ld, which she could not
overcome.

The story of _Villette_ is the real story of Charlotte's experiences
in a Brussels boarding school, where she first tasted the delights of
literary study and her genius first found adequate expression. The
original draft of this novel was called _The Professor_. Charlotte
knew that it contained good material. So, after the death of her
sisters, she took up the subject, and with all her mature power
produced _Villette_--one of those novels struck off at a white heat,
like George Sand's _Indiana_ or Balzac's _Seraphita_. The story is
largely autobiographical, but the episodes of Charlotte's life are
touched with romance when they appear as the experiences of Lucy Snow,
the forlorn English girl in the Continental school, among people of
alien natures and strange speech.

In _Shirley_, Charlotte Bronte revealed much genuine humor in the
malicious portraits of the three curates, who were drawn from real
life. In fact, throughout her books one will find most of the
characters sketched from real people. Hence, if one reads the story of
her life he can trace her from her return from her Continental life
down through the cruel years almost to the end. Back she came to her
gloomy home from Brussels only to watch in succession the lingering
death of her brother and her two sisters. Think of these three
sisters, two marked for sure and early death, laboring at literary
work every day with the passion and intensity that come to few men.
Think of Emily, the eldest, with fierce pride refusing help to climb
the steep stairway of the parsonage home when her strength was almost
spent and her racking cough struck cold on the hearts of her sisters.
And think of Charlotte in her terrible grief turning to fiction as the
only resource from unbearable woe and loneliness. It is one of the
great tragedies of literature, but out of it came the flowering of a
brilliant genius.

GEORGE ELIOT AND HER TWO GREAT NOVELS

"ADAM BEDE" AND "THE MILL ON THE FLOSS"--HER EARLY STORIES ARE
RICH IN CHARACTER SKETCHES, WITH MUCH PATHOS AND HUMOR.

George Eliot is a novelist in a class by herself. She never impressed
me as a natural story-teller, save when she lived over again that
happy girlhood which served to relieve the sadness of her mature life.
In parts of _Adam Bede_ and throughout _The Mill on the Floss_ she
seems to tell her stories as though she really enjoyed the work. All
the scenes of her be