h make letters amusing,
captivating, or piquant. What Mr. Cross says of her as the mistress of a
_salon_, is true of her for the most part as a correspondent:--'Playing
around many disconnected subjects, in talk, neither interested nor
amused her much. She took things too seriously, and seldom found the
effort of entertaining compensated by the gain' (iii. 335). There is the
outpouring of ardent feeling for her friends, sobering down, as life
goes on, into a crooning kindliness, affectionate and honest, but often
tinged with considerable self-consciousness. It was said of some one
that his epigrams did honour to his heart; in the reverse direction we
occasionally feel that George Eliot's effusive playfulness does honour
to her head. It lacks simplicity and _verve_. Even in an invitation to
dinner, the words imply a grave sense of responsibility on both sides,
and sense of responsibility is fatal to the charm of familiar
correspondence.

As was inevitable in one whose mind was so habitually turned to the
deeper elements of life, she lets fall the pearls of wise speech even in
short notes. Here are one or two:--

'My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that
our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathise
with individual suffering and individual joy.'

'If there is one attitude more odious to me than any other of the many
attitudes of "knowingness," it is that air of lofty superiority to the
vulgar. She will soon find out that I am a very commonplace woman.'

'It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self
while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and
sorrow.'

The following is one of the best examples, one of the few examples, of
her best manner:--

I have been made rather unhappy by my husband's impulsive
proposal about Christmas. We are dull old persons, and your two
sweet young ones ought to find each Christmas a new bright bead
to string on their memory, whereas to spend the time with us
would be to string on a dark shrivelled berry. They ought to have
a group of young creatures to be joyful with. Our own children
always spend their Christmas with Gertrude's family; and we have
usually taken our sober merry-making with friends out of town.
Illness among these will break our custom this year; and thus
_mein Mann_, feeling that our Christmas was free, considered how
v