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

Letters, 1860o-865

373

whole world and all things in it, instead of being secular and
external to revelation, needs to be brought back within the
sphere of revelation.
I have been staying with Tennyson, who is in great want
of a subject for a poem. Can you think of one? It is worth
while, if you can. I have given him one-the 'Grandmother,'
which has answered, and have been urging Galileo upon him,
but he is not inclined to this. He has been amusing himself
with translating passages of Homer.
To MRS. TENNYSON.
BALLIOL, February 27, 1865.
You will have seen that Christ Church have agreed to
endow the Greek Professorship-at last, after having done and
undone the same thing ten years ago. But Dr. Pusey, who
first raised the opposition, has got his party into a scrape, and
therefore to get them out again has made Christ Church fulfil
their obligation (not a legal one, but I think a moral one, as
they had estates given them for the support of the Professorship). I am neither grateful nor ungrateful. You must not
look a gift horse in the mouth. I was rather glad that you
did not write to congratulate. Having more money I hope
to. get more done for the undergraduates.
I hope Alfred is well and at work. I always maintain that
he should look forward with hope to the remaining age of life,
as he may do greater, more human, more divine things than
he has done yet. Life ought to harmonize man and become
stronger and also gentler as we get older.... I sometimes
think that poets have not done enough for the good and
elevation and inspiration of the world. I believe that the
world, however bad, would put a crown upon the head of any
one who would really instruct them.
To DEAN STANLEY.
INGLEWOOD, TORQUAY,
March 1o, I865.
Many thanks indeed for your kind letter. We thought
that my mother was dying on Saturday, but since then she