philosophical as theological, and reverted to the historical studies
of his youth. Philosophy at Oxford in those days meant Plato,
Aristotle, and Bishop Butler. Froude was a good Greek scholar, and
he had the true Oxford reverence for Butler. But he had not gone
deeper into philosophy than his examinations and his pupils
required. He liked positive results, and metaphysicians always
suggested to him the movements of a squirrel in a cage.

The alternative to business was literature. Biographies of literary
men, said Carlyle, are the most wretched documents in human history,
except the Newgate Calendar. But Carlyle said many things he did not
believe, and this was probably one of them. The truth is, that the
literary profession, like the commercial, requires some little
capital with which to set out, and Froude received this with his
wife. Besides it he had brilliant talents, unflagging industry, and
powers of writing such as have seldom been given to any of the sons
of men. While at Manchester he composed The Cat's Pilgrimage, the
earliest of his Short Studies in date. The moral of this fanciful
fable is very like the moral of Candide.

The discontented cat, tired of her monotonously comfortable place on
the hearthrug, goes out into the world, and gets nothing more than
experience for her pains. She finds the other animals occupied with
their own concerns, and enjoying life because they do not go beyond
them. Not a very elevating paper, perhaps, but better than The
Nemesis of Faith, and Froude's last word on the subjects that had
tormented his youth.

He recoiled from materialism, finding that it offered no explanation
of the universe. Faith in God he had never entirely lost, and on