Listings for Reader:
Leslie Stephen
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Thomas Hardy :
13/3/1904 - "He was able to read on the last morning of his life, asking me to bring him an article on Shakespeare and a new poem by Thomas Hardy."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
: [an article on Shakespeare]
13/3/1904 - "He was able to read on the last morning of his life, asking me to bring him an article on Shakespeare and a new poem by Thomas Hardy."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Oliver Wendell Holmes :
"I took in Mr Holmes' humorous poems & Davidson (a very jolly little friend of mine) another light work & we sat together with Romer in the furthest corner enjoying literature mixed with 'light conversation' after your style."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
:
"Do you know that I have just read in a book that my grandfather James Stephen invented the orders in council - which produced the American war of 1812 - wh. would have destroyed your national existence in about 10 days more & ripped the bloated democracy in the bud? Don't you respect me now?"
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: Christie's Faith
"I am now going in for another shot at "Christie's Faith". I am feeling devilishly lazy - Oh! I will try a pipe - it may wake me up - 5 PM. 5.45 I have done it! both pipe & article."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
W Hepworth Dixon : New America
"I have hardly read a book except for strictly professional purposes for 3 months & more. One of the few I have read is Dixon's New America. I should like to know what you think of it. It has been a great success here having already passed six editions & being undeniably amusing. My own opinion about it is perhaps coloured by my opinion of Dixon, wh. I further believe to be almost the universal opinion? I think him an offensive snob. ? I think that his book is flashy & written entirely for effect & would probably give to most people a highly incorrect notion. Especially I fancy that he absurdly exaggerates the numbers & importance of Shakers, Junkers, &c&c &c even of Mormons ? but most of all the Spiritualists. Also, though his facts may be right, I should guess the colouring to be wrong. You may tell me what you think if you take the trouble to read the book; but I believe it will give to most English readers the impression that nearly all Americans believe in Spirittrapping, that most of them are either disbelievers in matrimony & hell ? or practisers of polygamy and that a large number live in queer phalansteries or other Socialist contrivances.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: [Essays on Reform]
?Talking of books, you will perhaps be in the way of seeing a volume of Essays on Reform just published. You may find there some remarks by one you know on American experiences. I always think impudent in any one (let alone Dixon) to talk about a big country on the strength of 3 months experience & I admit that the remarks of the other author are open to this objection. Still they are chiefly directed to the negative conclusion that an argument from the US to England is necessarily unsafe & often directly fallacious? There is a more positive article by Goldwyn Smith on America & one or two of the other essays are worth reading especially one by Cracroft (nominally & really as to the facts by Goschen) giving an analysis of the House of Commons, wh. I think you would find instructive.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: Newspapers
"From your account of the absence of newspapers - on wh. I congratulate you sincerely - you may possibly have heard that the lords [sic] have given in about the Irish church. I am far too sick of the whole subject to make any reflections upon it, and am chiefly longing to get beyond the reach of newspapers myself."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
: [Some French novels]
"You say you have been reading some French novels lately. I am much given to that amusement though I never read de Musset - by the way. I don't quite agree with yr praise of them."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
James Russell Lowell : Agassiz
"I read with satisfaction Lowell's poem wh. you sent me. The only fault I find with him is that he occasionally lets his criticism get mixed up in his poetry, but it is thoroughly good solid work - 'solid' is not a happy epithet for poetry but I mean weighty & not finicking."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Louis Stevenson : Ordered South
"I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Frederick Denison Maurice :
"By an accidental combination of circumstances I only saw your article on my 'secularism' this afternoon. I have no complaints to make of it & no wish to carry on the controversy. But I do wish (for I value highly your good opinion on moral character & respect all your opinions) to acquit myself from one or two charges of unfairness to Mr Maurice."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Frederick Denison Maurice :
"Excuse all this; but though you may not easily give me credit I really admired Mr Maurice; I attended his lectures as a boy; I studied his books carefully & I should be sorry that you think of my errors as caused by carelessness or undue superciliousness. They are at least the outcome of a good deal of as conscientious thinking as I can give."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Robert Browning :
?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton ? though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William Shakespeare :
?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton ? though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson :
?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton ? though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Milton :
?I always have a profound impression that human beings have been much more like each other than we fancy since they got rid of their tails & that the great outbursts of speculation or art imply some special excitement more than a radical difference in people themselves. I have even a belief that if Browning had lived 200 years ago he would have been a small Shakespeare & perhaps Tennyson a second rate Milton ? though I agree that poor old Alfred has not quite the stuff in him.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: The Spectator
