Books are a real world. Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”
Lovelace’s reception and description of Hickman. VI, Letter 80.
the scene at the glove-shop. VII, Letter 70.
Belton, so pert. I, Letter 31.
his systematically preferring. Cf. “Why the Heroes of Romances are Insipid” (Works, XII, 62): “There is not a single thing that Sir Charles Grandison does or says all through the book from liking to any person or object but himself, and with a view to answer to a certain standard of perfection for which he pragmatically sets up. He is always thinking of himself, and trying to show that he is the wisest, happiest, and most virtuous person in the whole world. He is (or would be thought) a code of Christian ethics; a compilation and abstract of all gentlemanly accomplishments. There is nothing, I conceive, that excites so little sympathy as this inordinate egotism; or so much disgust as this everlasting self-complacency. Yet this self-admiration, brought forward on every occasion as the incentive to every action and reflected from all around him, is the burden and pivot of the story.”
[P. 170.] a dull fellow. Boswell’s “Johnson,” ed. Birkbeck Hill, II, 222.
the tale of Maria. Bk. IX, ch. 24.
the apostrophe to the recording angel. Bk. VI, ch. 8.
the story of Le Fevre. Bk. VI, ch. 6.
The rest of the lecture treats of Fanny Burney, Anne Radcliffe, Elizabeth Inchbald, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott.