Logan Pearsall Smith | |
|---|---|
 Smith,c. 1912 | |
| Born | Lloyd Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-10-18)18 October 1865 |
| Died | 2 March 1946(1946-03-02) (aged 80) |
| Occupation | Essayist, critic, autobiographer |
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | Haverford College,Harvard College,University of Berlin,Balliol College, Oxford |
| Subject | 17th century divines |
| Relatives | Robert Pearsall Smith (father),Hannah Whitall Smith (mother) and sistersAlys Pearsall Smith andMary Berenson |
Lloyd Logan Pearsall Smith (18 October 1865 – 2 March 1946) was an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for hisaphorisms andepigrams, and was an expert on 17th centurydivines. HisWords and Idioms made him an authority on correct English language usage. He wrote his autobiography,Unforgotten Years, in 1938.
The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood.
Smith was born inMillville, New Jersey.[2] He was the son of the prominentQuakersRobert Pearsall Smith andHannah Whitall Smith, and a descendant ofJames Logan, who was William Penn's secretary and the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania in the 18th century.[3][4] His mother's family had become wealthy from its glass factories.[3][4][5] He lived for a time as a boy in England.[3] In his 1938 autobiography, Smith describes how in his youth he came to be a friend ofWalt Whitman in the poet's latter years.[6]
Smith's sisterAlys was the first wife of philosopherBertrand Russell. His sisterMary was married twice, first to the Irish barrister Benjamin Conn "Frank" Costelloe. Their two daughters wereRay Strachey andKarin Stephen, in-laws toLytton Strachey andVirginia Woolf, respectively. Mary later married the art historianBernard Berenson.[7]
Smith attended the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia,Haverford College,Harvard College, and theUniversity of Berlin.[8] Smith later studiedGreats atBalliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1891.[6]
Smith employed a succession of young secretary/companions to help him. This post wasCyril Connolly's first job in 1925 and he was to be strongly influenced by Smith.Robert Gathorne-Hardy succeeded Connolly in this post.[9]
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
Smith was an authority on 17th century divines. He was known for hisaphorisms andepigrams, and hisTrivia has been highly rated. He was a literary perfectionist and could take days refining his sentences.[9] WithWords and Idioms he became a recognised authority on the correct use of English. He is now probably most remembered for his autobiographyUnforgotten Years (1938). He was much influenced byWalter Pater. He was a devotee of Jane Austen's fiction and referred to himself as a "Mansfield Parker."[10] As well as his employees listed, his followers includedDesmond MacCarthy,John Russell,R. C. Trevelyan, andHugh Trevor-Roper. He was, in part, the basis for the character of Nick Greene (Sir Nicholas Greene) in Virginia Woolf'sOrlando.[11]
He settled in England after Oxford with occasional forays to continental Europe and became a British subject in 1913. He divided his time between Chelsea, where he was a close friend ofDesmond MacCarthy andRose Macaulay,[6] and a Tudor farmhouse atWarsash near the Solent, called Big Chilling.[9]
Gathorne-Hardy described Smith as "a largish man with a stoop that disguised his height".[12]Kenneth Clark further wrote "His tall frame, hunched up, with head thrust forward like a bird, was balanced unsteadily on vestigial legs".[13]
Politically he was asocialist, having been converted byGraham Wallas, a founder of theFabian Society.[citation needed]
His portrait, made in 1932 byEthel Sands, is at theNational Portrait Gallery, London.[14]
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