Apologia pro Vita Sua | Page 8

he had already forged
charges against me of dishonesty at the very time that he implied that
as yet there was nothing against me. When he gave me that plenary
condonation, as it seemed to be, he had already done his best that I
should never enjoy it. He knew well at p. 8, what he meant to say at pp.
44 and 45. At best indeed I was only out upon ticket of leave; but that

ticket was a pretence; he had made it forfeit when he gave it. But he did
not say so at once, first, because between p. 8 and p. 44 he meant to
talk a great deal about my idiotcy and my frenzy, which would have
been simply out of place, had he proved me too soon to be a knave
again; and next, because he meant to exhaust all those insinuations
about my knavery in the past, which "strict honour" did not permit him
to countenance, in order thereby to give colour and force to his direct
charges of knavery in the present, which "strict honour" did permit him
to handsel. So in the fifth act he gave a start, and found to his horror
that, in my miserable four pages, I had committed the "enormity" of an
"economy," which in matter of fact he had got by heart before he began
the play. Nay, he suddenly found two, three, and (for what he knew) as
many as four profligate economies in that title-page and those
Reflections, and he uses the language of distress and perplexity at this
appalling discovery.
Now why this coup de théâtre? The reason soon breaks on us. Up to
February 1, he could not categorically arraign me for lying, and
therefore could not involve me (as was so necessary for his case), in the
popular abhorrence which is felt for the casuists of Rome: but, as soon
as ever he could openly and directly pronounce (saving his "hault
courage and strict honour") that I am guilty of three or four new
economies, then at once I am made to bear, not only my own sins, but
the sins of other people also, and, though I have been condoned the
knavery of my antecedents, I am guilty of the knavery of a whole
priesthood instead. So the hour of doom for Semei is come, and the
wise man knows what to do with him;--he is down upon me with the
odious names of "St. Alfonso da Liguori," and "Scavini" and
"Neyraguet," and "the Romish moralists," and their "compeers and
pupils," and I am at once merged and whirled away in the gulph of
notorious quibblers, and hypocrites, and rogues.
But we have not even yet got at the real object of the stroke, thus
reserved for his finale. I really feel sad for what I am obliged now to
say. I am in warfare with him, but I wish him no ill;--it is very difficult
to get up resentment towards persons whom one has never seen. It is
easy enough to be irritated with friends or foes, vis-à-vis; but, though I

am writing with all my heart against what he has said of me, I am not
conscious of personal unkindness towards himself. I think it necessary
to write as I am writing, for my own sake, and for the sake of the
Catholic priesthood; but I wish to impute nothing worse to Kingsley
than that he has been furiously carried away by his feelings. But what
shall I say of the upshot of all this talk of my economies and
equivocations and the like? What is the precise work which it is
directed to effect? I am at war with him; but there is such a thing as
legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly
be done, and things which may not be done. I say it with shame and
with stern sorrow;--he has attempted a great transgression; he has
attempted (as I may call it) to poison the wells. I will quote him and
explain what I mean.
"Dr. Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand logic, to prove that I did
not believe the accusation when I made it. Therein he is mistaken. I did
believe it, and I believed also his indignant denial. But when he goes on
to ask with sneers, why I should believe his denial, if I did not consider
him trustworthy in the first instance? I can only answer, I really do not
know. There is a great deal to be said for that view, now that Dr.
Newman has become (one must needs suppose) suddenly and since the
1st of February, 1864, a convert to the economic views of St. Alfonso
da Liguori and his compeers. I am henceforth