An Early Scholar of William Hale White: Henry Arthur Smith (1914-1969)

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 17; p. 129
• Main Author: Brealey, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2013
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); English literature
• ISSN: 0954-0970

Occasionally these, and notes from conversations with the family, reveal matters which were discreetly avoided in the thesis itself (notably the family's disapproval of White's second marriage to Dorothy Smith) as well as interesting snippets that were included - such as Hale's gift of the manuscript of Catharine Furze to his daughter Molly, and it being later retrieved by him and burnt without any notice to her (p. 308).6 It seems that Simon Nowell-Smith facilitated Smith's contact with the family, providing an introduction to his aunt Dorothy and to Sir William Hale-White. Smith's notes simply refer to a 'family quarrel', and Molly was obviously circumspect in her language, writing in a letter to Arthur of 27 January 1938 that Dorothy 'only knew [my father] for the last 5 or 6 years of his life, when he was old & sick, so that no-one, who wants to understand M.R., must rely on her alone for an analysis of his character & thought'.7 This wording is strongly reminiscent of that used in an anonymous manuscript at Bedford reacting to the Groombridge Diary, now attributed to Frances Low, showing that Frances was then expressing Molly's feeling too, and perhaps at her request.8 There is never any direct criticism of Dorothy, but conceivably more was said than ever written down. Taking the fictional portrayal of spiritual loss to apply to their writer makes it especially problematic to account for the continuing importance of faith-based friendship, like that with Caleb Morris (p. 238), and activities such as preaching, and here again Smith's close attention to the sources gives the impression that a more interesting story of faith is struggling to be heard against broader assumptions about the trajectory of White's life. [...]Smith had to reflect upon White's marriages, given the prominence of mismatched unions in the fiction and the obvious significance of his meeting Dorothy late in life.