Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge | Page 8

repugnance, even abhorrence, to public meetings in the later days at Cambridge. I can now recall that he would accompany people to the door, but never be induced to enter. A passage which I will quote from one of his letters illustrates this.
"The presence of a large number of people has a strange, repulsive physical effect on me. I feel crushed and overwhelmed, not stimulated and vivified, as is so often described. I can't listen to a concert comfortably if there is a great throng, unless the music is so good as to wrap one altogether away. There is undoubtedly a force abroad among large masses of people, the force which forms the basis of the principle of public prayer, and I am conscious of it too, only it distresses me; moreover, the worst and most afflicting nightmare I have is the sensation of standing sightless and motionless, but with all the other senses alert and apprehensive, in the presence of a vast and hostile crowd."
3. He never showed the least sign of being influenced in the direction of spiritual or even religious life by this crisis. He certainly spoke very little at all for some time to any one on any subject; he was distrait and absent-minded in society--for the alteration was much observed from its suddenness--but when he gradually began to converse as usual, he did not, as is so often the case in similar circumstances, do what is called "bearing witness to the truth." His attitude toward all enthusiastic forms of religion had been one, in old days, of good-natured, even amused tolerance. He was now not so good-natured in his criticisms, and less sparing of them, though his religious-mindedness, his seriousness, was undoubtedly increased by the experience, whatever it was.
On the whole, then, I should say that the coincidence of the revival is merely fortuitous. It remains to seek what the cause was.
We must look for it, in a character so dignified as Arthur's, in some worthy cause, some emotional failure, some moral wound. I believe the following to be the clew; I can not develop it without treading some rather delicate ground.
He had formed, in his last year at school, a very devoted friendship with a younger boy; such friendships like the [Greek: eispnelas] and the [Greek: aitas] of Sparta, when they are truly chivalrous and absolutely pure, are above all other loves, noble, refining, true; passion at white heat without taint, confidence of so intimate a kind as can not even exist between husband and wife, trust such as can not be shadowed, are its characteristics. I speak from my own experience, and others will, I know, at heart confirm me, when I say that these things are infinitely rewarding, unutterably dear.
Arthur left Winchester. A correspondence ensued between the two friends. I have three letters of Arthur's, so passionate in expression, that for fear of even causing uneasiness, not to speak of suspicion, I will not quote them. I have seen, though I have destroyed, at request, the letters of the other.
This friend, a weak, but singularly attractive boy, got into a bad set at Winchester, and came to grief in more than one way; he came to Cambridge in three years, and fell in with a thoroughly bad set there. Arthur seems not to have suspected it at first, and to have delighted in his friend's society; but such things as habits betray themselves, and my belief is that disclosures were made on November 8, which revealed to Arthur the state of the case. What passed I can not say. I can hardly picture to myself the agony, disgust, and rage (his words and feelings about sensuality of any kind were strangely keen and bitter), loyalty fighting with the sense of repulsion, pity struggling with honour, which must have convulsed him when he discovered that his friend was not only yielding, but deliberately impure.
The other's was an unworthy and brutal nature, utterly corrupted at bottom. He used to speak jestingly of the occurrence. "Oh yes!" I have heard him say; "we were great friends once, but he cuts me now; he had to give me up, you see, because he didn't approve of me. Justice, mercy, and truth, and all the rest of it."
It was certainly true; their friendship ended. I find it hard to realize that Arthur would voluntarily have abandoned him; and yet I find passages in his letters, and occasional entries in his diaries, which seem to point to some great stress put upon him, some enormous burden indicated, which he had not strength to attempt and adopt. "May God forgive me for my unutterable selfishness; it is irreparable now," is one of the latest entries on that day in his diary. I conceive, perhaps, that his outraged ideal was