has
told me of situations in which he found
himself, from which he only saved himself
by entire coolness and decisiveness, the
retrospect of which he actually enjoyed.
“It was truly awful!” he would say, with
a shiver of pleasing horror. But it was all
worked into a rich and glowing tapestry,
which he wove with all his might, and the
fineness of his life seems to me to consist
in this, that he made his own choices,
found out the channels in which his powers
could best move, and let the stream gush
forth. He did not shelter himself fastidi-
ously, or creep away out of the glare and
[229 J
H U G. H.
noise. He took up the staff and scrip of
pilgrimage, and, while he kept his eyes on
the Celestial City, he enjoyed every inch
of the way, as well the assaults and shad-
ows and the toils as the houses of kindly
entertainment, with all their curious con-
tents, the talk of fellow-pilgrims, the
arbours of refreshment, until his feet
touched the brink of the river, and even
there he went fearlessly forward.
[230 I
XIX
RETROSPECT
OW that I have traced the progress
of Hugh’s outer life from step to
step, I will try to indicate what in the
region of mind and soul his progress was,
and I would wish to do this with particular
care, even at the risk of repeating myself
somewhat, because I believe that his na-
ture was one that changed in certain ways
very much; it widened and deepened
greatly, and most of all in the seven last
years of his life, when I believe that he
found himself in the best and truest sense.
As a boy, up to the age of eighteen or
nineteen, it was, I believe, a vivid and
unreflective nature, much absorbed in the
little pattern of life as he saw it, neither
expansive nor fed upon secret visions. It
was always a decided nature. He never,
as a child, needed to be amused; he never
D 231 I
- H U G H
said, “What shall I do? Tell me what to
do!” He liked constant companionship,
but he had always got little businesses of
his own going on; he joined in games, and
joined keenly in them, but if a public game
was not to his taste, he made no secret
that he was bored, and, if he was released,
he went off on his own errands. I do not
remember that he ever joined in a general
game because of any sociable impulse
merely, but because it amused him; and if
he separated himself and went off, he had
no resentment nor any pathetic feeling
about being excluded.
When he went on to school he lived a
sociable but isolated life. His companions
were companions rather than friends. He
did not, I think, ever form a romantic and
adoring friendship, such as are common
enough with emotional boys. He did not
give his heart away; he just took a vivid
and animated interest in the gossip, the
interplay, the factions and parties of his
circle; but it was all rather a superficial
life — he used to say that he had neither
[232 I
B O Y H O O D
aims nor ambitions — he took very little
interest in his work and not much interest
in games. He just desired to escape cen-
sure, and he was not greedy of praise.
There was nothing listless or dreamy about
it all. If he neglected his work, it was
because he found talk and laughter more
interesting. No string ran through his
days; they were just to be taken as they
came, enjoyed, dismissed. But he never
wanted to appear other than he was, or to
be admired or deferred to. There was
never any sense of pose about him nor the
smallest affectation. He was very indif-
ferent as to what was thought of him, and
not sensitive; but he held his own, and
insisted on his rights, allowed no dictation,
followed no lead. All the time, I suppose,
he was gathering in impressions of the out-
sides of things — he did not dip beyond
that: he was full of quite definite tastes,
desires, and prejudices; and though he was
interested in life, he was not particularly
interested in what lay behind it. He was
not in the least impressionable, in the sense
[233 T.
H U G H
that others influenced or diverted him
from his own ideas.
Neither had he any strong intellectual
bent. The knowledge which he needed he
acquired quickly and soon forgot it. I do
not think he ever went deeply into things
in those early days, or tried to perfect him-
self in any sort of knowledge. He was
neither generous nor acquisitive; he was
detached, and always rather apt to put his
little possessions away and to forget about
them. It was always the present he was
concerned with; he did not deal with the
past nor with the future.
Then after what had been not so much a
slumber of the spirit as a vivid living
among immediate impressions, the artistic
nature began to awake in him. Music,
architecture, ceremony, began to make
their appeal felt; and he then first recog-
nised the beauty of literary style. But
even so, he did not fling himself creatively
into any of these things at first, even as an
amateur; it was still the perception of
effects that he was concerned with.
