The common reader, p.31
The Common Reader, page 31
4 See The Letters of Sir Walter Raleigh (1879–1922), ed. Lady Raleigh (2 vols., Methuen, 1926); Raleigh to his sister Alice, 11 January 1892, vol. I, p. 164
5 ‘Summer’, line 59; poem dated 4 December 1845 and placed among the Juvenilia in William Michael Rossetti’s edition of The Poetical Works (Macmillan, 1904).
6 ‘From House to Home’, stanza 9; poem dated 19 November 1858: ‘Where velvet-headed rushes rustling nod/ And spill the morning dew.’
7 Ibid., stanza 8: ‘My heath lay farther off, where lizards lived/ In strange metallic mail, just spied and gone;’
8 ‘Looking Forward’, poem dated 8 June 1849; concluding lines of stanza 2.
9 ‘Song’, dated 12 December 1848, first line.
10 ‘A Birthday’, dated 18 November 1857, first line.
‘THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY’
VW revised this essay from the version published in the TLS, 19 January 1928, under the title ‘Thomas Hardy’s Novels’.
1 See the Prefatory Note, dated January 1889, to Desperate Remedies (1871): ‘The following novel, the first published by the author, was written nineteen years ago, at a time when he was feeling his way to a method. The principles observed in its composition are, no doubt, too exclusively those in which mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral obliquity are depended on for exciting interest …’
2 Cytherea Graye, the heroine, and lady’s maid to Miss Aldclyffe, whose illegitimate son Aeneas Mauston she marries in Desperate Remedies.
3 Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
4 See Under the Greenwood Tree, Part the Fourth. Autumn. Chapter Two; (Macmillan, 1974), p. 166: ‘Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small bid that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose cry passed into the silence without mingling with it.’
5 ‘Moments of Vision’, the title of a poem and of a volume of poems (1917) by Hardy.
6 Far From the Madding Crowd (1874)
7 See Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), ‘Maiden No More’, XIV; (Macmillan, 1957), p. 114
8 See The Woodlanders (1887), Chapter 48, penultimate paragraph; (Macmillan, 1974), p. 393: ‘… she touched sublimity at points, and looked almost like a being who …’
9 See the Preface to the fifth edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, dated July 1982.
10 See the Preface, dated August 1901, to Poems of the Past and Present.
11 See Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), ‘The Maiden’, IV; (Macmillan, 1957), p. 40
12 Jude the Obscure (1896)
13 The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
‘HOW SHOULD ONE READ A BOOK?’
This essay derives from a lecture VW delivered at a private school for girls at Hayes Court in Kent on 30 January 1926; it was first published in the Yale Review, October 1926, and appears here very considerably revised.
1 Tate Wilkinson (1739–1803), actor and provincial theatre manager, who enjoyed some short-lived celebrity for his ‘imitations’ of the leading performers of his day. See his Memoirs (1790); but see also VW’s essay ‘Jones and Wilkinson’ in The Death of the Moth (1942).
2 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852); the anecdote remains unelucidated.
3 Maria Allen, who married Martin Rishton, was Dr Burney’s daughter by his second wife Mrs Allen; see VW’s essay ‘Fanny Burney’s Half-Sister’ in Granite and Rainbow (1958).
4 The reference is presumably to the family of Henry William Bunbury (1750–1811), amateur artist, one of whose sons, Sir Henry Edward Bunbury (1778–1860) was a lieutenant general and author of historical works – see DNB.
