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Quotes from Literary Friends and Acquaintance : A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship — William Dean Howells

1837–1920 United States

← All quotes by William Dean Howells

1 quote

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested, and this was, above all, the secret of the charm that Doctor Holmes had for every one. No doubt he knew it, for what that most alert intelligence did not know of itself was scarcely worth knowing. This knowledge was one of his chief pleasures, I fancy; he rejoiced in the consciousness which is one of the highest attributes of the highly organized man, and he did not care for the consequences in your mind, if you were so stupid as not to take him aright.

Literary Friends and Acquaintance : A Personal Retrospect of American Authorship (1900)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Dean Howells (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.