erstanding." But his ardent zeal and fine poetical
imagination were not thus to be controlled. As I hung upon his words,
it seemed to me as if I could trace behind his will, and pressing, so
to speak, against it, a rush of thoughts, of feelings which he kept
struggling to hold back, but in the end they were generally too strong
for him, and poured themselves out in a torrent of eloquence all the
more impetuous from having been so long repressed. The effect of these
outbursts was irresistible, and carried his hearers beyond themselves
at once. Even when his efforts of self-restraint were more successful,
those very efforts gave a life and colour to his style which riveted
the attention of all within the reach of his voice. Mr. Justin
McCarthy, in his _History of Our Own Times_, says of him: "In all the
arts that make a great preacher or orator, Cardinal Newman was
deficient. His manner was constrained and ungraceful, and even
awkward; his voice was thin and weak, his bearing was not at first
impressive in any way--a gaunt emaciated figure, a sharp eagle face,
and a cold meditative eye, rather repelled than attracted those who
saw him for the first time." I do not think Mr. McCarthy's phrases
very happily chosen to convey his meaning. Surely a gaunt emaciated
frame and a sharp eagle face are the very characteristics which we
should picture to ourselves as belonging to Peter the Hermit, or
Scott's Ephraim Macbriar in _Old Mortality_. However unimpressive the
look of an eagle may be in Mr. McCarthy's opinion, I do not agree with
him about Dr. Newman.

When I knew him at Oxford, these somewhat disparaging remarks would
not have been applicable. His manner, it is true, may have been
self-repressed, constrained it was not. His bearing was neither
awkward nor ungraceful; it was simply quiet and calm, because under
strict control; but beneath that calmness, intense feeling, I think,
was obvious to those who had any instinct of sympathy with him. But if
Mr. McCarthy's acquaintance with him only began when he took office in
an Irish Catholic university, I can quite understand that (flexibility
not being one of his special gifts) he may have failed now and again
to bring himself into perfect harmony with an Irish audience. He was
probably too much of a typical Englishman for his place; nevertheless
Mr. McCarthy, though he does not seem to have admired him in the