(Smith, Logan Pearsall, Unforgotten Years)
Smith, Logan Pearsall, Unforgotten Years
https://www.amazon.com/Unforgotten-years-Logan-Pearsall-Smith/dp/B000857082?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000857082
https://www.amazon.com/Trivia-Logan-Pearsall-Smith-ebook/dp/B00847OUUW?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00847OUUW
(Gathers brief and often humorous observations on life, ha...)
Gathers brief and often humorous observations on life, happiness, religion, art, science, music, beauty, and modern life
https://www.amazon.com/All-Trivia-Collection-Reflections-Aphorisms/dp/0899192858?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0899192858
(Excerpt from The English Language Celts in England had e...)
Excerpt from The English Language Celts in England had enjoyed the benefits of Roman government, and shared in the civilization of the Roman Empire; they lived in walled cities, worshipped in Christian churches, and spoke to a certain extent, at least, the Latin language; and it is possible, if this Teutonic invasion had never happened, that the inhabitants of England would be now speaking a language descended from Latin, like French or Spanish or Italian. It is true that English has become almost a half-sister to these Romance languages, as they are called, and a large part of its vocabulary is derived from Latin sources; but this is not in any way due to the Roman conquest of Britain, but to later causes. In whatever parts of Britain the Teutonic tribes settled, the Roman civilization and the Roman language perished; and we find at first a purely Germanic race, a group of related tribes, speaking dialects of what was sub stantially the same language - the language. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/English-Language-Classic-Reprint/dp/1330106164?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1330106164
He was born on October 18, 1865 in Millville, New Jersey, United States, the second son and fourth of six children of Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Tatum (Whitall) Smith. He was a member of a distinguished Quaker family whose paternal roots went back to James Logan, William Penn's secretary, and whose prosperity was assured by the glassworks founded by his maternal grandfather.
Lloyd entered the Quaker Penn Charter School in New Jersey. Later he pursued through Haverford College (1881 - 1884) and one year at Harvard (1884 - 1885), but it revived under the influence of his older sister, Mary. She induced him to read Ruskin and took him on a pilgrimage to see Walt Whitman.
Awakened to his literary vocation, Logan abandoned the family business in 1888 after a trial year and, with an annuity provided by his father, followed his sister to England. At Oxford Smith found in Walter Pater's aestheticism a way to reconcile his skepticism with his capacity for passionate attachment. Logan moved to Paris, where he met Whistler and produced a volume of stories in the manner of Maupassant entitled The Youth of Parnassus (1895).
In England he devoted years to the perfection of his literary style. He published a few of his finely wrought capsule essays in The Golden Urn, a review he produced in 1897-1898 with his sister Mary and Bernard Berenson, later her husband, but waited until 1902 to assemble a collection. Its title, Trivia, sounded an ironic note of affirmation for beauty and leisure in a morally pretentious and frantic world. Unsuccessful at first, Trivia was enlarged and revised in 1918 and enjoyed a vogue in war-weary Europe and America. It was followed by More Trivia (1922) and the aphoristic Afterthoughts (1931); the three were united in All Trivia (1933) and supplemented in 1945 by Last Words.
Brought by his polished writing and his work on The English Language (1912) to the attention of the poet Robert Bridges, he joined with Bridges and others to form in 1913 the Society for Pure English, formally launched in 1919. He enjoyed his greatest success with his autobiography, Unforgotten Years (1939). An unrepentant expatriate, Smith adopted British citizenship in 1913. Unlike many of his contemporaries abroad, he rarely looked back, confining his criticism of Americans to an occasional comment on their disinterest in literary style and to an attack in Milton and His Modern Critics (1940) on the critical presumptions of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He was close to George Santayana, with whom he collaborated on Little Essays (1920), drawn from the philosopher's writings, and to Henry James, whose adoption of British citizenship he encouraged.
He died in his eighty-first year at his home in London.
Logan Pearsall Smith was a well-known, influencial author on 17th century divines. He was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and his Trivia has been highly rated. His Words and Idioms made him an authority on correct English language usage. He is now probably most remembered for his autobiography Unforgotten Years (1938).
(Excerpt from The English Language Celts in England had e...)
(Gathers brief and often humorous observations on life, ha...)
(Smith, Logan Pearsall, Unforgotten Years)
Although Smith was recognized as a fusty traditionalist, he directed his sharpest attacks against those who had confused pedantry with purity, compromising thereby the vitality and simplicity of the language.
Quotations: "People say life's the thing, " he wrote in Afterthoughts, "but I prefer reading. "
Pearsall Smith was wonderful company and a generous teacher. In his later years he looked the part of the mandarin, his boyish looks and agility replaced by an imposing stoutness.
Quotes from others about the person
Gathorne-Hardy described Smith as "a largish man with a stoop that disguised his height".
He never married, living first alone; then with his widowed mother, whose introspective temperament and penchant for writing he shared; and for over thirty years thereafter with his sister Alys, Bertrand Russell's first wife.
