A Book of Hours (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIS FRIENDS IN EAST ANGLIA THE Edward Fitzgerald to whom we are to give the hour is not the hero of picturesque anecdote. The teller of his days must be content to relate how he read his beloved books by his fireside, looked for the daffodils to take the winds of March with beauty, and the yearly return of the birds, sailed his boat in home seas, and, as he sailed, read and translated the ancient classics, consorted with fisher folk, and found in their simple life more in harmony with his taste than in the deadly complex strife waged in other spheres. He was a writer, but he shunned notoriety as sedulously as most people seek it. i His latest biographer, Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson, after saying that Fitzgerald's life is singularly void of incident, sums it up tersely and truly: It is the history of a few great friendships, much quiet benevolence, tender loyalty, wistful enjoyment. The tangible results are a single small volume of poetry, of imperishable quality, some accomplished translations of no great literary importance, a little piece of delicate prose writing, and many beautiful letters. But over the whole is the indefinable charm of temperament and personality. And that explains succinctly why I talk of Edward Fitzgerald, why he is our friend, as are other men greater in the world of letters?there is over what he has done the indefinable charm of temperament and personality that binds us to him as to a dear friend, in a less degree than we are bound to Lamb, or Goldsmith, or Thackeray, but the quality is akin. Fitzgerald is our personal friend, and because he is, you listen indulgently to my retelling what you know of him. This scholarly recluse was modest almost beyond imagining in his estimation of himself, affectionate, ever most ready to serve hi...