] I generally wore an
accordion skirt at tea, as Lord Wemyss liked me to dance to him.
Some one was playing the piano and I was improvising in and out of
the chairs, when, in the act of making a final curtsey, I caught
my foot in my skirt and fell at the feet of an old clergyman
seated in the window. As I got up, a loud "Damn!" resounded
through the room. Recovering my presence of mind, I said, looking
up:
"You are a clergyman and I am afraid I have shocked you!"
"Not at all," he replied. "I hope you will go on; I like your
dancing extremely."
I provoked much amusement by asking the family afterwards if the
parson whose presence I had failed to notice was their minister at
Aberlady. I then learnt that he was the famous Dr. Benjamin
Jowett, Master of Balliol.
Before telling how my friendship with the Master developed, I
shall go back to the events in Oxford which gave him his insight
into human beings and caused him much quiet suffering.
In 1852 the death of Dr. Jenkyns caused the Mastership at Balliol
to become vacant. Jowett's fame as a tutor was great, but with it
there had spread a suspicion of "rationalism." Persons whispered
that the great tutor was tainted with German views. This reacted
unduly upon his colleagues; and, when the election came, he was
rejected by a single vote. His disappointment was deep, but he
threw himself more than ever into his work. He told me that a
favourite passage of his in Marcus Aurelius--"Be always doing
something serviceable to mankind and let this constant generosity
be your only pleasure, not forgetting a due regard to God"--had
been of great help to him at that time.
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