18 June 1877 – 24 June 1877

Carlyle is going through Gibbon's Decline and Fall (not read since his youth). ' I find it entirely below my expectations, the style is laboriously anti- thetical— and he doesn't lay out his history well ; there are many chapters where a mere tabular statement ought to have sufficed. I should have liked him also to hang out more frequent general elucidations in the way of dates. On the whole, it is very disappointing.' I reminded C. that Gibbon was one of the -writers whom he strongly recommended to me, many years ago, saying, ' Gibbon is always worth meeting.' He replied, ' Oh, one must read Gibbon to get any insight into this wild history of mankind.' The New Republic rather amused him, but he ' could not believe the writer meant a single word he said.'