5 Anon, 16th century
6 See The Maid’s Tragerdy (1619) by Beaumont and Fletcher: IV. i. 214–15, spoken by Amintor.
7 See The Lover’s Melancholy (1628) by John Ford: IV. iii. 57–64, lines spoken by Eroclea.
8 See Wordsworth’s Prelude. Book VI ‘Cambridge and the Alps’, lines 603–8 (1850 version).
9 S. T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), lines 255–8.
10 These lines remain unidentified.
Index
Addison, Joseph, Lord Chesterfield on, 88; & reticence & composure, 177; Sir Roger de Coverley, 180
Aeschylus, & E. B. Browning, 207
Agujari, Signora, silver-sided soprano, 112&n8
Aldclyffe, Miss (fictional), Hardy’s character, 246
Aiken, Henry, sporting artist, 129&n3
Allen, Maria, Fanny Burney’s half-sister, 109, 264
Allen (family), & the Burneys, 112
America, 15, 98
Amphialus (fictional), Arcadian character, 47
Ancient Mariner (fictional), has us by the hand, 204
Andromana, Queen (fictional), Arcadian character, 47
Ann, De Quincey’s friend, 136
Aristotle, & Harvey, 15, 18
Arnold, Edwin, below-stairs, 203
A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf, see ‘The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia’, n11
Ashburnham, Lady, & Swift, 70, 75
Austen, Ann, Lady, & Cowper, 142&n8; lively, 143; adoring . . . admonished, 145–6; leaves in huff, 146; discord, & song, 146–7
Austen, Jane, her perspective, 53, 260; & Fanny Burney, 109; analyst of human heart, 138; & French Revolution, 156; highly intelligent, 157; & class distinctions, 215; her characters, 232; her perfection, 252; Emma, 267; Pride and Prejudice, perfect novel, 234; ref; 61
Balzac, Honoré de, E. B. Browning’s favourite, 207
Barlow, Joel, & Godwin, 157&n2
Basilius (fictional), Arcadian character, 46, 48
Bathsheba (fictional), Hardy’s character, 248, 250, 251
Beauchamp, Nevil (fictional), Meredith’s character, 231
Beauclerk, Topham, & Dr Johnson, 120
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid’s Tragetfy, quoted, 265&n6
Beckford, Peter, sporting writer, 127&n1
Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, 213
Bedford, Countess of (Lucy Russell), & Donne, 32&n26; poet of merit, 33; ‘God’s Masterpiece’, clever woman, 35; replaced by Him, 37; her thoughts?, 59–60; her Park, 262
Bennet, Elizabeth (fictional), Jane Austen’s character, 217
Berkeley, Bishop, & Lord Chesterfield, 91
Berkeley, Lady & Swift’s hat, 74
Berry, Miss, Walpole’s friend, 262
Bezuhov, Pierre (fictional), Tolstoy’s character, 253
Biffen, Harold (fictional), Gissing’s character, 222
Biography, relationship to art, 52, 261; & dissipation, 59; diary-keeping 93; & humbug, 99; De Quincey & autobiography, 135–9; transformed, 139; neglected by the highest, 217; autobiography & fiction, 220, & Meredith, 230; irresistibly fascinating, 237; & the writer’s art, 263; & poetry, 265
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, & Hazlitt, 174
Blood, Fanny, M. Wollstonecraft’s friend, 158
Blount, Lady Anne, married?, 65&n20
Bolingbroke, Henry St John, & Swift, 68
Boswell, James, conditions impossible for, 60; at Johnson’s mercy, 119
Bridehead, Sue (fictional), Hardy’s character, 250
Bridges, Robert, his dramas undisturbed, 213
British Museum, 217,238
Brontë, Charlotte, & E. B. Browning’s challenge, 210; Jane . . . a lady?, 217; Jane Eyre, 209
Brontë, Emily, poet-novelist, 232
Browne, Sir Thomas, & De Quincey, 134
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, unread, 202, except below stairs, 203; & the Victorians, 203, 212; & self-confidence, 204; & idiosyncrasies, 205; the facts of her life, 206, & their effect, 207; lively, secular, satirical, 207; & novel-poem, 208; & modern life, 209–10; blank verse challenge, 210; terribly impeded, 211; failure & success, 212; flash of true genius, 213; Aurora Leigh, why no successors, 213; ref: 203; ‘Lady Geraldine’s Courtship’, 202
