Hugh

Hugh

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Title: Hugh Memoirs of a Brother
Author: Arthur Christopher Benson

Release Date: June 17, 2006 [eBook #18615]
Language: English
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HUGH
Memoirs of a Brother
by
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
Fifth Impression

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.
[Illustration: From Copyrighted Photo by Sarony, Inc., New York
ROBERT HUGH BENSON IN 1912. AGED 40 In the robes of a Papal
Chamberlain.]

Longmans, Green, and Co. Fourth Avenue & 30th Street, New York
1916

PREFACE
This 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 obliteration of time, to catch, if I could, for my own
comfort and delight, the tone and sense of that vivid and animated
atmosphere 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, in Rome, in
America--of which I knew nothing. I never heard him make a public
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, and manuscripts, and we
have arranged to have an official biography of him written, 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 character 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 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 picture of his personality as we, his family, knew and loved it.
It is