'Arthur Benson ... when rereading the Shorter Poems [of Robert Bridges] in 1910, thought them thin, mere tricks of language ...'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arthur Benson Print: Book
Saturday 31 July [entry headed 'My Own Brain,' and beginning 'Here is a whole nervous breakdown in miniature']: 'A desire to read poetry set in on Friday. This brings back a sense of my own individuality. Read some Dante & Bridges, without troubling to understand, but got pleasure from them.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Unknown
'Humphry James is good. Is he very deep or very simple? And by the bye R. Bridges is a poet. I'm damned if he ain't! There's more poesy in one page of "Shorter Poems" than in the whole volume of Tennyson. This is my deliberate opinion. And what a descriptive power! The man hath wings--sees from on high.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
E. M. Forster to Wilson Plant, 14 February 1917:
'Not many books here [...] I have been enjoying Bridges and sticking, as I always do, in a Zola.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'J.J. Cooper read a paper on Robert Bridges & some selections from his poetry. C.I. Evans dealt with Newbolt & E.E. Unwin with Masefield in a similar way. Alfred Rawlings gave brief readings from Beeching, Alice Maynell [sic] & Frogley's Voice from the Trees'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: John James Cooper Print: Book
'Meeting held at Oakdene, Northcourt Avenue 15. I. 35.
Sylvanus Reynolds in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read & approved.
5. It was with a great pleasure to the club to welcome back Charles and Katherine Evans, who
with the latter’s brother Samuel Bracher, came to entertain us with their programme of “Bees in
Music and Literature.”
6. Charles Evans opened with an introduction that gave us an outline of the bee’s life.[...]
7. We next listened to a record of Mendelssohn’s “Bee’s Wedding.”
8. Samuel Bracher gave a longish talk on Bees and the Poets. He classified the poems as Idyllic,
Scientific or Philosophical, and Ornamental; by quoting a great variety of works including lines
from Shakespeare, K. Tynan Hickson, Pope, Thompson, Evans, Alexander, Tennyson, & Watson,
he showed an amazing knowledge of the Poets. [...]
9. Charles Evans then spoke on Maeterlinck and Edwardes.
10. Charles Stansfield read Martin Armstrong’s Honey Harvest.
11. Another gramophone record gave us Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee”
12. Katherine Evans read from Victoria Sackville-West’s “Bees on the Land”. Some of the lines
were of very great beauty, & much enjoyed.
13 H. M Wallis then read an extract from the Testament of Beauty, concerning Bees. But he & all
of us found Robert Bridges, at that hour in a warmish room, too difficult, and he called the
remainder of the reading off.
14. A general discussion was the permitted, and members let themselves go.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Marriage Wallis
'More enduring [than the chocolates sent by Eden's mother, which were eaten by rats] was a copy of Robert Bridge's The Spirit of Man, sent to me by my cousin Violet Dickinson who alone among my family had an unerring instinct for the present which would delight one most ... the Bridges anthology, which naturally contained much that was a revelation to a nineteen-year-old boy, made a perfect retreat for the sensibilities. Battered now, it still has a place in my library.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Anthony Eden Print: Book
'In one letter, written in June 1893, he logs Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Lorna Doone ("seventh or eighth time"), Saintsbury's Essays on French Novelists, Dumas's Tulipe Noire, Maupassant, and some poems of Hugo and Gautier. A month later he is reporting on Andrew Lang's Lectures on Literature ("very good"), P. G. Hamerton's Intellectual Life ("excellent"), the poems of Robert Bridges ("very good") Henry James's Madonna of the Future ("peculiar"), R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped and Master of Ballantrae ("fourth or fifth time"), Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, and Ibsen's Doll House, League of Youth and Pillars of Society. "I am beginning to like Ibsen more than I did. I understand him better."'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan Print: Book
'March 11 [1914]
Joined Hampstead Library £1..5.
Books read March [1914:] Mrs Sewell
His Grace of Osmond
Helen Keller Out of the Dark
A Lady of Quality.
The 3 Bronte's
The broken [sic] Halo.
Bridges Poems.
Life of Octavia Hill.
Life of Florence Nightingale Vol. 1
In the Guardianship of God
Rose o' the River. Wiggin'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Bickersteth Cook Print: Book
'Last week I got out of the library the works of our present poet laureate, Bridges, who did not
impress me a bit.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'By the way, you should get that "Spirit of Man", Bridge's anthology, that everyone is talking
about. Mrs K. has it from the library at present: it is one of the prettiest little books I have
seen for a long time, and there is a lot of good stuff in it. One "nice point" is that the names of
the authors are printed at the end of the volume and not under each piece: it is very amusing
- and somewhat humiliating - to see how many you know. [...] 'It must be read ... in the light
of its title and avowed purpose.... the book is rather an original work than a collection of
poems.... I take it Bridges is here working out an idea of his own: and the medium he chooses
is the collective poetry of his predecessors.... One thing in the book I admit is indefensible -
the detestable translation from Homer, which, though you may hardly recognise it, is meant to
be in the metre of "Oh! let us try". For this Bridges ought to get something with boiling oil.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Book
'The literary event of the week is our respected laureate's ode in the Times Literary
Supplement: truly a most remarkable production, though I am afraid like the honest Major in
"Patience", I must confess that "it seems to me nonsense". To do the man justice, the lines
about Homer, the ones about the birds, the beginning of the vision, and a few other passages,
are rather fine. But the habit of throwing in an odd rhyme here and there is rather
uncomfortable: still, if you can lay your hand upon it ... you might keep this number.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis Print: Serial / periodical
‘Well … our gallant regiment … have been in it a damn sight more than ever
they expected, by the Lord. We are hardened veterans, fed up to the neck,
muddy to the eyes, for the weather is execrable. And like Justice Shallow
we have had our losses. Two of the nicest chaps in the whole crowd killed.
And of our very best Lieutenants more gone than I like. So it goes with us
… Have you seen "Child Lovers", W. H. D.’s new book? It has some good
stuff in it—but he would do well to shut up shop … Mrs Abercrombie has
sent me [Lascelle Abercrombie’s] "Deborah", which I like immensely, except
the "Gabriel Hounds", which are poor tykes not worthy of poetic license.
And the blank verse, also very fine, is hardly often enough simple. It is too
skilled, too educated … But how good the storm is! And the marsh! And
Barnaby! … One thing that runs continually in my head out here is L.
Binyon’s “To the Fallen” which delights me ever more and more. Did you see
Bridges’ Sonnett on Kitcher? That was fine too … I would not believe the
news at first—it sounded so like the obvious rumour. Oh, but it’s raining like
the blazes!’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Newspaper
‘Today is changeable, rather cold and windy … I hardly think of music at all, but
stick to books. My friend Harvey, who is now a lootenant [sic] in this battalion
has just lent me the "Spirit of Man"; and I am now browsing therein. Masefield
is quite right. “Life is too wonderful to end”, and the better part of me is on
fire adequately to praise it before I go.’
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Ivor Bertie Gurney Print: Book
