London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1904
On Literary Biography
As a mere letter-writer will not rank among the famousmasters
Mr. Myers's Essay
Letter to Mr. Harrison
Hebrew her favourite study
Limitless persistency in application
Romola
Mr. R.W. Mackay's Progress of the Intellect
The period of her productions, 1856-1876
Mr. Browning
An æsthetic not a doctrinal teacher
Disliked vehemence
Conclusion
The illustrious woman who is the subject of these volumes makes a remarkto her publisher which is at least as relevant now as it was then. Cannothing be done, she asks, by dispassionate criticism towards the reformof our national habits in the matter of literary biography? 'Is itanything short of odious that as soon as a man is dead his desk shouldbe raked, and every insignificant memorandum which he never meant forthe public be printed for the gossiping amusement of people too idle toreread his books?' Autobiography, she says, at least saves a man or awoman that the world is curious about, from the publication of a stringof mistakes called Memoirs. Even to autobiography, however, sheconfesses her deep repugnance unless it can be written so as to involveneither self-glorification nor impeachment of others—a condition, bythe way, with which hardly any, save Mill's, can be said to comply. 'Ilike,' she proceeds, 'that He being dead yet speaketh should havequite another meaning than that' (iii. 226, 297, 307). She shows thesame fastidious apprehension still more clearly in another way. 'I havedestroyed almost all my friends' letters to me,' she says, 'because theywere only intended for my eyes, and could only fall into the hands ofpersons who knew little of the writers if I allowed them to remain tillafter my death. In proportion as I love every form of piety—which isvenerating love—I hate hard curiosity; and, unhappily, my experiencehas impressed me with the sense that hard curiosity is the more commontemper of mind' (ii. 286). There is probably little difference among usin respect of such experience as that.
[1] George Eliot's Life. By J.W. Cross. Three volumes.Blackwood and Sons. 1885.
Much biography, perhaps we might say most, is hardly above the level ofthat 'personal talk,' to which Wordsworth sagely preferred long barrensilence, the flapping of the flame of his cottage fire, and theunder-song of the kettle on the hob. It would not, then, have muchsurprised us if George Eliot had insisted that her works should remainthe only commemoration of her life. There be some who think that thosewho have enriched the world with great thoughts and fine creations,might best be conten