AFTER Tract 90 Newman seems to act in a dream. It
either took him some time to realize that his career as a
public man was finished, or else he must, subconsciously,
have known before hand that this was the fate he was wil-
fully and recklessly inviting and yet been stunned by the
reality of the experience. We could almost see Tract go as
a gamble, or challenge to the gods: a responsa sortium. If
he won this game he would persist; if he lost, it would be a
sign that there was no hope. Though, had he got away with
Tract go one feels that he would have gone on, and on,
throwing out more and more daring challenges to the An-
glican powers, and been satisfied only when the judgment
of their thumbs agreed with his instinct that he was not one
of them.

He nevertheless continued, for a while, to take counsel
with his friends about the next moves, as if the campaign
were still in progress, and he still preached at Saint Mary's;
but, in February, '42, the strain of holding in public a posi-
tion which his heart secretly denied became too great for
him. He made open acknowledgment of his defeat by ap-
pointing a curate, his friend Copeland, at Saint Mary's, and
by deciding to retire to Littlemore. Everybody read this
sign clearly enough, though he feebly pretended that it was
nobody's affair but his own. As well might Gladstone have

-295-