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Strachey, Giles Lytton, 1880-1932

"Eminent Victorians"

'
Mr. Carlyle, indeed, used different language, and some remarks of
his about a lost lamb bleating on the mountains, having been
unfortunately repeated to Miss Nightingale, required all Mr.
Jowett's suavity to keep the peace. In a letter of fourteen
sheets, he turned her attention from this painful topic towards a
discussion of Quietism. 'I don't see why,' said the Master of
Balliol, 'active life might not become a sort of passive life
too.' And then, he added, 'I sometimes fancy there are
possibilities of human character much greater than have been
realised.' She found such sentiments helpful, underlining them in
blue pencil; and, in return, she assisted her friend with a long
series of elaborate comments upon the Dialogues of Plato, most of
which he embodied in the second edition of his translation.
Gradually her interest became more personal; she told him never
to work again after midnight, and he obeyed her. Then she helped
him to draw up a special form of daily service for the College
Chapel, with selections from the Psalms under the heads of 'God
the Lord, God the judge, God the Father, and God the Friend'--
though, indeed, this project was never realised; for the Bishop
of Oxford disallowed the alterations, exercising his legal
powers, on the advice of Sir Travers Twiss.
Their relations became intimate.


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