uch a fine gold
case. An old gentleman gave it to me yesterday, a white-headed old
philosopher and political economist, there's something simple in the
way these kind folks regard a man; they read our books as if we were
Fielding, and so forth. The other night men were talking of Dickens
and Bulwer as if they were equal to Shakespeare, and I was pleased to
find myself pleased at hearing them praised. The prettiest girl in
Philadelphia, poor soul, has read _Vanity Fair_ twelve times. I paid
her a great big compliment yesterday, about her good looks of course,
and she turned round delighted to her friend and said, '_Ai most
tallut_,' that is something like the pronunciation."

In another letter: "Now I have seen three great cities, Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, I think I like them all mighty well. They seem to
me not so civilized as our London, but more so than Manchester and
Liverpool. At Boston is very good literate company indeed; it is like
Edinburgh for that,--a vast amount of toryism and donnishness
everywhere. That of New York the simplest and least pretentious; it
suffices that a man should keep fine house, give parties, and have a
daughter, to get all the world to him."

XL

GEORGE ELIOT BECOMES A WRITER OF FICTION

As one is ready to call Elizabeth Barrett the greatest poetess of the
nineteenth century, so there is little hesitation in pronouncing
George Eliot the foremost of the many women who have written fiction.
The literary critics sometimes dispute her supremacy by urging the
claims of Jane Austen, who is said to have Shaksperean power in the
delineation of character. But the name of Jane Austen is unknown to
the general public. For every reader of _Pride and Prejudice_ there
are a score of readers of _Adam Bede_.

George Eliot is the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans. She took the name of
_George_ because it was the first name of Mr. Lewes, and Eliot "was a
good, mouth-filling, easily pronounced word."

George Eliot was almost thirty-seven years old before she began to
write fiction; in this respect reminding us of Scott, who had first
achieved fame as a poet before he began in his maturity to write
fiction. We are happy in having from the pen of George Eliot herself
the account of how she began to write fiction:

"September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it was then I began
to write fiction. It had always been a vague dream of mine that some
time or other I might write a novel; and my