[The] distinctive feature of the Autobiography is its naturalistic use of time, the willingness to let the past stand as it was, in its own season, even when later developments, of intellect or intuition or event, give it a different quality…. The atmosphere in which the Autobiography operates is remarkably practical and quick-moving; its genius springs from being so and at the same time remarkably responsive to crystallizations of meaning…. (pp. 274-75)

Michael G. Cooke, in Romanticism: Vistas, Instances, Continuities, edited by David Thorburn and Geoffrey Hartman (copyright © 1973 by Cornell University; used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press), Cornell University Press, 1973.