The common reader, p.30
The Common Reader, page 30
12 In 1812-c. 1819, Hazlitt rented No. 19 York Street, Westminster, from Jeremy Bentham whose own house abutted the property.
13 Memoirs, vol. II, ‘Mrs Hazlitt’s Diary, Tuesday 30 April 1822’, p. 40
14 Lectures on the English Poets (1813), ‘On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins, &c’, second paragraph.
15 For Hazlitt’s passion for Sarah Walker, see Memoirs and more particularly Liber Amaris; for his essay ‘The Fight’, on an encounter between the ‘Gas-Man’ Hickman and Bill Neate, see Table Talk (also Memoirs, vol. II, chapters VII and VIII).
16 See Table Talk, ‘On the Past and Future’, vol. II, pp. 6–7; the passage reads: ‘Without that face pale as the primrose with hyacinthine locks …’
17 See Table Talk, ‘On Genius and Common Sense’, vol. I, p. 26
18 Ibid., p. 26; the text has ‘I shall try here …’ and ‘to give such instances’.
19 For Hazlitt on ‘Hot and Cold’ and ‘Envy’ see The Plain Speaker; for ‘On the Conduct of Life’ see Literary Remains; and for ‘The Picturesque and the Ideal’ see Table Talk.
20 See Table Talk, ‘On Genius and Common Sense’, vol. vol. I, p. 57
21 See Lectures on the English Poets, ‘On Poetry in General’; (2nd edn, Taylor and Hessey, 1819), p. 3
22 The origin of this remains undiscovered.
23 See Table Talk, ‘On the Ignorance of the Learned’, op. cit., vol. I, p. 93
24 Ibid., ‘On Criticism’, vol. II, p. 60
25 See Lectures on the English Poets, ‘On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins etc’, op. cit., p. 232
26 Ibid., ‘On Chaucer and Spenser’, p. 57
27 Ibid., ‘On Thomson and Cowper’, pp. 192–3
28 See The Plain Speaker, ‘On Reading Old Books’, op. cit., vol. II, p. 80
29 Ibid., ‘On Old English Writers and Speakers, vol II, pp. 292–3; quoted in Memoirs, vol. II, p. 297
30 The Lift of Napoleon Buonaparte (vols. I and II, 1828; II and IV, 1830); The Conversations of James Northcote RA (1830).
31 See My Friends and Acquaintances by P. G. Patmore (3 vols., Saunders and Otley, 1854), vol. 2, p. 344
32 See The Plain Speaker, ‘Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?’, vol. I, pp. 295–6
33 See Memoirs, vol. II, p. 238. Hazlitt died on 18 September 1830 at No.6 Frith Street, Soho, aetat 52.
‘GERALDINE AND JANE’
VW revised this essay from the version that appeared in The Bookman, New York, February 1929, which was itself reprinted, with additional matter, from her review of Zoe and The Half Sisters by Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury, published in the TLS, 28 February 1929.
1 See Selections From the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, ed. Mrs Alexander Ireland (Longmans, Green, 1892), p. viii
2 Ibid., pp. vii-viii
3 Ibid., Letter 45, p. 166
4 Ibid., Letter 115, p. 410
5 Ibid., Letter 45, p. 166; the original has ‘… struggling is of no use; …’
6 Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), divine, one of the Cambridge Platonists; see Letter 27, p. 104: ‘I fagged through Cudworth’s folio before I finally abandoned myself to despair and hysterics.’
7 Ibid., Letter 27, p. 103: ‘I took a fit of studying metaphysics before I was 16 …… I was fired with a glorious ambition to say my say on the much-vexed question of “matter and spirit”, and, save the mark!, the nature of life …’ But metaphysics, at least of this order, were not a current interest.
