Record Number: 21099
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
Passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940) include remarks on value of cultural works for successive generations of civilised people from Lord Acton's Lecture on the Study of History ('A speech of Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates [...] come nearer to our lives than the ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian acorns'). Forster responds with comment that 'Lord Acton is right, but [...] He forgot that that most people do not respond to culture or intellectual honesty [...] he appears to this generation as an old man lecturung in a cap and gown,' having also noted 'This afternoon (29-2-40) I was at Bishops Cross, where new born lambs were dying in the cold, and Hughie Waterson, a Nazi by temperament, was trying to save them [...] Him the ancestral wisdom inspired.'
Century:1800-1849, 1900-1945
Date:29 Feb 1940
Country:n/a
Timen/a
Place:n/a
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:1 Jan 1879
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Writer
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:n/a
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author:John Emerich Edward Dalberg Lord Acton
Title:A Lecture on the Study of History
Genre:Essays / Criticism, History
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsFirst published 1895, when also given as lecture at Cambridge
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:21099
Source:E. M. Forster
Editor:Philip Gardner
Title:Commonplace Book
Place of Publication:London
Date of Publication:1985
Vol:n/a
Page:117-118
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
E. M. Forster, Philip Gardner (ed.), Commonplace Book, (London, 1985), p. 117-118, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21099, accessed: 12 October 2024
Additional Comments:
None