This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter IV AT CLIFTON: LITERATURE IN the very midst of his ordeal at Cannes Symonds did not hesitate in his studies. We find him reading Richardson, Balzac, and Heine's letters, plodding on with Zeller, and projecting a sort of original version of Hegel's DEGREESEsthetics. The journey proceeded ...
Read More
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter IV AT CLIFTON: LITERATURE IN the very midst of his ordeal at Cannes Symonds did not hesitate in his studies. We find him reading Richardson, Balzac, and Heine's letters, plodding on with Zeller, and projecting a sort of original version of Hegel's DEGREESEsthetics. The journey proceeded through Corsica and Italy where Symonds, busy and curious with renewed energy and life, resumed the study of Italian and wrote his essays on Aristophanes, Ariosto and Tasso. In November he took his family to Clifton, engaging a house quite near his old home, where on January 15, 1869, his daughter Margaret was born. Symonds was now eager for action, and for a time his activity took a social form. Clifton College had recently been founded, largely through the instrumentality of his father, and 84 he arranged presently to give lectures on Greek Literature to the Sixth Form, which he extended also to ladies' classes in Bristol. This work I fancy was of great importance to his chosen career of vulgariseur. For the first time he learned the demands of an audience--the kind of audience to which, perhaps against his dearest wishes, the greatest part of his writings have appealed and will appeal. For it must be remembered that this well-known apostle of culture to the majority mistrusted and disliked all the sentimentalities of culture, such as are not truly acclimated to the natural self. However, he was now required to find his level. Desultory, fragmentary, agitated piece-work was no longer in the old way possible. He was forced to study the art of presentation and to get his material into shape. That the answering pull, the concrete presence of listeners was exhilarating to him is evident from the fact that his first books were the direct outcome of th
Read Less
