Such incidents as
that when Newman said good-bye to his bare room at Littlemore, and
kissed the door-posts and the bed in a passion of grief, show what
his intensity of feeling might be.
It is not as a rule the calm and controlled people who have this
attractiveness for others; it is rather those who unite with an
enchanting kind of playfulness an instinct to confide in and to
depend upon protective affection. Very probably there is some deep-
seated sexual impulse involved, however remotely and unconsciously,
in this species of charm. It is the appeal of the child that exults
in happiness, claims it as a right, uses it with a pretty
petulance,--like the feigned enmity of the kitten and the puppy,--
and when it is clouded over, requires tearfully that it shall be
restored. That may seem an undignified comparison for a prince of
the church. But Newman was artist first, and theologian a long way
afterward; he needed comfort and approval and even applause; and he
evoked, together with love and admiration, the compassion and
protective chivalry of his friends. His writings have little
logical or intellectual force; their strength is in their ineffable
and fragrant charm, their ordered grace, their infinite pathos.
The Greek word for this subtle kind of beauty is charis, and the
Greeks are worth hearing on the subject, because they, of all the
nations that ever lived, were penetrated by it, valued it, looked
out for it, worshipped it.
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