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

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Mary Augusta Ward  : Preface to "Jane Eyre"

'I had a most successful afternoon with Mrs [Humphrey] Ward yesterday. Their villa is a vision of beauty, looking over the Alban Lake on one side and the Campagna on the other. It's a Barberini Villa with an exquisite big garden in which are the ruins of a Villa of Domitian's. There are long ilex avenues and the grass was full of violets and cyclamen and anemones. The rooms of course very bare, but they have carpeted them and put in stoves and they are most fascinating. Mrs Ward was extremely kind. I arrived about 4 and stayed till 8 — it's only an hour from Rome [Roma]. She and I walked about on the Terraces till tea, after which she took me into her sitting room and showed me her preface to "Jane Eyre", very good I thought — so did she! "Now this is so true" she said, pointing to a passage in an impersonal way! Never mind, she was a great dear.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Gertrude Bell      

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