Monday, February 16, 2009

30Jan1865, Kingsley's The Water Babies

HOLKER, January 30th, 1865.
—Little boys (Edward and Alfred) (and Compton) plunged into the snow before luncheon ; played at hide-and-seek afterwards. I did some French and Latin with them, to my great enjoyment, reviving old-maid recollections. Also read to them the beginning to Kingsley's mad book "The Water Babies" : the only comprehensible part ; the rest being an entangled jumble of allegory, fairy-tale, and natural history—very dream-like and crazy. I have begun a course of English History, and am reading Lingard's first vol.; Iliad, Carlyle, Butler.

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