8 Ibid., Letter 26, p. 100
9 Ibid., Letter 1, p. 5
10 Ibid., pp. 6–7; the ellipsis between the first and second sentences was originally omitted.
11 Ibid., Letter 4, p 16
12 Ibid., VW has adapted the punctuation to suit her needs.
13 Ibid., Letter 7, p. 30
14 Ibid., Letter 10, p. 39
15 See Jane Welsh Carlyle: Letters to Her Family (John Murray, 1924), Letter 31, to Jeannie Welsh, 18 January 1843. p. 83
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., Letter 34, to Jeannie Welsh, 24 February 1843, p. 89
19 Ibid., Letter 37, to the same, 12 March 1843, p. 97
20 Ibid., Letter 44, to the same, 18 April 1843, p. 120
21 Ibid., Letter 147, to the same, 4 March 1850, p. 348: ‘To do Geraldine justice she is extremely noble in her quarrels – …’
22 Ibid., Letter 63, to Helen Welsh, early December 1843, p. 165
23 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 19, p. 75
24 Ibid., p. 76
25 Ibid., Letter 25, p. 93: ‘Carlyle is magnificent, and you are not wasted upon him, and that will be a consolation to feel some day./ He is much too grand for everyday life. A sphinx does not fit in comfortably to our parlour life arrangements …’
26 Ibid., p. 92
27 Ibid., Letter 23, p. 128
28 See Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (3 vols., Longmans, 1883), vol. I, Carlyle’s note to Letter 60, p. 263
29 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 63, Jane Welsh Carlyle to Helen Welsh, early December 1843, p. 165
30 See Letters and Memorials …, op. cit., vol. I, p. 263
31 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 34, to Jeannie Welsh, 24 February 1843, p. 89
32 Ibid., Letter 51, to the same, 21 June 1843, p. 134; this is a paraphrase.
33 Zoe. The History of Two Lives, by Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (3 vols., Chapman & Hall, 1845).
34 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 74, to Jeannie Welsh, 16 March 1844, p. 193
35 Ibid., p. 194
36 Ibid., letter 27, to Jeannie Welsh, 25 December 1842, p. 66
37 Ibid., ‘decency forbids’ should be in quotation marks.
38 Ibid.; the ellipsis was originally omitted.
39 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 40, p. 145
40 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 95, to Jeannie Welsh, 26 February 1845, p. 236
41 See Zoe. The History of Two Lives, vol. I, p. 220
42 The first of these quotations appears to be paraphrased, see Zoe, vol. II, pp. 71–2. The others are, in the order given, to be found at: Ibid., vol. II, p. 68; vol. III, p. 4; vol. II, p. 261; vol. I, p. 220 – the first and third of these being adapted from larger sentences.
43 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 51, to Jeannie Welsh, 21 June 1843, p. 134
44 See New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, annotated by Thomas Carlyle and edited by Alexander Carlyle (2 vols., John Lane, 1903); to Thomas Carlyle, 12 July 1844, vol. I, p. 143
45 Ibid., to the same, 17 July 1844, vol. I, p. 146
46 Ibid., to the same, 20 August 1845, vol. I, p 163; the original reads: ‘… better than all the world put together!’
47 Ibid., p. 163
48 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 121, p. 426
49 Ibid.
50 The Half-Sisters (1848)
51 See New Letters and Memorials, to Thomas Carlyle, 12 September 1860, vol. II, p. 234
52 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 64, p. 244
53 Ibid., Letter 74, p. 279; the original reads: ‘– a set of lying, hypocritical beggars!’
54 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 96, pp. 347–8
55 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 27, to Jeannie Welsh, 25 December 1842, p. 66: ‘One thing I feel no doubt about that this Geraldine will either “make a spoon or spoil a horn” –’
56 See J. A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of His Life in London, 1834–81 (2 vols., Longmans, 1884), vol. II, p. 313
57 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 92, p. 337
‘AURORA LEIGH’
This essay first appeared in the Yale Review, June 1931, and was reprinted with minor revisions in the TLS, 2 July 1931, in which version it appears here. Aurora Leigh was first published in 1857; VW probably used the 13th edition (Smith, Elder, 1873), in a copy once owned by Leslie Stephen.
1 ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’, published in 1844.
2 English Literature from A.D. 670 to A.D.1832 by Stopford A. Brooke, MA, with a chapter on Literature since 1832 by George Sampson, MA (first edition 1876); Macmillan, 1935, p. 173
3 Mrs Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835), author of ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ and other popular pieces. Eliza Cook (1818–89), who ran a popular journal, 1849–54, and wrote such poems as ‘The Old Arm Chair’, 1837. Jean Ingelow (1820–97), poet, author of ‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’ (1863) and ‘A Story of Doom’ (1867). Alexander Smith (1830–67), lace-pattern maker and author of ‘A Life Drama’ (1853) and ‘A Summer in Skye’ (1865). Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904), author of a poem about Buddha, ‘The Light of Asia …’ (1879). Robert Montgomery (1807–55), whose verse enjoyed enormous popularity, especially in Low Church circles.
