'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward Print: Book
'[from a letter from Mary Ward to her father] I have been reading Joubert's "Pensees" and "Correspondance" lately, with a view to the Amiel introduction. You would be charmed with the letters and some of the [italics] pensees [end italics] are extraordinarily acute. Now I am deep in Senancour, and for miscellaneous reading I have been getting through Horace's Epistles and dawdling a good deal over Shakespeare. My feeling as to him gets stronger and stronger, that he was, strictly speaking, a great poet, but not a great dramatist! [she discusses this at length, concluding] I have always felt it most strongly in Othello, and of course in the last act of Hamlet, which, in spite of the magnificent poetry in it, is surely a piece of dramatic bungling'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Ward Print: Book
'[Mrs Ward] had found a task for Mrs Lyttelton's quick mind, to while away the too-long hours of that summer [while her husband was fighting in the Boer war], in a translation into English of the "Pensees" of Joubert; their consultations over the fine shades of his meaning, while the bees hummed in the lime tree on the lawn, became the light and relaxation of her days, while, later on, the Introduction she contributed to the book helped its appearance with the public'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Katherine Lyttelton Print: Book