Augustus Hare

Augustus Hare – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life, works, and enduring wisdom of Augustus Hare, the Victorian English writer, travel-author, and memoirist. Read his biography, key achievements, and timeless quotes.

Introduction

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (13 March 1834 – 22 January 1903) was an English Victorian writer, travel chronicler, biographer, and storyteller whose refined prose and intimate style earned him a loyal following in his time and a modest afterlife in literary memory. Though perhaps less celebrated today than some of his contemporaries, his writings remain a window into Victorian sensibility, travel culture, and the emotional life of a sensitive outsider. In this article, we will explore his life, work, philosophy, and some of his most memorable quotes.

Early Life and Family

Augustus Hare was born in Rome, on 13 March 1834, the youngest son of Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, Sussex, and his wife.

Shortly after his birth, Augustus was legally adopted by his aunt Maria (the widow of his uncle Augustus William Hare), and his birth parents renounced further claims to him. The Story of My Life.

He belonged to a well-connected intellectual and clerical family: his uncles Augustus William Hare and Julius Hare were known figures in religious and literary circles.

Youth and Education

Hare’s education was somewhat fractured by ill health and changing circumstances. He spent one year at Harrow School (in 1847–48), but was forced to leave due to health issues.

In 1853, he matriculated at University College, Oxford, and graduated in 1857 with a BA degree.

His early years revealed both a strong attachment to his adoptive mother and deep discomfort with aspects of his upbringing—particularly episodes at Buckwell Place and the rectory in Herstmonceux, which he later recounts in his autobiographical volumes.

Career and Achievements

Genres and Themes

Hare’s literary output can broadly be divided into:

1. Travel and guidebooks

2. Biographies / Memorials / Family histories

3. Autobiography and personal memoir

He combined cultivated observation, historical detail, and personal reflection in works that straddled genres.

Travel Writing

Hare’s travel books were among his most read and credited works during his lifetime. Some of his better-known titles:

• Walks in Rome

• Walks in London

• Wanderings in Spain

• Cities of Northern / Central / Southern Italy

• Days Near Rome

• Paris (2 vols), Studies in Russia, Sketches in Holland & Scandinavia

His travel prose is praised for its readability, vividness, and charm. The Westminster Review regarded him as setting an example of a “readable and useful guide book.”

Later editions of his books were sometimes revised by the historian Welbore St. Clair Baddeley.

Biographies, Memorials, and Family Histories

Hare had a deep interest in people, lineage, and moral character. Some of his biographical and memorial works include:

• Memorials of a Quiet Life (a tribute to his adoptive mother)

• The Story of Two Noble Lives (on Countess Canning and Marchioness of Waterford)

• The Gurneys of Earlham (about the Gurney family)

• Life and Letters of Frances, Baroness Bunsen (editor)

• Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth (editor)

His interest was not only in the facts of lives, but in moral reflections, relationships, and the emotional currents behind family stories.

Autobiography / Memoir

Between 1896 and 1900, Hare published his six-volume The Story of My Life, in which he reviewed his upbringing, relationships, travels, and interior life.

The autobiography was controversial. Some readers praised its honesty and emotional depth; others criticized its frank disclosures—particularly about the difficulties and sufferings of his childhood and his adoptive family.

His ghost stories (encounters with spiritual or supernatural phenomena) also appear in his memoirs, which drew attention and commentary. A review in The New York Times quipped that “Mr Hare’s ghosts are rather more interesting than his lords or his middle-class people.”

Art and Illustrations

Beyond the pen, Augustus Hare was also an accomplished watercolour painter. He often created illustrations to accompany his travel works, particularly landscapes of Mediterranean scenes.

Later Life, Holmhurst, and Final Years

In his later life, Hare purchased and refurbished an estate in Baldslow, Sussex, near Hastings, naming it Holmhurst St Mary.

He never married and died on 22 January 1903. He was buried in Herstmonceux, Sussex.

After his death, the Holmhurst estate passed through several hands and was eventually used by an Anglican order of teaching nuns for a girls’ school; one of its notable pupils was Joanna Lumley.

Historical Milestones & Context

• Hare’s life spans much of the Victorian era (1837–1901), a period of expansion in travel, empire, railways, and cultural exchange.

