318
G. S. ROUSSEAU
he translated. Here his dreams are muted, his desires quelled. But even
here fantastic antinomies abound. "It is quite a mistake," he warned
Charlotte, "to suppose that one ever needs subject matter in writing a
letter: I think those are most interesting which detail least of daily
affairs." Then he perversely turned and exclaimed, "My letters are
Bulletins of Oxford gossip."
Yet his letters are no biographical morsels. They are important for
the view they provide of upper- middle-class Victorian life. The reader
discovers the other sides of the wealthy, if somewhat corrupt, Harrow
and the fashionable Balliol. He follows Symonds, day by day, in his
classical readings and in tutorials with "the Greats": the radical Jowett,
the learned Conington, the impressive T. H. Green. He listens to his
hair-raising descriptions of the "fag system." Often Symonds is senti–
mental: "I have just been gathering periwinkles in Magdalen walks:
they grow there in immense quantities, both blue and white." But
usually he is more infonnative and faithfully chronicles life at school
and, later, life with Catherine.
Also significant in Symonds' letters, not all of which have been or
etlzeJIumanist-
is a journal of
humanist and ethical concern dealing with the moral revolution
of our time.•••
Contributors to recent issues include Eldridge Cleaver, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry
Rubin, Sen. Edmund Muskie, Harold Taylor, Julian Bond, Edgar Z. Friedenberg,
Vance Packard, Sidney Hook, Anatol Rapoport, Leslie Fiedler, Bertram Wolfe,
etc., on critical issues such as integration vs. separatism, classified military
research, civil d isobedience, the sexual revolution, marijuana and the law,
student power.
Subscribe today!
Please enter my subscription to
THE HUMANIST:
o
1 yr ($4.50)
o
Pay. Ene.
o
2
yrs
($8)
o
3
yrs
($11)
o
Bill
me
N
arne ...................................................................................................................................
Addre5s ....................................................._ ................................................................•....•....•
................._ ....•....•.........._............................................................... Zip .......................•.....
T o:
THE HUMANIST,
Dept. PA, 4244 Ridge Lea Rd., Amherst, N. Y.
