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296 board with the ensuing expiation. The same discordant note appears in Gwendolen's impatience under the burden of gratitude. One of Charles Reade's characters exclaims, "Vulgar people are ashamed to be grateful, but you are a born lady," and an Academician, expounding the same text, has written, "Avant d'obliger un homme, assurez-vous bien d'abord que cet homme n'est pas un imbécile." The point is almost too subtle for argument, but it is one of the few marks of limitation in George Eliot's field of vision.

Between Felix Holt and Middlemarch her range expanded and she judged less austerely. Reverence for her genius, for the rare elevation of her teaching, bore down the inevitable reluctance to adjust the rule to an exception. Among the first of her new friends were the ladies of Mr. Cross's family, and they were welcomed with fervent gratitude. When George Eliot came to live near Regent's Park her house was crowded with the most remarkable society in London. Poets and philosophers united to honour her who had been great both in poetry and philosophy, and the aristocracy of letters gathered round the gentle lady who, without being memorable by what she said, was justly esteemed the most illustrious figure that has arisen in literature since Goethe died. There might be seen a famous scholar sitting for Casaubon, and two younger men — one with good features, solid white hands, and a cambric pocket - handkerchief, the second with wavy bright hair and a habit of shaking his head backwards, who evoked other memories of the same Midland microcosm