Great Britain -- History; History; United States -- History
There were no other guests, and Lady Walpole, Sir Spencer, and I had all
of the conversation at luncheon and dinner and during the evening. We
talked about history and literature, English and American politics, and
public men. He was singularly well informed about our country, although
he had only made one brief visit and then in an official capacity.
English expressions of friendship are now so common that I will not
quote even one of the many scattered through his volumes, but he
displayed everywhere a candid appreciation of our good traits and
creditable doings. I was struck with his knowledge and love of lyric
poetry. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, and Lowell were
thoroughly familiar to him. He would repeat some favorite passage of
Keats, and at once turn to a discussion of the administrative details of
his work in the post-office. Of course the day and evening passed very
quickly,--it was one of the days to be marked with a white stone,--and
when I bade Walpole good-by on the Monday morning I felt as if I were
parting from a warm friend. I found him broad-minded, intelligent,
sympathetic, affable, and he seemed as strong physically as he was sound
intellectually. His death on Sunday, July 7, of cerebral hemorrhage was
alike a shock and a grief.
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
Address at a gathering of historians on June 5, 1909, to mark the
placing of a tablet in the inner quadrangle of Jesus College, Oxford, to
the memory of John Richard Green.
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
I wish indeed that I had the tongues of men and of angels to express the
admiration of the reading public of America for the History of John
Richard Green. I suppose that he has had more readers in our country
than any other historian except Macaulay, and he has shaped the opinions
of men who read, more than any writers of history except those whom John
Morley called the great born men of letters,--Gibbon, Macaulay, and
Carlyle.
I think it is the earlier volumes rather than the last volume of his
more extended work which have taken hold of us. Of course we thrill at
his tribute to Washington, where he has summed up our reverence, trust,
and faith in him in one single sentence which shows true appreciation
and deep feeling; and it flatters our national vanity, of which we have
a goodly stock, to read in his fourth volume that the creation of the
United States was one of the turning points in the history of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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