SOURCE: A review of Altiora Peto, in The Academy, Vol. XXIV, No. 597, October 13, 1883, p. 240.

Altiors Peto was not published in "the Magazine" [Blackwell's], but was brought out independently during the next year in numbers, as the works of George Eliot had been—an experiment only capable of being tried with a very well-known and popular writer. I believe it was altogether the most highly popular and successful of all Laurence Oliphant's works, and excited great interest both among those who enjoyed the satire and those who were moved by the more serious interest. The title of the work and the name of the heroine were taken from his family motto—"Altiora Peto" ("I seek for higher things"), being the distinctive sentiment, among various Oliphant mottoes, of the house of Condie. There was much appropriateness, and some humour, in the adaptation. I fear, however, that the blaze of wit...