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1885.] of society at large. And for the second time, as it proved, this step was of the first importance in the development of her genius. Whatever the world may think it has gained in her writings, it would not have gained if she had not, first, changed her opinions, and, next, formed this union with Lewes. She might have searched all society through without finding a companion so fertilising to her intellect. She was eminently one whose self-confidence required to be aroused and constantly reassured; sympathy, praise, and encouragement were indispensable to her in pursuing tasks more ambitious, and demanding the exercise of far higher qualities, than the writing of a review. It is quite possible that this great novelist might have gone on all her life writing articles and reviews, unknown except to a coterie, had she not been roused to higher action by the counsel and example of Lewes. In this first trip to the Continent, while she was still engaged on contributions to the 'Westminster,' he was rewriting and completing, partly in Weimar itself, the stronghold of his hero, 'The Life of Goethe,' a work which at once brought him a wide extension of repute. A little later he urged her to try her hand at an original work – and now, and now only, can she be said to have entered on the approaches to her remarkable career. An inscription on the manuscript of her first novel, giving it to Lewes, says it "would never have been written but for the happiness which his love has conferred on my life." Henceforward the pair form a remarkable picture, working industriously in their home, each finding in the other not merely an acute critic, but one bending all the energies of the mind to the consideration of what the other laid before it – all failure to appreciate made impossible by affection, but all undue or careless approval made equally impossible by a judgment too clear, and a taste too exacting, to let anything pass which seemed short of excellence. It is hardly a mere guess that a passage written a few years later in 'Adam Bede' describes the result of that union as it appeared to her then, and as it promised (and promised truly) for the future: –

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life – to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain – to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?"

It was in September 1856, she being then thirty-seven, and having never attempted a tale of any sort, that, after much urging by Lewes, she made her first essay in fiction. She had always been haunted by a vague dream that some day she might write a novel, but as time wore on without the effort being made, she lost hope of this. She fancied she might succeed in description, but would fail in construction and dialogue. Lewes, too, did not feel sure that her work would show dramatic power, but used to say, "You have wit, description, and philosophy, – these go a good way towards the production of a novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment." Her idea was to write a series of stories drawn from her own observation of the clergy. Why one who had ceased to believe that the clergy represented an authentic religion should have chosen that of all subjects, does not appear; but it became abundantly evident in the course of her writings that not a vestige of prejudice existed to pre-