The Irish standard., 1913-01-04
CARDINAL NEWMAN
AS Man OF LETTERS
The Only Master of Style He Ever
Followed in Ills Writings Was
the Roman Cicero.
DR.. William Barry Says the Great
Convert Fulflls Own Definition
of a Great Author.
A Frenchman Says That Bossuet
Alone Had Same Disdain ior
Literary Excellence.

Doctor William Barry, himself one
Of the most scholarly writers Of the
present day, treats in his life OF the
great English Cardinal of the illus
trious converts ability as man of
letters-an ability which, it may be
said, has Qike that of Ruskin) in
later days frequently been called into
Question by the younger critics Of the
ultra modern schools. DR.. Barry tells
us that Newman himself more than
once admitted that he had never at
tempted to write WE'LL or to form an
elegant style. His only endeavOr was,
in his own words, Ito do what Is so
difficult, namely, to express clearly
and exactly my meaning. The only
master of style have ever had -
is Cicero. l think l owe a great
deal to him. and as lar as I know, to
no one else."
Every day Newman made point of
translating one English sentence into
Latin. His pages are also steeped in
"reminiscences Of the Bible, as we
might expect from his familiarity with
it In every part, and Shakespeare
s.lniAt --bis .taken-. Into assollnt4 t.. in .stha,
=, moulding of his particular style. He
belongs Gays Dr. Barry) to the CEN
tral tradition of European prose which
is good coin in all our dialects; he ex-
hibits the "copous, majestic, unmix-
ed flow OF language" that he admires
in Cicero.
Cicero, Newman once said, wrote
Roman; most other writer's of the
Imperial City are not adequate
spokesmen for it, since they write
only Latin. And (says Dr.. Barry)
Newman is Latin by the structure OF
sentence and period; by the rhythm
which his ear, fast.diously keen, de-
mands; by his leisurey rhetoric, SEN
atorial grace and instant authority.
But (says DR.. Barry it is Roman
Latin; he disdains the archaic and
the provincial; he has too much
sense to be affected; he is too serious
any but the words which men use
for the vain exhibition of the virtu-
oso; too sure of himself to employ
any but the words which men use
in their daily talk. His choice, like
Macaulay's, does not range outside
Johnson, and the well-known French
critic, NJ. Dimnet, declared that only
Bossuet Of all great modern writer's
can be compared with Newman in
an absolute disdain for the praise of
excellence. Neither was more of a.
dilettante than was Carlyle.
Academic he certainly was, says
DR.. Barry, teaching in the form of
lecture; he must expound, elucidate,
place his subject in various lights re-
solve difficulties; he is rhetorican.
Nor has he marked affni-
ties with English writer's of his day;
he is strikingly different from Ma
caulay, whose eloquence betrays the
fury as it is annealed in the fire of
the Western Celt. To Ruskin he is a
contrast for the very reason that he
does not handle words as il they
were settings in architecture or COL
ors on n palette; rather, Newman
would look upon them as TRANSPARENT
cies which let his meaning through.
On the other hand (says the Doc
tori, Newman never read for read
ings sake; he was either incurious or
detached on principle from the pur-
suit of beauties in literature. He
read with an end in view We
may question if he had read Monies.
quieu; he was surely not acquainted
with Rousseau, and he remained to
the last an old.fashioned Englishman,
not SO much Whig or Tory, as in.
sular and even somewhat prejudiced,
thing we may smile at, all the more
so that there was (says DR.. Barry
scarcely In the veins Of our great
genius one drop Of English blood.
In considering Newman as a man
of letters, DR.. Barry declares that he