Obiter Dicta Augustine Birrell Charles Scribner Sons 9781140279532 Books
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Obiter Dicta Augustine Birrell Charles Scribner Sons 9781140279532 Books
Publication date: 1887"... But I shall be satisfied with a mere de facto existence for the book, if only it prove a little interesting to men and women who, called upon to pursue, somewhat too rigorously for their liking, their daily duties, are glad, every now and again, when their feet are on the fender, and they are surrounded by such small luxuries as their theories of life will allow them to enjoy, to be reminded of things they once knew more familiarly than now, of books they once had by heart, and of authors they must ever love."
One thing this collection of essays has in common with its predecessor, the self-published Obiter Dicta, is its tendency to get better and better as one reads on. The first essay, on Milton, is fine. The essay (or lecture) on Pope is better:
`Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure,' sang one of Pope's too numerous enemies in the easy numbers he had taught his age. It is, however, now taken as settled that the elder Pope, like Izaak Walton and John Gilpin, and many other good fellows, was a linen-draper. He made money, and one would like to know how he did it in the troublesome times he lived in; but his books have all perished.
With the essays on Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke, Birrell rises to a level which he then sustains through the rest of the essays, on Charles Lamb, on Emerson, on Cambridge poets versus Oxford poets (no contest), on Book Buying (a gem), and "On the Office of Literature":
"... Dr. John Brown's pleasant story has become well known, of the countryman who, being asked to account for the gravity of his dog, replied, `Oh, sir! life is full of sairiousness to him--he can just never get eneugh o' fechtin'.' Something of the spirit of this saddened dog seems lately to have entered into the very people who ought to be freest from it--our men of letters. They are all very serious and very quarrelsome. To some of them it is dangerous even to allude. Many are wedded to a theory or period, and are the most uxorious of husbands--ever ready to resent an affront to their lady. This devotion makes them very grave, and possibly very happy after a pedantic fashion."
If Birrell had not been named Augustine, I might never have heard of him, but I like him more and more. He is a writer to curl up with, even in this fender-less age.
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Obiter Dicta Augustine Birrell Charles Scribner Sons 9781140279532 Books Reviews
Publication date 1884
'An obiter dictum, in the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion, an individual impertinence, which, whether it be wise or foolish, right or wrong, bindeth none--not even the lips that utter it.' OLD JUDGE.
Augustine Birrell, "an equity draftsman and conveyancer" (or paralegal) published this book at his own expense. As he himself tells the story
"... In 1884 I had never reviewed a book, or indeed written a line in either the daily or the weekly press, and I could not, therefore, have known that Obiter Dicta was a book very easy to review, touching as it did, lightly enough, on a variety of familiar topics, and composed in a style not yet grown jaded. However that may be, 'reviewed' Obiter Dicta was, and at once, in nearly all the papers and with a prodigality of praise."
My own impression of this little book of essays is that it got better and better as I read along. The imaginary life of Falstaff, which was by a friend of Birrell's, is very entertaining. But here is a sample of Birrell, in an essay on Benvenuto Cellini
But how many other people are to be found, good, honest people too, who no sooner take pen in hand than they stamp unreality on every word they write. It is a hard fate, but they cannot escape it. They may be as literal as the late Earl Stanhope, as painstaking as Bishop Stubbs, as much in earnest as the Prime Minister--their lives may be noble, their aims high, but no sooner do they seek to narrate to us their story, than we find it is not to be. To hearken to them is past praying for. We turn from them as from a guest who has outstayed his welcome. Their writing wearies, irritates, disgusts. Here then, at last, we have the two classes of memoir writers--those who manage to make themselves felt, and those who do not. Of the latter, a very little is a great deal too much--of the former we can never have enough.
Publication date 1887
"... But I shall be satisfied with a mere de facto existence for the book, if only it prove a little interesting to men and women who, called upon to pursue, somewhat too rigorously for their liking, their daily duties, are glad, every now and again, when their feet are on the fender, and they are surrounded by such small luxuries as their theories of life will allow them to enjoy, to be reminded of things they once knew more familiarly than now, of books they once had by heart, and of authors they must ever love."
One thing this collection of essays has in common with its predecessor, the self-published Obiter Dicta, is its tendency to get better and better as one reads on. The first essay, on Milton, is fine. The essay (or lecture) on Pope is better
`Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure,' sang one of Pope's too numerous enemies in the easy numbers he had taught his age. It is, however, now taken as settled that the elder Pope, like Izaak Walton and John Gilpin, and many other good fellows, was a linen-draper. He made money, and one would like to know how he did it in the troublesome times he lived in; but his books have all perished.
With the essays on Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke, Birrell rises to a level which he then sustains through the rest of the essays, on Charles Lamb, on Emerson, on Cambridge poets versus Oxford poets (no contest), on Book Buying (a gem), and "On the Office of Literature"
"... Dr. John Brown's pleasant story has become well known, of the countryman who, being asked to account for the gravity of his dog, replied, `Oh, sir! life is full of sairiousness to him--he can just never get eneugh o' fechtin'.' Something of the spirit of this saddened dog seems lately to have entered into the very people who ought to be freest from it--our men of letters. They are all very serious and very quarrelsome. To some of them it is dangerous even to allude. Many are wedded to a theory or period, and are the most uxorious of husbands--ever ready to resent an affront to their lady. This devotion makes them very grave, and possibly very happy after a pedantic fashion."
If Birrell had not been named Augustine, I might never have heard of him, but I like him more and more. He is a writer to curl up with, even in this fender-less age.
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