John Henry Newman

And now, alas, I fear that in one sense the iron has entered into my soul. I mean that confidence in any superiors whatever never can blossom again within me. I never shall feel easy with them. I shall, I feel, always think they will be taking some advantage of me,—that at length their way will lie across mine, and that my efforts will be displeasing to them. I shall ever be suspicious that they or theirs have secret unkind thoughts of me, and that they deal with me with some arrière pensee. And, as it my happiness so to be placed as not to have much intercourse with them, therefore, while I hope ever loyally to fulfil their orders, it is my highest gain and most earnest request to them, that they would let me alone—and, since I do not want to initiate any new plan of any kind, that, if they can, {202} they would keep their hands off me. Whether or not they will consent to this is more than I can say, for they seem to wish to ostracise me. But, in saying this, I repeat what I said when I began to write, I am now in a state of quiescence, and fear as little as I hope. And I do not expect this state of mind to be reversed. God forbid I should liken them to the "Scribes and Pharisees"—but still I obey them, as Scribes and Pharisees were to be obeyed, as God's representatives, not from devotion to them.


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