“So we look for the kind of book an accomplished scholar produces, and we are not disappointed, though Mr Torr has left his materials in ‘most admired disorder.’... With Mr Torr some new theme is always turning up—we never know quite how or when.... We are obliged to him for some capital gossip, and we shall be glad to have more.”—Notes and Queries.
“Mr Torr, of Wreyland (a Devonshire hamlet), has a super-excellent memory, a pleasant sense of humour, and a useful aptitude for keeping old diaries and letters. Not only does Mr Torr keep these, but he actually reads them, and extracts from them the juiciest morsels for our delectation.... Perhaps, after all, it is manner even more than matter which makes the charm of this book.”—Literary World.
“Wreyland is a hamlet in Devonshire; and Mr Torr’s book of gossip gives us the life at Wreyland in his own, his father’s, and his grandfather’s days. The concrete pleasure and happiness of it, the deep association between man and man, and between man and nature, bring one back to reality and life. There is a richness in country life, whether of peasant or squire, which makes the epigram of the pulpit and the philosophy of the school seem thin and foolish. The unconscious wisdom of life radiates through Mr Torr’s pages, and it is a bigger thing and a better than any despair or mockery, than any explanations or excuse.”—Bookman.
“The book is exceedingly interesting, diverting, and informing. To me it has been better than many discourses of the learned, and some exhortations of the pious.”—Methodist Recorder.
“A book, if it is a good book, must be natural, unforced, something that has ‘grow’d’ as Topsy herself grow’d in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Well, Small Talk at Wreyland has grow’d, as a regard for it grows as one turns its pages and reads of peaceful days and pleasant journeys, and, sometimes, of notable people. It has all the qualities of good talk by a good host who has gathered a few friends about him in his home in some interesting part of the country.”—Church Family Newspaper.
“I wish we could fence off a district of Mr Torr’s Devonshire, and preserve it and its population as an exhibit.... I wish quite passionately that the inhabitants of Wreyland as a type could be preserved. It is a rest to pause and contemplate them. They are so mellow.”—Saturday Westminster Gazette.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
C. F. CLAY, Manager