Part 20

George Eliot was deeply interested in the higher education of women, ... and was among the earliest contributors to Girton College.... The danger she was alive to in the system of collegiate education was the possible weakening of the bonds of family affection and family duties. In her view, the family life holds the roots of all that is best in our mortal lot; and she always felt that it is far too ruthlessly sacrificed in the case of English _men_ by their public school and university education, and that much more is such a result to be deprecated in the case of women. But, the absolute good being unattainable in our mixed condition of things, those women especially who are obliged to earn their own living must do their best with the opportunities at their command, as “they cannot live with posterity,” when a more perfect system may prevail. Therefore, George Eliot wished Godspeed to the women’s colleges. It was often in her mind and on her lips that the only worthy end of all learning, of all science, of all life, in fact, is, that human beings should love one another better. Culture merely for culture’s sake can never be anything but a sapless root, capable of producing at best a shrivelled branch.

[Sidenote: A meliorist.]

In her general attitude toward life George Eliot was neither optimist nor pessimist. She held to the middle term, which she invented for herself, of “meliorist.” She was cheered by the hope and by the belief in gradual improvement of the mass; for in her view each individual must find the better part of happiness in helping another. She often thought it wisest not to raise too ambitious an ideal, especially for young people, but to impress on ordinary natures the immense possibilities of making a small home circle brighter and better. Few are born to do the great work of the world, but all are born to this. And to the natures capable of the larger effort the field of usefulness will constantly widen.

J. W. CROSS: ‘George Eliot’s Life.’

LIST OF WORKS QUOTED IN VOL. II.

ARNOLD.--Mixed Essays, by Matthew Arnold. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1883. (Quoted on George Sand.)

_Atlantic Monthly._--Anonymous Article on Mrs. Browning, September, 1881. English Authors in Florence, by Kate Field, December, 1864. (Quoted on George Eliot.)

_Blackwood’s Magazine._--Article on George Eliot, February, 1881.

BLIND.--George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind (Famous Women Series). Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

BRAY.--Phases of Opinion and Experience during a Long Life, by Charles Bray. London: Longmans & Co., 1885. (Quoted on George Eliot.)

BRONTË.--Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, with biographical preface by Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1850. (Quoted on Emily Brontë.)

BROWNING.--Letters to R. H. Horne, by E. B. Browning; with prefatory memoir by R. H. Stoddard. New York: James Miller, 1877. (Quoted also for H. Martineau and George Sand.)

----.--Last Poems, with memorial preface, by Theodore Tilton. New York: James Miller, 1862.

_Century Magazine._--George Eliot, by F. W. H. Myers, November, 1881; George Eliot’s County, by Rose G. Kingsley, July, 1885; Zweibak, or Notes of a Professional Exile, February, 1886. (Quoted on Geo. Eliot and H. Martineau.)

CHORLEY.--Autobiography, Memoir and Letters, by Henry F. Chorley. London: Bentley, 1873. (Quoted on E. B. Browning.)

_Congregationalist._--A Visit to George Eliot, by Mrs. Annie Downs, May 28th, 1879.

COLERIDGE.--Memoir and Letters, by Sara Coleridge, edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874. (Quoted on E. B. Browning.)

Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller.)

The same.--Supplementary Letters. Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1886.

CROSS.--George Eliot’s Life, by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885. (Quoted also for H. Martineau, Charlotte Brontë and E. B. Browning.)

EMERSON, R. W., CHANNING, W. H., and CLARKE, J. F.--Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874. (Quoted also for George Sand.)

FIELD.--Home Sketches in France, etc., by Mrs. H. M. Field. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1875. (Quoted on George Eliot.)

FORSTER.--Walter Savage Landor, a Biography, by John Forster. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co., 1869. (Quoted on E. B. Browning.)

FOX.--Memoirs of Old Friends, by Caroline Fox. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1882. (Quoted on H. Martineau.)

FROUDE.--Thomas Carlyle: a History of his Life in London, by J. A. Froude. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884. (Quoted on H. Martineau and Margaret Fuller.)

----.--Editor, Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883. (Quoted on H. Martineau.)