• His travel writing intersects with a broader Victorian appetite for exploration, pilgrimage, and discovery of classical or continental Europe.

• In the domain of guidebooks and travel literature, Hare contributed a style that combined personal reflection with useful information, influencing later travel writers.

• His autobiographical candour foreshadowed a more confessional style of memoir that would become more common in later literature.

• His blending of spiritual and aesthetic concerns mirrors broader Victorian tensions between faith, doubt, modernity, and the quest for meaning.

Legacy and Influence

Though not as widely read today, Augustus Hare’s works have enduring value:

• Travel genre: His books remain reference points for Victorian travel literature and cultural history of European cities.

• Victorian sensibility: For scholars of Victorian life, his memoirs and personal essays offer glimpses into emotional life, social networks, and the psychology of a cultivated yet sensitive figure.

• Literary memory: Some of his travel works have been reprinted; his autobiography continues to be of interest, particularly to biographers and literary historians.

• Influence on later writers: His style—delicate observation, moral reflection, and a tone of intimacy—can be seen as a precursor in some ways to later travel memoirists and personal writers.

Malcolm Barnes wrote Augustus Hare: Victorian Gentleman (1985) to reevaluate his life and place in literature, noting both his virtues and limitations.

Though he may not command a large modern readership, those who seek a quieter, introspective voice of Victorian travel and soul-searching often rediscover him as a kind of hidden gem.

Personality and Talents

Augustus Hare was a man of contrasts:

• Sensitive and introspective: His memoirs reveal him to be emotionally delicate, highly aware of relationships and inner tensions.

• Cultured and perceptive: His fine drawings and good taste indicate an aesthetic sensibility; his reading and moral reflections show an intellectual curiosity.

• Generous observer: His biographical writing often focuses on virtues, moral character, and sympathy for human complexity.

• Reserved self-portraiture: Despite voluminous memoirs, he sometimes held back from self-exposure; he was more interested in others’ lives or his inner reactions than direct self-aggrandizement.

• Religious consciousness: Christianity and moral reflection permeate much of his thought. His writing often grapples with duty, faith, purity, and moral struggle.

He could also be critical, delicate in judgment, and acutely aware of hypocrisy, virtue, and the contrast between appearance and inner life—as many of his quotes show.

Famous Quotes of Augustus Hare

Here are some memorable and characteristic quotes by Augustus Hare (with slight editing for clarity):

“Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.” “It is well for us that we are born babies in intellect. Could we understand half what mothers say and do to their infants, we should be filled with a conceit of our own importance…” “Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.” “What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.” “Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others. A man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbour for what he sees in himself.” “Many are ambitious of saying grand things, that is, of being grandiloquent.” “To Adam Paradise was home. To the good among his descendants home is paradise.” “Better far off to leave half the ruins … unseen and to see well the rest; … to live with them, to love them, till they have become a part of life and life’s recollections.”

These selections give a taste of his moral reflection, sensitivity, and capacity for lyrical expression.

Lessons from Augustus Hare

1. Merge observation with introspection
   Hare shows how one can combine travel detail, historical richness, and personal insight without descending into mere reportage.

2. Write honestly about inner conflict
   His willingness to speak of adoption, emotional distance, suffering, and spiritual questions gives his work depth and longevity.

3. Let small things matter
   In his work, minor details—of architecture, landscape, gesture, conversation—become vivid windows into moral and aesthetic meaning.

4. Hold complexity, not absolutes
   Hare often resisted simple judgments: he was aware of hypocrisy, contradiction, and ambivalence in human hearts.

5. Respect faith and duty
   His writing is infused with a consciousness of moral responsibility and spiritual reflection, even when grappling with doubt.

Conclusion

Augustus Hare may not be a household name today, but for those who enjoy travel in spirit as much as place, and who seek literature that listens more than shouts, he offers a distinctive voice. His life—marked by adoption, emotional nuance, integrity, and aesthetic delight—speaks to the ways a writer can inhabit both the external world and internal landscapes.

Explore his travel books, dip into his memoirs, and revisit his quotes. You may find in his quietly observant pages a companion for your own journeys—physical, moral, or spiritual.