happened? Had a dominating character imposed itself upon a
hostile environment? Or was the nineteenth century, after all,
not so hostile? Was there something in it, scientific and
progressive as it was, which went out to welcome the
representative of ancient tradition and uncompromising faith? Had
it, perhaps, a place in its heart for such as Manning--a soft
place, one might almost say? Or, on the other hand, was it he who
had been supple and yielding? He who had won by art what he would
never have won by force, and who had managed, so to speak, to be
one of the leaders of the procession less through merit than
through a superior faculty for gliding adroitly to the front
rank? And, in any case, by what odd chances, what shifts and
struggles, what combinations of circumstance and character, had
this old man come to be where he was? Such questions are easier
to ask than to answer; but it may be instructive, and even
amusing, to look a little more closely into the complexities of
so curious a story.

I

UNDOUBTEDLY, what is most obviously striking in the history of
Manning's career is the persistent strength of his innate
characteristics. Through all the changes of his fortunes the
powerful spirit of the man worked on undismayed. It was as if the
Fates had laid a wager that they would daunt him; and in the end
they lost their bet.

His father was a rich West Indian merchant, a governor of the
Bank of England, a Member of Parliament, who drove into town
every day from his country scat in a coach and four, and was