I have been labouring intensely at my autobiography. It is blocked
out, and certain parts of it are written for good. But a thing of
this sort ought to be a master's final piece of work--and it is
very exhausting to produce.
AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND, Sept. 27th, 1891.
MY DEAR MARGOT,
I am sending you back your two typewritten records. They are both
very interesting, the one as autobiographical and a study of your
family, the other as a vivid and, I think, justly critical picture
of Gladstone. It will have a great literary value sometime. I do
not quite feel with Jowett, who told you, did he not? that you had
made him UNDERSTAND Gladstone. But I feel that you have offered an
extremely powerful and brilliant conception, which is impressive
and convincing because of your obvious sincerity and breadth of
view. The purely biographical and literary value of this bit of
work seems to me very great, and makes me keenly wish that you
would record all your interesting experiences, and your first-hand
studies of exceptional personalities in the same way.
Gradually, by doing this, you would accumulate material of real
importance; much better than novels or stories, and more valuable
than the passionate utterances of personal emotion.
Did I ever show you the record I privately printed of an evening
passed by me at Woolner, the sculptor's, when Gladstone met
Tennyson for the first time? If I had been able to enjoy more of
such incidents, I should also have made documents.
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