Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 1 (1869).djvu/52

36 leave Oxford, and seek work elsewhere; but the difficulty of finding this, and the undefined nature of his objections, appear to have hindered him. At this time, in order to secure the comfort of a near relative, he entered into a pecuniary arrangement, by which he bound himself to pay 100l. a year, on condition of receiving a considerable sum at the death of one of the parties to the negotiation. This was looked on as an event certain to occur very soon, but, in fact, it did not come to pass for fifteen years; and this liability, very easily borne while his circumstances were prosperous, became a drag upon him when he had no longer any assured income. Thus, though everything in his outward circumstances combined to make it desirable for him to remain in his present position, yet by degrees his dissatisfaction with it became too strong to be endured. His was a nature 'which moveth all together, if it move at all;' and, once entered upon the course of free inquiry, nothing could stop the expansion of his thought in that direction. His absolute conscientiousness and intense unworldliness prevented the usual influences which slacken men's movements from telling upon his.

It is not very obvious what eventually decided him to quit Oxford at the precise moment when he did so. In the year 1847 he was powerfully stirred by the distress in Ireland at the time of the potato famine, as may be seen from the pamphlet on 'Retrenchment;' and the general ferment of his nature, as well as the ripening of opinions in his own mind, probably tended to make him more open to change. Emerson also visited England in this year. Clough became intimate with him, and his influence must have tended to urge him on in the direction in which he was already moving. With another friend, also, whose general dissatisfaction with European life was strong, he was at this time very familiar. We are, therefore, disposed to think that it was some half accidental confirmation of his own doubts as to the honesty and usefulness of his own course, which brought him at last almost suddenly