Life
Strong was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, of a half-Irish father and Irish mother, and was proud of his Irish heritage. As a youth, he considered being a comedian and took lessons in singing. He studied at Brighton College and earned a scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford, as what was known as an Open Classical Scholar (studies in literature and the arts). There he came under the influence of W. B. Yeats, about whom Strong wrote fairly extensively. Their friendship lasted for twenty years. He gained a wide interest in literature and wrote about many important contemporary authors, including James Joyce, William Faulkner, John Millington Synge, and John Masefield.
He worked as an Assistant Master at Summer Fields, a boys' boarding preparatory school in the outskirts of Oxford, from 1917 to 1919 and from 1920 to 1930, and as a Visiting Tutor at the Central School of Speech and Drama. One of his pupils was a son of Reginald McKenna. He was a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 until his death. For many years he was a governor of his old school, Brighton College.
Strong's autobiography, Green Memory, published after his death, described his family (including a grandmother in Ireland), his earliest years, his school-days, and his friendships at Wadham College; among them were Yeats and George Moore.
Following his death, a memorial service was held for him at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on October 3, 1958.
Read more about this topic: Leonard Strong
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past—the whole life of a civilization—but also a major share of the Jewish future.... [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,—when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, “Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect.””
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)