John Mason Neale a Memoir

to an indefatigable spirit of mental activity, A less sympathetic insight into the deeds and minds of other men might have resulted in a more creative exercise of unusual intellectual powers. His inclination was to adapt and interpret. Readers of Pater will remember that Sebastian van Storcks dissatisfaction with the Catholic Religion arose from his perception of its unfailing drift towards the concrete-the positive imageries of a faith, so richly beset with persons, things, historical incidents. To Neale this was one of its chief attractions. These were the things about which his imagination hovered, illuminating forgotten pages of history, giving life to an effigy, setting an aureole about a Saint, transforming a defaced inscription, restoring the glow and colour of painted glass and gilded missals. His mind was a reliquary where stones of little value lay mingled with pearls of great price. They had been gathered rather than selected. The dusty sunbeams dancing about old folios dazzled his eyes, the waves of fancy washed the dull pebble till it sparkled like a gem, and spiritual experiences confounded the dispassionate judgments of ordinary persons. These might have been presumed to be the characteristics of a student and a visionary, but Dr. Neales comparatively short life was not destined to be spent in a scholarly seclusion where thoughts of the past might maintain an unbroken ascendency, or dreams of the future usurp the sphere of action. The very existence of the Church upon earth presupposed difficulty and strife, and it was not unwillingly that he found himself involved in her conflicts... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.