Switch to English Switch to French

The Open University  |   Study at the OU  |   About the OU  |   Research at the OU  |   Search the OU

Listen to this page  |   Accessibility

the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
  RED International Logo

RED Australia logo


RED Canada logo
RED Netherlands logo
RED New Zealand logo

Listings for Author:  

Horne

 

Click here to select all entries:

 


  

Horne : 

Read the Bible, & Horne on its critical study. I do not think enough of the love of God, graciously as it has been manifested to me.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : novels

June Badeni on readings by 13-year-old Alice Thompson, as recorded in her notebook: 'She has been reading more of Scott and Dickens, is plunging through the novels of George Eliot... has sampled Bulwer Lytton, Thackeray, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alice Thompson      Print: Book

  

Guy Thorne : When it was Dark

'In 1970, on radio, Field Marshal Montgomery said that reading "When it was Dark" [1903] had been a turning point in his life.'

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Bernard Law Montgomery      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : [unknown]

'Charlie Chaplin was a classic autodidact, always struggling to make up for a dismally inadequate education, groping haphazardly for what he called "intellectual manna"... Chaplin could be found in his dressing room studying a Latin-English dictionary, Robert Ingersoll's secularist propaganda, Emerson's "Self- Reliance" ("I felt I had been handed a golden birthright"), Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Twain, Hazlitt, all five volumes of Plutarch's Lives, Plato, Locke, Kant, Freud's "Psychoneurosis", Lafcadio "Hearn's Life and Literature", and Henri Bergson - his essay on laughter, of course... Chaplin also spent forty years reading (if not finishing) the three volumes of "The World as Will and Idea" by Schopenhauer, whose musings on suicide are echoed in Monsieur Verdoux'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Spencer Chaplin      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : The House of the Seven Gables

'Along with her old school books [Maud Montgomery] read whatever she could find both for pleasure and to learn from their authors how to improve her own writing: religious tracts, newspapers, the Godey's Lady's Book, Charles Dickens's "Pickwick Papers", Sir Walter Scott's novels, Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables", Washington Irving's "The Sketch Book", and Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Maud Montgomery      Print: Book

  

Anthony Horneck : The great law of consideration; or, a discourse, wherein the nature, usefulness and absolute necessity of consideration, in order to a truly serious and religious life is laid open

'In the even finished reading of Horneck's "Great Law of Consideration", which I think a very good subject, and I am thoroughly persuaded that the only motive the author had in writing it was the salvation of men's souls. But in my private opinion it is not written so well as many pieces of divinity which I have read, there being too great a redundancy of words to express one and the same thing.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Turner      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : unknown

Leon Edel, introducing Henry James's letters from 1869-70: " [James] traveled in 1869, reading Goethe, Stendhal, the President de Brosses and Hawthorne."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Henry James      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : The Scarlet Letter

'Began "The Scarlet Letter".'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes     Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : unknown

'The house was behind the post office and below the town library, and in a few years not even the joys of guddling, girning and angling matched the boy's pleasure in Emerson, Hawthorne, Ambrose Pierce, Sidney Lanier and Mark Twain. Day after day... he carried a large washing basket up the stairs to fill it with books, choosing from upwards of twelve thousand volumes, then downstairs to sit for hours in corners absorbed in mental worlds beyond the narrow limits of Langholm.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Grieve      Print: Book

  

Peter Whitehorne : Certain wayes for the ordering of Soldiours

'[One] branch of [Gabriel] Harvey's marginalia [...] has to do with his study of the techniques of warfare. Extensive notes in this area are found in his copies of [...] Machiavelli (Peter Whitehorne's 1573 translation of the "Arte of Warre"), and Whitehorne's "Certaine wayes for the ordering of Soldiours" (1574).'

Century: 1500-1599     Reader/Listener/Group: Gabriel Harvey      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : The Scarlet Letter

'I wasted a great deal of time in wrong reading from eleven to fourteen, always hoping for the enjoyment which rarely came, but going on with surprising persistence. A sense of overpowering gloom is connected in my mind with Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris", which I read in English, and an impression of a livid brightness with "The Scarlet Letter"; but that is all. Of Carlyle's "French Revolution" all that remains is a sentence like a radiant hillside caught through a rift in a black cloud: the passage where he describes the high-shouldered ladies dancing with the gentlemen of the French Court on a bright summer evening, while outside the yellow cornfields stretched from end to end of France'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Edwin Muir      Print: Book

  

Leonard Horner : Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, M.P.