?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read without disgust. The Saturday, politically speaking, is intolerably wordy & pompous; the Spectator is Hutton; and the Pall Mall is Greenwood ? that is to say, a mere mass of petty rancour, always snarling in the attempt to be smart & as narrow-minded as if it was an ecclesiastical organ. My brother, I am thankful to say, does not write in it now & says he can?t read it. Really, it is hard to be without an organ; but even old Times, lying & trimming & idiotic as it is, is less offensive to me than these performances. The only paper wh. I am told has some go in it is The World & that is simply blackguard.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
: The Pall Mall
?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read without disgust. The Saturday, politically speaking, is intolerably wordy & pompous; the Spectator is Hutton; and the Pall Mall is Greenwood ? that is to say, a mere mass of petty rancour, always snarling in the attempt to be smart & as narrow-minded as if it was an ecclesiastical organ. My brother, I am thankful to say, does not write in it now & says he can?t read it. Really, it is hard to be without an organ; but even old Times, lying & trimming & idiotic as it is, is less offensive to me than these performances. The only paper wh. I am told has some go in it is The World & that is simply blackguard.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
: The Times
?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read without disgust. The Saturday, politically speaking, is intolerably wordy & pompous; the Spectator is Hutton; and the Pall Mall is Greenwood ? that is to say, a mere mass of petty rancour, always snarling in the attempt to be smart & as narrow-minded as if it was an ecclesiastical organ. My brother, I am thankful to say, does not write in it now & says he can?t read it. Really, it is hard to be without an organ; but even old Times, lying & trimming & idiotic as it is, is less offensive to me than these performances. The only paper wh. I am told has some go in it is The World & that is simply blackguard.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
: The World
?To say the truth, my compliment is not so strong as it seems; for there is no English paper now wh. I can read without disgust. The Saturday, politically speaking, is intolerably wordy & pompous; the Spectator is Hutton; and the Pall Mall is Greenwood ? that is to say, a mere mass of petty rancour, always snarling in the attempt to be smart & as narrow-minded as if it was an ecclesiastical organ. My brother, I am thankful to say, does not write in it now & says he can?t read it. Really, it is hard to be without an organ; but even old Times, lying & trimming & idiotic as it is, is less offensive to me than these performances. The only paper wh. I am told has some go in it is The World & that is simply blackguard.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
William Wordsworth :
?Do you sympathise with me when I say that the only writer whom I have been able to read with pleasure through this nightmare is Wordsworth? I used not to care for him especially; but now I love him. He is so thoroughly manly & tender & honest as far as his lights go that he seems to me the only consoler. I despise most of your religious people, who cultivate their maudlin humours & despise even more your sentimentalist of the atheist kind; but old W. W. is a genuine human being, whom I respect.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Frederick Farrar : The Life of Christ
?And this reminds me by a further association of ideas that you would do well to look ? if you like to have your stomach turned ? at Farrar?s Life of Christ ? the gospels done into Daily Telegraphese & drowned in a torrent of flummery. Lord? what are we coming to? If I have time, I think I must give Farrar a rap over the knuckles; though he was an old college friend of mine & a clever fellow; but his damned nonsense is really sickening & gives matter for the sneers of the cynic. I could lay on the whip with pleasure, & I know the beggar feels it.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William Ernest Henley : Miss Grant
"Payn showed me yesterday an article of yours upon a Miss Grant of whom I confess, I have heard for the first time; but I thought the whole really well written & feel that you will be able to command a market for such wares & in better periodicals (if I may say so) than London."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
: [18th and 19th century sermons]
"I have been through a course of perhaps the dreariest reading in the whole of English literature - I mean, 18th century sermons. Lord! how dull they are - almost as dull, I guess, as 19th century ditto. Indeed they are possibly stupider in some respects, though not quite so full of lying."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
James Russell Lowell : Pictures from Appledore
"I go off tomorrow to Cumberland where I shall climb the British Mt Blanc & forget for a short time that there are such things as books to be written. I take 2 or 3 to read for alas I can't now quite reduce myself to the animal state as I used to in former days. I looked at something of Lowell's the other day & was amused to find that you have got a Saddleback and a great Haystack in America as well as in Cumberland."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Omar Khayyam :
"I have read, too, or repeated, for I know him by heart, our old friend Omar Khyyam. He is grand in his way & if spiritualised a little, strikes a right note at times but he needs to be a little spiritualised. Yet honestly, literature & religion are rather empty. The only thing is living affection & of that I have had most touching experience."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Morley : On Compromise
"Morley has just published a book on 'Compromise'; out of the Fortnightly. I think his writing improves. It seems to me good & dignified without being too much like a sermon."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
W E Gladstone : Ritualism and Ritual
