Essays

by Alice Meynell

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Alice Christiana Gertrude (Thompson) Meynell (22 September 1847 - 27 November 1922) was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now best remembered as a poet.

She was born in Barnes, Richmond, London, to Thomas James Thompson and Christiana (Weller) Thompson. The family moved around England, Switzerland, and France, but she was brought up mostly in Italy, where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled. Her father was a friend of Charles Dickens.

Preludes (1875) was her first poetry collection, illustrated by her elder sister Elizabeth (the artist Elizabeth Southerden (née Thompson) Butler, 1850-1933, whose husband was Lieutenant General Sir William Francis Butler). The work was warmly praised by John Ruskin, although it received little public notice. Ruskin especially singled out the sonnet Renunciation for its beauty and delicacy.

After Alice, the entire Thompson family converted to the Roman Catholicicim (1868 to 1880) and her writings migrated to subjects of religious matters. This eventually led her to the Catholic newspaper publisher and editor Wilfrid Meynell (1852 - 1948) in 1876. A year later (1877) she and Meynell married and they settled in Kensington. They became proprietor and editor of The Pen, the Weekly Register, Merry England, and other magazines. Alice and Wilfrid had a family of eight children: Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola, Vivian (who died at three months), Olivia, and Francis. Viola Meynell (1885-1956) became a prolific author in her own right and their youngest child Sir Francis Meynell (1891-1975) was a poet as well as an accomplished printer at Nonesuch Press.

Alice was much involved in editorial work on publications with her husband, and in her own writing, poetry and prose. She wrote regularly for The World, The Spectator, The Magazine of Art, The Scots Observer, The Tablet, The Art Journal, the National Observer, edited by W. E. Henley the Pall Mall Gazette, and The Saturday Review.

The British poet Francis Thompson, down and out in London and trying to recover from the opium addiction that had overtaken him, sent the couple a manuscript. His poems were first published in Wilfred's Merrie England, and the Meynells became a supporter of Thompson. His 1893 book Poems was a Meynell production and initiative. Another supporter of Thompson was the poet Coventry Patmore. Alice had a deep friendship with Patmore, lasting several years, which led to his becoming obsessed with her, forcing her to break with him.

At the end of the nineteenth century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them in India and South Africa, plus involvement suppressing the bloody Muslim conquest lead by Muhammad Ahmed in the Sudan and the Boxer Rebellion in China), many European scholars, writers, and artists, especially Catholics, began to question Europe’s colonial imperialism. This issue led Alice, Wilfrid, Elizabeth, and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice became a leading figure in the Women Writers' Suffrage League, which was founded by Cicely Hamilton and active 1908 to 1919.

Her prose essays were remarkable for their fineness of culture and peculiar restraint of style. After a series of illnesses, including migraine and depression, she died 27 November 1922. Her remains were laid to rest at Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery, London, England.

- information mostly from Wikipedia

Reviews

[C. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though rather dense and littered with cultural references which are unknown to most of us, there are moments of exquisite delight in here. Indeed, essays like 'Solitude' and 'The Illusion of Historic Time' prove that Meynell had that supreme gift of the essayist: the ability to draw out poetic truths from deep within us — and in a way which perambulates charmingly in that inimitably casual fashion of the English essay.

This being said, I feel that Meynell's greatest insights mostly reside in flashes; phrases scattered hither and thither which send one on unusual paths and bring great pleasure. Most often, it felt like each individual essay was not as compelling as those by more canonically respected essayists like Charles Lamb or Virginia Woolf. Moreover, these flashes show a huge influence from John Ruskin; but, in many places, she matches his ability to form his feeling about nature and art into the most wonderful phrases.

But still, I'm not sure why this book has been given such a low rating on here. These quotes should prove that this is unjust:

page 17 - 'The days are so still that you do not merely hear the cawing of the rooks — you overhear their hundred private croakings and creakings, the soliloquy of the solitary places swept by wings.'

page 94 - 'There are many who never have a whole hour alone. They live in reluctant or indifferent companionship, as people may in a boarding-house, by paradoxical choice, familiar with one another and not intimate. They live under careless observation and subject to a vagabond curiosity. Theirs is the involuntary and perhaps the unconscious loss which is futile and barren.'

page 105 - 'The bell, like the bird, is a musician pestered with literature.'

page 264 - 'Childhood is itself Antiquity — to every man his only Antiquity. The recollection of childhood cannot make Abraham old again in the mind of a man of thirty-five; but the beginning of every life is older than Abraham. There is the abyss of time. Let a man turn to his own childhood — no further — if he would renew his sense of remoteness, and of the mystery of change.'

If anyone is curious, I've written a blog post reflecting on my experience buying this book last month: A Short Reflection on Alice Meynell’s Essays

[Zakhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays demonstrates quite starkly how impoverished the modern English language has become. Impoverished and depleted like a coal mine. In terms of vocabulary and syntax the author is just an adult speaking, while the contemporary writers and the reading public are mumbling children. Since language is inseparably connected with the thought process and inner life of a mind, we can safely pronounce the verdict of significant degradation of those who read and write nowadays.
The Essays are difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. But the effort will be rewarded by unexpected turns of thought, pointed comments, poignant wisdom - beauty of great intelligence.