第一章(4)

Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends.

It is not strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked out their scanty recollections with a lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough in the little that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there was much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character something outrageous, and in his fate not a little that was pathetic.

In due course a legend arose of such circumstantiality that the wise historian would hesitate to attack it.

But a wise historian is precisely what the Rev. Robert Strickland is not.

He wrote his biography " Strickland： The Man and His Work， " by his son， Robert Strickland. Wm. Heinemann， 1913. avowedly to " remove certain misconceptions which had gained currency" in regard to the later part of his father's life, and which had " caused considerable pain to persons still living."

It is obvious that there was much in the commonly received account of Strickland's life to embarrass a respectable family.

I have read this work with a good deal of amusement, and upon this I congratulate myself, since it is colourless and dull.

Mr. Strickland has drawn the portrait of an excellent husband and father, a man of kindly temper, industrious habits, and moral disposition.

The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for explaining things away, but the subtlety with which the Rev. Robert Strickland has " interpreted" all the facts in his father's life which a dutiful son might find it inconvenient to remember must surely lead him in the fullness of time to the highest dignities of the Church.

I see already his muscular calves encased in the gaiters episcopal.