"And that reminds me that the last Contemporary is worth looking at, not only for Gladstone's twaddle about Ritualism, wh. has sold ten editions of the number, twaddle though it is, but for an article of Mat Arnold's wh. amuses me."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Matthew Arnold : Review of Objections to Literature and Dogma
"And that reminds me that the last Contemporary is worth looking at, not only for Gladstone's twaddle about Ritualism, wh. has sold ten editions of the number, twaddle though it is, but for an article of Mat Arnold's wh. amuses me."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
: [Novel]
"I am spending a quiet Sunday morning in Birbeck's smoking room - reading a novel."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte : Shirley
"It is very like Shirley except that there is no heather & the people are all of them of the Yorkshire kind as described by the Brontes."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Anne Bronte : Tenant of Wildfell Hall
"He [Mr Morrison] breeds horses, & the colts came up & talked to us, & his great kennelfulls of dogs who came to be patted & generally would easily become a tenant of Wild Fell Hall."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Francois de La Rochefoucauld : Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales
"The longer you are married, the better you will like it & then I hope you will show proper gratitude to your adviser - not but that you will also heretically deny his influence in the matter. Man is ungrateful. If you doubt it read La Rochefoucauld & the other authors of reputation - I forget their names."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Matthew Arnold : Literature and Dogma (possibly)
"Rather vexatiously Mat Arnold has sent in an article wh. I must read before it goes in because it is supposed to be heterodox & I can't get it back till tomorrow night."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Manuscript: proofs of article
Sir Oliver Wendell Holmes : The Poet at the Breakfast Table
We have all read, by the way, The Poet at the breakfast table & sent him our sincere compliments on his performance."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte : Shirley
"I think, for example, that Shirley is very superior to Dorothea Brooke. She has far more character & power, though she does not have such a young lady like admiration for Greek & Hebrew scholarship."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
George Eliot : Middlemarch
"I think, for example, that Shirley is very superior to Dorothea Brooke. She has far more character & power, though she does not have such a young lady like admiration for Greek & Hebrew scholarship."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Hardy :
"But if you mean seriously to ask me what critical books I recommend, I can only say that I recommend none. I think as a critic that the less authors read of criticisms the better. You, e.g., have a perfectly fresh and original vein & I think, that the less you bother yourself about critical cannons, the less chance there is of your becoming self-conscious and cramped."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve :
"S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, too, Lowell."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Matthew Arnold :
"S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, too, Lowell."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Lowell :
"S[ain]te Beuve & Mat. Arnold (in a smaller way) are the only modern critics wh. seem to me worth reading - perhaps, too, Lowell."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
George Sand : Les maitres Sonneurs
"If I were in the vein, I think I should exhort you above all to read George Sand, whose country stories seem to me perfect & have a certain affinity to yours. The last I read was the [Les] Maitres Sonneurs wh... I commend to you as wellnigh perfect. You could do something of the kind, though I won't flatter you by saying that I think you could equal her in her own line - I don't think anyone could. But the harmony & grace even if strictly inimitable are good to aim at."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William Ernest Henley : Hospital Sonnets
"I may tell you that, although your Hospital Sonnets did not seem to attract much notice at the time, as, indeed, I always thought them rather wasted on a Magazine - yet I have heard them noticed since by more than one person in a way that would please you. A friend who called here two days ago appeared to have them by heart - at least he quoted the one about the two boys with great readiness of feeling."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
William Ernest Henley : Children: Private Ward
"I may tell you that, although your Hospital Sonnets did not seem to attract much notice at the time, as, indeed, I always thought them rather wasted on a Magazine - yet I have heard them noticed since by more than one person in a way that would please you. A friend who called here two days ago appeared to have them by heart - at least he quoted the one about the two boys with great readiness of feeling."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Robert Bulwer-Lytton : Lucile
"I tried to read Lord Lytton's Lucile which is rot."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: [biographies]
"I have led a specially quiet life of late; amusing myself by reading a little biography for a change - a good many Newmanite lives in particular. Some day I shall remark upon the extraordinary phenomenon that Mill and Newnham and Carlyle all lived in the same century."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Robert Browning :
"I have been amusing myself down here with reading Browning - some of him for the first time; & I wonder more and more at his extraordinary power occasionally & at its waste in some directions. I think him marvellously good, when at his best."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
[a thief] : [comic poem]
"The inn was shut up; but Mr Walker's friend (I suppose) had just looked in to see after his property & was quite amiable & showed me a newspaper cutting with a comic poem by a thief, which seemed to amuse him greatly."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Newspaper
: ["The Bear Book"]
"The little ones were very good: all 3 sitting on my knee to look at the bear book & listening whilst Nessa explained with great elocution what you were to do if you met a wild beast in the wood."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: The Latterday Pamphlets