4 See introduction to these notes.
5 Aurora Leigh is fulsomely dedicated to the author’s cousin John Kenyon.
6 See E. B. Barrett to Robert Browning, 27 February 1845, in The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, ed. Robert W. E. Browning (2 vols., Smith, Elder, 1879); the original has ‘… and speaking the truth as I conceive of it out plainly.’
7 Aurora Leigh. First Book, lines 29–31:
‘I write. My Mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; …’
8 Ibid., First Book, lines 65–8
9 Ibid., First Book, lines 287–8
10 Ibid., First Book, lines 301–2: ‘Because we are of one flesh after all/ And need one flannel, …’
11 Ibid., First Book, line 480:
‘I had relations in the Unseen, and drew
The elemental nutriment and heat
From nature …’
12 Ibid., First Book, lines 850–5
13 Ibid., First Book, lines 721–5
14 Ibid., First Book, lines 1126–8:
‘Whom men judge hardly, as bee-bonnetted,
Because he holds that, paint a body well,
You paint a soul by implication, …’
15 See E. B. Barrett to Robert Browning, 20 March 1845; three sentences were originally omitted between ‘experience in reveries’ and ‘And so time passed and passed’; this ellipsis is now marked in the text.
16 See Elizabeth Barrett Browning to John Kenyon, 1 May 1848, in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Frederic G. Kenyon (2 vols., Smith Elder, 1897).
17 See note 5 above.
18 Aurora Leigh, Fifth Book, lines 212–14
19 1846 was the year of Elizabeth Barrett’s marriage to Robert Browning; Aurora Leigh was published in 1857; it is possible that VW intended to write ‘1856’, the year appended to the poem’s dedication and presumably the year in which it was completed.
20 Aurora Leigh, Fifth Book, lines 348–9:
‘Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume;
And take for a worthier stage the soul itself.’
21 Ibid., Fifth Book, lines 228–9
22 Ibid., Fifth Book, lines 241–2
23 The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore, the first part of which was published anonymously in 1854, and subsequent parts in 1856, 1860 and 1862. The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich (1848) by A. H. Clough.
24 Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë. Vanity Fair (1847–8), W. M. Thackeray. David Copperfield (1849–50), Charles Dickens. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), George Meredith.
25 See The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore, Canto V, ‘The Violets’, first four lines of part 2.
26 Aurora Leigh, Ninth Book, lines 214–19
27 Anthony Trollope (1815–82). Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65).
28 Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–49), author, notably of ‘Death’s Jest Book’, a drama in the Elizabethan manner. Sir Henry Taylor (1800–86), author of many verse plays, the best known being Philip van Artevelde (1834).
‘THE NIECE OF AN EARL’
This essay first appeared in Life and Letters, October 1928.
1 See The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper (1890) by George Meredith, Chapter 2, second paragraph; Memorial Edition (Constable, 1910), p. 130
‘GEORGE GISSING’
VW revised this essay from that published in the N&A, 26 February 1927, a review of The Letters of George Gissing to Members of his Family, collected and arranged by Algernon and Ellen Gissing (Constable & Co., 1927), which also appeared in the New Republic, 2 March 1927. (A. C. Gissing was later to quibble about certain details in this essay, see IV VW Diary, p. 150, n3.)
1 Letters …, to his sister Margaret, 13 January 1880, p. 55: ‘… Sometimes we never have any daylight. In my study I generally have to burn a lamp all day long. Do you know there are men in London who go the rounds of the streets with a cart selling paraffin oil? I often think they must rub their hands over weather such as this.’
2 Demos (1886); New Grub Street (1891); The Nether World (1889)
3 See Letters, Appendix C, reminiscences of his sister Ellen, p. 403
4 See Letters, ‘Diary September 1870’ entry marked’ 15th Thursday’, p. 6. The full title of the little book was That’s It, or Plain Teaching.
5 See Letters, Appendix C, reminiscences of his sister Ellen, p. 404
6 Letters, to his brother William, 2 January 1880, p. 53, about his book, Workers in the Dawn.
7 Letters, to the same, 8 June 1880, p. 73, on the same subject.
8 Letters, to his brother William, 20 September 1882, p. 119, concerning the fortunes of Demos: A Story of English Socialism, which was in fact first published, in 1886, by Smith, Elder, but at Gissing’s expense.
