I am not now praising
this new force, or saying that its own ideals are better; all I say is,
that they are wholly different. And who will estimate how much the
currents of feeling created by Dr. Newman's movements, the keen desire
for beauty and sweetness which it nourished, the deep aversion it
manifested to the hardness and vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the
strong light it turned on the hideous and grotesque illusions of
middle-class Protestantism,--who will estimate how much all these
contributed to swell the tide of secret dissatisfaction which has mined
the ground under self-confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and
has prepared the way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is in
this manner that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness
conquers, and in this manner long may it continue to conquer!
In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is plenty
of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more democratic
force which is now superseding our old middle-class liberalism cannot
yet be rightly judged.
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