"I am, I see, talking pessimism. It is not very easy to talk anything else just now. When I read our debates, I sometimes think that we are doing our best to exemplify the Latterday Pamphlets."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
"I began Robinson Crusoe with Laura. I think that she will be up to it & we made a pretty good start."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Alfred Tennyson : In the Valley of the Cauteretz
"This bit of Tennyson sticks in my head; so I write it down: - 'All along the valley where the waters flow / I walked with one I loved two & thirty years ago / All along the valley while I walked today / The two & thirty years were a mist that rolled away / All along the valley by rock & wood & tree / The voice of the dead was a living voice to me'."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Ruskin : Fors [Clavigera]
"Poor fellow! I really pity him; for his last numbers of the Fors [Clavigera] seem to imply growing distraction of mind, wh. is scarcely compatible with perfect sanity. Yet nobody can write better than he does still at times. I wish I could discover his secret for saying stinging things; but I suppose the secret is in a morbid sensibility wh. one would scarcely take, even for the power wh. gives it. He is a terrible wasted force.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Alphonse Daudet :
"I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out enough to get muddled."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Plato :
"I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out enough to get muddled."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
:
"I have read a book or two from the 'Library' here, wh. fills a small cupboard & passes time fairly."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
M.G. Lewis : The Monk
"I stayed at home this morning - not that there is anything new in that - until lunch, and did very little, very easy work - just finishing up a small life. It rained steadily and as I had been at home all yesterday, I could not stand it any longer. So I took a cab to the London Library where I read Lewis's 'Monk' 3 vols in 25 minutes."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: Pall Mall Gazette
"I am really quite well though perhaps a few days more will be a good pick me up. My brain is quite dry. We don't even see a paper expect the Pall Mall Gazette wh. I read in about 3 minutes."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
E. E. Hale : James Russell Lowell and his friends
"Besides wh. I have been looking at Hale's book 'Lowell & his friends'; wh. is not, I think, very much of a book but which told some things of interest to me."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William James : The varieties of religious experience
"I have read your book with keen interest. I always read you with the pleasure of a literary critic recognising (and envying) mastery in the art of putting things."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Richard Grant White : [on Copyright]
'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a review of him in the Saturday. But my opinion is not formed upon the review but upon his just having sent me two books of his, one on Copyright & one called Washington Adams. As he was polite to me 20 years ago I ought to have acknowledged them; but after reading, I found it quite impossible to say anything civil. He seemed to me to be both silly & impertinent. But you need not tell me anything of him; for I guess I know the animal sufficiently.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Various : Saturday Review
'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a review of him in the Saturday. But my opinion is not formed upon the review but upon his just having sent me two books of his, one on Copyright & one called Washington Adams. As he was polite to me 20 years ago I ought to have acknowledged them; but after reading, I found it quite impossible to say anything civil. He seemed to me to be both silly & impertinent. But you need not tell me anything of him; for I guess I know the animal sufficiently.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Richard Grant White : Washington Adams
'Is not your countryman Grant White a terrible bore? The question is prompted by the fact of me having just read a review of him in the Saturday. But my opinion is not formed upon the review but upon his just having sent me two books of his, one on Copyright & one called Washington Adams. As he was polite to me 20 years ago I ought to have acknowledged them; but after reading, I found it quite impossible to say anything civil. He seemed to me to be both silly & impertinent. But you need not tell me anything of him; for I guess I know the animal sufficiently.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Henry Sidgwick : Review of Leslie Stephen's The Science of Ethics
'I have ? read your criticism of my book. I will not say that you have given no twinges to my vanity; but I will say that I am in perfect charity with my critic. I should have preferred it if you had been a convert & admitted that every word I said was true. But I am quite satisfied to have a candid & generous critic & that you could not cease to be without ceasing to be yourself. Most of the points between us would require a treatise instead of a letter. As, for example, I can never understand what is meant to aversion & desire [to] expect anticipation of pain & pleasure. Therefore to me it is the same thing to say that conduct is determined by one or the other. But this implies a psychological difference not to be bridged over in a letter.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Edmund Gosse : Life of Gray
'Dear Mr Gosse, I hope that I am not impertinent in telling you how heartily I have enjoyed your Gray. I think it one of the most charming biographies I ever read; & I would gladly subscribe to nearly all your criticism, if I had not a feeling that in some points wh. you touch, I am too much of an outsider for any subscription to have much value. The only criticism wh. I might cavil a bit would concern the Bard. I never could feel that the old gentleman ought to derive so much satisfaction from the advent of the Tudor destiny; & Gray?s desire to administer that bit of consolation seems to me to miss the point & rather spoil his design. Still I am fond of the Bard as one is fond of what one has already known by heart.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William Shakespeare : unknown
