Heart speaks to heart

Dermot Mansfield, invited by Veritas to write a study of Newman, started work last October. In March, when he found himself approaching Newman’s death, he was stuck for days, as though he could not bear parting with someone who had been so close to him through the winter. The theme of the book  is Newman’s motto: Heart speaks to heart. Threads running through it include Newman’s Jesuit connection; his warm relationships with women; his bond with his Anglican friends, happily resumed towards the end of his life; the myth, fostered by Manning, that he was difficult and hypersensitive; and his experience of Ireland and Cardinal Cullen (Newman once wrote to Hopkins: “If I were an Irishman, I should be at heart a rebel”). This is an original perspective by a scholar who loves his subject. Veritas accepted his draft without alteration and will publish this year.