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

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Emery Tylney : (in) Foxe's Book of Martyrs

'You may remember that I used to desire to outlive you: I have changed my cue: I should be left to speak in the words of surely the most affecting historical document in the world ? Emery Tylney?s character of George Wishart: ? ?O that the Lord had left her to me, her poor boy, that she might have finished what she had begun!? I can?t tell you how beautiful that whole paper is from which those words are imitated: I was reading it again the other day, and my heart came into my mouth when I got to that passage: one is so little prepared for such a cry of the soul amid the succinct details of life and manners that surround it. And the saying in my mind attaches itself to you: I have had to explain all round that you might understand the full meaning of the words, and how they are not simply my words, but have been sanctified by the fire of martyrdom and the name of one of the good, pure, quiet, delicate spirits of the Earth; and you needed to know that, to know why I like to apply them to you.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Louis Stevenson      Print: Book

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