The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

I52

Lzife of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. V

nature' you find among the middling classes? A gentleman's
motto ought to be regardlessness of money except in great
things and as a matter of duty-a tradesman's motto ought
to be, ' Take care of the pence and the pounds, &c.' And when
one remembers what a hold this principle must get, I do not
think we can afford to give up aristocracy as an element of
National Education....
To R. B. W. LINGEN.
BEAUMARIS, August 24, I846.
I confess it is the priestcraft of S. Oxon. I am most
afraid of. Coming the Bishop of Oxfordis, I am afraid, likely to be
a much more successful game than coming the Bishop of Exeter
over the world. Think of a man who always looks good, out
of whose mouth Christian charity flows like rivers of oil, equally
respected by old women and prime ministers, who never for
a moment loses sight of spiritual in his search after temporal
things....
To A. P. STANLEY.
August, I846...You have everything to encourage you both in the
past and the future, if you would but bring yourself to believe
that you have the power of self-improvement. I sometimes
think that you indulge a kind of fatalism about character;
there are no faults intellectual or otherwise which may not
be got rid of, if the right methods are used-sometimes fighting
them, sometimes flying from them. Let us think of journeying on until seventy in these kind of pursuits; the thought,
perhaps you will say, is oppressive. But let us try and
'victual ourselves for such a voyage as this.'
There is something impertinent in this sort of 'subjective'
letter, even between two intimate friends; therefore excuse it.
It is needless to say that I know a thousand times more folly
in myself than these defects in you-I mean, indecision and
premature theorizing. I have been anxious about it for a long
time, and as your letter gives me an occasion, say what I feel
once for all.