oud of my
friends. However, he had a serious meaning in his act; he saw, more
clearly than I could do, that I was separating from his own friends
for good and all.

Dr. Whately attributed my leaving his _clientela_ to a wish on my
part to be the head of a party myself. I do not think that it was
deserved. My habitual feeling then and since has been, that it was
not I who sought friends, but friends who sought me. Never man had
kinder or more indulgent friends than I have had, but I expressed my
own feeling as to the mode in which I gained them, in this very year
1829, in the course of a copy of verses. Speaking of my blessings, I
said, "Blessings of friends, which to my door, _unasked, unhoped_,
have come." They have come, they have gone; they came to my great
joy, they went to my great grief. He who gave, took away. Dr.
Whately's impression about me, however, admits of this explanation:--

During the first years of my residence at Oriel, though proud of my
college, I was not at home there. I was very much alone, and I used
often to take my daily walk by myself. I recollect once meeting Dr.
Copleston, then provost, with one of the fellows. He turned round,
and with the kind courteousness which sat so well on him, made me a
bow and said, "Nunquam minus solus, quam cum solus." At that time
indeed (from 1823) I had the intimacy of my dear and true friend Dr.
Pusey, and could not fail to admire and revere a soul so devoted to
the cause of religion, so full of good works, so faithful in his
affections; but he left residence when I was getting to know him
well. As to Dr. Whately himself, he was too much my superior to allow
of my being at my ease with him; and to no one in Oxford at this time
did I open my heart fully and familiarly. But things changed in 1826.
At that time I became one of the tutors of my college, and this gave
me position; besides, I had written one or two essays which had been
well received. I began to be known. I preached my first University
Sermon. Next year I was one of the Public Examiners for the B.A.
degree. It was to me like the feeling of spring weather after winter;
and, if I may so speak, I came out of my shell; I remained out of it
till 1841.

The two persons who knew me best at that time are still alive,
beneficed clergymen, no longer my friends. They could tell better
than any one else what I was in those years. From this time my tongue
was, as it were, loosened, and I spoke spontaneously