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

334

Lzfe of Benjamin Jowett

[CHAP. XI

particles should be preserved. All was to be in perfect
English, and the labour spent on such a work was
naturally great. When I was with him at Askrigg, in
the summer of I864, he was struggling with the analysis
of the Parmenides and the other dialectical dialogues.
His taste in language was becoming more and more
fastidious. At this time he was resolved to turn every
sentence so as to exclude the colourless pronoun 'it.'
I troubled him with the remark that 'which' was not
much better, and one or other was inevitable. After
this he became more tolerant of 'it,' but still objected
to it, except in the impersonal verb. Finding the commentary sometimes tedious, he used to say, 'I am
longing to get at the more general treatment of the
subject. '
While speaking of our Yorkshire sojourn, it may be
worth while to trace the course of a day. Breakfast
was not very early, and was apt to be unpunctual, partly
because Jowett would take a pupil or a friend, Lord
Kerry, Lord Boringdon, or Lord Duncan, for a walk
and talk. Conversation after breakfast lasted some time,
and it was well after ten before we settled to work. But
the work continued with hardly any intermission till
dinner-time, four o'clock. This also was apt to be a
movable feast, as Jowett disliked stopping in the middle
of a piece of writing, and sometimes had letters to finish.
About six we started for a two hours' walk, returning
to tea at eight, and work was resumed before nine and
continued till midnight. Jowett wrote his letters at
odd times, mostly, I suspect, after the day's task was
done. Four pages of fresh writing and rather more of
revision were his quantum for the day. In working
with him, one was astonished at the number of ways
which occurred to him for turning a particular phrase.