nature like Hugh's, naturally temperate and ardent, and
with no gross or sensuous fibre of any kind, there was a real craving
for the bareness and cleanness of self-discipline and asceticism. There
is a high and noble pleasure in some natures towards the reduction and
disregard of all material claims and limitations, by which a freedom and
expansiveness of the spirit can be won. Such self-denial gives to the
soul a freshness and buoyancy which, for those who can pursue it, is in
itself an ecstasy of delight. And thus Hugh found it impossible to stay
in an atmosphere which, though exquisitely refined and quiet, yet
hampered the energy of aspiration and adventure.

And so he came to the Mirfield Community, and for a time found exactly
what he wanted. The Brotherhood did not mainly concern itself with the
organisation of social reform, while it reduced the complications of
life to a spare and rigorous simplicity. The question is, why this life,
which allowed him to apply all his gifts and powers to the work which
still, I think, was the embodiment of his visions, did not completely
satisfy him?

I think, in the first place, that it is probable that, though he was not
conscious of it, the discipline and the subordination of the society did
not really quite give him enough personal freedom. He continued for a
time to hanker after community life; he used to say, when he first
joined the Church of Rome, that he thought he might end as a Carthusian,
or later on as a Benedictine. But he spoke less and less of this as the
years went on, and latterly I believe that he ceased to contemplate it,
except as a possibility in case his powers of speech and writing should
fail him. I believe that he really, thought perhaps unconsciously,
desired a freer hand, and that he found that the community life on the
whole cramped his individuality. His later life was indeed a complete
contrast to anything resembling community life; his constant
restlessness of motion, his travels, his succession of engagements both
in all parts of England as well as in Rome and America, were really, I
do not doubt, more congenial to him; while his home life ultimately
became only his opportunity for intense and concentrated literary work.

But beyond and above that lay the doctrinal question. He sums up what he
came to believe in a few words, that the Church of Rome was "the
divinely appointed centre of unity," and he felt the "absolute need of a
Teaching Churc