The Life of Froude | Page 6

or his
reflections. Perhaps, after all, the infallible Hurrell might be wrong.
One fear he had never been able to instil into his brother, and that was
the fear of death. When asked what would happen if he were suddenly
called to appear in the presence of God, Anthony replied that he was in
the presence of God from morning to night and from night to morning.
That abiding consciousness he never lost, and when his speculations
went furthest they invariably stopped there.
Left with his father and one sister, the boy drank in the air of Dartmoor,
and grew to love Devonshire with an unalterable affection. He also
continued his reading, and invaded theology. Newton on the Prophecies
remarked that "if the Pope was not Antichrist, he had bad luck to be so
like him," and Renan had not yet explained that Antichrist was neither
the Pope nor the French Revolution, but the Emperor Nero. From
Pearson on the Creed he learned the distinction between "believing"
and "believing in." When we believe in a person, we trust him. When
we believe a thing, we are not sure of it. This is one of the few
theological distinctions which are also differences. Meanwhile, the
Archdeacon had been watching his youngest son, and had observed that
he had at least a taste for books. Perhaps he might not be the absolute
dolt that Hurrell pronounced him. He had lost five years, so far as
classical training was concerned, by the mismanagement of the
Archdeacon himself. Still, he was only seventeen, and there was time to
repair the waste. He was sent to a private tutor's in preparation for
Oxford. His tutor, a dreamy, poetical High Churchman, devoted to
Wordsworth and Keble, failed to understand his character or to give
him an interest in his work, and a sixth year was added to the lost five.
During this year his brother Hurrell died, and the tragic extinction of
that commanding spirit seemed a presage of his own early doom. Two
of his sisters, both lately married, died within a few months of Hurrell,
and of each other. The Archdeacon, incapable of expressing emotion,
became more reserved than ever, and scarcely spoke at all. Sadly was
he disappointed in his children. Most of them went out of the world
long before him. Not one of them distinguished himself in those regular
professional courses which alone he understood as success. Hurrell

joined ardently, while his life was spared, in the effort to counteract the
Reformation and Romanise the Church of England. William, though he
became a naval architect of the highest possible distinction, and
performed invaluable services for his country, worked on his own
account, and made his own experiments in his own fashion. Anthony,
too, took his line, and went his way, whither his genius led him,
indifferent to the opinion of the world. His had been a strange
childhood, not without its redeeming features. Left to himself, seeing
his brothers and sisters die around him, expecting soon to follow them,
the boy grew up stern, hardy, and self-reliant. He was by no means a
bookworm. He had learned to ride in the best mode, by falling off, and
had acquired a passion for fishing which lasted as long as his life.
There were few better yachtsmen in England than Froude, and he could
manage a boat as well as any sailor in his native county. His religious
education, as he always said himself, was thoroughly wholesome and
sound, consisting of morality and the Bible. Sympathy no doubt he
missed, and he used to regard the early death of his brother Robert as
the loss of his best friend. For his father's character he had a profound
admiration as an embodiment of all the manly virtues, stoical rather
than Christian, never mawkish nor effeminate.
CHAPTER II
OXFORD
Westminster, it will have been seen, did less than nothing for Froude.
His progress there was no progress at all, but a movement backwards,
physical and mental deterioration. He recovered himself at home, his
father's coldness and unkindness notwithstanding. But it was not until
he went to Oxford that his real intellectual life began, and that he
realised his own powers. In October, 1836, four months after Hurrell's
death, he came into residence at Oriel. That distinguished society was
then at the climax of its fame; Dr. Hawkins was beginning his long
career as Provost; Newman and Church were Fellows; the Oriel
Common Room had a reputation unrivalled in Oxford, and was famous
far beyond the precincts of the University. But of these circumstances
Froude thought little, or nothing. He felt free. For the first time in his

life the means of social intercourse and enjoyment were at his disposal.
His internal weakness had been overcome, and his