Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Gordon and His Boys: December 9, 2015


They don't know the troubles of the flesh yet, he thought, as the marching boys disappeared in the direction of the Strand--all that I've been through, he thought, crossing the road, and standing under Gordon's statue, Gordon whom as a boy he had worshipped; Gordon standing lonely with one leg raised and his arms crossed,--poor Gordon, he thought.
Mrs. Dalloway (50-1)

The neighbourhood was a poverty-stricken one, and the kind Colonel, with his tripping step and simple manner, was soon a familiar figure in it, chatting with the seamen, taking provisions to starving families, or visiting some bedridden old woman to light her fire. He was particularly fond of boys. Ragged street arabs and rough sailor-lads crowded about him. They were made free of his house and garden; they visited him in the evenings for lessons and advice; he helped them, found them employment, corresponded with them when they went out into the world. They were, he said, his Wangs.
Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (194)


On December 9, 1917, Woolf records in her Diary that Lytton Strachey dropped off his chapter on General Gordon for her to read. (D1, 90)

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