18 OCTOBER 1890, Page 15

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—While thanking you for your favourable estimate of my essay on "Some Aspects of Newman's Influence," in the current Nineteenth Century, may I point out that I have in some degree qualified the term "complexity," which you criticise as applied to the late Cardinal ? On p. 570 I speak of the "absolute simplicity" of his aim, thus by implication limiting the epithet " complex " to his many-sided genius and intellect, to the exclusion of the purpose of his life, and the moral character which acquired such perfect unity from that purpose.—I am, Sir, &c., WILFRID WARD.