Untitled - Electric Scotland

1841] OAKELEY AND WARD 75
"You must be fully aware that for some time back (owing,
I always supposed I hope erroneously to your own wish) I
have not seen so much of you in private as I once did, and as
I have always desired."
To this Oakeley replies :-
"
As to what you say of our not meeting so much of late, I
am glad you have said it, because it is open and friendly. If
you have much felt it, I am sorry you
have not said it before.
The fact is this : It seems to me we have agreed far better since
we have met less. Disputing with friends I cannot bear, and
yet, as we do not quite agree on essential matters, and each feels
strongly his own way, dispute we must. You have kept your
opinions ; I have a good deal changed mine. ... In one respect,
our intercourse is to me far more satisfactory than of old, in that I
do not think we encourage one another in our faults as we used.
Anything
is better than that."
With Mr. William George Ward, who was elected to
a Balliol Fellowship on the same day as himself, Tait s
friendship
had been of a different character. Their in
timacy was great, but the friendship had never been of so
sacred a sort, and, perhaps for that very reason, it was less
interrupted by the increasing divergence of their religious
views. In Mr. Mozley s Reminiscences 1 Ward is described
as representing
"the intellectual force, the irrefragable logic, the absolute self-
confidence, and the headlong impetuosity of the Rugby school.
Whatever he said or did was right. As a philosopher and a logi
cian, it was hard to deal with him. He had been instantaneously
converted to Newman by a single line in an introduction to one
of his works to the effect that Protestantism could never have
corrupted into Popery. . . . Ward s weight in the University was
great, and that weight he brought to Newman s cause, though
eventually he became a very unaccommodating and unmanageable
member of the crew. Ward, I must add, was a great musical
critic, knew all the operas, and was an admirable buffo singer."
1 Vol. ii. p. 5.