“There is no poetry which can be said to form such a distinctive portion of our household literature as that of Wordsworth.”

Seeing Wordsworth's poetry as unusually woven into ordinary domestic reading · Speech, Wordsworth Society, 8 July 1885

• Memory
• Poetry

“We in this country are not too apt to keep alive the remembrance of literary men.”

Warning how readily a culture can allow its writers to fade from memory · Speech, Wordsworth Society, 8 July 1885

• Art
• Fame
• Memory

“I think gatherings representative of literary homage, and also of personal interest in the poets in whose works we still take delight, are not only very just in themselves, but extremely useful in the cause of literature.”

Defending literary commemoration as useful to the continuing life of literature · Speech, Wordsworth Society, 8 July 1885

• Art
• Memory
• Poetry

“None the less have those verses, thus modestly produced, permeated the hearts of millions of men and women, and, so to say, incorporated themselves in the English language.”

Describing how quietly published verse can enter a culture's shared language · Speech, Gray Memorial unveiling, Cambridge, 26 May 1885

• Fame
• Memory
• Poetry

“Such a celebration has a right to require propriety of place and time.”

Insisting that commemoration should suit both its setting and moment · Speech, Gray Memorial unveiling, Cambridge, 26 May 1885

• Memory
• Time

“I remember, when a student at Cambridge, going with Arthur Hallam to call on Coleridge, who received us as Goethe or as Socrates might have received us.”

Remembering Coleridge as a figure of almost classical intellectual authority · Speech, Coleridge bust unveiling, Westminster Abbey, 7 May 1885

• Friendship
• Memory
• Poetry

“It is not without personal emotion that I dissociate myself from this good company, with which I have worked and talked for over thirty years.”

Marking the sorrow of leaving a fellowship sustained over decades · Valedictory, Philobiblon Society, 1884

• Friendship
• Memory
• Time

“The historical wealth of our great libraries is in process of general distribution through numerous and ready channels of editorial ability.”

Welcoming the wider circulation of knowledge preserved in libraries · Valedictory, Philobiblon Society, 1884

• Art
• Memory

“Before another winter came Henry Bright had passed away in his home amid his family and books, and had gone to his rest beneath the wreaths of his own Lancashire garden.”

A tender image of death framed by home, books and garden · Memorial essay, Henry Bright

• Death
• Memory
• Nature