far made up for lost time that he got, like Hurrell, a second class
in the final classical schools. His qualified success gave him, no
satisfaction. He was suffering from a bitter sense of disappointment
and wrong. It seemed to him that he was marked out for misfortune,
and that there was no one to help him or to take any trouble about
him. Thrown back upon himself, however, he conquered his
discouragement and resolved that he would be the master of his fate.

It was in the year 1840 that Froude took his degree. Newman was then
at the height of his power and influence. The Tracts for the Times,
which Mrs. Browning in Aurora Leigh calls "tracts against the
times," were popular with undergraduates, and High Churchmen were
making numerous recruits. Newman's sermons are still read for their
style. But we can hardly imagine the effect which they produced when
they were delivered. The preacher's unrivalled command of English,
his exquisitely musical voice, his utter unworldliness, the fervent
evangelical piety which his high Anglican doctrine did not disturb,
were less moving than his singular power, which he seemed to have
derived from Christ Himself, of reading the human heart. The young
men who listened to him felt, each of them, as if he had confessed
his inmost thoughts to Newman, as if Newman were speaking to him
alone. And yet, from his own point of view, there was a danger in
his arguments, a danger which he probably did not see himself,
peculiarly insidious to an acute, subtle, speculative mind like
Froude's.

Newman's intellect, when left to itself, was so clear, so powerful,
so intense, that it cut through sophistry like a knife, and went
straight from premisses to conclusion. But it was only left to
itself within narrow and definite limits. He never suffered from