the winter in Avignon, in the hope of improving the broken health of
the wife to whom he was devotedly attached. He had not been married
many years, but Mrs. Mill, who was the widow of Mr. John Taylor, a
London merchant, had been his friend since 1835, or even earlier.
During more than twenty years he had been aided by her talents, and
encouraged by her sympathy, in all the work he had undertaken, and to
her rare merits he afterwards paid more than one tribute in terms that
have no equal for the intensity of their language, and the depth of
affection contained in them. Mrs. Mill's weak state of health seems to
have hardly repressed her powers of intellect. By her was written the
celebrated essay on "The Enfranchisement of Women" contributed to "The
Westminster Review," and afterwards reprinted in the "Dissertations
and Discussions," with a preface avowing, that by her Mr. Mill had
been greatly assisted in all that he had written for some time
previous. But the assistance was to end now. Mrs. Mill died at Avignon
on the 3d of November, 1858, and over her grave was placed one of the
most pathetic and eloquent epitaphs that have been ever penned. "Her
great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original,
and comprehensive intellect," it was there written, "made her the
guide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and the example in
goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight, of those who had the
happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was
generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in
those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like
hers, this earth would already become the hoped-for heaven."
Henceforth, during the fourteen years and a half that were to elapse
before he should be laid in the same grave, Avignon was the chosen
haunt of Mr. Mill.