TheVictorians

"We had always been convinced that Victorianism was a myth, engendered by the long life of the sovereign and of her most illustrious subjects. We were constantly being told that the Victorians did this, or the Victorians thought that, while my own difficulty was to find anything on which they agreed: any assumption which was not at some time or other fiercely challenged. 'Victorian History'.


I will mention only one. In 1873, on the death of Mill, ...

I will mention only one. In 1873, on the death of Mill, a public memorial was proposed.

The story of his youthful Malthusian activities was revived, and Mr Gladstone ostentatiously withdrew his support. I do not believe that we are at a sufficient distance from the Victorian age to judge with perfect fairness its prevalent philosophy in a matter where only the utmost vigilance can prevent our thought from being at once clouded and coloured with, often unconscious, emotion.

I have already indicated what I believe to be two vital e1emens in the analysis; physical recoil, exaggerating the ordinary asceticism of religion, and the necessary dependence of the women as a body in society, on the men.

To these must be added the tighter domestic discipline that came from the management of large families: a discipline not yet enlightened-or distracted-by the psychological explorations which may perhaps, in the long run, prove to be the decisive achievement of our age.

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To go further would, in an Essay of this brevity, be to ...

To go further would, in an Essay of this brevity, be to go too far. I will only record my belief-and I think I remember enough, and have read and thought enough to give my b

This was the ideal which Mill bequeathed to his disciples, and the ...

This was the ideal which Mill bequeathed to his disciples, and the better mind of the later nineteenth century was still guided, if no longer dominated, by the thoug

A whole world of pious, homiletic convention has passed away, and who ...

A whole world of pious, homiletic convention has passed away, and who can say for certain how and when and why?' The stirring and good-humoured fifties had left