[234
V O C A TI O N
It was then, during his first year at Cam-
bridge, that the first promptings of a voca-
tion made themselves felt towards the
priesthood. But he was as yet wholly
unaware of his powers of expression; and
I am sure that his first leanings to the
clerical life were a search for a quiet and
secluded fortress, away from the world, in
which he might pursue an undisturbed and
ordered life of solemnity and delicate
impressions of a sacred sort of beauty.
His desire for community life was caused
by his decided dislike of the world, of fuss
and tedium and conventional occupations.
He was never in the least degree a typical
person. He had no wish to be distin-
guished, or to influence other minds or lives,
or to gain honour or consideration. These
things simply appeared to him as not worth
striving for. What he desired was com-
panionship of a sympathetic kind and the
opportunity of living among the pursuits
he liked best. He never wished to try ex-
periments, and it was always with a spec-
tacular interest that he regarded the world.
[235 I
H U G H
His call was very real, and deeply felt,
and he waited for a whole year to make
sure of it; but he found full decision at
last.
Then came his first ministerial work at
the Eton Mission; and this did not satisfy
him; his strength emerged in the fact that
he did not adopt or defer to the ideals he
found about him: a weaker character
would have embraced them half-heartedly,
tried to smother its own convictions, and
might have ended by habituating itself to
a system. But Hugh was still, half uncon-
sciously, perhaps, in search of his real life;
he did not profess to be guided by anyone,
nor did he ever suspend his own judgment
as to the worth of what he was doing; a
manly and robust philanthropy on Chris-
tian lines was not to his taste. His instinct
was rather for the beautiful element in
religion and in life, and for a mystical con-
secration of all to God. That did not
seem to him to be recognised in the work
which he was doing. If he had been less
independent, he might have crushed it
[236 I
IN DE P E N D E N C E
down, and come to view it as a private
fancy. He might have said to himself
that it was plain that many human spirits
did not feel that more delicate appeal, and
that his duty was to meet other natures
on some common ground.
It is by such sacrifices of personal bias
that much of the original force of the
world is spoiled and wasted. It may be a
noble sacrifice, and it is often nobly made.
But Hugh was not cast in that mould.
His effectiveness was to lie in the fact
that he could disregard many ordinary
motives. He could frankly admire other
methods of work, and yet be quite sure
that his own powers did not lie in that
direction. But though he was modest and
not at all self-assertive, he never had the
least submissiveness nor subservience; nor
was he capable of making any pretences.
Sometimes it seems to happen that men
are punished for wilfulness of choice by
missing great opportunities. A nature
which cannot compromise anything, cannot
ignore details, cannot work with others, is
[237 I
H U G H
sometimes condemned to a fruitless isola-
tion. But it would be wrong to disregard
the fact that circumstances more than once
came to Hugh’s aid; I see very clearly how
he was, so to speak, headed off, as by
some Fatherly purpose, from wasting his
life in ineffectual ways. Probably he might
have worked on at the Eton Mission,
might have lost heart and vigour, might
never have discovered his real powers, if
he had not been rescued. His illness at
this juncture cut the knot for him; and
then followed a time of travel in Egypt,
in the Holy Land, which revived again his
sense of beauty and width and proportion.
And then followed his Kemsing curacy;
I have a letter written to me from Kem-
sing in his first weeks there, in which he
describes it as a paradise and says that,
so far as he can see, it is exactly the life
he most desires, and that he hopes to spend
the rest of his days there.
But now I feel that he took a very real
step forward. The danger was that he
would adopt a dilettante life. He had still
[238
S E L E – D IS C.I.P L IN E
not discovered his powers of expression,
which developed late. He was only just
beginning to preach with effect, and his
literary power was practically undeveloped.
He might have chosen to live a harmless,
quiet, beauty-loving life, kindly and guile-
less, in a sort of religious aestheticism;
though the vivid desire for movement and
even excitement that characterised his
later life would perhaps have in any case
developed.
But something stronger and sterner
awoke in him. I believe that it was
exactly because the cup, mixed to his
taste, was handed to him that he was
able to see that there was nothing that
was invigorating about the potion. It was
not the community life primarily which
drew him to Mirfield; it was partly that
his power of speech awoke, and more
strongly still the idea of self-discipline.
And so he went to Mirfield, and then all
his powers came with a rush in that
studious, sympathetic, and ascetic atmos-
phere. He was in his twenty-eighth year.
