BIB_ID
400823
Accession number
MA 8814.4
Creator
Arnold, Frances Bunsen Trevenen Whateley, 1833-1923.
Display Date
1898 October 6.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1908.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 17.7 x 11.3 cm
Notes
Acquired as part of a large collection of letters addressed to William Angus Knight, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews and Wordsworth scholar. Items in the collection have been individually accessioned and cataloged.
Frances Arnold was the youngest sister of Matthew Arnold.
With a countermark and a watermark, perhaps a griffin.
Frances Arnold was the youngest sister of Matthew Arnold.
With a countermark and a watermark, perhaps a griffin.
Provenance
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan from William Angus Knight, 1908.
Summary
Explaining that references in her mother's letters to William Wordsworth (passages of which she had copied out for Knight previously) were unfortunately "very brief & fragmentary"; discussing the transformation of Dove Cottage from a residence into a museum, based in part on "Dorothy's Journals and... Mr. Stopford Brooke's little book"; expressing reservations about the process: "But do you not think that there is often a real danger lest the simple impressiveness of some record or some relic of the past should be lessened rather than enhanced by the publication of a mass of details about them, which are of no intrinsic importance in themselves?... with regard to Dove Cottage, while I think it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance & usefulness of it as an object lesson in simplicity and high-mindedness-- I think it might be possible to diminish its value by an accumulation of details & recollections, which would dissipate the singleness of impression it must make on any thoughtful mind."
Catalog link
Department