Memoirs of Life and Literature

W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock

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• Publié par: pihov
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 26
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's Memoirs of Life and Literature, by W. H. Mallock
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Title: Memoirs of Life and Literature
Author: W. H. Mallock
Release Date: January 1, 2010 [EBook #30823]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF LIFE AND LITERATURE ***
Produced by Peter Vachuska, Malcolm Farmer, Susan Skinner
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MEMOIRS OF LIFE
AND LITERATURE
Books by W. H. MALLOCK
Memoirs of Life and Literature
The Limits of Pure Democracy 5th Edition
Religion as a Credible Doctrine
The Reconstruction of Belief
Novels
The Individualist 3rd Edition
The Heart of Life 3rd Edition
A Human Document 9th EditionALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
MEMOIRS OF
LIFE AND LITERATURE
BY
W. H. MALLOCK
AUTHOR OF
"RECONSTRUCTION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMXX
Memoirs of Life and Literature
Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1920{v}
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
Family Antecedents 1
The Mallocks of Cockington—Some Old Devonshire Houses—A
Child's Outlook on Life
CHAPTER II
The Two Nations 20
The Rural Poor of Devonshire—The Old Landed Families—An
Ecclesiastical Magnate
CHAPTER III
A Private Tutor de Luxe 9
Early Youth Under a Private Tutor—Poetry—Premonitions of Modern
Liberalism
CHAPTER IV
Winter Society at Torquay 53
Early Acquaintance with Society—Byron's Grandson, Lord Houghton
—A Dandy of the Old School, Carlyle—Lord Lytton, and Others—
Memorable Ladies
CHAPTER V
Experiences at Oxford 68
Early Youth at Oxford—Acquaintance with Browning, Swinburne, and
Ruskin—Dissipations of an Undergraduate—The Ferment of
Intellectual Revolution—The New Republic
CHAPTER VI
The Basis of London Society 92
Early Experiences of London Society—Society Thirty Years Ago
Relatively Small—Arts and Accomplishments Which Can Flourish in
Small Societies Only
CHAPTER VII
Vignettes of London Life 113
Byron's Grandson and Shelley's Son—The World of Balls—The
"Great Houses," and Their New Rivals—The Latter Criticized by
Some Ladies of the Old Noblesse—Types of More Serious Society—
Lady Marian Alford and Others—Salons Exclusive and Inclusive—A
Clash of Two Rival Poets—The Poet Laureate—Auberon Herbert
and the Simple Life—Dean Stanley—Whyte Melville
—"Ouida"—"Violet Fane"—Catholic Society—Lord Bute—Banquet to
Cardinal Manning—Difficulties of the Memoir-writer—Lord Wemyss
and Lady P—— —Indiscretions of Augustus Hare—Routine of a
London Day—The Author's Life Out of London
CHAPTER VIII
Society in Country Houses 142
A Few Country Houses of Various Types—Castles and Manor
Houses from Cornwall to Sutherland
CHAPTER IX
From Country Houses to Politics 168First Treatise on Politics—Radical Propaganda—First Visit to the
Highlands—The Author Asked to Stand for a Scotch Constituency
CHAPTER X
A Five Months' Interlude 194
A Venture on the Riviera—Monte Carlo—Life in a Villa at Beaulieu—
A Gambler's Suicide—A Gambler's Funeral
CHAPTER XI
"The Old Order Changes" 209
Intellectual Apathy of Conservatives—A Novel Which Attempts to
Harmonize Socialist Principles with Conservative
CHAPTER XII
Cyprus, Florence, Hungary 226
A Winter in Cyprus—Florence—Siena—Italian Castles—Cannes—
S o m e Foreign Royalties—Visit During the Following Spring to
Princess Batthyany in Hungary
CHAPTER XIII
Two Works on Social Politics 255
The Second Lord Lytton at Knebworth—"Ouida"—Conservative
Torpor as to Social Politics—Two Books: Labor and the Popular
Welfare and Aristocracy and Evolution—Letters from Herbert
Spencer
CHAPTER XIV
Religious Philosophy and Fiction 270
The So-called Anglican Crisis—Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption—
Three Novels: A Human Document, The Heart of Life, The
Individualist—Three Works on the Philosophy of Religion: Religion as
a Credible Doctrine, The Veil of the Temple , The Reconstruction of
Belief—Passages from The Veil of the Temple
CHAPTER XV
From the Highlands to New York 292
Summer on the Borders of Caithness—A Two Months' Yachting
Cruise—The Orkneys and the Outer Hebrides—An Unexpected
Political Summons
CHAPTER XVI
Politics and Society in America 308
Addresses on Socialism—Arrangements for Their Delivery—
American Society in Long Island and New York—Harvard—Prof.
