" I would not
be understood that this is a volume for the casual reader, or even for
one desirous of making a first acquaintance with the Master, since
much of it exemplifies not only the beauty but the perplexities of
his later style; but it is certainly one which his disciples will not
willingly be without.
* * * * *
_Notebooks of a Spinster Lady_ (CASSELL) is smallish talk about
biggish wigs of the Victorian era, but not on that sole account to be
condemned. Perhaps rather wholesome as showing how little distant we
are from an age of government of the people by superior people for
superior people. The notebooks cover the years 1878-1903, but the
anecdotes have a much wider range, are often indeed of a venerable
antiquity. The lady of the notebooks was not, I fancy, of a critical
temper, and versions not too credible of well-known _contes_ figure in
her quiet kindly pages. There are moreover stories which I should not
hesitate to describe as of an appalling banality if they were not
concerned with such very nice people. On the whole I don't think it
quite fair to the spinster lady to have published her notes. They may
well have been painstaking jottings to provide material for polite
conversation and have sounded much better than they read in cold
print. For myself the real heroine of the book is _Maria_, the poet's
wife, who, on being waked and adjured by her spouse to get up and
strike a light for that he had just thought of a good word, replied
in un-Victorian mood, "Get up yourself! I have just thought of a bad
one.
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