[239 I
H U G H
He began by finding that he could preach
with real force and power, and two years
later, when he wrote The Light Invisible,
he also discovered his gift of writing;
while as a little recreation, he took up
drawing, and produced a series of sketches,
full of humour and delicacy, drawn with
a fine pen and tinted with coloured chalk,
which are at all events enough to show
what he could have done in this direction.
[240
XX
ATTAINMENT
ND then Hugh made the great
change of his life, and, as a Catholic,
found his dreams realized and his hopes
fulfilled. He found, indeed, the life which
moves and breathes inside of every faithful
creed, the power which supplements weak-
ness and represses distraction, the motive
for glad sacrifice and happy obedience. I
can say this thankfully enough, though in
many ways I confess to being at the oppo-
site pole of religious thought. He found
relief from decision and rest from conflict.
He found sympathy and confidence, a
sense of corporate union, and above all a
mystical and symbolical devotion embod-
ied in a great and ancient tradition,
which was visibly and audibly there with
a movement like a great tide, instead of a
scheme of worship which had, he thought,
[241 T
H U G H
in the Anglican Church, to be eclectically
constructed by a group or a circle. Every
part of his nature was fed and satisfied;
and then, too, he found in the Roman
Catholic community in England that sort
of eager freemasonry which comes of the
desire to champion a cause that has won a
place for itself, and influence and respect,
but which is yet so much opposed to
national tendencies as to quicken the sense
of active endeavour and eager expectation.
After his quiet period of study and
thought in Rome and at Llandaff House,
came the time when he was attached to
the Roman Catholic Church in Cambridge;
and this, though not congenial to him,
gave him an insight into methods and con-
ditions; and all the while his own forces
and qualities were learning how to concen-
trate and express themselves. He learned
to write, he learned to teach, to preach, to
speak, to be his own natural self, with all
his delicate and ingenuous charm, in the
presence of a great audience; so that when
at last his opportunity came to free himself
[242 I
P. R. I E S T H O O D
from official and formal work, he was able
to throw all his trained faculties into the
work which he had at heart. Moreover,
he found in direction and confession, and
in careful discussion with inquirers, and in
sympathetic aid given to those in trouble,
many of the secret sorrows, hopes, and
emotions of the human heart, so that his
public work was enforced and sustained by
his ever-increasing range of private experi-
€IlC62.
He never, however, took whole-heartedly
to pastoral work. He said frankly that he
“specialised” in the region of private direc-
tion and advice; but I doubt if he ever did
quite enough general pastoral work of a
commonplace and humdrum kind to sup-
plement and fill out his experience of
human nature. He never knew people
under quite normal conditions, because he
felt no interest in normal conditions. He
knew men and women best under the more
abnormal emotion of the confessional; and
though he used to maintain, if challenged,
that penitence was a normal condition, yet
º [243 I
H U G H
his judgment of human beings was, as a
consequence, several times gravely at fault.
He made some unwise friendships, with a
guileless curiosity, and was obliged, more
than once, to extricate himself by sum-
mary abandonments.
He wrote of himself once, “I am tired to
death of giving myself away, and finding
out too late. . . I don’t like my ten-
dency to agree with people wildly; my
continual fault has been to put on too
much fuel.” Like all sensitive people, who
desire sympathetic and friendly relations,
he was apt to discover the best of new ac-
Quaintances at once, and to evoke in them
a similarly genial response. It was not
till later, when the first conciliatory impulse
had died down, that he discovered the
faults that had been instinctively concealed,
and indeed repressed by his own personal
attractiveness.
He had, too, an excessive confidence in his
power of managing a critical situation, and
several times undertook to reform people
in whom corruption had gone too far for
[244 I.
S E L E - D E V O TI O N
remedy. He believed in his power of
“breaking” sinners by stern declarations;
but he had more than once to confess him-
self beaten, though he never wasted time
in deploring failures.
Mr. Meynell, in his subtle essay which
prefaces my brother's little book of poems,
speaks of the complete subjugation of his
will. If I may venture to express a differ-
ent view, I do not feel that Hugh ever
learned to efface his own will. I do not
think his temperament was made on the
lines of self-conquest. I should rather say
that he had found the exact milieu in which
he could use his will to the best effect, so
that it was like the charge of powder within
the gun, no longer exploding itself vaguely
and aimlessly, but all concentrated upon
one intense and emissive effort. Because
the one characteristic of the last years of
his life was his immense enjoyment of it all.
He wrote to a friend not long before the
end, when he was feeling the strain upon
him to be heavier than he could bear; after
a word or two about the war — he had
[245 T
H U GH
volunteered to go to the front as a chap-
lain — he said, “So I am staying here as
usual; but the incessant demands on my
time try me as much as shrapnel and
bullets.” That sentence seems to me to
confirm my view that he had not so much
sacrificed as devoted himself. He never
gained a serene patience; I have heard him
over and over again speak with a sigh of
his correspondence and the demands it
made on him; yet he was always faithful
to a relation once formed; and the number
of letters written to single correspondents,
which have been sent me, have fairly
amazed me by their range, their fresh-
ness, and their fulness. He was deeply
interested in many of the letters he re-
ceived, and gave his best in his prompt
replies; but he evidently also received an
immense number of letters from people
who did not desire guidance so much as
sympathy and communication. The in-
considerate egotism of unimaginative and
yet sensitive people is what creates the
burden of such a correspondence; and
[246
S Y M P A T H Y
though he answered his letters faithfully
and duly, and contrived to say much in
short space, yet he felt, as I have heard
him say, that people were merciless;
and much of the time he might have de-
voted to creative work, or even to recre-
ation, was consumed in fruitless toil of
hand and mind. And yet I am sure that
he valued the sense that he could be use-
ful and serviceable, and that there were
many who depended upon him for advice
and consolation. I believe that his wide-
spread relations with so many desirous
people gave him a real sense of the fulness
and richness of life and its relations. But
for all that, I also believe that his courtesy
and his sense of duty were even more
potent in these relations than the need of
personal affection. I do not mean that
there was any hardness or coldness about
him; but he valued sympathy and tranquil
friendship more than he pursued intimacy
and passionate devotion. Yet in the last
year or two of his life, I was both struck
and touched by his evident desire to knit
- [247
H U G H
up friendships which had been severed, and
to renew intercourse which had been sus-
pended by his change of belief. Whether
he had any feeling that his life was pre-
carious, or his own time short, I do not
know. He never said as much to me. He
had, of course, used hard words of the
Church which he had left, and had said
things which were not wholly impersonal.
But, combative though he was, he had no
touch of rancour or malice in his nature,
and he visibly rejoiced in any sign of
goodwill.
Yet even so, he was essentially solitary
in mind. “When I am alone,” he once
wrote, “I am at my best; and at my worst
in company. I am happy and capable in
loneliness; unhappy, distracted, and inef-
fective in company.” And again he wrote,
“I am becoming more and more afraid of
meeting people I want to meet, because my
numerous deficiencies are so very apparent.
For example, I stammer slightly always
and badly at times.”
This was, I believe, more an instinctive
[248 I
PO W E R.
shrinking from the expenditure of nervous
force than anything else, and arose from
the feeling that, if he had to meet strangers,
some brilliancy of contribution would be
expected of him. I remember how he
delighted in the story of Marie Bashkirt-
seff, who, when she was summoned to meet
a party of strangers who desired to see her,
prayed as she entered the room, “Oh God,
make me worth seeing!” Hugh disliked the
possibility of disappointing expectations,
and thus found the society of unfamiliar
people a strain; but in family life, and
with people whom he knew well, he was
always the most delightful and charming
of companions, quick, ready, and untiring
in talk. And therefore I imagine that, like
all artistic people, he found that the pur-
suit of some chosen train of thought was
less of a conscious effort to him than the
necessity of adapting himself, swiftly and
dexterously, to new people, whose mental
and spiritual atmosphere he was obliged
to observe and infer. It was all really a
sign of the high pressure at which he lived,
l [249 I
H U G H
and of the price he paid for his vividness
and animation.
Another source of happiness to him in
these last days was his sense of power.
This was a part of his artistic nature; and
I believe that he enjoyed to the full the
feeling of being able to give people what
they wanted, to enchant, interest, move,
and sway them. This is to some natures a
great temptation, because they come to
desire applause, and to hunger for tangible
signs of their influence. But Hugh was
marvellously saved from this, partly by a
real modesty which was not only never
marred, but which I used to think increased
with the years. There is a story of William
Morris, that he could read aloud his own
poetry, and at the end of a fine stanza
would say: “That’s jolly!” with an entire
freedom from conceit, just as dispassionately
as he could praise the work of another. I
used to feel that when Hugh mentioned, as I
have heard him do, some course of sermons
that he was giving, and described the queue
which formed in the street, and the aisles
[250 I
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1912. A GED 40

E N E R G Y
and gangways crowded with people stand-
ing to hear him, that he did so more imper-
sonally than anyone I had ever heard, as
though it were a delightful adventure, and
more a piece of good luck than a testimony
to his own powers.
