Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and CommentsGuiney, Louise Imogen
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Hurrell Froude: Memoranda and Comments
Guiney, Louise Imogen
Froude, Richard Hurrell, 1803-1836
‘Mr. Freeman commences with a sentence which is grossly impertinent.
“Natural kindliness,” he says, “if no other feeling, might have kept
back the fiercest of partisans from ignoring the work of a
long-forgotten brother.” How can Mr. Freeman know my motive for not
speaking of my brother in connection with Becket, that he should
venture upon ground so sensitive? I mentioned no modern writers,
except, once, Dean Stanley. Natural kindliness would have been more
violated if I had specified my brother as a person with whose opinions
on the subject I was compelled to differ. I spoke of rehabilitation of
Becket as among the first efforts of the High Church school. My
brother’s _Remains_ were brought out by the leaders of that school
after his death, as a party manifesto; and, for my own part, I
consider the publication of the _Remains_ the greatest injury that was
ever done to my brother’s memory. But this is venial, compared with
what follows. He goes on: “And from dealing stabs in the dark at a
brother’s almost forgotten fame.” “Stabs in the dark?” Can Mr. Freeman
have measured the meaning of the words which he is using? If I had
written anonymous articles attacking my brother’s work, “stabs in the
dark” would have been a correct expression; and Mr. Freeman has
correctly measured the estimate likely to be formed of a person who
could have been guilty of doing anything so discreditable.
Irrespective of “natural kindliness,” I look back upon my brother as,
on the whole, the most remarkable man I have ever met in my life. I
have never seen any person,――not one! in whom, as I now think of him,
the excellences of intellect and character were combined in fuller
measure. Of my personal feeling towards him I cannot speak. I am
ashamed to have been compelled, by what I can describe only as an
inexcusable insult, to say what I have said.’
From _The Contemporary Review_, May, 1879, xxxv., 218 _et seq._
‘Last Words on Mr. Froude,’ by E. A. Freeman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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