Edmund William Gosse

“ He respected nothing, he left no institution untouched. Now that it is possible to look back upon Multatuli without passion, we see in him, not what Dutch enthusiasm saw,—“the second writer of Europe in the nineteenth century” (Victor Hugo being presumably the first) ,—but a great man who was a powerful and glowing author, yet hardly an artist, a reckless enthusiast, who was inspired by indignation and a burning sense of justice, who cared little for his means if only he could produce his effect. ”

“ He now made several attempts to gain the stage, and one of his pieces, The School for Princes, 1875 (published in the fourth volume of Ideas) , pleased himself so highly that he is said to have styled it the greatest drama ever written. ”