It was the same with his books; he
wished them to succeed and enjoyed their
success, while it was an infinite delight to
him to write them. But he had no egotism
of a commonplace sort about him, and he
never consciously tried to succeed. Success
was just the reverberating echo of his own
delight.
And thus I do not look upon him as one
who had bent and curbed his nature by
stern self-discipline to do work of a heavy
and distasteful kind; nor do I think that
his dangerous devotion to work was the
fierce effort of a man who would have
wished to rest, yet felt that the time was
too short for all that he desired to do. I
think it was rather the far more fruitful
energy of one who exulted in expressing
himself, in giving a brilliant and attract-
[251 I
H U G H
ive shape to his ideas, and who loved, too,
the varieties and tendencies of human
nature, enjoyed moulding and directing
them, and flung himself with an intense
joy of creation into all the work which he
found ready to his hand.
[252 T
XXI
TEMPERAMENT
UGH never seemed to me to treat
life in the spirit of a mystic or a
dreamer, with unshared and secret experi-
ences, withdrawing into his own ecstasy,
half afraid of life, rapt away into interior
visions. Though he had a deep curiosity
about mystical experiences, he was never
a mystic in the sense that he had, as great
mystics seem to have had, one shell less,
so to speak, between him and the unseen.
He lived in the visible and tangible world,
loving beautiful secrets; and he was a
mystic only in the sense that he had an
hourly and daily sense of the presence of
God. He wished to share his dreams and
to make known his visions, to declare the
glory of God and to show His handiwork.
He found the world more and more inter-
* [253 I
H U G H
esting, as he came to know it, and in the
light of the warm welcome it gave him.
He had a keen and delicate apprehension
of spiritual beauty, and the Mass became
to him a consummation of all that he held
most holy and dear. He had recognised
a mystical presence in the Church of
England, but he found a supernatural
presence in the Church of Rome; yet
he had, too, the instinct of the poet, to
translate into form and substance his in-
most and sweetest joy, and to lavish it
upon others. No one dares to speak
of great poets and seers as men who
have profaned a mystery by making it
known. The deeper that the poet’s sense
of beauty is, the more does he thirst to
communicate it. It is far too divine and
tremendous to be secretly and selfishly
enjoyed.
It is possible, of course, that Hugh may
have given to those who did not see him
constantly in everyday familiar intercourse,
the sense of a courteous patience and a
desire to do full justice to a claim. Still
[254
C O U R T E SY
more may he have given this impression
on social occasions and at conventional
gatherings. Interviews and so-called fes-
tivities were apt to be a weariness to him,
because they seemed so great an expendi-
ture of time and force for very scanty
results; but I always felt him to be one of
the most naturally courteous people I have
ever seen. He hated to be abrupt, to repel,
to hurt, to wound feelings, to disappoint;
yet on such occasions his natural courtesy
was struggling with a sense of the waste of
time involved and the interruptions caused.
I remember his writing to me from the
Catholic rectory when he was trying to
finish a book and to prepare for a course
of sermons, and lamenting that he was
“driven almost mad” by ceaseless inter-
views with people who did not, he declared,
want criticism or advice, but simply the
luxury of telling a long story for the sake
of possible adulation. “I am quite ready
to see people,” he added, “if only they
would ask me to appoint a time, instead
of simply flinging themselves upon me
[255]
H U G H
whenever it happens to be convenient
to them.”
I do not think he ever grudged the time
to people in difficulties when he felt he
could really help and save. That seemed
to him an opportunity of using all his
powers; and when he took a soul in hand,
he could display a certain sternness, and
even ruthlessness, in dealing with it.
“You need not consult me at all, but if
you do you must carry out exactly what I
tell you,” he could say; but he did grudge
time and attention given to mild senti-
mentalists, who were not making any way,
but simply dallying with tragic emotions
excitedly and vainly,
This courtesy was part of a larger
quality, a certain knightly and chivalrous
sense, which is best summed up in the old
word “gentleman.” A priest told me that
soon after Hugh’s death he had to rebuke
a tipsy Irishman, who was an ardent
Catholic and greatly devoted to Hugh.
