Page:Studies of a Biographer 2.djvu/136

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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

us face to face with the man; and should enable us to form a distinct portrait of a very interesting figure. One result may be emphatically recognised at the outset. Nobody can lay down these volumes without feeling that Jowett deserved the affection of his friends. He had his weaknesses, like Johnson; but we feel in his case, .as in Johnson's, that the core of the man's nature was sweet, sound, and masculine. This is part of the explanation of a problem which, I must confess, has often appeared to me, as to others, to be rather enigmatic. What was the secret and the real nature of Jowett's remarkable influence? I had not the advantage of coming within his personal sphere, nor even of belonging to his beloved University. I had, however, the good fortune of knowing at an early period some of the group, among whom, as we are told, 'there sprang up what outsiders termed a sort of Jowett worship,' That group, it is added, did not form a 'mutual admiration society.' One reason is obvious: the bond of union was personal. The worship of Newman or of Carlyle meant, as a rule, sympathy with certain dogmas or the acceptance of a particular set of shibboleths, which at once marked a man as representing