Page:Studies of a Biographer 2.djvu/137

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JOWETT'S LIFE
125

a distinctive tendency in theology or politics. This could certainly not be said of Jowett's worshippers. Jowett did not himself accept any articulate philosophical doctrine. The admiration, therefore, was mainly for the man himself; and might be common to people who, starting from a general liberalism—to use the vaguest possible word—had reached very different conclusions; and might be followers of Comte, or of Hegel, or even careless Gallios, capable of very sharp criticisms both of their master and of each other. The outsider, meanwhile, was a little in the dark as to the precise nature of a tie which united the central member to disciples who dispersed along so many diverging radii.

The problem was the more difficult to a member of the sister University. An interesting essay might, I fancy, be written upon the nature and origin of the difference between the Oxford and the Cambridge spirit. Whatever the cause, one distinction is marked. Oxford has long been fertile in prophets; in men who cast a spell over a certain number of disciples, and not only propagate ideas, but exercise a personal sway. At Cambridge no such leader, so far as I can remember, presented himself in my time; and,