'Dear Mr Gosse, I hope that I am not impertinent in telling you how heartily I have enjoyed your Gray. I think it one of the most charming biographies I ever read; & I would gladly subscribe to nearly all your criticism, if I had not a feeling that in some points wh. you touch, I am too much of an outsider for any subscription to have much value. The only criticism wh. I might cavil a bit would concern the Bard. I never could feel that the old gentleman ought to derive so much satisfaction from the advent of the Tudor destiny; & Gray?s desire to administer that bit of consolation seems to me to miss the point & rather spoil his design. Still I am fond of the Bard as one is fond of what one has already known by heart.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Chauncey Wright : Philosophical Discussions
'My dear Norton, since I wrote to you last, I have read Mr Chauncey Wright?s book or nearly all & - to say the truth ? found it a tolerably thorough morsel. It is like walking across a plough field, where one has to look very carefully at one?s footing & get every now & then stuck above the ankles. I admired & respected the man but found it hard to enjoy his work. This, however, can hardly be expected even from a professed metaphysician. He is strong & thoroughgoing; but one longs for a little liveliness & more capacity for bringing things to a focus. Perhaps I am a little spoilt by article-writing & inclined to value smartness of style too highly. The only point wh. struck me unpleasantly in the substance of the book was his rather contemptuous tone about Spence & Lewes. I don?t doubt that his criticisms of Spencer are tolerably correct; though I can see that Spencer really means to concede so much to the enemy as C. W. supposes; but I confess that Lewes seems to me to be a remarkably acute metaphysician & one who will really make his mark. C. W.?s criticism is unluckily so short that I could not quite catch the grounds of his antipathy. He seems to me to be too staunch a Millite & hardly to recognise the fact that we have got to go beyond the Mill school. But I can?t attempt a criticism here, if indeed, I were really capable of it. Anyhow Wright must be a great loss. Nobody can mistake the soundness & toughness of his intellect & his thorough honesty of purpose.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Various : Saturday Review, The
'The statement wh. I transmitted to you about Cortes was the vaguest but I will see if I can find out anything from my friend, whom I expect to see again. The general effect was that some recent sceptic had argued that the city of Mexico was not so gorgacious (a Yankee phrase) as the Spanish represented; but rather a big specimen of a kind of architecture still to be found amongst semi savage tribes in that region. I had seem some references to this in (I think) one of the notices of American literature in the Saturday Review, within the last few months ? I can?t remember when; and I have a further impression ? that the authority there given was one of the volumes ? the last if there are only two ? of Bancroft?s large book on the native races of the Pacific.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
G. B. Smith : The Brontes
'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admire the sister?s work [Wuthering Heights] so much as you do. I see in it more violence than real strength & more rant than genuine passion. However all this is a matter of taste. I will remark, by the way, that I think there is some excuse for the charge of coarseness, as, e.g., the scene where Jane Eyre is half inclined to go to Rochester?s bedroom. I don?t mean coarseness in the sense of prurience; for I fully agree that Miss Bronte writes as a thoroughly pureminded woman; but she is more close to the physical side of passion than young ladies are expected to be?There is also some coarseness in the artistic sense in Jane Eyre. The mad wife is I fancy, unnecessarily bestial? I don?t think justice is generally done to C Bronte now & I shall be glad for that reason to insert your eloquent article.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Manuscript: article
Charlotte Bronte : Jane Eyre
'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admire the sister?s work [Wuthering Heights] so much as you do. I see in it more violence than real strength & more rant than genuine passion. However all this is a matter of taste. I will remark, by the way, that I think there is some excuse for the charge of coarseness, as, e.g., the scene where Jane Eyre is half inclined to go to Rochester?s bedroom. I don?t mean coarseness in the sense of prurience; for I fully agree that Miss Bronte writes as a thoroughly pureminded woman; but she is more close to the physical side of passion than young ladies are expected to be?There is also some coarseness in the artistic sense in Jane Eyre. The mad wife is I fancy, unnecessarily bestial? I don?t think justice is generally done to C Bronte now & I shall be glad for that reason to insert your eloquent article.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Emily Bronte : Wuthering Heights
'The hero seems to me superior to the Rochester or the Louis Moore type, who are all rather lay-figures. Nor do I admire the sister?s work [Wuthering Heights] so much as you do. I see in it more violence than real strength & more rant than genuine passion. However all this is a matter of taste. I will remark, by the way, that I think there is some excuse for the charge of coarseness, as, e.g., the scene where Jane Eyre is half inclined to go to Rochester?s bedroom. I don?t mean coarseness in the sense of prurience; for I fully agree that Miss Bronte writes as a thoroughly pureminded woman; but she is more close to the physical side of passion than young ladies are expected to be?There is also some coarseness in the artistic sense in Jane Eyre. The mad wife is I fancy, unnecessarily bestial? I don?t think justice is generally done to C Bronte now & I shall be glad for that reason to insert your eloquent article.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte : Villette
