him. His
misfortunes aroused the interest of a rich manufacturer at
Manchester, Mr. Darbishire, who offered him a resident tutorship,
and would have taken him into his own firm, even, as it would seem,
into his own family, if he had desired to become a man of business,
and to live in a smoky town. But Froude was engaged to be married,
and had a passionate love of the country. His keen, clear, rapid
intelligence would probably have served him well in commercial
affairs when once he had learnt to understand them. He was reserved
for a very different destiny, and he gratefully declined Mr.
Darbishire's offer. Nevertheless, his stay at Manchester as private
tutor had some share in his mental development. He made acquaintance
with interesting persons, such as Harriet Martineau, Geraldine
Jewsbury, Mrs. Gaskell, and William Edward Forster, then known as a
young Quaker who had devoted himself, in the true Quaker spirit of
self-sacrifice, to relieving the sufferers from the Irish famine.
Besides Manchester friends, Froude imbibed Manchester principles. He
had been half inclined to sympathise with the socialism of Louis
Blanc and other French revolutionists. Manchester cured him. He
adopted the creed of individualism, private enterprise, no
interference by Government, and free trade. In these matters he did
not, at that time, go with Carlyle, as in ecclesiastical matters he
had not gone with Newman. His mind was intensely practical, though
in personal questions of self-interest he was careless, and even
indifferent. Henceforth he abandoned speculation, as well
philosophical as theological, and reverted to the historical studies
of his youth. Philosophy at Oxford in those days meant Plato,
Aristotle, and Bishop Butler. Froude was a good Greek scholar, and
he had the true Oxford reverence for Butler. But he had not gone
deeper into philosophy than his examinations and his pupils
required. He liked positive results, and metaphysicians always
suggested to him the movements of a squirrel in a cage.

The alternative to business was literature. Biographies of literary
men, said Carlyle, are the most wretched documents in human history,
except the Newgate Calendar. But Carlyle said many things he did not
believe, and this was probably one of them. The truth is, that the
literary profession, like the commercial, requires some little
capital with which to set out, and Froude received this with his
wife. Besides it he had brilliant talen