allowing no dictation and no interference .... Charlotte herself is
really magnificent. Every letter shows me larger nobleness of heart.
You cannot go back now, Mrs. Kingsley."

Mrs. Kingsley did not go back, and Froude had his way. Before the
wedding, however, another and a novel experience awaited him. His
misfortunes aroused the interest of a rich manufacturer at
Manchester, Mr. Darbishire, who offered him a resident tutorship,
and would have taken him into his own firm, even, as it would seem,
into his own family, if he had desired to become a man of business,
and to live in a smoky town. But Froude was engaged to be married,
and had a passionate love of the country. His keen, clear, rapid
intelligence would probably have served him well in commercial
affairs when once he had learnt to understand them. He was reserved
for a very different destiny, and he gratefully declined Mr.
Darbishire's offer. Nevertheless, his stay at Manchester as private
tutor had some share in his mental development. He made acquaintance
with interesting persons, such as Harriet Martineau, Geraldine
Jewsbury, Mrs. Gaskell, and William Edward Forster, then known as a
young Quaker who had devoted himself, in the true Quaker spirit of
self-sacrifice, to relieving the sufferers from the Irish famine.
Besides Manchester friends, Froude imbibed Manchester principles. He
had been half inclined to sympathise with the socialism of Louis
Blanc and other French revolutionists. Manchester cured him. He
adopted the creed of individualism, private enterprise, no
interference by Government, and free trade. In these matters he did
not, at that time, go with Carlyle, as in ecclesiastical matters he
had not gone with Newman. His mind was intensely practical, though
in personal questions of self-interest he was careless, and even
indifferent. Henceforth he abandoned speculation, as well