Browning, Robert, & Donne, 26; most conspicuous, 202; his life’s ambition, 209
Bruce, James, traveller, 112, 116
Brummell, Beau, decrepit, miraculous, 148; never a toady, 149; freshness personified, 150; very cutting, 150–1; Byron on, 151, 156; disintegrates, 152–3; his mind’s resources, 153–4; & girls, & murderers, 154; squeezes friends, 154–5; mass of corruption, 155; ignored French Revolution, 156; ‘The Butterfly’s Funeral’, 153&n3
Bunbury (family), 264&n4
Burke, Edmund, & M. Wollstonecraft, 158; & Hazlitt, 176, 183
Burney, Dr Charles, writing furiously, most sought after, 110; charm, & affection, 111; dashing . . ., 112; & Greville, 114–15; & Johnson, 120–1; wise, 122; shocked by Mrs Thrale, 124; & Maria Allen, 264
Burney, Fanny, her passion for writing, 108; power of words, early diary, 109; family life, 110; father & suitor, 111–12; retentive memory, 113; old & tarnished, 117; Evelina, 61&n3
Burney (family), 110. 116, 125
Byron, Lord, analyst of human heart, 138; on Brummell, 151, 156; harder for him than for Keats, 218
Camper, Lady (fictional), Meredith’s character, 214
Carlyle, Jane Welsh, Geraldine’s ‘dearest’, clear-sighted, 189; & dry-eyed, 190; loved by Geraldine, 191, 196, her most intimate friend, 198–200; & Mudies, 191–3 & Zoe’s publication, 194; her duty to her sex, 197; brilliant gifts, little result, 199; death, 201
Carlyle, Thomas, huge & formless, 136; & Geraldine, 188, 189, her advice, 197; on the Mudies, 193, & George Sand species, 200
Carrington, Vincent (fictional) & Aurora Leigh, 205, 210, 211
Cayley, Charles, & C. Rossetti, 239, 240, 241
Cecropia (fictional), Arcadian character, 47
Chaucer, Geoffrey, read by Lady Clifford, 34; Hazlitt on, 183 & class distinctions, 218; The Canterbury Tales, 34
Chekhov, his characters, 232
Chesterfield, Lord, through the centuries, 86–7; his fault? . . . his delight, 87; his secret – & the Graces, 88, 90, 91, 92; & our unease, 89; ever the gentleman, 92
Clifford, Lady Anne, & Donne, 33&n28; & patronage, 33–4; ref: 262
Clough, A. H., The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich, 209&n23
Coggan, Jan (fictional), Hardy’s character, 249
Coleridge, S. T., & Dorothy Wordsworth, 164, 165, 169; retires with rheumatism, 171; on Hazlitt, 173&n2; rare critic, 269; ‘Christabel’, 17I&n32; Rime of the Ancient Mariner, quoted 266&n9
Collinson, James, & C. Rossetti, 239, 241
Congreve, William, Love .for Love, 179
Conrad, Joseph, 10
Cook, Eliza, below-stairs, 203
Copperfield, David (fictional), & Meredith’s boys, 230
Cowper, John, 141&n3
Cowper, Theodora, 140&n1, 145
Cowper, William, wild young man, 140; condemned to live . . . damned, 141; & consequently free, 142; & lively Lady Austen, 142–3; man of the world, 143; not a natural recluse, traveller in imagination, 144; much loved, 145; like Hercules, & Samson, 146; forced to choose, died in misery, 147; anger at Duchess, 148; The Task, quoted, 146&n9; ref: 143&n11, 145
Crabbe, George, Hazlitt on, 183
Creon (fictional), 130
Crewe, Mrs, Greville’s daughter, 122
Crisp, Samuel (‘Daddy’), & Crisp, Samuel, cont. Fanny Burney, 109; & Mr Greville, 113&n11
Croisnel, Renée de (fictional), Meredith’s character, 231
Crusoe, Robinson (fictional), facts about, 54, 55; no escaping him, 56
Cudworth, Ralph, & G. Jewsbury, 187
Cuxsom, Mother (fictional), Hardy’s character, 256
Dametas (fictional), Arcadian character, 46; future hero?, 49
