iqh] \Housman, the Shropshire Poet 371 



though his attitude of antagonism to the Society is not mine. Still I 

 know enough of Jesuitism to recognize his narrative as in the main 

 true. For instance, I remember well a terrible ' retreat ' given at 

 Stonyhurst, in which the physical horrors of hell were emphasized in 

 detail just as he describes them, and there are a hundred small points 

 of discipline I recognize as exact, while also the general spiritual 

 atmosphere of the place is vividly reproduced. The Jesuit novitiate is 

 the most mentally crushing process ever invented, and I remember well 

 meeting William Kerr on the first day of his release from I forget 

 how many years of absolute seclusion. It was at some function of the 

 Redemptorist Convent at Clapham, and I walked back with him from 

 it across the Common, I think to Putney, and he told me something of 

 his life as a novice. He was like an owl that had wandered out into 

 the daylight, an absolutely different man from what I had known him 

 before his experience. This must have been somewhere in the seven- 

 ties. 



" 22nd Nov. — George Curzon made an excellent speech the other 

 day at a Persian dinner, and I have written to him, urging him to take 

 up the Mohammedan cause as champion of Islam. 



" 25th Nov. — Newbuildings. The recent attacks on me and my 

 book are causing it to sell well, and we are printing an extra 200 copies. 

 Meynell arrived for the week end with Housman, author of ' The 

 Shropshire Lad,' and we had a poetical evening, Meynell reading us 

 ' Modern Love ' with a running commentary, an excellent entertain- 

 ment, as good as the best of lectures. 



" 26th Nov. (Sunday). — I took Housman for a walk and asked him 

 how he had come to write his early verses and whether there was any 

 , episode in his life which suggested their gruesome character, but he 

 assured me it was not so. He had lived as a boy in Worcestershire, 

 not in Shropshire, though within sight of the Shropshire hills, and 

 there was nothing gruesome to record. He shows no trace now of 

 anything romantic, being a typical Cambridge Don, prim in his manner, 

 silent and rather shy, conventional in dress and manner, learned, ac- 

 curate, and well-informed. He is professor there of Latin, talking 

 fairly well, but not brilliantly or with any originality, depressed in tone, 

 and difficult to rouse to any strong expression of opinion. Neverthe- 

 less, I like him, and with Meynell's help we got him to discuss his own 

 poems, though he refused absolutely to read them out. He read instead 

 one of mine, in response to my having read one of his, the one I like 

 best, 'Is My Team Ploughing?' I have a great admiration for his 

 ' Shropshire Lad,' on account of its ballad qualities and the wonderful 

 certainty in his choice of exactly the right word. We had much pleas- 

 ant talk all day, and sat up again till twelve at night telling ghost stories. 



