'Thank you very much for the "Life of George Eliot," and for the kind and flattering inscription. I am very glad to have the book, which is as curious a book as any I ever saw. The personality of the great writer is as yet very confusing to me in the extreme flatness of the picture. I don't mean by flatness dulness [sic], though there is something of that, but only that it is like mural paintings or sculpture in very low relief. I have just run over your reviewer's article and think it very good.'
"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."
'I have read Morley's second article on Education today'
2 March 1918: '[On 19 February] we went to Asheham [...] I saw no-one; for 5 days I wasn't in a state for reading [due to influenza]; but I did finally read Morley & other books; but reading when done to kill time has a kind of drudgy look in it [...] One day I sat in the garden reading Shakespeare; I remember the ecstacy'.
'F. Edminson read an able review of Morley's Life of Cromwell and A. Rawlings read a ['charming' inserted in another hand and crossed out] paper on Wm Morris.'
'I am very much interested in Morley's ''Life of Rousseau'' ... Morley does not gloss over any of his crimes or odiousness.'
'This morning we have read and talked — it's very wet so we haven't been out. I have been reading Mr Morley's "Walpole" which Sir Lewis [?Louis] Mallet says is supreme — it is most brilliant and interesting.'
'Out round waggon lines to fix new places to park amm. waggons and then round dump in morning. In after luncheon�Gibbs out. Read Morley's Robespierre�those times nearly as mad as these.'
