Call Number:

F1023

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

2 item

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0099, F1023, Logan Pearsall Smith letter to “Philip” and autograph sonnet to "C.R.S.," Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1896, 1905 (inclusive)

Creator:

Smith, Logan Pearsall, 1865-1946

Form:

Letters (correspondence) and Poems

Abstract:

An 1896 letter to “Philip” and a 1905 sonnet to “C.R.S.” by American essayist and critic Logan Pearsall Smith.

Logan Pearsall Smith was born on October 18, 1865, in Millville, New Jersey, the son of Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith. He attended Haverford College and Harvard College, and later studied at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1891. Smith was an essayist and critic who was also known for his aphorisms and epigrams. Among his works are

The Youth of Parnassus, and other stories (1895), Trivia (1902), Afterthoughts (1931), and Last Words (1933). He also wrote biographies and criticisms, such as The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton (1907), On Reading Shakespeare (1933), and his autobiography Unforgotten Years (1938). Smith died on March 2, 1946 in London, England.

Logan Pearsall Smith papers, Special Collections and Archives, Kent State University LibraryInformation derived from the collection.

An 1896 letter to “Philip” and a 1905 sonnet to “C.R.S.” by American essayist and critic Logan Pearsall Smith.

Smith probably wrote his letter to “Philip” on January 3, 1896, but employed diction (“thou”) and a date (“1796”) to match the age of the paper. The letter is handwritten in what appears to be iron gall ink on laid paper with a “GF” watermark. Smith hoped the letter’s recipient liked the “old paper,” saying that he “found a lot of it in a shop here [in Venice], and now hate[d] to write on anything else.” He wrote that he would have sent “a lovely Xmas present of golden vellum and rich old Venetian water papers,” but “Philip” had not answered his previous invitation. Smith also discussed reviews of his latest work, which he noted here mostly positive, apart from the “Chronicle.”

The sonnet is addressed to “C.R.S.” and dated January 1905. In the poem, Smith describes his “quiet house,” which “stands aloof within a magic dream.” However, he tells the recipient that “sweeter music fills my citadel,/When you are here, far sweeter than its own.” Smith probably addressed this sonnet to Christopher Stone.