William James—President Roosevelt—Chicago—Second Stay in
New York—New York to Brittany— A Critical Examination of
Socialism—Propaganda in England
CHAPTER XVII
The Author's Works Summarized 335
A Boy's Conservatism—Poetic Ambitions—The Philosophy of
Religious Belief—The Philosophy of Industrial Conservatism—
Intellectual Torpor of Conservatives—Final Treatises and Fiction
CHAPTER XVIII
Literature and Action 343
Literature as Speech Made Permanent—All Written Speech Not
Literature—The Essence of Literature for Its Own Sake—Prose as a
Fine Art—Some Interesting Aspects of Literature as an End in Itself—
Their Comparative Triviality—No Literature Great Which Is Not MoreThan Literature—Literature as a Vehicle of Religion—Lucretius—The
Reconstruction of Belief
Index 373
{ix}
ILLUSTRATIONS
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Frontispiece
ROBERT BROWNING Facing p. 30
THOMAS CARLYLE " 64
JOHN RUSKIN " 86
OUIDA " 126
CARDINAL MANNING " 134
HERBERT SPENCER " 266
THEODORE ROOSEVELT " 318
{1}
MEMOIRS OF LIFE AND
LITERATURE
CHAPTER I
FAMILY ANTECEDENTS
The Mallocks of Cockington—Some Old Devonshire Houses—A
Child's Outlook on Life
"Memoirs" is a word which, as commonly used, includes books of very various
kinds, ranging from St. Augustine's Confessions to the gossip of Lady Dorothy
Nevill. Such books, however, have all one family likeness. They all of them
represent life as seen by the writers from a personal point of view; and in this
sense it is to the family of Memoirs that the present book belongs.
But the incidents or aspects of life which a book of memoirs describes
represent something more than themselves. Whether the writer is conscious of
the fact or no, they represent a circle of circumstances, general as well as
private, to which his individual character reacts; and his reactions, as he
records them, may in this way acquire a meaning and unity which have their
origin in the age—in the general conditions and movements which his personal
{2}recollections cover—rather than in any qualities or adventures which happen to
be exclusively his own. Thus if any writer attempts to do what I have done
myself—namely, to examine or depict in books of widely different kinds such
aspects and problems of life—social, philosophical, religious, and economic—as have in turn engrossed his special attention, he may venture to hope that a
memoir of his own activities will be taken as representing an age, rather than a
personal story, his personal story being little more than a variant of one which
many readers will recognize as common to themselves and him.
Now for all reflecting persons whose childhood reaches back to the middle of
the nineteenth century, the most remarkable feature of the period which
constitutes the age for themselves cannot fail to be a sequence of remarkable
and momentous changes—changes alike in the domains of science, religion,
and society; and if any one of such persons should be asked, "Changes from
what?" his answer will be, if he knows how to express himself, "Changes from
the things presented to him by his first remembered experiences, and by him
taken for granted," such as the teaching, religious or otherwise, received by
him, and the general constitution of society as revealed to him by his own
observation and the ways and conversation of his elders. These are the things
which provide the child's life with its starting point, and these are determined by
{3}the facts of family tradition and parentage. It is, therefore, with a description of
such family facts that the author of a memoir like the present ought properly to
begin.
The Mallocks, who have for nearly three hundred years been settled at
Cockington Court, near to what is now Torquay, descend from a William Malet,
Mallek, or Mallacke, who was, about the year 1400, possessed of esta