GASKELL.--Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Elizabeth C. Gaskell. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857. (Quoted also on H. Martineau and George Sand.)

HALL.--Retrospect of a Long Life, by S. C. Hall. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. (Quoted on H. Martineau.)

_Harper’s Magazine._--Article on the English Lakes, by Moncure D. Conway, January, 1881. (Quoted on H. Martineau.) George Eliot, by C. Kegan Paul, May, 1881. Last Words from George Eliot, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, March, 1882. Remarks on Margaret Fuller, by G. W. Curtis, in Easy Chair, March, 1882.

HAWTHORNE.--Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife: a Biography, by Julian Hawthorne. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1885. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller.)

HAWTHORNE.--Passages from the English Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1873. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Browning.)

----.--Passages from the French and Italian Note-books of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1872. (Quoted on Mrs. Browning.)

HILLARD.--Six Months in Italy, by George S. Hillard. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1871. (Quoted on Mrs. Browning.)

HOWE.--Margaret Fuller, by Julia Ward Howe. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

HUNT.--Correspondence of Leigh Hunt, edited by his son. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1862. (Quoted on Mrs. Browning.)

KEMBLE.--Records of Later Life, by Frances Ann Kemble. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau.)

_Lady’s Repository._--A Visit to Charlotte Brontë, by George S. Phillips, September, 1872. New York: Nelson & Phillips.

MACREADY.--Reminiscences and Selections from his Diaries and Letters, by W. C. Macready. Edited by Sir F. Pollock, Bart. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1875. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau.)

MARTINEAU.--Autobiography of Harriet Martineau, with Memorial by Maria Weston Chapman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887. (Quoted also on Charlotte Brontë, Margaret Fuller and Mrs. Browning.)

MITFORD.--Recollections of a Literary Life, by Mary Russell Mitford. New York: Harper & Bros., 1852. (Quoted on Mrs. Browning.)

MILLER.--Harriet Martineau, by Mrs. Fenwick Miller. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1885.

PAYN.--Some Literary Recollections, by James Payn. New York: Harper & Bros., 1884. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau.)

_Record of the Year._--(New York: G. W. Carleton.) September, 1876. Selection from Paul Vevay on George Sand.

REID.--Charlotte Brontë, A Monograph, by T. Wemyss Reid. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1877.

ROBINSON.--Emily Brontë, by A. Mary F. Robinson. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Robert Bros., 1883.

_Scribner’s Monthly._--Charlotte Brontë, by Ellen Nussey; also Note in The Old Cabinet, by R. W. Gilder, 1871.

SWINBURNE.--A Note on Charlotte Brontë, by A. C. Swinburne. London: Chatto & Windus, 1877.

STEDMAN.--Victorian Poets, by E. C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1881. (Quoted on Mrs. Browning.)

TAYLOR.--At Home and Abroad, by Bayard Taylor. (Second Series.) New York: G. P. Putnam, 1862.

_Temple Bar._--A Week with George Eliot, February, 1885. George Sand, April, 1885.

THACKERAY.--Roundabout Papers, by William M. Thackeray. London: Chatto & Windus, 1863. (Quoted on Charlotte Brontë.)

THOMAS.--George Sand, by Bertha Thomas. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

WHITTIER.--Complete Poems, by John G. Whittier. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1873.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation errors have been corrected.

A couple of instances of repeated words were fixed.

Page 26: An inconsistency in reference to Martineau’s lower lip was corrected.

Page 51: “Wherepon the wicked lord” changed to “Whereupon the wicked lord”

Page 95: “of his own fireside” changed to “of her own fireside”

Page 97: “Rihard Hengist Horne” changed to “Richard Hengist Horne”

Page 118: “Portugese Sonnets” changed to “Portuguese Sonnets”

Page 200: “haze, color” changed to “hazel color”

Page 206: “No easy getting sight” changed to “Not easy getting sight”

Page 220: “which as evident” changed to “which was evident”

Page 224: “just occacasion” changed to “just occasion”

Page 246: “aud subsequently translated” changed to “and subsequently translated”