'I prefer Villette to Shirley, on the whole.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Charlotte Bronte : Shirley
'I prefer Villette to Shirley, on the whole.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Henry Newman : An essay in aid of a grammar of assent
'I finished old Newman?s book coming down & as the book is too metaphysical to give you pleasure I will tell you what it comes to, it is an elaborate apology for the morality of persuading yourself that a thing is absolutely certain when you really know that it is not certain at all? Why shouldn?t I say that such a creature is a liar & that I despise him? I do most heartily.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
J.F. Stephen : Pall Mall Gazette, articles
'He [Leslie Stephen's brother] wrote articles for the Pall Mall Gazette all the way out to India; enough, he says, to pay his passage; and some of them were amongst the best things of his I have ever seen.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
unknown : [French novels]
'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness in my tastes, I do believe that the commonplace criticism is correct. I do think they are as a rule prurient & indecent & that they treat love affairs a good deal too much from the point of view of the whore and the whoremonger. They are very clever and very artistic; but I don?t think delicate either in the sense of art or morals? The books are put together with great skill to produce a given effect; but the effect is apt to border on the nasty & they are too anxious to keep everything in due harmony to give proper contrasts & variety of real life.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
George Sand : unknown
'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness in my tastes, I do believe that the commonplace criticism is correct. I do think they are as a rule prurient & indecent & that they treat love affairs a good deal too much from the point of view of the whore and the whoremonger. They are very clever and very artistic; but I don?t think delicate either in the sense of art or morals? The books are put together with great skill to produce a given effect; but the effect is apt to border on the nasty & they are too anxious to keep everything in due harmony to give proper contrasts & variety of real life.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Honore de Balzac : unknown
'To say the truth, much as I like reading them & specially Balzac and Sand, & little as I am given to overstrictness in my tastes, I do believe that the commonplace criticism is correct. I do think they are as a rule prurient & indecent & that they treat love affairs a good deal too much from the point of view of the whore and the whoremonger. They are very clever and very artistic; but I don?t think delicate either in the sense of art or morals? The books are put together with great skill to produce a given effect; but the effect is apt to border on the nasty & they are too anxious to keep everything in due harmony to give proper contrasts & variety of real life.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
William Thackeray :
?Of course, it is true that English writers ? Thackeray conspicuously so ? are injured by being cramped as to love in its various manifestations? Consequently within given limits & the limits are certainly too narrow, I consider the lovemaking of English novelists to be purer & more life-like. This touches certain theories or, if you like, crochets of mine, on wh. I could be voluminous.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Carlyle : Shooting Niagara
?I hope that you have read Carlyle in August Macmillan & that you appreciate him. Of course it is damned nonsense but nonsense of a genius & not without a certain point. We have a lot of effete things in this blessed old country & a good rush over Niagara will do us all good in the world? Only it is melancholy to see him begging the aristocracy to come & help poor England out of the slough. If that is it, we shall have to stick there, I fear, till doomsday.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
William Shakespeare : Henry VIII
"If it was not enough to have all the Catholic theology suddenly discharged upon one, I have suddenly taken a fancy to read some of the old dramatists, being prompted by Furnivall's society & to puzzle my head about 'stopt lines' as F. J. F. calls them & the share of Fletcher in Henry VIII and the Two Noble Kinsmen.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Aquinas :
?I bought the other day a copy of Aquinas & find him very good reading. Only to understand him one ought obviously to read a whole mass of contemporary stuff wh. would swamp me altogether. ? He is a kind of revelation to me ? but what interests one most is to find out how many things have been said over & over again for so many centuries.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Ruskin : Fors Clavigera: Letters to the workenand labourers of Great Britain
?There are plenty of things to groan over if so disposed; a fact wh. has been lately impressed upon me by reading some of Ruskin?s manifestoes to the world.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Hardy :
?I have read your MS with great pleasure; though I had seen most of it before. As you ask me for my opinion I will say frankly that I think the sheepshearing rather long for the present purpose? The chapter on the ?Great Barn? & that called ?merry time? seem to me to be excellent & I would not omit or shorten them.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Manuscript: Unknown
Herbert Fisher : Studies in Napoleonic statesmanship: Germany
?I have received your book and in spite of your permission to abstain, have read it from first to last? My ignorance of the subject was pretty exhaustive but I knew just enough to have some kind of pegs to which new knowledge might adhere.?
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
George Eliot : Romola
"Then I promised Morley to contribute to a continuation of the 'Men of Letters' series a book upon George Eliot. I find it very hard to tell you the truth. I admire English country novels as much as I could wish; but later performances are not to my taste. Romola bores me and the 'poetry' - does not appear to be poetry."
