Note 242 — LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY (continued 5)

Newman warns us in the Preface to Loss and Gain against actual identifications of his scenes and characters; and the warning is just, because there is no warrant for the identifications. But reading between the lines is particularly profitable with every page of Newman’s, dictated by an almost unexampled deliberation and sensitiveness. Reding (for one instance out of many), quitting his beautiful and beloved Oxford, goes early in the morning to kiss the willows along the Water-walks good-bye. It is almost impossible that the man who thinks such a thing should not also be the man who has done it.