The Life and Letters of John Fiske. By John Spencer
Clark. 2 vols. (Houghton Mifflin. 52s. net.)—In these portly volumes the life of the well-known American historian and philosopher is told at length. He was born at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1842, and died in 1901. Curiously enough, his real name was Edmund Fisk Green, which was changed to John Fisk when his grandparents adopted him, and ultimately became John Fieke through a printer's error which took his fancy. He was notorious, rather than famous, as an early American advocate of the evolu- tionary theory and a disciple of Herbert Spencer. His American history was the work of his later years. His letters are interesting, especially these written during an English tcur in 1873. He thought Darwin "the dearest, sweetest, loveliest old Grandpa that ever was" and one of the meat truly modest men I ever saw." As for George Eliot, "I call her a real good honest genuine motherly woman u ith no tom nee about her." "There is nothing a bit masculine about her. She is thoroughly feminine. But she has a power of stating an argument equal to any man. Equal to any man, do I say ? I have never seen any man, except Herbert Spencer, who could state a Case equal to her." Fiske and George Eliot had a fierce argument about Homer, because he found that she held Wolf's theory of the compesite nature of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Previous page
