into general society at all.  This high moral earnestness made her a prophet to her friends, as in her books it made her a great moral teacher to the world at large.  Those who had the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Lewes have pronounced the woman greater than her books.  She was not only a great writer but a great woman.  Human nature in its largest capacities was represented in her, for she rose above the limitations of sex; and she is thought of less as a great woman than as a large human personality.  Hers was a massive nature, emphatic, individual, many-sided.  Genius of a very high order, though not the highest, was hers, while she was possessed of a broad culture and great learning.  Seldom does genius carry with it talents so varied and well-trained or a culture so full and thorough.  And her culture was of that kind which entered into every fibre of her nature and became a part of her own personality.  It was thoroughly digested and absorbed into good healthy red blood, and became a quickened, sustained motive to the largest efforts.  How vital this love of culture was, may be seen when we are told that “she possessed in an eminent degree that power which has led to success in so many directions, of keeping her mind unceasingly at the stretch without conscious fatigue.  She would cease to ponder or to read when other duties called her, but never because she herself felt tired.  Even in so complex an effort as a visit to a picture gallery implies, she could continue for hours at the same pitch of earnest interest, and outweary strong men.  Nor was this a mere habit of passive reception.  In the intervals between her successive compositions her mind was always fusing and combining its fresh stores.”

She had culture, moral power and earnestness in a high degree, warmth of sympathy and sensitiveness to all beauty, but she had no saintliness.  Profound as was her reverence for moral purity, and lofty as was her moral purpose, she was not a saint, and holiness was not a characteristic of her nature.  This clear and high sense of moral truth everywhere appears in her life and thought.  “For the lessons most imperatively needed by the mass of men, the lessons of deliberate kindness, of careful truth, of unwavering endeavor,—­for these plain themes one could not ask a more convincing teacher than she.  Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul.  The deeply lined face, the too marked and massive features, were united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way was the more impressive because it seemed to proceed entirely from within.  Nay, the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the external harshness; there would be moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave appeal,—­all these seemed the transparent symbols that showed the presence