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
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
'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
'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
'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
'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
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
'Began "The Scarlet Letter".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot and G.H. Lewes Print: Book
'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
'[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
'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
'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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
'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
'['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
'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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
'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
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
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
(1) 'I wonder does the "Wayfarer" series publish my latest discovery - the most glorious novel
(almost) that I have ever read.... It is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House with the Seven Gables". I
love the idea of a house with a curse! And although there is nothing supernatural in the story
itself there is a brooding sense of mystery and fate over the whole thing: Have you read it?
See if it is in the "Wayfarers" as I want to get an edition of my own as soon as possible.' (2) 'I
shouldn't have said "mystery", there is really no mystery in the proper sense of the word, but
a sort of feeling of fate & inevitable horror as in "Wuthering Heights". I really think I have
never enjoyed a novel more. There is one lovely scene where the villain - Judge Pyncheon -
has suddenly died in his chair.... it describes the corpse sitting there as the day wears on.... I
intend to read all Hawthorne after this.' (3) 'This week I have been reading "The House of the
Seven Gables" which I have often heard praised but never met before. Have you? It is well
worth the reading.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