9 Harold Biffen and Edward Reardon, in New Grub Street (1891)
10 See New Grub Street (1891), vol. 3, Chapter 26 ‘Married Woman’s Property’; ed. Bernard Bergonzi (Penguin, 1968), pp. 395–6: the exclamation is Amy Reardon’s: ‘Best or worst, novels are all the same. Nothing but love, love, love; what silly nonsense it is! Why don’t people write about the really important things of life? …’
11 Letters, to his brother William, 3 November 1880, p. 83
12 Letters, to his sister Margaret, 12 May 1883, p. 126, in which, discussing Ruskin’s ‘calm, grave oratory’, he concludes: ‘Only this, I am growing to feel, that the only thing known to us of absolute value is artistic perfection. The ravings of fanaticism – justifiable or not – pass away; but the works of the artist, work in what material he will, remain, sources of health to the world.’
13 Letters, to his brother William, 26 March 1891, p. 317
14 Demos ( 1886), Chapter XVI, ed. Pierre Coustillas (Harvester, 1972), p. 221
15 From The Private Papers of Henry Ryecro.ft ( 1903), quoted in the Preface to the Letters, p. v
16 See Letters, Appendix A, p. 398; the friend was the Rev. Theodore Cooper and the account is given by him in a letter to Gissing’s sisters.
‘THE NOVELS OF GEORGE MEREDITH’
This essay reprints in part VW’s review published under the same title in the TLS, 9 February 1928, and as ‘George Meredith’ in the NYHT, 12 February 1928.
1 See Aspects of the Novel (1927) by E. M. Forster (Pelican, 1976), pp. 89–90
2 The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859)
3 Mr Skionar in Peacock’s Crotchet Castle (1831)
4 See the opening of ch. XIX in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel.
5 The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1871)
6 See … Harry Richmond, vol. I, ch. VI; Memorial Edn (Constable & Co, 1910), p. 81
7 Richmond Roy, the hero’s father, and Princess Ottilia of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld in … Harry Richmond.
8 Richard Feverel and Lucy Desborough; Harry Richmond and Princess Ottilia; Clara Middleton and Vernon Whitford (drawn from Leslie Stephen) in The Egoist (1879); Nevil Beauchamp and Renee de Croisnel in Beauchamp’s Career (1875, 1876).
9 See ch. XXV of … Harry Richmond, ‘On Board a Yacht’; ch. XI of The Egoist, ‘The Double-Blossom Wild Cherry-Tree’; ch. XV of Richard Feverel, ‘Ferdinand and Miranda’.
10 See … Harry Richmond, vol. I, ch. XXX; Memorial Edition, p. 323; the ellipsis between the second and third sentences was originally omitted.
11 See … Harry Richmond, vol. II, ch. XXXIII; Memorial Edn, p. 355: ‘Those winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly. The earth is still, as if awaiting. A wren warbles, and flits through the lank drenched brambles; hill-side opens green; elsewhere is mist, everywhere expectancy.’
12 The Egoist (1879), ch. XXIII; ed. George Woodcock (Penguin, 1968), p. 284: ‘The Egoist, who is our original male in giant form, had no bleeding victim beneath his paw, but there was the sex to mangle.’
13 Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen; The Small House at Allington (1864), Anthony Trollope.
14 See Letters of George Meredith (2 vols., Constable, 1912), vol. II, 22 July 1887, p. 398; ‘fierce’ should read ‘fiery’.
15 Richard Feverel, ch. IV; Memorial Edn (Constable & Co, 1909), p. 29: ‘Richard gave his lungs loud play.’
16 Ibid., ch. XI, p. 83: ‘Mama Thompson and her submissive brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating them with the tongue …’
‘I AM CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’
This essay first appeared in N&A, 6 December 1930, as a review of The Life of Christina Rossetti (Hutchinson, 1930), by Mary F. Sandars and Christina Rossetti and her Poetry (Harrap, 1930), by Edith Birkhead, and was reprinted in NYHT, 14 December 1930.
1 See The Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne, ed. Thomas Hake and Arthur Compton Rickett (Murray, 1918), Swinburne to William Michael Rossetti, 25 January 1904.
2 See Swinburne’s Essays and Studies (1875); 4th end (Chatto & Windus, 1897), p. 175, fn. I, where Swinburne quotes the first line of ‘Old and New Year Ditties’. Part 3 (‘The Knell of the Year’).
3 Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862); the passage from George Saintsbury’s History of English Prosody (1906) is taken from Mary F. Sandars’s Life …, where it is misquoted: ‘principal poem’ should read ‘title-poem’.
