What do you think?
Rate this book
Hortus Vitae: Essays On The Gardening Of Life
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
4 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Vernon Lee
433 books120 followersViolet Paget, known by her pen name Vernon Lee, is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel, poetry and contributed to The Yellow Book. An engaged feminist, she always dressed à la garçonne, and was a member of the Union of democratic control.
Her literary works explored the themes of haunting and possession. The English writer and translator, Montague Summers described Vernon Lee as "the greatest [...] of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction."
She was responsible for introducing the concept of empathy (Einfühling) into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee's psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work by Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected.
"The Lie of the Land", in the voume "Limbo, and other Essays", has been one of the most influential essays on landscaping.
Additionally she wrote, along with her friend and colleague Henry James, critically about the relationship between the writer and his/her audience pioneering the concept of criticism and expanding the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's (or her personal) response. She was a strong, though vexed, proponent of the Aesthetic movement, and after a lengthy written correspondence met the movement's effective leader, Walter Pater, in England in 1881, just after encountering his famous disciple Oscar Wilde. Her interpretation of the movement called for social action, setting her apart from both Wilde and Pater.
Her literary works explored the themes of haunting and possession. The English writer and translator, Montague Summers described Vernon Lee as "the greatest [...] of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction."
She was responsible for introducing the concept of empathy (Einfühling) into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee's psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work by Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected.
"The Lie of the Land", in the voume "Limbo, and other Essays", has been one of the most influential essays on landscaping.
Additionally she wrote, along with her friend and colleague Henry James, critically about the relationship between the writer and his/her audience pioneering the concept of criticism and expanding the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's (or her personal) response. She was a strong, though vexed, proponent of the Aesthetic movement, and after a lengthy written correspondence met the movement's effective leader, Walter Pater, in England in 1881, just after encountering his famous disciple Oscar Wilde. Her interpretation of the movement called for social action, setting her apart from both Wilde and Pater.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 28, 2024
The things you find when you don't know what you want!
January 31, 2018
(Read as part of the 2018 Read Harder challenge. Category: A book of essays.)
Vernon Lee, pseudonym of Violet Paget, was an essayist, story writer, and aesthete active in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. She’s not quite forgotten now – there’s a Vernon Lee society with its own journal – but her essays come quite low down the list of things people remember about her. She’s better known for her supernatural fiction, her feminism and pacifism, and her theories of psychology and aesthetics – she was one of the first people in English to use the word “empathy”.
Said theories centered on the idea that appreciation of art was a matter of unconscious bodily response. They were considered eccentric. Her opus, Beauty And Ugliness, co-written with her work, travel and romantic partner Clementina (“Kit”) Anstruther-Thomson, was met with bafflement and mockery: the two women ended their relationship soon after. Undoubtedly an odd work – it consists mainly of Kit’s minute observations of her physiological and posture changes when she encounters beautiful objects, and Lee’s philosophical glosses on same - it feels more relevant in the era of neuroscience and embodied cognition than it probably did in 1897.
Set beside these grand theories, or the epic anti-war denunciations of her allegorical play Satan, The Waster, the essays in Hortus Vitae (the Garden of Life) are knowingly and endearingly slight. But the subject – how to enjoy life with minimal regret – seem just as important to me, particularly as I drift into my mid-40s as greedy for culture as ever and as lazy as ever about actually getting out and experiencing it.
Lee’s point of view has two elements I particularly sympathised with. The first is a sense of optimism – looking for the best in experiences, taking opportunities, and so on. She’s honest enough about the general difficulty of this that her efforts seem sincere. The second is a keen appreciation of context as a shaper of experience – the way the smell of a theatre changes the play; the way a bicycle changes the landscape. One of the best and most specific essays, “A Stage Jewel”, describes Lee’s disappointment when she realises some jewellery she’d bought was made for the stage – not because it’s fake, which she knew, but because the understanding of the specific fakery collapses any mystique the object had. Or at least I think that was the issue. By that essay I’d grown accustomed to Lee’s unhurried, slightly arch style, occasionally direct, more often ornate – appropriate in a book devoted to pleasing oneself, however clear-eyed it is about the problems involved.
Vernon Lee, pseudonym of Violet Paget, was an essayist, story writer, and aesthete active in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. She’s not quite forgotten now – there’s a Vernon Lee society with its own journal – but her essays come quite low down the list of things people remember about her. She’s better known for her supernatural fiction, her feminism and pacifism, and her theories of psychology and aesthetics – she was one of the first people in English to use the word “empathy”.
