Publisher's Synopsis
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. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... his artistic and other numerous friends had taken steps to keep together and extend the circle of remarkable men of differing intellectual activity whose association had represented the talking clubs of Dr. Johnson's time. One large wall of the room was covered by a masterly composition painted in situ by the late occupant. It illustrated Boccaccio's story of the Demon Lover, and it was the more interesting in my eyes because since the cartoon days at Westminster Hall none outside Watts's private circle had had the opportunity of seeing works of importance by his hand. In the painting as it stood there were passages of form and colour which Michael Angelo and Titian might have been satisfied to claim. Two head portraits of young ladies were also temporarily there, which at any epoch of art would have commanded high esteem, but which in the existing age of vulgar portraiture courted special enthusiasm. There was ever a throng in the room of the true working men of the time; English literary men, artists, statesmen, and noblemen met together in a spirit of unreserve truly enjoyable. Thackeray was a member of this club, and it was here that I first set eyes upon this wondrous delineator of the hidden impulses of humanity. I had read all his books of which I could get possession. Of all modern authors he was the one to whom I felt most reason for gratitude, in that he interpreted into contemporary and personal language the general moralising of others, and made one feel what it meant to be self-controlled in the duties of actual life. I looked at him with hardly concealed awe, but his manner seemed to withdraw demand for such homage for him. Surveying his six feet of somewhat burly build standing there with his hands in pockets, it was...