13 Memoirs, vol. II, ‘Mrs Hazlitt’s Diary, Tuesday 30 April 1822’, p. 40
14 Lectures on the English Poets (1813), ‘On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins, &c’, second paragraph.
15 For Hazlitt’s passion for Sarah Walker, see Memoirs and more particularly Liber Amaris; for his essay ‘The Fight’, on an encounter between the ‘Gas-Man’ Hickman and Bill Neate, see Table Talk (also Memoirs, vol. II, chapters VII and VIII).
16 See Table Talk, ‘On the Past and Future’, vol. II, pp. 6–7; the passage reads: ‘Without that face pale as the primrose with hyacinthine locks …’
17 See Table Talk, ‘On Genius and Common Sense’, vol. I, p. 26
18 Ibid., p. 26; the text has ‘I shall try here …’ and ‘to give such instances’.
19 For Hazlitt on ‘Hot and Cold’ and ‘Envy’ see The Plain Speaker; for ‘On the Conduct of Life’ see Literary Remains; and for ‘The Picturesque and the Ideal’ see Table Talk.
20 See Table Talk, ‘On Genius and Common Sense’, vol. vol. I, p. 57
21 See Lectures on the English Poets, ‘On Poetry in General’; (2nd edn, Taylor and Hessey, 1819), p. 3
22 The origin of this remains undiscovered.
23 See Table Talk, ‘On the Ignorance of the Learned’, op. cit., vol. I, p. 93
24 Ibid., ‘On Criticism’, vol. II, p. 60
25 See Lectures on the English Poets, ‘On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins etc’, op. cit., p. 232
26 Ibid., ‘On Chaucer and Spenser’, p. 57
27 Ibid., ‘On Thomson and Cowper’, pp. 192–3
28 See The Plain Speaker, ‘On Reading Old Books’, op. cit., vol. II, p. 80
29 Ibid., ‘On Old English Writers and Speakers, vol II, pp. 292–3; quoted in Memoirs, vol. II, p. 297
30 The Lift of Napoleon Buonaparte (vols. I and II, 1828; II and IV, 1830); The Conversations of James Northcote RA (1830).
31 See My Friends and Acquaintances by P. G. Patmore (3 vols., Saunders and Otley, 1854), vol. 2, p. 344
32 See The Plain Speaker, ‘Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?’, vol. I, pp. 295–6
33 See Memoirs, vol. II, p. 238. Hazlitt died on 18 September 1830 at No.6 Frith Street, Soho, aetat 52.
‘GERALDINE AND JANE’
VW revised this essay from the version that appeared in The Bookman, New York, February 1929, which was itself reprinted, with additional matter, from her review of Zoe and The Half Sisters by Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury, published in the TLS, 28 February 1929.
1 See Selections From the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, ed. Mrs Alexander Ireland (Longmans, Green, 1892), p. viii
2 Ibid., pp. vii-viii
3 Ibid., Letter 45, p. 166
4 Ibid., Letter 115, p. 410
5 Ibid., Letter 45, p. 166; the original has ‘… struggling is of no use; …’
6 Ralph Cudworth (1617–88), divine, one of the Cambridge Platonists; see Letter 27, p. 104: ‘I fagged through Cudworth’s folio before I finally abandoned myself to despair and hysterics.’
7 Ibid., Letter 27, p. 103: ‘I took a fit of studying metaphysics before I was 16 …… I was fired with a glorious ambition to say my say on the much-vexed question of “matter and spirit”, and, save the mark!, the nature of life …’ But metaphysics, at least of this order, were not a current interest.
