Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother

It was a time of hard work; and I really retain very few recollections of him at all at this date. I was myself very busy at Eton, and spent the holidays to a great ex

ndian Civil Service candidates, and no doubt forgot to write home, f

ce, S.E., 30

ould be right as you were a large party. But one word would be so easy to those who love you so, who h

off "Pioneers and Founders," which we hope will both give y

u are backward in French

r to make two or three Resolutions, besides those wh

on work on Sundays-to keep all reading that day a

He worked on just the same and in the Examination itself, just as the goal was reached, he broke down and took no degree.

at one time, and he said, "I never could have done it,

t Dinan. Perhaps some nice fellow will go with you-Mr. Spiers will any

s of Wales. It was very interesting. The Terrace of the House of Com

cles, and I suppose his coming will have mu

Ever your most

Can

preach at the

il Service, and it was decided that he should go up to Tr

ys said himself that it astonished him on looking back to think how purely negative and undeveloped his early life had bee

early days; he was not in the least precocious. I think that on the whole it was beneficial to him that his energies all lay fallow. My father, stern as his conception of duty was, had a horror of applying any intellectual pressure to us. I myself must confess that I was distinctly idle and dilettante both as a boy at Eton and as a Cambridge undergraduate. But much as my father appreciated and applauded any little successes, I was often surprised that I was never taken to task for my poor performances in work and scholarship. The truth was that my eldest brother's death at Winchester was supposed partly to have been due to his extraordinary intellectual and mental development, and I am sure that my father was afraid of over-stimulating our mental energies. I feel certain that what was going on in Hugh's case all the time was a keen exercise of observation. I h

t is not for a moment to be regarded as a purely artistic thing; but it most undoubtedly has an attraction and a fascination as clear and as sharply defined as the attraction of music, poetry, painting or drama. All art is an attempt to express a sense of the overwhelming power of beauty. It is hard to say what beauty is, but it seems to be one of the inherent qualities of the Unknown, an essential part of the Divine mind. In England we are so stupid and so concrete that we are apt to think of a musician as one who arranges chords, and of a painter as one who copies natural effects. It is not really that at all. The artist is in reality struggling with an idea, which idea is a consciousness of an amazing and adorable quality in th

poetry of which the essence is symbolism and mystery. The movement of forms solemnly vested, and with a background of architecture and music, produces an emotion quite distinct from other artistic emotions. It is a method, like

ourage too much an ?sthetic emotion. If the first business of religion is to purify life, there will always be a suspici

e years later what h

further believe that this is an art which has been gradually brought nearer and nearer perfection by being tested and developed through nineteen centuries, by every kind of mind and natio

do not in the least 'condemn' people who do not appreciate it. It is only a way of presenting facts-and, in the case of Holy Week C

ic nature-poetry, sculpture, painting, architecture, scenery, were all full of fascination to him-for music alone of the arts he had but little taste; and I think that it ought to be realised that Hugh's nature was an artistic one through and through. He had the most lively and passionate sensibility to the appeal of art. He had, too, behind the outer sensitiveness, the inner toughness of the artist. It is often mistakenly thought that the artist is sensitive through and through. In my experience, this is not the case. The artist has to be protected against the overwhelming onset of emotions and perceptions by a strong interior fortress of emotional calm and serenity. It is certain that this was the case with Hugh. He was not in the least sentimental, he was not really