sed to be anxious ones, simply set
their faces steadily to discountenance and discredit it. They were good
and respectable men, living comfortably in a certain state and ease.
Their lives were mostly simple compared with the standard of the outer
world, though Fellows of Colleges thought them luxurious. But they were
blind and dull as tea-table gossips as to what was the meaning of the
movement, as to what might come of it, as to what use might be made of
it by wise and just and generous recognition, and, if need be, by wise
and just criticism and repression. There were points of danger in it;
but they could only see what _seemed_ to be dangerous, whether it was
so or not; and they multiplied these points of danger by all that was
good and hopeful in it. It perplexed and annoyed them; they had not
imagination nor moral elevation to take in what it aimed at; they were
content with the routine which they had inherited; and, so that men read
for honours and took first classes, it did not seem to them strange or a
profanation that a whole mixed crowd of undergraduates should be
expected to go on a certain Sunday in term, willing or unwilling, fit or
unlit, to the Sacrament, and be fined if they did not appear. Doubtless
we are all of us too prone to be content with the customary, and to be
prejudiced against the novel, nor is this condition of things without
advantage. But we must bear our condemnation if we stick to the
customary too long, and so miss our signal opportunities. In their
apathy, in their self-satisfied ignorance, in their dulness of
apprehension and forethought, the authorities of the University let pass
the great opportunity of their time. As it usually happens, when this
posture of lofty ignoring what is palpable and active, and the object of
everybody's thought, goes on too long, it is apt to turn into impatient
dislike and bitter antipathy. The Heads of Houses drifted insensibly
into this position. They had not taken the trouble to understand the
movement, to discriminate between its aspects, to put themselves frankly
into communication with its leading persons, to judge with the knowledge
and justice of scholars and clergymen of its designs and ways. They let
themselves be diverted from this, their proper though troublesome task,
by distrust, by the jealousies of their position, by the impossibility
of conceiving that anything so strange could really be true and sound.
And at length they found themselves