Eminent Edwardians [antikvár]

Introduction Of all the details which scandalized respectable readers of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians possibly the most infamous related to the venerable figure of Dr Arnold. The eminence of the celebrated Headmaster of Rugby School was surely beyond question. When his own son, William Arnold, first set eyes on the awesome vastness of the Himalayas he was irresistibly 'reminded of Papa'. Yet Strachey attempted to cut the Doctor down to size not just metaphorically but literally: 'his legs, perhaps, were shorter than they should have been.' Challenged, the biographer could produce no evidence for this slur. And Strachey later mischievously acknowledged that he had made Arnold's legs shorter because he thought they should have been. In more serious vein, however, he claimed to have somewhere read an account which confirmed his diminution of the Doctor. In fact, though he relied entirely on published works, Strachey's research had been surprisingly wideranging and it seems likely that he misappropriated the scurrilous detail from another imposing Victorian Headmaster, E. W. Bensőn, later Archbishop of Canterbury, whose legs really were somewhat stunted. Be this as it may, Strachey clearly saw himself as one of