Henry George Liddell Quotes (1811-1898)

“He was a singularly handsome man, and a great figurehead. But he was not popular. The undergraduates resented his treatment of them as schoolboys; he could not quite shake off the schoolmaster attitude of his Westminster days, and this led to some follies, and worse than follies. Rebellion was rife, the lecture room was gutted, and the furniture destroyed; a kettle of gunpowder with a fuse attached to it was hung upon the door of the deanery, but was fortunately discovered in time.”

“Henry George Liddell, a high-bred gentleman of lofty character, a man of unusual artistic sympathy and cultivation, certified to all of us as a great scholar by his work on the Lexicon; but too much aloof and temperamentally too reserved and distant to have much influence with the undergraduates, and not a man to put energy into the religious life of the place.”

“Your husband ruined all my prospects in life; he did all my Latin verses for me and I lost all opportunities for self-improvement.”

“He has so comprehended the relative importance of men and things as to believe most thoroughly in the necessity for maintaining the British Aristocracy as a superior and privileged race. His reign at Christ Church will be remembered as a pleasant one by all influential persons who have adorned ‘the house’ in his time. Dignified in appearance and with much superficial sternness of demeanour, he has yet never made his discipline uncomfortable, and has often tempered it with breakfasts and croquet-parties of much distinction. He is sixty-three years of age, fine-looking, and thoroughly domesticated.”