All this
composes a picture which one does not easily forget. It is like the
harangue of a snake, which is more subtle than any beast of the field.
One is conscious of a spell.
The dark tapestried room, the carved ceiling, the heavy furniture, the
embrasured windows, the whole sombre magnificence of the historic
setting, quiet, almost somnolent, with the enduring memories of Cuthbert
Tunstall and Butler, Lightfoot and Westcott, add a most telling vivacity
to the slim and dominating figure of this boylike bishop, who is so
athletic in the use of his intellect and so happy in every thesis he
sets himself to establish.
It is an equally memorable sight to see him in his castle at Bishop
Auckland in the role of host, entertaining people of intelligence with
the history of the place, showing the pictures and the chapel,
exhibiting curious relics of the past--a restless and energetic figure,
holding its own in effectiveness against men of greater stature and more
commanding presence by an inward force which has something of the tang
of a twitching bow-string.
So much energy would suggest a source of almost inexhaustible power. But
that is perhaps the greatest disappointment of all in the Bishop's
psychology. In the case of Dr. Inge one is very conscious of a rich and
deep background, a background of mysticism, from which the intellect
emerges with slow emphasis to play its part on the world's stage.
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