It has come to be universally admitted that Cardinal Newman fulfills his
own definition of a great author: "One whose aim is to give forth what
he has within him; and from his very earnestness it happens that
whatever be the splendor of his diction, or the harmony of his periods,
he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity.
"Whatever be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for its
own sake.... He writes passionately because he feels keenly; forcibly,
because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too
serious to be otiose; he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is
rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is
consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous.
"When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart
is touched, it thrills along his verse. He always has the right word for
the right idea, and never a word too much....
"He expresses what all feel but cannot say; and his sayings pass into
proverbs among his people, and his phrases become household words,
idioms of their daily speech, which is tessellated with the rich
fragments of his language, as we see in foreign lands the marbles of
Roman grandeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern palaces."
Newman may be said to have handled England's prose as Shakespeare
handled her verse. His language was wrought up little by little to a
finish and refinement, a strength and a subtlety, thrown into the form
of eloquence, beyond which no English writer of prose has gone. Nor is
his excellence that of mere art in form; he possesses not only skill,
which he calls an exercise of talent, but power--a second name for
genius--which itself implies personality and points to inspiration.
His mind was large, logical, profoundly thoughtful, imaginative,
intense, sincere, and above all, spiritual; his soul was keen, delicate,
sympathetic, heroic; and his life, at once severe and tender, passionate
and self-controlled, alone and unlonely, stands out in its loftiness and
saintliness, a strange, majestic contrast to the agitation and turmoil
of "confused passions, hesitating ideals, tentative virtues, and groping
philanthropies" amidst which it was lived.
Both by word and work did Newman lead forth his generation on the long
pilgrimage to the shrine of Truth, and England of the nineteenth century
has no surer claim to holiness and genius for her great sons than that
set upon John Henry Newman.
He was born in London, 1801; studied, taught, and preached at Oxford;
became the chief promoter of the Tractarian Movement of 1833; entered
the Catholic Church in 1845; founded the Oratory at Birmingham, 1848;
was created Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII 1879; died at Edgbaston, 1890.
Any attempt to choose from the writings of Newman what seems most
desirable for brief class studies is certain to be woefully embarrassed
by the very wealth of matter; and apology for risking the choice would
be due, were it not lost sight of in the desire to see a literary model
so pure, varied, animated, forceful, luminous--"a thing of light and
beauty"--given to our students.
What is more significant of the Life Book of the saintly Oxford Scholar
than his self-written epitaph: "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem?"