Daniel, Samuel, & patroness, 34&n29
D’Arblay, Madam see Burney, Fanny
Darwin, Charles, & Gissing, 223
David (biblical character), 21
Dayrolles, Solomon, & his Lordship’s last words, 92&n9
Deffand, Madam du, 262
Defoe, Daniel, life, & work, 51–2; his masterpiece, 54; & perspective, 54, 260; genius for fact, 57; Moll Flanders, 51; Robinson Crusoe, 51–8 passim; 260, 267
Dekker, Thomas, The Wonderfull Yeare, quoted, 28&n13
De Quincey, Thomas, rare being, 132; stirs senses, 133; his long sentence, & Milton, Taylor & Browne, 134; where his power lay, & autobiography, 135–9; careful artist, prince of Pettifogulisers, 136; fatal verbosity, & abstraction, 137; diffuse & redundant, 138; charming visionary, 139; on D. Wordsworth, 168; Autobiographic Sketches, quoted, 133&n1; Confessions of an English Opium Eater, quoted, 137&n9; Suspiria de Profundis, quoted, 138&n12
Desborough, Lucy (fictional), Meredith’s character, 229, 231
Devgnshire, Duchess of (Georgiana Cavendish), despised by Cowper, 148&n1; & Beau Brummell’s dream, 148
Dickens, Charles, no gentlemen in, 217; admirable, 222; & autobiographical narrative, 230; unconscious writer, 247; David Copperfield, 209
Diderot, Denis, 262
Dingley, Rebecca, Stella’s companion, 67, 71, 73, 76
Disraeli, Benjamin, & the aristocracy, 217
Donne, John, his immediacy, 24–5; his satires, 25, 27; nonconformist, 26; original being, 27, 39; his genius defined, 28–9; various & complex, 29; his love poetry, & spirituality, 30–1; at home . . . obsequious, 32; remote . . . obsolete, 33; relations with patrons, 35; thinking . . . rocketing, 36; divine, 37–8; always himself, passionate & penetrating, 39; inscrutable, 59&n1, 60; & Hazlitt, 182; Meredith like, 236; & biography, 261, 265; ‘An Anatomy of the World’, quoted, 36–7&n37; ref 35; ‘The Broken Heart’, quoted, 24&n2; ‘The Canonization’, quoted, 31&n22; ‘The Damp’, quoted, 39&n46; ‘Divine Meditations’: Sonnet 5, quoted, 37–8&n39, 38&n41; Sonnet 17, quoted, 38&n40; Sonnet 19, quoted, 38&n42, n44; ‘The Ecstasy’, quoted, 31‘& notes 23, 24; 32&n25; Elegy 1, quoted, 30&n18; Elegy 3, quoted, 29&n15; Elegy 8, quoted, 27&n15; ‘Going to Bed’, 30; ‘The Indifferent’, quoted, 29&n14; ‘A Lecture on the Shadow’, quoted, 24&n3; ‘Love’s Deity’, quoted, 24&n1; ‘Love’s War’, 30; ‘Of the Progress of the Soul’, quoted, 37&n38; ref. 35; ‘The Relic’, quoted, 24&n4; Satire 1, quoted, 26 & notes 5,6,7; Satire 4, quoted, 26&n9, 27 & notes 10, 11; ‘Song’ (‘Sweetest love . . .’),quoted, 31&n21; ‘To the Countess of Bedford’, quoted, 35&n33; ‘To the Countess of Huntingdon’, quoted, 35&n32; ‘To Mr B B’, quoted, 36&n36; ‘To Mr R W’, quoted, 36&n35; ‘The Undertaking’, quoted, 31&n19
Drake, Sir Francis, 22
Draper, Mrs Eliza, Sterne’s passion, 78&n2
Drury, Elizabeth, celebrated by Donne, 35&n34, 37&n38
Dryden, John, rare critic, 269
Durbeyfield, Tess (fictional), Hardy’s character, 253
Edwards, Richard, The Paradyse of Daynty Devises, 26&n8
Eliot, George, great novelist, 222; imperfect novelist, 234; & country humour, 249
Elizabeth I, & Harvey, 10, 18–19; the age of, 24; her death & Dekker, 28&n13
Elizabeth-Jane (fictional), Hardy’s character, 251, 255
England, Elizabethan, 15; & millions of words, 24; in the year 1580, 41; early 19th century, 180; great & famous of; 217; in biography, 261; ref. 63
Erie, Marian (fictional), & Aurora Leigh, 210, 211
Erona (fictional), Arcadian character, 47
Eton College, Brummell at, 149
Eyre, Jane (fictional), a lady?, 217
Falstaff (fictional), 266
Farfrae, Donald (fictional), Hardy’s character, 250, 255, 256
