Life and letters of Thomas Hodgkin / by Louise Creighton.

  • Thomas Hodgkin
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life and letters of Thomas Hodgkin / by Louise Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    455/494 (page 413)
    or on the field of Flodden with ‘ Marmion ' on his lips, or receiving with his incomparable dignity and grace a Bishop fresh home from the Antipodes. Wherever he went he carried with him the atmosphere of still peace won in many a Quiet Meeting. That atmosphere pervaded Bar- moor Castle.1 Whatever success I have had, secular as well as spiritual, is practically due to his initiative. Going into business, walking safely along the most slippery and dangerous paths (which were not so to me, owing to his constant vigilance and support), I always looked like a child to him for advice and guidance. There are no more powerful bankers left like him and John William Pease, and there will be no more men like me, who succeeded simply on account of the con¬ sistent and loyal support of their bankers. ... I never hardly saw a man who could so instantly make up his mind as to the best course of action in a difficulty, and then never waver or deviate.2 His was indeed one of the purest and sweetest natures, and one of the most high-minded and public-spirited that I have ever known. To be with him always made me feel happy and tranquil; there was such a simple sincerity of goodness about all his thoughts.3 Such width of thought and such simplicity of character are very seldom found united. He seemed to have come nearer than, perhaps, any of his contemporaries to solving the problem of modern life for the individual. The growth of knowledge, the perplexities of thought, the weight of affairs, the worries and disasters which continually called to him for sympathy—these seemed only to ripen his nature without ever complicating or distracting it. His power was kindly and tonic, mellowing rather than fierce, vital¬ ising by tranquillity rather than by impulse—the fine urbanity of a Roman gentleman he had to the full—-the spirit and the fruit of his religion were in sight of all who knew him.4 Nothing will ever be nearer or more vivid to me than those days of Bamborough and Barmoor, and that broad 1 Cyril Hepher, in The Fellowship ofj Silence. 2 Sir Benjamin Browne. 8 James Bryce (now Viscount Bryce). 4 Henry Newbolt, in the Times.