seemed to be listening to her own voice while she spoke. It must be
allowed that we are not always free from an impression of
self-listening, even in the most caressing of the letters before us.

This is not much better, however, than trifling. I daresay that if a
lively Frenchman could have watched the inspired Pythia on the sublime
tripod, he would have cried, _Elle s'écoute quand elle parle_. When
everything of that kind has been said, we have the profound
satisfaction, which is not quite a matter of course in the history of
literature, of finding after all that the woman and the writer were one.
The life does not belie the books, nor private conduct stultify public
profession. We close the third volume of the biography, as we have so
often closed the third volume of her novels, feeling to the very core
that in spite of a style that the French call _alambiqué_, in spite of
tiresome double and treble distillations of phraseology, in spite of
fatiguing moralities, gravities, and ponderosities, we have still been
in communion with a high and commanding intellect and a great nature. We
are vexed by pedantries that recall the _précieuses_ of the Hôtel
Rambouillet, but we know that she had the soul of the most heroic women
in history. We crave more of the Olympian serenity that makes action
natural and repose refreshing, but we cannot miss the edification of a
life marked by indefatigable labour after generous purposes, by an
unsparing struggle for duty, and by steadfast and devout fellowship with
lofty thoughts.

Those who know Mr. Myers's essay on George Eliot will not have forgotten
its most imposing passage:--

I remember how at Cambridge, I waited with her once in the
Fellows' Garden of Trinity, on an evening of rainy May; and she,