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

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Lzfe of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. XI

poet (or poets rather). Not that as a rule Jowett's influence lay in that direction. In speaking of some one
who had been doing well in a profession, he would say:
'At College he took to poetry and that sort of nonsense.'
But he rejoiced in any real success; and although the
genius of Swinburne, the ever-active brain of J. A.
Symonds, and the vigorous individuality of John Nichol
were largely independent of his teaching, they yet owed
to him what was more valuable still, the blessing of
a friendship which never wavered, which gave unstinted
help at critical moments both in youth and after life,
and would make any sacrifice of leisure and of ease
to serve them. In former days he had said, on its being
suggested that a poet might come forth from Balliol,' If
a poet came here, we could never hold him.'
A few words may be added parenthetically on his
supposed worship of genius and of success. The former
imputation was more rife in earlier years, the latter
afterwards, when his own position was now assured.
Both really turned on one peculiarity: that in judging
of persons and in determining his relation to them,
he never separated their individual characteristics from
the thought of what they might effect. This was equally
his way of regarding his own life and the lives of
others. But neither in his choice of friends, nor in his
treatment of those with whom he had to do, can it be
truly said that he was ever influenced by any sordid or
self-regarding motive. If he sometimes argued as if men
of genius should not be judged according to common
rules, or that allowance should be made for irregularities
which seem inseparable from an exalted station, his
estimate of the worthiest aims and his ideal of character
and conduct remained unaltered. Nor is it a wholly
insignificant circumstance that he knew from experience