The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedGiles Lytton Strachey
Title QuotedEminent Victorians
Date (Year/Month/Day)1960/03/16
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1918I
QuotationLytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians. The life of Manning is a masterpiece. That of Arnold, disappointing. That of Gordon perplexing and disturbing. I believe that his portrait of the religious megalomania of Gordon is distorted and overdone. But I am sure it is essentially true. I feel very sorry for the poor man-and also do not quite understand him. For there are wide gaps in Strachey. Strachey, Tom Bennett, myself at 18-and so many other Englishmen laughing at false mystics and holding them off by supercilious objectivity. All Englishmen who are not Thomas [sic] Cromwells or worse, tend to be General Gordons. (Hence Trevor-Roper's fear of monks and his admiration T. Cromwell-of all people to have for a hero!)
Quotation SourceA Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3, 1952-1960.; Edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1996, p. 379
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