if success could have been expected, and this without expense, I
was not disposed to deny myself the relief of returning to private life.
I had no cause to feel humiliated at my rejection by the electors; and
if I had, the feeling would have been far outweighed by the numerous
expressions of regret which I received from all sorts of persons and
places, and in a most marked degree from those members of the liberal
party in Parliament, with whom I had been accustomed to act.

Since that time little has occurred which there is need to commemorate
in this place. I returned to my old pursuits and to the enjoyment of a
country life in the south of Europe, alternating twice a year with a
residence of some weeks or months in the neighbourhood of London. I have
written various articles in periodicals (chiefly in my friend Mr.
Morley's _Fortnightly Review_), have made a small number of speeches on
public occasions, especially at the meetings of the Women's Suffrage
Society, have published the _Subjection of Women_, written some years
before, with some additions [by my daughter and myself,] and have
commenced the preparation of matter for future books, of which it will
be time to speak more particularly if I live to finish them. Here,
therefore, for the present, this memoir may close.

NOTES:

[1]In a subsequent stage of boyhood, when these exercises had ceased
to be compulsory, like most youthful writers I wrote tragedies; under
the inspiration not so much of Shakspeare as of Joanna Baillie, whose
_Constantine Paleologus_ in particular appeared to me one of the most
glorious of human compositions. I still think it one of the best dramas
of the last two centuries.

[2] The continuation of this article in the second number of the
_Review_ was written by me under my father's eye, and (except as
practice in composition, in which respect it was, to me, more useful
than anything else I ever wrote) was of little or no value.

[3] Written about 1861.

[4] The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to her were
far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the subject
would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, that my
strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political,
social, and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and
women, may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far from
being the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest resul