9-29-30 22523 INTRODUCTION THIS book is the result of fifteen years' study of Newman and is based to some extent upon a course of lectures given at Cliff Haven, New York, in 1916, and at St. Joseph's Summer School, New York, in 1918, and repeated in part before clubs at Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Radcliffe, Smith, Simmons, my own college, Holy Cross, and various others. Some phases of it were first written at the Graduate School at Columbia and others at the Graduate School at Yale, but all have been entirely recast in the meantime. Much has been written about Newman from the biographical point of view, culminating in Ward's monumental life. Newman as a man of letters, however, has been treated for the most part only incidentally, in such books as Richard Holt Hutton's, and Canon Barry's, and in a number of short critical essays. I have read, I believe, substantially everything published on Newman either in England or in America, as well as the admirable French studies of Bremond, Faure, and Thureau-Dangin and I do not know of a single work, of any length, seriously devoted to a study of Newman as a man of letters except the volume of M. Faure which is accessible only in French. In the Lowell Lectures of 1914 (since published in Last Lectures) the late Wilfred Ward made the nearest approach to such a study, but his concern-whether he intended it so or not I cannot say-proved to be less literary than philosophical. Many things have been said about Newman which make the judicious grieve either because they have been dictated by inability or reluctance to understand him as a man, or because they spring from an admiration so fervent that it obscures critical judgment and concedes him merits as a writer which he neither claimed nor possessed. One critic, for example, praises his style for its color, a quality conspicuous by its absence; another finds no evidence of Gibbon's diction in Newman's style, though the Arians is full of it; a third lavishes praise upon this very Arians as literature, though it lacks the first essential of literature, that of holding the interest, and upon Newman for "his skillful ease as a master in the pictorial art," the last art to which he gave concern. These are but casual instances of the type of criticism whose soundness Newman himself, one suspects, would have been the first to question. Of the lack of sympathy toward Newman's action in entering the Catholic Church on the part of such critics as Mr. Paul Elmer More, Mr. Hugh Walker, and Dean Inge, it is unnecessary to speak at length. This is a matter which always has provoked discussion and undoubtedly always will. Newman's "secession" cannot be passed over entirely by the student of Newman as a man of letters because it is bound up intimately with his type of mind, and in turn his type of mind and his personality were interwoven inextricably with his qualities as a man of letters. I am not concerned with Newman's conversion except as it bears upon his literary career and I have studiously avoided anything that might even have the appearance of touching upon the matter from the point of view of controversy. This is poles apart from my thought and I should regret anything that might becloud the real purpose of this study, which is always Newman, the man of letters. It seems clear that there is room for an unbiased consideration of Newman which is not confined to essay length nor merely incidental to his life, his philosophy, or his significance as theologian. As a matter of fact this study has nothing to do with Newman as philosopher or theologian, for in such aspects I am entirely unqualified to treat of him. Newman has secured a place in most histories of nineteenth century literature, but the treatment of him there is hopelessly inadequate, leaving, as it does, the impression that he will be found an admirable stylist by those who have the courage to struggle through thirtyodd volumes of "theology." The result is obvious: Newman is in grave danger of sinking into that literary limbo where dwell the "great unread." He will find high company there, no doubt, Milton, Dryden, and Johnson among them; but that is meager consolation to those who decline to accept him as merely a tradition whose voice was music to our grandfathers and now has gone down the wind, forever. If Newman had a perfect style and wrote with persuasiveness, grace, and unfailing insight on subjects that hold an abiding interest for men and women wholly apart from creed, then it seems worth while to discuss him as a man of letters, to try to appraise his merits and defects; to estimate the value of his work as literature; to find his place, as Matthew Arnold would say, in his century; and finally, to consider his significance to our generation. Those are the aims of the present study and I believe them to be worthy even though the study itself may fail to prove so. In conclusion, I wish to thank the editor of the Catholic World for permission to reprint certain essays of mine which now appear as Chapters VI, VIII and IX of this book. WARE, MASSACHUSETTS, JOSEPH J. REILLY. |