The Ethics of George Eliot's Works

Excerpt

The greater part of the following Essay was written several years ago.  It was too long for any of the periodicals to which the author had been in the habit of occasionally contributing, and no thought was then entertained of publishing it in a separate form.  One day, however, during his last illness, the talk happened to turn on George Eliot’s Works, and he mentioned his long-forgotten paper.  One of the friends then present—a competent critic and high literary authority—expressed a wish to see it, and his opinion was so favourable that its publication was determined on.  The author then proposed to complete his work by taking p. viup ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Deronda’; and if any trace of failing vigour is discernible in these latter pages, the reader will bear in mind that the greater portion of them was composed when the author was rapidly sinking under a painful disease, and that the concluding paragraphs were dictated to his daughter after the power of writing had failed him, only five days before his death.