who have enriched the world with great thoughts and fine creations,
might best be content to rest unmarked 'where heaves the turf in many a
mouldering heap,' leaving as little work to the literary executor,
except of the purely crematory sort, as did Aristotle, Plato,
Shakespeare, and some others whose names the world will not willingly
let die. But this is a stoic's doctrine; the objector may easily retort
that if it had been sternly acted on, we should have known very very
little about Dr. Johnson, and nothing about Socrates.

This is but an ungracious prelude to some remarks upon a book, which
must be pronounced a striking success. There will be very little dispute
as to the fact that the editor of these memorials of George Eliot has
done his work with excellent taste, judgment, and sense. He found no
autobiography nor fragment of one, but he has skilfully shaped a kind of
autobiography by a plan which, so far as we know, he is justified in
calling new, and which leaves her life to write itself in extracts from
her letters and journals. With the least possible obtrusion from the
biographer, the original pieces are formed into a connected whole 'that
combines a narrative of day-to-day life with the play of light and shade
which only letters written in serious moods can give.' The idea is a
good one, and Mr. Cross deserves great credit for it. We may hope that
its success will encourage imitators. Certainly there are drawbacks. We
miss the animation of mixed narrative. There is, too, a touch of
monotony in listening for so long to the voice of a single speaker
addressing others who are silent behind a screen. But Mr. Cross could
not, we think, have devised a better way of dealing with his material:
it is simple, modest, and effective.

George Eliot, after all, led the life of a studious recluse, with none
of the bustle, variety, motion, and large communication with the outer