Record Number: 4022

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'My dear Norton, since I wrote to you last, I have read Mr Chauncey Wright?s book or nearly all & - to say the truth ? found it a tolerably thorough morsel. It is like walking across a plough field, where one has to look very carefully at one?s footing & get every now & then stuck above the ankles. I admired & respected the man but found it hard to enjoy his work. This, however, can hardly be expected even from a professed metaphysician. He is strong & thoroughgoing; but one longs for a little liveliness & more capacity for bringing things to a focus. Perhaps I am a little spoilt by article-writing & inclined to value smartness of style too highly. The only point wh. struck me unpleasantly in the substance of the book was his rather contemptuous tone about Spence & Lewes. I don?t doubt that his criticisms of Spencer are tolerably correct; though I can see that Spencer really means to concede so much to the enemy as C. W. supposes; but I confess that Lewes seems to me to be a remarkably acute metaphysician & one who will really make his mark. C. W.?s criticism is unluckily so short that I could not quite catch the grounds of his antipathy. He seems to me to be too staunch a Millite & hardly to recognise the fact that we have got to go beyond the Mill school. But I can?t attempt a criticism here, if indeed, I were really capable of it. Anyhow Wright must be a great loss. Nobody can mistake the soundness & toughness of his intellect & his thorough honesty of purpose.'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

1877

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

n/a

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Leslie Stephen

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

28 Nov 1832

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Literary critic, historian, journalist, biographer

Religion:

Christian

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Chauncey Wright

Title:

Philosophical Discussions

Genre:

Philosophy, Science, Mathematics

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

1877

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

4022

Source:

Print

Author:

Leslie Stephen

Editor:

John Bicknell

Title:

The Selected Letters of Leslie Stephen Vol. 1 1882-1904

Place of Publication:

Ohio State University Press

Date of Publication:

1

Vol:

1996

Page:

202

Additional Comments:

Letter from Stephen to Charles Eliot Norton (4/5/1877)

Citation:

Leslie Stephen, John Bicknell (ed.), The Selected Letters of Leslie Stephen Vol. 1 1882-1904, (Ohio State University Press, 1), 1996, p. 202, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=4022, accessed: 25 April 2025

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Additional Comments:

None