'I hope you like Horner's "Life". It succeeds extremely well here. It is full of all the exorbitant and impracticable views so natural to young men at Edinburgh; but there is great order, great love of knowledge, high principle and feelings, which ought to grow and trive in superior minds'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : poems

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 3 August 1839: 'I a personally quite unacquainted with Mr Horne [...] Have you not heard of his Cosimo de' Medici? He is a man of indubitable genius. I feel THAT quite distinctly, although I have read only a little of his poetry'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Unknown

  

Richard Hengist Horne : The History of Napoleon

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 15 May 1840: 'I had finished Napoleon & was about to write to you on the subject -- & I will still write.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : response to article in the Monthly Critic

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, late January 1841: 'I have just read your reply to the Monthly Critic -- though not his attack'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'Orpheus'

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 10 March 1841: 'I have seen Orpheus, & write just to thank you for the pleasure of the vision [...] You have gathered power, intensity, freedom of versification -- But in my brain ---- "slow the Argo ploughs her way LIke a dun dragon spreading moonlit wings", to suggest certain unsurpassable lines.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Exposition of the False Medium and Barriers Excluding Men of Genius from the Public

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 4 August 1841: 'I have seen & read [italics]the book[end italics] [...] It is written by an enthusiast in the cause of genius upon the spectacle of its misery, lighted up to ghastliness by the torchlight of [Isaac] D'Israeli & other memorialists [...] Its thunderbolts are hurled against all false media -- such as interpose between men of genius & the public, in the form of [italic]readers[end italics] for publishers & Theatrical managers, &c &c [...] There is, in fact, with much talent & power, a sufficiency of acrimony & indiscretion [...] notwithstanding the sense forced upon me of the overweight of certain words -- I did feel myself taken off my feet & carried along in the brave strong generous current of the spirit of the book -- It is a fearless book, with fine thoughts on a stirring subject'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Alsargis

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 18 January 1842: 'What can you have thought, my dear Mr Horne, of all this loitering with your tragedy? [...] Here it is all safe back for you [...] thank you, thank you, twice over, for all the -- -- -- [italics]pleasure[end italics] is the wrong word -- -- -- [italics]sensation[end italics] is not quite right -- the [italics]emotion[end italics], which this fine tragedy has given me [goes on to comment upon text in detail]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Richard Hengist Horne : review article on Tennyson and/or Browning

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 29 November 1842: 'Mr Leigh Hunt & Mr Horne have been reviewing Tennyson & Browning in the Church of England quarterly [...] Mr Horne is acute and generous as he always is, -- but Leigh Hunt's article, altho' honest in criticism, I do not doubt, & wise in many of the remarks, strikes me as a cold welcome from a poet to a poet -- & to such a poet as Tennyson! -- & I felt a little vexed while I was reading it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Leonard Horner : Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, M.P. (volume I)

Elizabeth Barrett to John Kenyon, mid-March 1843: 'Here is the first volume of Horner -- thank you! It is very interesting -- but he seems to me to have had too wavering a will, or rather too many objects, .. to be a great man.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Leonard Horner : Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, M.P. (volume II)

Elizabeth Barrett to John Kenyon, mid-March 1843: 'This Mr Horner is very noble & strong -- & I like him better, my dear cousin, as a whole politician .. as he gathers himself into one slowly with all his energy & strength [...] And then what an admirable letter Sydney Smith's is, in the appendix -- quite perfect in its kind I think.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : article on Royal Commission on Children's Employment

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 29 May 1843: 'By the way [...] I have been reading you in the Illuminated Magazine.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Orion

Katherine Cockell to Elizabeth Barrett, 30 June 1843: 'I could not put Orion out of my hands for my needful food, -- nor out of my head for my more needful sleep. I was wholly possessed, rapt away into some new sphere never before dreamt of, & all this, (& much more than all this) tho' I have no classical enthusiasm (of course not!) real or affected; & tho' I have a particular antipathy to Giants.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Cockell      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Orion

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 7 July 1843: 'Mr Kenyon was with me yesterday, and praised "Orion" most admiringly. He had read it only in parts yet, through a press of occupation, but he had from these parts, he said, the same sort of pleasure as from Keats's "Endymion" or "Hyperion;" and what particularly charmed him was the versification.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Kenyon      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Orion

Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, 7 August 1843: 'I heard of Orion the other day being admired at the first glance, & carried away to be admired at leisure, by Mrs Jameson'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Brownell Jameson      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Orion

Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, 27 December 1843: 'I must not forget to thank you for your recommendation of "Orion" -- I have read it again & again, & like it exceedingly -- I thought it a little [italics]cold[end italics] at first, but lost sight of that in the second reading'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Westwood      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : plays

Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 January 1844: 'For the Dramas [of Richard Hengist Horne], we owe you many thanks -- we have read them all, & admired them all [...] I confess I have formed an almost higher opinion of Mr Horne's genius from them, than from "Orion" [poem] [...] "Delora["] too, has many fine passages, -- and I should be more particular in adverting to them & others, were it not that your own pencil has forestalled me, so that my encomiums would be, in most cases, but a reiteration of your own [goes on to reflect upon pleasures of reading annotations by others in books]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Westwood      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : The Ballad of Delora

Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 January 1844: 'For the Dramas [of Richard Hengist Horne], we owe you many thanks -- we have read them all, & admired them all [...] I confess I have formed an almost higher opinion of Mr Horne's genius from them, than from "Orion" [poem] [...] "Delora["] too, has many fine passages, -- and I should be more particular in adverting to them & others, were it not that your own pencil has forestalled me, so that my encomiums would be, in most cases, but a reiteration of your own [goes on to reflect upon pleasures of reading annotations by others in books]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Westwood      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : The Ballad of Delora

Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 January 1844: 'For the Dramas [of Richard Hengist Horne], we owe you many thanks -- we have read them all, & admired them all [...] I confess I have formed an almost higher opinion of Mr Horne's genius from them, than from "Orion" [poem] [...] "Delora["] too, has many fine passages, -- and I should be more particular in adverting to them & others, were it not that your own pencil has forestalled me, so that my encomiums would be, in most cases, but a reiteration of your own [goes on to reflect upon pleasures of reading annotations by others in books]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : A New Spirit of the Age

Thomas Westwood to Elizabeth Barrett, ?12 April 1844: 'I have just finished the second volume [of A New Spirit of the Age], dear Miss Barrett, & my fingers itch to tell you that I am quite positively sure that [italics]you are in more pages of the book than those headed by your name[end italics]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Westwood      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : A New Spirit of the Age

Richard Hengist Horne to Elizabeth Barrett, 10 June 1844: 'Leigh Hunt has shown me his copy [of A New Spirit of the Age] all marked through. He has marked with great admiration various passages written violently of by [italics]others[end italics].'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Leigh Hunt      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Marble Faun, The

'Do [italics] you [end italics] know what Hawthorne's tale is about? [italics] I [end italics] do; and I think it will perplex the English public pretty considerably.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Marble Faun, The

'['After Hawthorne's romance had come out she expresses to her friends her supposition that they will have read, as every one in England had, the "Cleopatra chapter", and assures them that she is proud of being able to say to people that she had been acquainted from the first with the statue commemmorated']' Letter reproduced in this edition from a printed source which gives this precis.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : "Drowne's Wooden Image" in The Boston Book, being Specimens of Metropolitan Literature

'By the way, we all admire _very greatly_ your beautiful little poem in the Boston Book. I dare say you don't care for the opinion of we three "weaker vessels" [i.e. De Quincey's three daughters], though Papa, like the dutiful parent he is, and though a "vain man", admits that our judgment in such matters is equal if not sometimes better than his. However in this case we one and all came separately to the conclusion that there was exquisite poetic grace and beauty in the lines. Who is the Poet you sent the mosses too [sic]? for we don't know one who has spoken of Venice that has been living since you could have written this. My sister Florence says that with one or two exceptions in the case of Longfellow and that most beautiful of writers Hawthorne, yours is nearly the only good thing in the book. I have not had time to look it over yet.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Florence De Quincey      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne and Mary Gillies : A Story Book of Country Scenes

Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 5 April 1845: 'For Mr Horne's storybook, I like some of the stories & think it a pretty book. A few children of six years old might be too old for it, -- but, in general, I do not quarrel with the fitnesses [...] I remember a little book which was a favorite in our nursery, called "A visit to a farm-house [by S.W.]," with precisely the same characteristics, & a better & more interesting general construction. There are a few touches more of poetry in this book, -- owing to Mr. Horne, of course, but the defect is the absolute want of reference to Deity, as creator, which the child looks for, .. which the first instinct of the child looks out to meet. Not that I advocate the teaching of theological systems to children of that early age; but that if the sense of beauty is to be educated, the sense of God should be educated also.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Ballad Romances

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'The Merrie Devil of Edmonton'

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'Stanzas to a Ruined Windmill'