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Ruskin : Praeterita
"Ruskin's death has set me reading some of his books and among others 'Praeterita' in wh. I read of your first acquaintance with him."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Ruskin :
"Ruskin's death has set me reading some of his books and among others 'Praeterita' in wh. I read of your first acquaintance with him."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Dante Alighieri :
"Why do you say that I don't like Dante? I read him through with the help of your crib & was profoundly impressed."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Hardy : Far from the madding crowd
?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I am always pleased to remember that ?Far from the madding crowd? came out under my command. I then admired the poetry which was diffused through the prose; and can recognize the same note in the versified form.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Thomas Hardy : The Wessex Poems
?I have to thank you for the ?Wessex Poems? which came to me with the kind inscription and gave me a real pleasure? I am always pleased to remember that ?Far from the madding crowd? came out under my command. I then admired the poetry which was diffused through the prose; and can recognize the same note in the versified form.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Herbert Fisher : The Medieval Empire
?I have waited to thank you for your book till I had read it & write now ? before having quite finished ? because I can talk best with my pen & would rather anticipate tomorrow. I am, as you know, quite unable to criticize the substance. I am greatly ignorant of history & of that part of history beyond nearly all others. I can, however, see that you have got through an amount of work wh. amazes me? I thought well of you; but you have quite surpassed my expectations.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Benjamin Jowett : Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett
?Another book is Jowett?s life; wh. I have read with a good deal of interest. It is too long & too idolatrous; but seems to give one on the whole a good account of the man. I tried to learn from him in my time how to be a good Christian by giving up all the creeds & deciding that there is no absurdity in holding contradictory beliefs.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
F. W. Maitland : History of English Law
?I have read two books lately wh. interested me. One for wh. you will not care is a history of English law down to the time of Edward I by F. W. Maitland? It is a wonderful piece of work as far as I can judge; & I should ask you to recommend it to some of your law professors, only that, as I take it, they will know about it already.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
James Boswell : The Life of Samuel Johnson
?Boswell showed his genius in setting forth Johnson?s weaknesses as well as his strength. But if Boswell had been Johnson?s brother? I cannot be simply eulogistic if the portrait is to be lifelike; but I find it very hard to speak of defects without either concealing my opinion that they were defects. Or on the other hand, taking a tone of superiority & condescension.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Lucy Clifford : Love letters of a worldly woman
'Then I called at Lucy Clifford?s. She showed me a short preface she has written to those stories of hers about "Worldly Women" wh. are coming out in a book. I found fault with a sentence about wh. we argued all the time I was there & consequently I had not time to speak about the book itself ? wh. was just as well. I am afraid that she will send it to me & that I will have to say something.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
: [a biography]
?The other day I was reading a life in wh. a biographer calmly states that his hero was imprisoned by the Long Parl[iament] in 1644 and goes on to remark in the next sentence that he died in 1635. That seems to me about the average in point of accuracy.?
UnknownCentury: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen
James Russell Lowell : Democracy and other addresses
?Meanwhile I have a book from you, wh. I ought to have acknowledged. I guess that Julia did my duty & I did it better than I should. But, though late, I will say thank you now. I admire your faculty of addressing but I should like an argument or two upon minor points.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Anne Isabella Ritchie : 'Mrs Browning' (life for the DNB)
"I think you have done Mrs B[rowning] very well. I have read it & put in some savage criticism, marking, however, what I really think should be omitted in a dictionary."
UnknownCentury: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen
James A. Froude : Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London 1834-1881
?I finished poor old Carlyle last night. Froude?s case is curious. He expresses & I think, really feels, veneration & so forth; but there is something curiously complicated about the man wh. I have not yet found a name for. I think that he is rather a coward & likes snarling from behind Carlyle?s back. Luckily I have not to review him!?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Plato :
?the snow left off a bit after lunch & we strolled out for a walk? so after pounding a mile or two out & home along slushy snow-paths we came home rather disgusted & bought some queer earthenware animals at a shop & then I sat down in the hall & puzzled out a bit of Plato. It is first rate reading to take on a journey; because a small volume would last one month; & there is the pleasure of guessing at each sentence before I make something out of it.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Plato : Protagorus
"I had Plato in my pocket & intermittently read through the Protagorus - as well as I could - which lasted me till Bristol & I hope improved my Greek."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Sir Alfred Lyall : Eastern Studies, The
'Do you know his [Sir Alfred Lyall's] books? The "Eastern Studies" is, I think, the most interesting work of the kind that I have ever read. It explains from actual observation how gods are born in India at the present day; how they get promotion, if they have luck in the miraculous line of business & so forth.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Sir Alfred Lyall : Verses written in India
?His [Sir Alfred Lyall] little volume of poems too is very good in its way. When I came back from America last time, I made a reputation on board by reciting one of the poems ? Theology in Extremis ? at a sort of penny reading? I have never been the object of so many attentions before or since and gave my autograph to a dozen ladies. Independent of that, Lyall is a man worth knowing & unluckily so popular in society that I don?t often get a chance of seeing him.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
