The life and letters of Leslie Stephen Author:Frederic William Maitland Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill BOYHOOD (1832-1850) Leslie Stephen was born on November 28, 1832. If in future histories of literature there is to be a Victorian Age, he may well b... more »e said to have ' flourished' in it, for at both ends his life overlapped the Queen's reign by a few years. The earliest public event that he could remember was her accession, for he was put into mourning for William IV. He was knighted on the coronation of Edward VII., when, though still working courageously, he had, I fear, ceased to ' flourish.' For the moment, however, it is more important for us to remember the place that he occupied in the family circle. "When he was born, his eldest brother, Herbert, was already ten years old, and his second brother was three and a half. This last interval should be had in mind. At Cambridge Fitzjames and Leslie were not contemporaries ; the one was on the point of c going down ' when the other was ' coming up' as a freshman. When he was two years old a sister was born. ' As to the circumstances of my early life,' he said to his children, ' you will find a sufficient indication of their general character in the Life of my brother, Sir J. F. Stephen. It gives the best picture that I could draw of the household in which I spent my days till I went to college. I will only add that, living as I did at home, where my sister and I were close companions, we two formed an especially warm intimacy, which has lasted till now. . . . She has been more like a twin than a younger sister.' His father's house was in Kensington Gore—now 42 Hyde Park Gate—only a few yards from the house where he himselfwas long to live and was to die. Indeed, during the greater part of his life his home was in the parts of Kensington. His last walks were taken in the Gardens, where as a child he had bowled his hoop...« less