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 4 January 1846: 'I found Horne's book at home, and have had time to see that beautiful things are there -- I suppose "Delora" will stand alone still -- but I got pleasantly smothered with that odd shower of wood-spoils at the end, the dwarf-story [...] and there is good sailor-speech in the "Ben Capstan" [...] At one thing I wonder -- his not reprinting a quaint clever [italics]real[end italics] ballad, published before "Delora", on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton" -- the first of his works I ever read -- no, the very first piece was a single stanza, if I remember, in which was this line "When bason-crested Quixote, lean and bold," .. good, is it not?'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'The Monk of Swineshead Abbey'

Elizabeth Barrett to Roberrt Browning, 4 January 1846: 'When you get Mr. Horne's book you will understand how, after reading just the first & last poems, I could not help speaking coldly a little of it [...] I did think & do, that the last was unworthy of him, & that the first might have been written by a writer of one tenth of his facility. But last night I read the "Monk of Swineshead Abby" & the "Three Knights of Camelot" & "Bedd Gelert" & found them all different stuff, better[,] stronger, more consistent, & read them with pleasure & admiration.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'The Three Knights of Camelott: a Fairy Tale'

Elizabeth Barrett to Roberrt Browning, 4 January 1846: 'When you get Mr. Horne's book you will understand how, after reading just the first & last poems, I could not help speaking coldly a little of it [...] I did think & do, that the last was unworthy of him, & that the first might have been written by a writer of one tenth of his facility. But last night I read the "Monk of Swineshead Abby" & the "Three Knights of Camelot" & "Bedd Gelert" & found them all different stuff, better[,] stronger, more consistent, & read them with pleasure & admiration.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : 'Bedd Gelert'

Elizabeth Barrett to Roberrt Browning, 4 January 1846: 'When you get Mr. Horne's book you will understand how, after reading just the first & last poems, I could not help speaking coldly a little of it [...] I did think & do, that the last was unworthy of him, & that the first might have been written by a writer of one tenth of his facility. But last night I read the "Monk of Swineshead Abby" & the "Three Knights of Camelot" & "Bedd Gelert" & found them all different stuff, better[,] stronger, more consistent, & read them with pleasure & admiration.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Barrett      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Twice-Told Tales

'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined] try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my memory.'

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey      

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : Blithedale Romance

'Your mention of Hawthorne puts me in mind to tell you what rabid [underlined] admirers we are of his [...] There is no prose write of the present day I have half the interest in I have in him, his style, in my mind is so beautifully refined and there is such exquisite pathos and quaint humour, and such an awfully [underlined] deep knowledge of human nature, not that hard unloving detestable, and, as it is purely one sided (or wrong [underlined] sided) false reading of it that one finds in Thackeray. He reminds me in many things of Charles Lamb, and of heaps of our rare old English humourists, with their deep pathetic nature--and one faculty he possesses beyond any writer I remember (not dramatic, for then I would certainly remember Shakespeare, and others on further though perhaps) viz. that of exciting you to the highest pitch without on any [underlined] occasion that I am aware of making you feel by his catastrophe ashamed of having been excited. What I mean is, if you have ever read it, such a case as occurs in the "Mysteries of Udolpho" where your disgust is beyond all expression on finding that all your fright about the ghostly creature that has haunted you throughout the volumes has been caused by a pitiful wax image! [...] And no Author I know does [underlined] try to work upon them [i.e. the passions] more, apparently with no [underlined] effort to himself. I cannot satisfy myself as to whether I like his sort of Essays contained in the twice told tales best, or his more finished works such as Blithedale romance. Every touch he adds to any character gives a higher interest to it, so that I should like the longer ones best, but there is a concentration of excellence in the shorter things and passages that strike, in force like daggers, in their beauty and truth, so that I generally end in liking that best which I have read last [...] There are beautiful passages in Longfellow, above all, as far as my knowledge goes in the Golden Legend, some of which in a single reading impressed themselves on my memory.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : The House of Seven Gables

'The more I read of Mr. Hawthorne's writings the more intense does my admiration become. I read over the other day a part of his "House of the Seven Gables" and I don't remember any delineation of character under Shakespeare's that is to me so exquisitely fascinating as his of Phoebe, and it is the one I think, among all his characters which mark him most of all as a man of very great genius, for in the hands of any but such a man, instead of being as she is "A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still and bright With something of an Angel light." she would have been a common place stupid creature who only was good because she had not will to be bad [...] The contrast too of the restless minded metaphysical Holgrave always searching into the cause of things, and his tremendous delight in watching the development of character are admirable [underlined]. This latter feature is I am sure a marking characteristic of Mr. Hawthorne's and I just wish to warn him that though I have in thought [underlined] quite an agonizing sympathy with him in it, yet when carried to such a pitch as he does in practice that he won't give a hand to a pair of poor lovers that have fallen into the gutter on a rainy night because his part is only to be a spectator. I have no patience with him, and beg to say if I catch him at anything like that I will commit an assault upon him as sure as fate. I should tell you, as more important than any thing that I can say on the subject, that for the first time Papa read "The House of the Seven Gables" a few days ago [...] he said that if anyone wished to give a very favorable notion to a non-German reader of Jean Paul Richter's style of thought and sentiment they could not do it more successfully than by pointing out many passages in it [i.e. the Hawthorne], and when I tell you that Papa admires him more than any Author of his class by far, and has often regretted our not being German scholars simply on his account you will have an idea....'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Margaret De Quincey      Print: Book

