this
sense the epigrammatist was right who said that 'to Newman his own
nature was a revelation which he called conscience.' He 'followed the
gleam,' uncertain whither it would lead him. The poem 'Lead, kindly
Light' is the most intimate self-revelation that he ever made. This
mental attitude, which he took early in life, became the foundation of
his 'personalist' philosophy, and of the anti-intellectualism which was
the negative side of it. But this reliance on the inner light, which
nearly made a mystic of him, was clouded by a haunting fear of God's
wrath, which imparts a gloomy tinge to his Anglican sermons, and which,
while he was halting between the English Church and Rome, plied him with
the very unmystical question 'Where shall I be most _safe_?' an argument
which he had used repeatedly and without scruple in his parochial
sermons.[82]

It is nevertheless true that this self-centred spirit was, at least in
early life, impressionable and open to the influence of others. His
friendship with Hurrell Froude and Keble affected his opinions
considerably: and still more potent was the pervading intangible
influence of Oxford--the academic atmosphere. It cannot indeed be said
that the University was at this time in a healthy condition. Mark
Pattison has described with caustic contempt the intellectual lethargy
of the place, and the miserable quality of the lectures. Oxford was
still _de facto_ a close clerical corporation, and in most colleges
'clubbable men' rather than scholars were chosen for the fellowships.
Oriel won its unique position by breaking through this tradition, and
also by making originality rather than success in the university
examinations the main qualification for election. But even at Oriel, and
among the ablest men, there was great ignorance of much that was being
thought and written elsewhere. Knowledge of German was rare. Even the
classics were not read in a humanistic spirit. 'Of the world of wisdom
and sentiment--of poetry and philosophy, of social and political
experience, contained in the Latin and Greek classics, and of the true
relation of the degenerate and semi-barbarous Christian writers of the
fourth century to that world--Oxford, in 1830, had never dreamt.[83]
Theological prejudice in fact distorted the whole outlook of the
resident fellows, and confounded all estimation of relative values.
Newman never, all through his life, took a step towards overcoming this
early prejudice. He im