Montreux . men who, when the creed of theirchildhood has to be abandoned, feel like sailors lost,without a compass, on an uncharted sea—wouldrather be guided by false lights than by none, andexclaim miserably that Of all poor creatures under heavens wide cope,Those are most hopeless who have had most hope,And most beliefless who have most believed. That attitude has been very frequent at Oxford,where religion is invested with poetry and theenchantments of the Middle Ages linger. Thetendency there has always been for men to hugtheir chains instead of rejoicing in their anyone who do
Montreux . men who, when the creed of theirchildhood has to be abandoned, feel like sailors lost,without a compass, on an uncharted sea—wouldrather be guided by false lights than by none, andexclaim miserably that Of all poor creatures under heavens wide cope,Those are most hopeless who have had most hope,And most beliefless who have most believed. That attitude has been very frequent at Oxford,where religion is invested with poetry and theenchantments of the Middle Ages linger. Thetendency there has always been for men to hugtheir chains instead of rejoicing in their anyone who doubts it study the lives ofArthur Hugh Clough, of Francis Newman, ofJohn Addington Symonds, whose letters anddiaries alternate between lamentations and , we may take it, was a man of a verysimilar temperament to theirs, and he sufferedunder certain disadvantages from which theywere exempt. He was less of a scholar, less ofa man of the world. He was only nineteen years SUNSET ON THE LAKE. OBERMANN 99 of age when his spiritual crisis came to a head,and he pondered over his troubles in solitudeinstead of facing them in the society of his fellow-men. For years, while the revolutionary storm wasraging, he hid himself, or wandered in lonelyplaces—in the Forest of Fontainebleau, at in the Valais, at St. Saphorin, and inother villages at the Montreux end of the Lakeof Geneva. His talk in these retreats is muchmore of ennui than of repose, and he increased hisennui by marrying an uncongenial wife. Circum-stances in the end drove him back to Paris, hispatrimony having been lost or dissipated, and thenecessity of earning a livelihood being urgent. Hewas poor, and he knew no one. .Journalism washis only resource, and he was not of the stuff ofwhich good journalists are made. Of his perform-ances in the character of journalist little is known,except that he contributed to a biographicaldictionary, and earned a brief notoriety in thepolice-courts by describin
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