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

284

Lzfe of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. IX

Your book' is often in my mind. I hope it has prospered
during the vacation. But if not, do not be discouraged.
Nothing seems to me more uncertain than composition. One
month a good harvest is reaped: the next all barren. In these
fits and starts, with much pain and melancholy I calculate
that I accomplish somewhat less than half of what I always
intend. Whether you accomplish the work six months sooner
or later must depend on health and many other causes. I feel
confident that you will succeed at last.
This letter is nothing, yet I send it because I do not want
you, who have shown such warm sympathy and kindness for
me, to suppose that I can be forgetful of you at any crisis
of your life.
Ever yours affectionately,
B. JOWETT.
To JOHN NICHOL.
August 22, 1856.... The subject of the Stanhope Essay is 'The Life and
Place of Wycliffe as a Reformer.'
You could not have a more interesting subject. The books
about it you probably know better than I do.... Great reformers are generally misrepresented when the
world has settled down into a calm. Mankind are afraid to
acknowledge how wild and fierce they were. I expect you will
find Wycliffe to have been a kind of 'Socialist,' as a man
whose mind was turned loose upon Scripture might very well
become, especially in an age when the division of ranks was so
strongly marked. The rebellious spirits of the Middle Ages
are a strange phenomenon.
To A. P. STANLEY.
DOVER, i856.
I took up the Record at the reading-rooms to-day; it
points out for the edification of the Ministry that Providence
whitewashed their misdoings by two large majorities immediately after the Sunday bands were put an end to. 'I had
1 Edition of Aristotle's Ethics.