Said theories centered on the idea that appreciation of art was a matter of unconscious bodily response. They were considered eccentric. Her opus, Beauty And Ugliness, co-written with her work, travel and romantic partner Clementina (“Kit”) Anstruther-Thomson, was met with bafflement and mockery: the two women ended their relationship soon after. Undoubtedly an odd work – it consists mainly of Kit’s minute observations of her physiological and posture changes when she encounters beautiful objects, and Lee’s philosophical glosses on same - it feels more relevant in the era of neuroscience and embodied cognition than it probably did in 1897.
Set beside these grand theories, or the epic anti-war denunciations of her allegorical play Satan, The Waster, the essays in Hortus Vitae (the Garden of Life) are knowingly and endearingly slight. But the subject – how to enjoy life with minimal regret – seem just as important to me, particularly as I drift into my mid-40s as greedy for culture as ever and as lazy as ever about actually getting out and experiencing it.
Lee’s point of view has two elements I particularly sympathised with. The first is a sense of optimism – looking for the best in experiences, taking opportunities, and so on. She’s honest enough about the general difficulty of this that her efforts seem sincere. The second is a keen appreciation of context as a shaper of experience – the way the smell of a theatre changes the play; the way a bicycle changes the landscape. One of the best and most specific essays, “A Stage Jewel”, describes Lee’s disappointment when she realises some jewellery she’d bought was made for the stage – not because it’s fake, which she knew, but because the understanding of the specific fakery collapses any mystique the object had. Or at least I think that was the issue. By that essay I’d grown accustomed to Lee’s unhurried, slightly arch style, occasionally direct, more often ornate – appropriate in a book devoted to pleasing oneself, however clear-eyed it is about the problems involved.
Read
February 8, 2022I loathe self-help books, despise inspirational quotes and positively detest being lectured to, so I really ought to hate this book of essays. Vernon Lee has, you see, a philosophy of life – what I think is now called mindfulness – and she’s written these to tell us all about it. It’s very sensible, no doubt, but nothing like as deep as she thinks.
I didn’t hate it; I rather enjoyed it. I think I rather like the woman.
The saving grace is that she approaches her subject in a diffuse, inoffensive fashion and writes with warmth and style. That counts for a lot. It feels like she’s talking to, rather than at, the reader and wanders off subject charmingly often.
A good one to dip into.
Purely for reference this is a volume of light essays in English consisting of:
I. DEDICATION
II. THE GARDEN OF LIFE—INTRODUCTORY
III. IN PRAISE OF GOVERNESSES
IV. ON GOING TO THE PLAY.
V. READING BOOKS.
VI. HEARING MUSIC
VII. RECEIVING LETTERS
VIII. NEW FRIENDS AND OLD.
IX. OTHER FRIENDSHIPS.
X. A HOTEL SITTING-ROOM
XI. IN PRAISE OF COURTSHIP
XII. KNOWING ONE'S MIND
XIII. AGAINST TALKING
XIV. IN PRAISE OF SILENCE
XV. THE BLAME OF PORTRAITS
XVI. SERE AND YELLOW—INTERLUDE
XVII. A STAGE JEWEL
XVIII. MY BICYCLE AND I
XIX. PUZZLES OF THE PAST
XX. MAKING PRESENTS
XXI. GOING AWAY
XXII. COMING BACK
XXIII. LOSING ONE'S TRAIN
XXIV. THE HANGING GARDENS—VALEDICTORY
I didn’t hate it; I rather enjoyed it. I think I rather like the woman.
The saving grace is that she approaches her subject in a diffuse, inoffensive fashion and writes with warmth and style. That counts for a lot. It feels like she’s talking to, rather than at, the reader and wanders off subject charmingly often.
A good one to dip into.
Purely for reference this is a volume of light essays in English consisting of:
I. DEDICATION
II. THE GARDEN OF LIFE—INTRODUCTORY
III. IN PRAISE OF GOVERNESSES
IV. ON GOING TO THE PLAY.
V. READING BOOKS.
VI. HEARING MUSIC
VII. RECEIVING LETTERS
VIII. NEW FRIENDS AND OLD.
IX. OTHER FRIENDSHIPS.
X. A HOTEL SITTING-ROOM
XI. IN PRAISE OF COURTSHIP
XII. KNOWING ONE'S MIND
XIII. AGAINST TALKING
XIV. IN PRAISE OF SILENCE
XV. THE BLAME OF PORTRAITS
XVI. SERE AND YELLOW—INTERLUDE
XVII. A STAGE JEWEL
XVIII. MY BICYCLE AND I
XIX. PUZZLES OF THE PAST
XX. MAKING PRESENTS
XXI. GOING AWAY
XXII. COMING BACK
XXIII. LOSING ONE'S TRAIN
XXIV. THE HANGING GARDENS—VALEDICTORY
November 5, 2013
A rambling, mysterious little book on recognizing the possibilities for the good life in the most mundane of things.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews