the malice, the contentiousness of his own Church. He
loathes the hardness and uncharitableness of it; he is like a boy at school
sick for home. To me Newman's logic is like the effort of a man desperately
constructing a bridge to escape to the other side of the river. The land
beyond is like a landscape seen from a hill, a scene of woods and waters,
of fields and hamlets--everything seems peaceful and idyllic there. He
wants the wings of a dove, to flee away and be at rest. It is the same
feeling which makes people wish to travel. When you travel, the new land is
a spectacular thing--it is all a picture. It is not that you crave to live
in a foreign land: you merely want the luxury of seeing life without living
life. No ordinary person goes to live in Italy because he has studied the
political constitution and organisation of Italy, and prefers it to that of
England. So, too, the charm of a religious conversion is that it doesn't
seem unpatriotic to do it--but you get the feel of a new country without
having to quit your own. And the essence of it is a flight from conditions
which you dread and dislike. Of course Newman does not describe it so--that
is all a part of his guilelessness--he speaks of the shadow of a hand upon
the wall: but I don't doubt that his subconscious mind thrilled with the
sense of a possible escape that way. His heart was converted long before
his mind. What he hated in the English Church was having to decide for
himself--he wanted to lean on something, to put himself inside a
stronghold: he wanted to obey. Some people dislike the way in which he made
himself obey,--the way he argued himself into holding things which were
frankly irrational. But I don't mind that! It is the pleasure of the child
in being told what to do instead of having to amuse itself."

He was silent for a little, and then he said: "I see it all so clearly, and
yet of course it is in a sense inconceivable to me, because to my mind all
the Churches have got a burden of belief which they can't carry. The Gospel
is simple enough, and it is as much as I can do to live on those lines.
Besides, I don't want to obey--I want to obey as little as I can! The
ecclesiastical and the theological tradition is all a world of shadows to
me. I can't be bound by the pious fancies of men who knew no science, and
very little about evidence of any kind. What I want is just a simple and
beautiful principle of living, such as I feel thrills through the