Fawley, Jude (fictional), Hardy’s character, 250, 255
Feverel, Richard (fictional), Meredith’s character, 229, 231
Fiction (and the novel): & Sidney, 44, 49; forced to choose, 51; & biography, 51–2; rise & decline of, 52; time & gender, 60; Sterne & tradition, 78, 81; the novel-poem, 208; & modern life, 209; & poaching poet, 210; & class distinctions, 214, 215, 216; English & Russian, 216, 295; & working Fiction classes, 217; & Dukes, 218; its future . . . & democracy, 219; infinitely accommodating art, 221; but resentful?, 222; horrid burden of, 223; & dominion of perfection, 234; its future, 236; after Hardy, 245; true novelist’s power, 251; novelist & perspective, 260; its purer truth, 264; newness & superficiality, 267
Fielding, Henry, & Sterne’s modernity, 81
Fitzpiers, Edred (fictional), Hardy’s character, 251
Flaubert, Gustave, never surprised, 247
Ford, John, The Lover’s Melancholy, quoted, 265&n7
Forster, E. M., Aspects of the Novel, on Meredith, 227&n1
France, great & famous of, 217
Fray, Henry (fictional), Hardy’s character, 249
Froude, James Anthony, & Mrs Carlyle’s death, 201&n56
Fuseli, Henry, & M. Wollstonecraft, 158
Gamp, Mrs (fictional), resplendent, 222
Garrick, David, & Fanny Burney, 112; ref: 262
George I, Lord Chesterfield on, 90
George IV, 128
George V, & novel-poem, 213; & social distinctions, 214
Gibbon, Edward, his history, 222
Gibbs, Major (fictional), of Cheltenham, & Hardy, 53
Gissing, George, imperfect novelist, 220; his reverence for facts, & radicalism, 221; solitary . . . apart, 222; & the mind’s power, 223, 224; auto-didact, & Greece & Rome, 225; Demos, quoted, 224&n14; ref: 220; The Nether World, 220; New Grub Street, quoted, 223&n10; ref: 220; The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, quoted, 225&n15
Gluck, Christoph Willibald von, 242
Godolphin, Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of, & Defoe, 51
Godwin, William, & French Revolution, 156; & ‘Wollstonecraft’, 157&n2, 161; on marriage, 161–2; an experiment, 163
Goldsmith, Oliver, 262
Gosse, Edmund, on Donne,59&n1
Graye, Cytherea (fictional), Hardy’s character, 246
Greene, Robert, & Harvey, 17&n22
Greville, Mrs (Frances Macartney), ‘A Prayer for Indifference’, 115&n17, 116; a celebrity, 121
Greville, Richard Fulke, & his descent, 113&n11; & Burney, & ‘fogrum’, 114; & his wife, 115; eager to meet Johnson, 120, 121; before the fire, 122; resented by Mrs Thrale, 123; still there, 124; rebuked by Johnson, 125; Maxims and Characters, 115&n18
Gynecia (fictional), Arcadian character, 45
Hamilton, Duke & Duchess of, & Swift, 70, 74
Handel, George Frederick, The Messiah, 199
Hardy, Thomas, & ‘Major Gibbs’, great writer, 53 great novelist, 222; imperfect novelist, 234; his death, 245; his career, 245–6; early power, & nature’s force, 246; unconscious writer, his moments of vision, 248; plain daylight, magnificent genius, 248; labourers, & humour, 249; his women, & men, 250–1, 253; novelist’s power, poet’s gift, 251; & his peers, 251–2; ‘tragic power’, 253; greatest tragic writer, his danger-zone, 254; his true power, 255: his prose style, 256; his plots – poetic genius, humane soul, 257; & perspective, 260; Desperate Remedies, preface quoted, 245&n1; stubborn originality of, 246; Far from the Madding Crowd, 248, 254; jude the Obscure, 53, 255; The Mayor of Casterbridge, 254, 255; Poems of the Past and Present, preface quoted, 254&n10; The Return of the Native, 254, 267; Tess of the d’Urbervilles, quoted, 253&n7, Preface quoted, 254&n9, &n11; Under the Greenwood Tree, quoted, 247&n4; ref: 246; The Woodlanders, quoted, 253, &n8; ref 254
