No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Is Newman a Mystery?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
It is ironic to reflect that Newman explicitly said that he did not wish his life to be written and that during the last few years something like a dozen biographies of him have appeared, some of which indeed tell us nothing new. At last we have—at any rate as far as material is concerned—as full a biography as we can hope to get. This is Miss Meriol Trevor's two-volume work based on the unpublished material at the Birmingham Oratory. As one would expect, Miss Trevor tells her story very well, but her portrait of Newman is marred by a too sentimental approach to her subject, and this may lend credence to the view, which has been widely canvassed, that Newman is an enigmatic figure. This is extremely strange in view of James Anthony Froude's description of him as ‘the most transparent of men, and Newman's own assertion that it was most repugnant to his nature to conceal things. Father Dessain rightly repudiates the suspicion that there was anything in Newman himself to hide and has decided not to help perpetuate this notion of the mystery of Newman by publishing a selection of the letters rather than the voluminous correspondence in its completeness. Seldom indeed has a man been at more pains both to understand himself and to reveal the workings of his mind, and seldom has anyone had greater mastery of lucid expression to enable him to say what he meant.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1965
References
page 435 note 1 Vide the memorandum of 15th November 1872.
page 435 note 2 This remark does not, of course, apply to works such as Maisie Ward's, O'Faolain's and F. L. Cross's.
page 435 note 3 Meriol Trevor, Newman, The Pillar of the Cloud and Newman, Light in Winter, Macmillan, 50s. each.
page 435 note 4 Thus Bremond's Newman—essai de biographie psychologique was translated into English under the title ‘The Mystery of Newman’.
page 435 note 5 The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. XI, p. xvi f. Father Dessain has edited this series of which volumes XI and XII have so far appeared. They are published by Nelson and cost 63s. each.
page 437 note 1 Vide letters to Wilberforce and others, pp. 4–15.
page 437 note 2 Vide letter to Wilberforce 26th January 1846, p. 99.
page 437 note 3 p. 102.
page 437 note 4 Cf. letter of 27th January to Wilberforce where he voices his suspicion that James Mozley had written the article in the Christian Remembrancer maintaining that Newman had never believed in the Anglican Church or received it as divine. A note appended in 1876 by Newman to the copy he had made of this letter and a note he appended in 1878 to his collection of Mozley's letters reveal not only the pain caused by the attack but also his sense of profound disappointment in his erstwhile curate and friend. Incidentally, this letter gives a very interesting account of Newman's loss of faith in the theory of the Anglican Church.
page 439 note 1 Ward, Vide W., Life of Cardinal Wiseman, London, 1887, I, pp. 432ff.Google Scholar
page 440 note 1 Brownson's Quarterly Review, vol. 1, pp. 45ff.
page 441 note 1 Letters, vol. XII, pp. 78, 98.
page 441 note 2 ibid., p. 128.
page 441 note 3 ibid., p. 171.
page 441 note 4 Vol. XI, p. 60.
page 441 note 5 ibid., p. 140.
page 441 note 6 Vol. XII, p. 228.
page 442 note 1 Letters, vol. XI, p. 289.
page 442 note 2 Stewart, Dugald, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, pt. II, c. 5, sec. iv.Google Scholar
page 442 note 3 Letters, vol. XII, p. 34.
page 442 note 4 ibid., p. 290.
page 442 note 5 ibid., p. 228.
page 443 note 1 Grammar of Assent, pp. 104–5, 402. Cf. Boekraad, , The Personal Conquest of Truth according to J. H. Newman, Louvain, 1955, p. 266 n.Google Scholar
page 443 note 2 Letters, vol. XI, p. 86.
page 443 note 3 ibid., pp. ix-xii.