Margot Asquith, an Autobiography - Two Volumes in One by Margot Asquith
page 266 of 409 (65%)
page 266 of 409 (65%)
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Most truly yours,
B. JOWETT. P.S.--I have read your letter again! I think that I ought to tell you that, unless you had been a complete stranger, you would not have had so good an opinion of me. I feel the kindness of your letter, but at the same time, if I believed what you say of me, I should soon become a "very complete rascal." Any letter like yours, which is written with such earnestness, and in a time of illness, is a serious call to think about religion. I do not intend to neglect this because I am not inclined to use the same language. When Jowett became Master, his pupils and friends gathered round him and overcame the Church chatter. He was the hardest-working tutor, Vice-Chancellor and Master that Oxford ever had. Balliol, under his regime, grew in numbers and produced more scholars, more thinkers and more political men of note than any other college in the university. He had authority and a unique prestige. It was said of Dr. Whewell of Trinity that "knowledge was his forte and omniscience his foible"; the same might have been said of the Master and was expressed in a college epigram, written by an undergraduate. After Jowett's death I cut the following from an Oxford magazine: The author of a famous and often misquoted verse upon Professor Jowett has written me a note upon his lines which may be appropriately inserted here. "Several versions," he writes, "have appeared lately, and my vanity does not consider them |
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