The priest said, “Are you not ashamed to
think that Monsignor’s eye may be on you
[256 I
C HIV A. L. R. Y
now, and that he may see how you dis-
grace yourself?” To which, he said, the
Irishman replied, with perhaps a keener
insight into Hugh’s character than his
director, “Oh no, I can trust Monsignor
not to take advantage of me. I am sure
that he will not come prying and spying
about. He always believed whatever I
chose to tell him, God bless him!” Hugh
could be hard and unyielding on occasions,
but he was wholly incapable of being sus-
picious, jealous, malicious, or spiteful. He
made friends once with a man of morbid,
irritable, and resentful tendencies, who had
continued, all his life, to make friends by
his brilliance and to lose them by his sharp,
fierce, and contemptuous animosities. This
man eventually broke with him altogether,
and did his best by a series of ingenious
and wicked letters to damage Hugh’s char-
acter in all directions. I received one of
those documents and showed it to Hugh.
I was astonished at his courage and even
indifference. I myself should have been
anxious and despondent at the thought of
[257 I
H U G H
such evil innuendoes and gross misrepre-
sentations being circulated, and still more
at the sort of malignant hatred from which
they proceeded. Hugh took the letter and
smiled. “Oh,” he said, “I have put my
case before the people who matter, and you
can’t do anything. He is certainly mad, or
on the verge of madness. Don’t answer it
— you will only be drenched with these
communications. I don’t trouble my head
about it.” “But don’t you mind?” I said.
“No,” he said, “I’m quite callous! Of
course I am sorry that he should be such a
beast, but I can’t help that. I have done
my best to make it up – but it is hope-
less.” And it was clear from the way he
changed the subject that he had banished
the whole matter from his mind. At a
later date, when the letters to him grew
more abusive, I was told by one who was
living with him, that he would even put
one up on his chimney-piece and point it
out to visitors.
I always thought that he had a very
conspicuous and high sort of courage, not
[258 I
ROBERT HUGH BENSON - -
IN 1912. AGED 41

F E A R L E S S N E S S
only in facing disagreeable and painful
things, but in not dwelling on them either
before or after. This was never more
entirely exemplified than by the way he
faced his operation, and indeed, most hero-
ically of all, in the way in which he died.
There was a sense of great adventure —
there is no other word for it – about that,
as of a man going on a fateful voyage; a
courage so great that he did not even lose
his interest in the last experiences of life.
His demeanour was not subdued or sub-
missive; he did not seem to be asking for
strength to bear or courage to face the last
change. He was more like the happy
warrior
“Attired
With sudden brightness, as a man inspired.”
He did not lose control of himself, nor was
he carried helplessly down the stream. He
was rather engaged in a conflict which was
not a losing one. He had often thought of
death, and even thought that he feared it;
but now that it was upon him he would
taste it fully, he would see what it was like.
[259 L
H U G. H.
The day before, when he thought that he
might live, there was a pre-occupation over
him, as though he were revolving the
things he desired to do; but when death
came upon him unmistakably there was no
touch of self-pity or impressiveness. He
had just to die, and he devoted his swift
energies to it, as he had done to living. I
never saw him so splendid and noble as he
was at that last awful moment. Life did
not ebb away, but he seemed to fling it
from him, so that it was not as the death
of a weary man sinking to rest, but like
the eager transit of a soldier to another
part of the field.
“Could it have been avoided?” I said
to the kind and gentle 'doctor who saw
Hugh through the last days of his life,
and loved him very tenderly and faith-
fully. “Well, in one sense, ‘yes,” he
replied. “If he had worked less, rested
more, taken things more easily, he might
have lived longer. He had a great vital-
ity; but most people die of being them-
selves; and we must all live as we are
[260 T.
HIM S E L F
made to live. It was Monsignor’s way
to put the work of a month into a week;
he could not do otherwise — I cannot
think of Monsignor as sitting with folded
hands.”
