The verses, when they were written, resembled nothing so much as spoonfuls of boiling oil, ladled out by a fiendish monkey at an upstairs window upon such of the passers-by whom the wretch had a grudge against.
Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) on Alexander Pope (1688-1744) |
The very pimple of the age's humbug.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), US writer, on Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73), British dandy and novelist |
The way Bernard Shaw believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days when so many people believe in no God at all.
Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) on George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) |
The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II and the Old Pretender.
Philip Guedalla (1889-1944), historian and biographer, on Henry James (1843-1916) |
The world is rid of Lord Byron, but the deadly slime of his touch still remains.
John Constable (1776-1837), artist, on Lord Byron's' death |
Then Edith Sitwell appeared, her nose longer than an ant-eater's, and read some of her absurd stuff.
Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) on Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) |
There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) on Alexander Pope (1688-1744) |
There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74), British poet, on Samuel Johnson (1709-84) |
This awful Whitman. This post-mortem poet. This poet with the private soul leaking out of him all the time. All his privacy leaking out in a sort of dribble, oozing into the universe.
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) on Walt Whitman (1819-91), American poet |
This dodipoule, this didopper... Why, thou arrant butter whore, thou cotqueane & scrattop of scoldes, with thou never leave afflicting a dead Carcasse... a wispe, a wispe, rippe, rippe, you kitchin-stuff wrangler!
Thomas Nashe on Gabriel Harvey |
This enormous dunghill.
Voltaire (1694-1778) on William Shakespeare (1564-1616) |
This obscure, eccentric and disgusting poem
Voltaire (1694-1778) on Milton's Paradise Lost |
Those base, servile, self-degraded wretches, Virgil and Horace.
William Cobbett (1763-1835) on the Classical poets Virgil (70-19 BC) and Horace (65-8 BC) |
To me Pound remains the exquisite showman minus the show.
Ben Hecht on Ezra Pound (1885-1972) |
To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate English is like seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee.
Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) on Stephen Spender (1909-95) |
To the King's theatre, where we saw A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.
Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), English diarist, on William Shakespeare (1564-1616) |
Trollope! Did anyone bear a name that predicted a style more Trollopy?
George Moore (1852-1933) on Anthony Trollope (1815-82) |
Vain Nashe, railing Nashe, cracking Nashe, bibbing Nashe, swaddish Nashe, roguish Nashe... the swish-swash of the press, the bum of impudency, the shambles of beastliness.
Gabriel Harvey (c.1550-1631), scholar and writer, on Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), English playwright |
Virginia Woolf s writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere.
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) on Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) |
Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
Saki (H. H. Munro) (1870-1916) on Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) |