8 Ibid., Letter 26, p. 100
9 Ibid., Letter 1, p. 5
10 Ibid., pp. 6–7; the ellipsis between the first and second sentences was originally omitted.
11 Ibid., Letter 4, p 16
12 Ibid., VW has adapted the punctuation to suit her needs.
13 Ibid., Letter 7, p. 30
14 Ibid., Letter 10, p. 39
15 See Jane Welsh Carlyle: Letters to Her Family (John Murray, 1924), Letter 31, to Jeannie Welsh, 18 January 1843. p. 83
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., Letter 34, to Jeannie Welsh, 24 February 1843, p. 89
19 Ibid., Letter 37, to the same, 12 March 1843, p. 97
20 Ibid., Letter 44, to the same, 18 April 1843, p. 120
21 Ibid., Letter 147, to the same, 4 March 1850, p. 348: ‘To do Geraldine justice she is extremely noble in her quarrels – …’
22 Ibid., Letter 63, to Helen Welsh, early December 1843, p. 165
23 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 19, p. 75
24 Ibid., p. 76
25 Ibid., Letter 25, p. 93: ‘Carlyle is magnificent, and you are not wasted upon him, and that will be a consolation to feel some day./ He is much too grand for everyday life. A sphinx does not fit in comfortably to our parlour life arrangements …’
26 Ibid., p. 92
27 Ibid., Letter 23, p. 128
28 See Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (3 vols., Longmans, 1883), vol. I, Carlyle’s note to Letter 60, p. 263
29 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 63, Jane Welsh Carlyle to Helen Welsh, early December 1843, p. 165
30 See Letters and Memorials …, op. cit., vol. I, p. 263
31 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 34, to Jeannie Welsh, 24 February 1843, p. 89
32 Ibid., Letter 51, to the same, 21 June 1843, p. 134; this is a paraphrase.
33 Zoe. The History of Two Lives, by Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (3 vols., Chapman & Hall, 1845).
34 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 74, to Jeannie Welsh, 16 March 1844, p. 193
35 Ibid., p. 194
36 Ibid., letter 27, to Jeannie Welsh, 25 December 1842, p. 66
37 Ibid., ‘decency forbids’ should be in quotation marks.
38 Ibid.; the ellipsis was originally omitted.
39 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 40, p. 145
40 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 95, to Jeannie Welsh, 26 February 1845, p. 236
41 See Zoe. The History of Two Lives, vol. I, p. 220
42 The first of these quotations appears to be paraphrased, see Zoe, vol. II, pp. 71–2. The others are, in the order given, to be found at: Ibid., vol. II, p. 68; vol. III, p. 4; vol. II, p. 261; vol. I, p. 220 – the first and third of these being adapted from larger sentences.
43 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 51, to Jeannie Welsh, 21 June 1843, p. 134
44 See New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, annotated by Thomas Carlyle and edited by Alexander Carlyle (2 vols., John Lane, 1903); to Thomas Carlyle, 12 July 1844, vol. I, p. 143
45 Ibid., to the same, 17 July 1844, vol. I, p. 146
46 Ibid., to the same, 20 August 1845, vol. I, p 163; the original reads: ‘… better than all the world put together!’
47 Ibid., p. 163
48 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 121, p. 426
49 Ibid.
50 The Half-Sisters (1848)
51 See New Letters and Memorials, to Thomas Carlyle, 12 September 1860, vol. II, p. 234
52 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 64, p. 244
53 Ibid., Letter 74, p. 279; the original reads: ‘– a set of lying, hypocritical beggars!’
54 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 96, pp. 347–8
55 See Letters to Her Family, Letter 27, to Jeannie Welsh, 25 December 1842, p. 66: ‘One thing I feel no doubt about that this Geraldine will either “make a spoon or spoil a horn” –’
56 See J. A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of His Life in London, 1834–81 (2 vols., Longmans, 1884), vol. II, p. 313
57 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, op. cit., Letter 92, p. 337
‘AURORA LEIGH’
This essay first appeared in the Yale Review, June 1931, and was reprinted with minor revisions in the TLS, 2 July 1931, in which version it appears here. Aurora Leigh was first published in 1857; VW probably used the 13th edition (Smith, Elder, 1873), in a copy once owned by Leslie Stephen.
1 ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’, published in 1844.
2 English Literature from A.D. 670 to A.D.1832 by Stopford A. Brooke, MA, with a chapter on Literature since 1832 by George Sampson, MA (first edition 1876); Macmillan, 1935, p. 173
3 Mrs Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793–1835), author of ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ and other popular pieces. Eliza Cook (1818–89), who ran a popular journal, 1849–54, and wrote such poems as ‘The Old Arm Chair’, 1837. Jean Ingelow (1820–97), poet, author of ‘The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571’ (1863) and ‘A Story of Doom’ (1867). Alexander Smith (1830–67), lace-pattern maker and author of ‘A Life Drama’ (1853) and ‘A Summer in Skye’ (1865). Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904), author of a poem about Buddha, ‘The Light of Asia …’ (1879). Robert Montgomery (1807–55), whose verse enjoyed enormous popularity, especially in Low Church circles.
4 See introduction to these notes.
5 Aurora Leigh is fulsomely dedicated to the author’s cousin John Kenyon.
6 See E. B. Barrett to Robert Browning, 27 February 1845, in The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, ed. Robert W. E. Browning (2 vols., Smith, Elder, 1879); the original has ‘… and speaking the truth as I conceive of it out plainly.’
7 Aurora Leigh. First Book, lines 29–31:
‘I write. My Mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; …’
8 Ibid., First Book, lines 65–8
9 Ibid., First Book, lines 287–8
10 Ibid., First Book, lines 301–2: ‘Because we are of one flesh after all/ And need one flannel, …’
11 Ibid., First Book, line 480:
‘I had relations in the Unseen, and drew
The elemental nutriment and heat
From nature …’
12 Ibid., First Book, lines 850–5
13 Ibid., First Book, lines 721–5
14 Ibid., First Book, lines 1126–8:
‘Whom men judge hardly, as bee-bonnetted,
Because he holds that, paint a body well,
You paint a soul by implication, …’
15 See E. B. Barrett to Robert Browning, 20 March 1845; three sentences were originally omitted between ‘experience in reveries’ and ‘And so time passed and passed’; this ellipsis is now marked in the text.
16 See Elizabeth Barrett Browning to John Kenyon, 1 May 1848, in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Frederic G. Kenyon (2 vols., Smith Elder, 1897).
17 See note 5 above.
18 Aurora Leigh, Fifth Book, lines 212–14
19 1846 was the year of Elizabeth Barrett’s marriage to Robert Browning; Aurora Leigh was published in 1857; it is possible that VW intended to write ‘1856’, the year appended to the poem’s dedication and presumably the year in which it was completed.
20 Aurora Leigh, Fifth Book, lines 348–9:
‘Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume;
And take for a worthier stage the soul itself.’
21 Ibid., Fifth Book, lines 228–9
22 Ibid., Fifth Book, lines 241–2
23 The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore, the first part of which was published anonymously in 1854, and subsequent parts in 1856, 1860 and 1862. The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich (1848) by A. H. Clough.
24 Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë. Vanity Fair (1847–8), W. M. Thackeray. David Copperfield (1849–50), Charles Dickens. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), George Meredith.
25 See The Angel in the House by Coventry Patmore, Canto V, ‘The Violets’, first four lines of part 2.
26 Aurora Leigh, Ninth Book, lines 214–19
27 Anthony Trollope (1815–82). Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65).
28 Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–49), author, notably of ‘Death’s Jest Book’, a drama in the Elizabethan manner. Sir Henry Taylor (1800–86), author of many verse plays, the best known being Philip van Artevelde (1834).
‘THE NIECE OF AN EARL’
This essay first appeared in Life and Letters, October 1928.
1 See The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper (1890) by George Meredith, Chapter 2, second paragraph; Memorial Edition (Constable, 1910), p. 130
‘GEORGE GISSING’
VW revised this essay from that published in the N&A, 26 February 1927, a review of The Letters of George Gissing to Members of his Family, collected and arranged by Algernon and Ellen Gissing (Constable & Co., 1927), which also appeared in the New Republic, 2 March 1927. (A. C. Gissing was later to quibble about certain details in this essay, see IV VW Diary, p. 150, n3.)
1 Letters …, to his sister Margaret, 13 January 1880, p. 55: ‘… Sometimes we never have any daylight. In my study I generally have to burn a lamp all day long. Do you know there are men in London who go the rounds of the streets with a cart selling paraffin oil? I often think they must rub their hands over weather such as this.’
2 Demos (1886); New Grub Street (1891); The Nether World (1889)
3 See Letters, Appendix C, reminiscences of his sister Ellen, p. 403
4 See Letters, ‘Diary September 1870’ entry marked’ 15th Thursday’, p. 6. The full title of the little book was That’s It, or Plain Teaching.
5 See Letters, Appendix C, reminiscences of his sister Ellen, p. 404
6 Letters, to his brother William, 2 January 1880, p. 53, about his book, Workers in the Dawn.
7 Letters, to the same, 8 June 1880, p. 73, on the same subject.
8 Letters, to his brother William, 20 September 1882, p. 119, concerning the fortunes of Demos: A Story of English Socialism, which was in fact first published, in 1886, by Smith, Elder, but at Gissing’s expense.
9 Harold Biffen and Edward Reardon, in New Grub Street (1891)
10 See New Grub Street (1891), vol. 3, Chapter 26 ‘Married Woman’s Property’; ed. Bernard Bergonzi (Penguin, 1968), pp. 395–6: the exclamation is Amy Reardon’s: ‘Best or worst, novels are all the same. Nothing but love, love, love; what silly nonsense it is! Why don’t people write about the really important things of life? …’
11 Letters, to his brother William, 3 November 1880, p. 83
12 Letters, to his sister Margaret, 12 May 1883, p. 126, in which, discussing Ruskin’s ‘calm, grave oratory’, he concludes: ‘Only this, I am growing to feel, that the only thing known to us of absolute value is artistic perfection. The ravings of fanaticism – justifiable or not – pass away; but the works of the artist, work in what material he will, remain, sources of health to the world.’
13 Letters, to his brother William, 26 March 1891, p. 317
14 Demos ( 1886), Chapter XVI, ed. Pierre Coustillas (Harvester, 1972), p. 221
15 From The Private Papers of Henry Ryecro.ft ( 1903), quoted in the Preface to the Letters, p. v
16 See Letters, Appendix A, p. 398; the friend was the Rev. Theodore Cooper and the account is given by him in a letter to Gissing’s sisters.
‘THE NOVELS OF GEORGE MEREDITH’
This essay reprints in part VW’s review published under the same title in the TLS, 9 February 1928, and as ‘George Meredith’ in the NYHT, 12 February 1928.
1 See Aspects of the Novel (1927) by E. M. Forster (Pelican, 1976), pp. 89–90
2 The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859)
3 Mr Skionar in Peacock’s Crotchet Castle (1831)
4 See the opening of ch. XIX in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel.
5 The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1871)
6 See … Harry Richmond, vol. I, ch. VI; Memorial Edn (Constable & Co, 1910), p. 81
7 Richmond Roy, the hero’s father, and Princess Ottilia of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld in … Harry Richmond.
8 Richard Feverel and Lucy Desborough; Harry Richmond and Princess Ottilia; Clara Middleton and Vernon Whitford (drawn from Leslie Stephen) in The Egoist (1879); Nevil Beauchamp and Renee de Croisnel in Beauchamp’s Career (1875, 1876).
9 See ch. XXV of … Harry Richmond, ‘On Board a Yacht’; ch. XI of The Egoist, ‘The Double-Blossom Wild Cherry-Tree’; ch. XV of Richard Feverel, ‘Ferdinand and Miranda’.
10 See … Harry Richmond, vol. I, ch. XXX; Memorial Edition, p. 323; the ellipsis between the second and third sentences was originally omitted.
11 See … Harry Richmond, vol. II, ch. XXXIII; Memorial Edn, p. 355: ‘Those winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly. The earth is still, as if awaiting. A wren warbles, and flits through the lank drenched brambles; hill-side opens green; elsewhere is mist, everywhere expectancy.’
12 The Egoist (1879), ch. XXIII; ed. George Woodcock (Penguin, 1968), p. 284: ‘The Egoist, who is our original male in giant form, had no bleeding victim beneath his paw, but there was the sex to mangle.’
13 Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen; The Small House at Allington (1864), Anthony Trollope.
14 See Letters of George Meredith (2 vols., Constable, 1912), vol. II, 22 July 1887, p. 398; ‘fierce’ should read ‘fiery’.
15 Richard Feverel, ch. IV; Memorial Edn (Constable & Co, 1909), p. 29: ‘Richard gave his lungs loud play.’
16 Ibid., ch. XI, p. 83: ‘Mama Thompson and her submissive brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating them with the tongue …’
‘I AM CHRISTINA ROSSETTI’
This essay first appeared in N&A, 6 December 1930, as a review of The Life of Christina Rossetti (Hutchinson, 1930), by Mary F. Sandars and Christina Rossetti and her Poetry (Harrap, 1930), by Edith Birkhead, and was reprinted in NYHT, 14 December 1930.
1 See The Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne, ed. Thomas Hake and Arthur Compton Rickett (Murray, 1918), Swinburne to William Michael Rossetti, 25 January 1904.
2 See Swinburne’s Essays and Studies (1875); 4th end (Chatto & Windus, 1897), p. 175, fn. I, where Swinburne quotes the first line of ‘Old and New Year Ditties’. Part 3 (‘The Knell of the Year’).
3 Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862); the passage from George Saintsbury’s History of English Prosody (1906) is taken from Mary F. Sandars’s Life …, where it is misquoted: ‘principal poem’ should read ‘title-poem’.
