as heard to
utter what they were quite sure had been well matured before the lips
opened. Few, if any, could feel themselves her superior in general
intelligence; and it was amusing one day to see the amazement of a certain
doctor, who, venturing on a quotation from Epictetus to an unassuming young
lady, was, with modest politeness, corrected in his Greek by his feminine
auditor. One rare characteristic belonged to her which gave a peculiar
charm to her conversation. She had no petty egotism, no spirit of
contradiction; she never talked for effect. A happy thought well expressed
filled her with delight; in a moment she would seize the thought and
improve upon it--so that common people began to feel themselves wise in her
presence; and perhaps years after she would remind them, to their pride and
surprise, of the good things they had said."

She was an ardent reader of Emerson and other thinkers of his cast of
thought, and some traces of this early sympathy are to be seen in her
books. On his second visit to England Emerson spent a day or two at the
house of Charles Bray, with whose writings he had previously become
acquainted. Emerson was much impressed with the personality of Marian
Evans, and more than once said to Bray, "That young lady has a calm,
serious soul." When Emerson asked her somewhat suddenly, "What one book do
you like best?" she at once replied, "Rousseau's _Confessions_." She
cherished this acquaintance with Emerson, and held him in grateful
remembrance through life.

The painful experiences of this period are undoubtedly reflected in another
of her autobiographic poems, that entitled "Self and Life." She speaks of
the profound influence the past had over her mind, and that her hands and
feet were still tiny when she began to know the historic thrill of contact
with other ages. She also makes Life say to Self, in regard to her pain and
sorrow:

But all thy anguish and thy discontent
Was growth of mine, the elemental strife
Towards feeling manifold with vision blent
To wider thought: I was no vulgar life
That like the water-mirrored ape,
Not discerns the thing it sees,
Nor knows its own in others' shape,
Railing, scorning, at its ease.
Half man's truth must hidden lie
If unlit by sorrow's eye.
I by sorrow wrought in thee
Willing pain of ministry.

The intellectual surroundings of Marian Evans at this time gave shape to
her whole after-life. There were now laid the