Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 1 (1869).djvu/32

Rh orat,' and the 'New Sinai.' The often quoted lines in 'In Memoriam' might almost be supposed to have been written for him:—

Such scepticism—scepticism which consists in reverent waiting for light not yet given, in respect for the truth so absolute, that nothing doubtful can be accepted as truth because it is pleasant to the soul—was his from this time forth to the end of his life. Some truths he doubtless conceived himself to have learnt to know, in the course of his life, but his attitude was always chiefly that of a learner. The best key for those who care to know his later thought is to be found in the fragment on the 'Religious Tradition' contained in the present volume. But the scepticism which assumes a negative position from intellectual pleasure in destructive arguments, which does not feel the want of spiritual support, or realise the existence of spiritual truth, which mocks at the grief of others, and refuses to accept their honest experiences as real, was never his. He never denied the reality of much that he himself could not use as spiritual nutriment He believed that God spoke differently to different ages and different minds. Not therefore could he lay aside his own duty of seeking and waiting. Through good report, and through evil report, this he felt to be his own personal duty, and from it he never flinched.

To return to Clough's early days. It would not, we think, be true to say that he abandoned all his early belief; he still, no doubt, preserved much of his old feeling, and was in no sense hostile to existing institutions; but certainty as to anything resting on personal or traditional authority was gone for him.

The result of this disturbance of mind was naturally to distract his attention from his immediate studies, and to make his labour less productive. Yet he did read hard, even more so, per-