Eliot, rested upon genuine appreciation. But a certain additional flavour was given by the collection in the shadow of the old college buildings of people at home in circles wider than the academical.
Jowett was Balliol and Balliol was Jowett. His foibles—they do not seem to have been very serious—were consequences of this tacit identification. To make the college as great a factor as possible in the higher ranks of English society, to extend and strengthen its influence in every direction, was to fulfil the main purpose of his life. And that—as might be illustrated by the history of larger societies which have tried to influence the outside world–– involves a certain amount of mutual accommodation. 'To do much good,' says Jowett, in 1883, 'you must be a very honest and able man, thinking of nothing else day and night; and you must also be a considerable piece of rogue, having many reticences and concealments.' 'A good sort of roguery,' he adds, 'is never to say a word against anybody, however much they may deserve it.' That is a version of some very orthodox phrases about the wisdom of the serpent and being all things to all men. Jowett in this sense may be called a bit of a 'rogue'; only remembering that his roguery
