"At home, after leaving school in 1857 ... [Louisa Martindale's] reading was, at first, chiefly the Bible. On 16 September she started to take Fraser's Magazine, and her diary becomes full of references to this, and to articles in the Times on subjects as diverse as Fortification and The War in New Zealand. She read, and was charmed by, Symington on architecture, sculpture, and painting ... Further books which she read included Froude's History of England ... The Bible and Modern Thought, Butler's Analogy, Memorials of Fox, Bancroft's American Revolution, Rollin's Ancient History, Waddington's Church History, the Works of Paley, Locke on the Human Understanding, and Mrs Jameson's Characteristics of Women."