But, in reality, no one, in one sense of the word, was more
truthful than Newman. The idea of deceit would have been
abhorrent to him; and indeed it was owing to his very desire to
explain what he had in his mind exactly and completely, with all
the refinements of which his subtle brain was capable, that
persons such as Kingsley were puzzled into thinking him
dishonest. Unfortunately, however, the possibilities of truth and
falsehood depend upon other things besides sincerity. A man may
be of a scrupulous and impeccable honesty, and yet his respect
for the truth-- it cannot be denied-- may be insufficient. He may
be, like the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, 'of imagination
all compact'; he may be blessed, or cursed, with one of those
'seething brains', one of those 'shaping fanatasies' that
'apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends'; he may be by
nature incapable of sifting evidence, or by predilection simply
indisposed to do so. 'When we were there,' wrote Newman in a
letter to a friend after his conversion, describing a visit to
Naples, and the miraculous circumstances connected with the
liquefaction of St. Januarius's blood, 'the feast of St. Gennaro
was coming on, and the Jesuits were eager for us to stop--they
have the utmost confidence in the miracle--and were the more
eager because many Catholics, till they have seen it, doubt it.
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