A. J. Balfour : Foundations of Belief
?I have read two books lately wh. interested me. One for wh. you will not care is a history of English law down to the time of Edward I by F. W. Maitland?. The other book is A. J. Balfour?s Foundations of Belief, wh. are, I think about the very oddest foundations that any man ever tried to lay ? being chiefly reasons for believing nothing. I preached a kind of sermon about it to the Ethical Society here; taking his arguments & working out their proper result. It will, I believe, appear in the Fortnightly for June; but it is not worth taking the trouble to read.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Samuel Taylor Coleridge : Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
?Another book, by the way, worth a glance is a collection of old S. T. Coleridge?s letters. I have had to write the beggar?s life & have a rather morbid familiarity with his history wh. makes me appreciate better than some people his amazing wriggling & self-reproaches & astonishing pouring out of unctuous twaddlings. After all Carlyle?s portrait of him has done the thing unsurpassably well & it is impossible to add much to it. But there are some delicious bits in this.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
George Santayana : unknown
'I find distraction in writing, with a growing sense that it is not worth the trouble; but at 64 it is too late to learn a new trade. I read a bit too; though books have become dull of late. However, they amuse me at times. You sent me one the other day by a certain Santayana; who seems to be a bright & fresh sort of person. He irritated me a little by a rather meaningless philosophy; "nothing", he said, I remember, "is objectively impressive." How the devil should it be?'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Dante Alighieri : unknown
'It occurred to me lately to read Dante again &, as I required a crib very constantly I took yours & by its help went through the whole. It suggested to me innumerable speculations upon which I should have liked to ask your questions? I should have liked to know, to suggest only one question, what Dante himself really believed? That is, of course, unanswerable; but I should like to get a little nearer to an answer at all conceivable to me.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
F W Maitland : History of English Law
?I have read your history; and when I say ?read? I mean that I have turned over the pages and read all such parts as were apparently on a level with my comprehension?I found a great deal that interested me very much. ?I could only read, as a rule, in all humility accompanied by constant admiration.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Swift : sermons
?The best I have read are two or three of Swift?s, who has a real go in him wh. cannot be quenched even by theology. There is a charming sermon on brotherly love; wh. he inculcates by showing that papists, dissenters, deists & all moderate members of the Church of England are a set of hateful & contemptible beings, who will be damned for not loving him & his friends.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
John Robert Seeley : Ecce Homo: a survey of the life and work of Jesus Christ
?In your last ? letter you spoke very highly of Ecce Homo. To say the truth I don?t agree in your estimate ? partly because the book seemed to me to be feeble rhetorically, but partly, it may be, from another cause. I cannot look upon theological dogmas with the same kind of indifference that you do. ? Now ?Ecce Homo? may be amiable & enthusiastic & all that; but in a theological point of view, it is to me hateful. It is a feeble attempt to make sentimental oratory do the work of logic, & to supersede all criticism by a sort of a priori gush of enthusiasm.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Robert Louis Stevenson : article on Victor Hugo
?I have read with great interest your article on Victor Hugo & also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan. I shall be happy to accept Hugo & if I have been rather long in answering you, it is only because I wished to give a second reading to the article? I think very highly of the promise shown in your writing & therefore think it worth while to write more fully than I often do to contributors.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Serial / periodical
Victor Hugo :
?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well) a use of scenery & background wh. would hardly be admissible in drama. I am not able ? I fairly confess ? to define the dramatic element in Hugo or to say why it is absent from Fielding & Richardson. Yet surely Hugo?s own dramas are a sufficient proof that a drama may be romantic as well as a novel.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Henry Fielding :
?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well) a use of scenery & background wh. would hardly be admissible in drama. I am not able ? I fairly confess ? to define the dramatic element in Hugo or to say why it is absent from Fielding & Richardson. Yet surely Hugo?s own dramas are a sufficient proof that a drama may be romantic as well as a novel.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Samuel Richardson :
?To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well) a use of scenery & background wh. would hardly be admissible in drama. I am not able ? I fairly confess ? to define the dramatic element in Hugo or to say why it is absent from Fielding & Richardson. Yet surely Hugo?s own dramas are a sufficient proof that a drama may be romantic as well as a novel.?
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Matthew Arnold : Letters of Matthew Arnold: 1848-1888
?Have you read Mat Arnold?s letters? Some, I see, are addressed to you? I can imagine old Carlyle taking himself to be a prophet, as indeed he was; but Mat Arnold, I should have thought, was too much of a critic even of himself to wear his robes so gravely.?
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Margaret Veley : Marriage of Shadows and Other Poems
"I was thinking of Eliot [Norton] the other day. When he was here in the summer he came one day to see Miss Valey. She had a pleasant little talk with us & was pleased, I think, with his friendly admiration of her books... The poems, I think, showed a real talent but - well, not quite of the first order."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Henry John Newbolt : Drake's Drum
'Father is rehearsing Drake's Drum for Wednesday'.