  

Nathaniel Hawthorne : The House of Seven Gables

'The more I read of Mr. Hawthorne's writings the more intense does my admiration become. I read over the other day a part of his "House of the Seven Gables" and I don't remember any delineation of character under Shakespeare's that is to me so exquisitely fascinating as his of Phoebe, and it is the one I think, among all his characters which mark him most of all as a man of very great genius, for in the hands of any but such a man, instead of being as she is "A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still and bright With something of an Angel light." she would have been a common place stupid creature who only was good because she had not will to be bad [...] The contrast too of the restless minded metaphysical Holgrave always searching into the cause of things, and his tremendous delight in watching the development of character are admirable [underlined]. This latter feature is I am sure a marking characteristic of Mr. Hawthorne's and I just wish to warn him that though I have in thought [underlined] quite an agonizing sympathy with him in it, yet when carried to such a pitch as he does in practice that he won't give a hand to a pair of poor lovers that have fallen into the gutter on a rainy night because his part is only to be a spectator. I have no patience with him, and beg to say if I catch him at anything like that I will commit an assault upon him as sure as fate. I should tell you, as more important than any thing that I can say on the subject, that for the first time Papa read "The House of the Seven Gables" a few days ago [...] he said that if anyone wished to give a very favorable notion to a non-German reader of Jean Paul Richter's style of thought and sentiment they could not do it more successfully than by pointing out many passages in it [i.e. the Hawthorne], and when I tell you that Papa admires him more than any Author of his class by far, and has often regretted our not being German scholars simply on his account you will have an idea....'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas De Quincey      Print: Book

  

Bishop Horne : Sermons (4vols)

'I meant to inform you, that besides those books already mentioned, I sent for Bishop Horne's Sermons, 4 vols. Carr's Sermons, Blairs Sermons, 5vols. Scott's Christian Life, 5vols. several leaned and sensible expositions of the Bible; Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, with the Fragments; Josephus' Works, Prideaux's Connections, 4vols. Mrs H. More's Works, and various other excellent Works. For some time one sermon was read on every Sunday, but soon Mrs L. began to like them, and then two or three were read in the course of the week; at last one at least was ready every day, and very often part of some other book in divinity, as Mrs. L said that she preferred such kind of reading far beyond the reading of novels.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington      Print: Book

  

George Horne : Letter to Mr Dunning on the English Particle

'This year the Reverend Mr. Horne published his "Letter to Mr. Dunning on the English Particle"; Johnson read it, and though not treated in it with sufficient respect, he had candour enough to say to Mr. Seward, "Were I to make a new edition of my Dictionary, I would adopt several of Mr. Horne's etymologies; I hope they did not put the dog in the pillory for his libel; he has too much literature for that".'

Century:      Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Unknown

  

The Revd. C. H. Hartshorne : Ancient Metrical Tales

Friday, 20 February 1829: 'I glanced over some romances metrical publishd by Hartshorne several of which have not seen the light. They are considerably curious but I was surprized to see them mingled with "Blanchflour" and "Florice" and one or two others which might have been spared. There is no great display of notes or prolegomena and there is moreover no glossary. But the work is well edited.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott      Print: Book

  

Richard Hengist Horne : Orion

Charlotte Bronte (as Currer Bell) to Richard Hengist Horne, 15 December 1847: 'You will have thought me strangely tardy in acknowledging your courteous present, but the fact is it never reached me till yesterday [...] 'I have to thank you, not merely for the gift of a little book of 137 pages, but for that of a [italics]poem[end italics]. Very real, very sweet is the poetry of "Orion"; there are passages I shall recur to again and yet again -- passages instinct both with power and beauty. All through it is genuine -- pure from one fault of affectation, rich in noble imagery [...] You could not, I imagine, have written that epic without at times deriving deep happiness from your work.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Charlotte Bronte      Print: Book

 

Click here to select all entries:

 

   
   
Green Turtle Web Design