[261 I
INDEX
BARNES, Monsignor, 154
Bashkirtseff, Marie, quoted,
249
Bec, Bishop Anthony, 18
Belloc, Mr., 183
Benson, Archbishop (father),
15–17, 20, 46–47, 56, 63, 82,
86, 91, 116; characteristics,
34–39; letters quoted, 53–55,
71–74; ordains his son, 87;
death, 97
Mrs. (mother), 19, 28,
74–80, 108, 120, 128, 146,
149–150, 182, 209; quoted,
31–32, 118–119, 227; visit to
Egypt, 98
Fred (brother), 16, 26–27,
34, 68, 80, 184, 209
— Maggie (sister), 16, 28,
40, 98, 120, 126, 184, 196,
217
Martin (brother), 16, 57;
death, 35
Nelly (sister), 16, 27, 40;
death, 79–80
Beth (nurse), 20–24, 39, 106;
letter quoted, 23
Bradley, Dr., 200, 201; quoted,
260–261
By what Authority, 114
CARLYLE, Thomas, quoted, 147
Carter, Archbishop William,
91
Confessions of a Convert, The,
47, 114, 130, 140
Conventionalists, The, 186
Cornish, Mr., 42
Coward, The, 181
DECEMVIRI Club, 156
Donaldson, Archbishop St.
Clair, 91, 95
EDWARD VII; King, 114
Elizabeth, Queen, 179
Eton, influence of, 48–51
Mission, 89 seq., 99, 134–
136, 236, 238.
GEORGE W. H. M. King, 98
Gladstone, W. E., 98
Mrs., 98
Gore, Bishop, 103, 108–109,
130
Gorman, Father, 194
HALIFAx, Lord, 128
Hare Street, 168 seq., 189, 193,
210, 227; village, 12
Hill of Trouble, The, 177
[263 T.
H U G H
Hogg, Sir James McGarel
(afterwards Lord Maghera-
morne), 32
Hormead Mission, 168
Hornby, Provost, 149
House of the Resurrection.
See under Mirfield Com-
munity
JoB, quoted, 49
John Inglesant, 75, 85
Johnson, Dr., quoted, 150, 175
Jowett, B., 150
KENMARE, Lord, 172
LEITH, Dr., 67
Light Invisible, The, 106, 177,
187, 240
Lindsay, Ken, 168–169
Lyttleton, Edward, 44
MACLAGAN, Archbishop, 103
Marshall (family), 190
Martin, Sir George, 58
Mason, Canon Arthur, 34, 80,
88
Maturin, Father, 96, 100
Meynell, Mr., 245
Mirfield Community, 103–104,
130, 137, 227, 239
Morris, William, 250
Murray, Prof., 199
NoRway, King of, 98
PARSONs, Rev. Mr., 16
Peel, Sidney, 50
Penny, Mr., 19
Persia, Shah of, 55
Pippet, Gabriel, 13, 168
Pitt Club, 156
Potter, Norman, 171
REEMAN, Joseph, 14, 193
Reeve, Rev. John, 34, 128
Richard Raynal, Solitary, 178,
181, 185, 187
Ritual, 60–63
Roddy, collie, 126–128, 217
ST. HUGH, 17
Monastery of, 129
Salford Cathedral, 209
Scott, Canon, 161
Selborne, Lord, quoted, 54
Sessions, Dr., 168
Sharrock, Canon, 173, 196, 199,
205, 207
Sidgwick, Arthur, 20
Henry (uncle), 20, 71, 73,
223
— Mrs. (grandmother), 20
— Nora (Mrs. Henry Sidg-
wick) (aunt), 73, 121
William (uncle), 20
Skarratt, Rev. Mr., 101
Spiers, Mr., 54–55
Stanmore, Lord, 95
Stevenson, R. L., 121
Streets and Lanes of the City, 79
TAIT, Miss Lucy, 120
Temple, Archbishop, 103
[264
IN DE X
Tennyson’s “Mort d’Arthur,”
179 --
Todd, Dr., Ross, 193
Tyrell, Father, 144
WAUGHN, Dean, 82–84
Mrs., 83–85
Victoria, Queen, 114, 153
WALES, Prince and Princess of,
54
Walpole, Bishop G. H. S., 34
Warre, Dr., 46
Watson, Bishop, 154
Watt, Father, 168
Wellington College, 15, 19, 20
Westcott, Bishop, 86
Westminster, Cardinal Arch-
bishop of, 209
Whitaker, Canon G. H., 34
Wilkinson, Bishop, 48, 128,
150
Woodchester Dominican Con-
vent, 146
Wordsworth, Bishop John, 128
Wren, Mr., 52
0CT 1 1 1915
[265 I
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