produce no difficulty at all as he read it, though
he in nowise mitigated it in the least. It seemed the absolutely
natural and necessary presentation of the thoughts and emotions to be
rendered. It was, in fact, a dramatic rendering of them of the highest
order.

I remember with equal vividness hearing Lowell read some of his
_Biglow Papers_ in the drawing-room of my valued friend Arthur Dexter,
of Boston, when there were no others present save him and his mother
and my wife and myself. And that also was a great treat; that also was
the addition of colour to the black and white of the printed page. But
the difference between reading and hearing was not so great as in the
case of the Laureate.

When, full of the delight that had been afforded us, we were taking
our leave of him, our host laid on us his strict injunctions to say
no word to any one of what we had heard, adding with a smile that was
half _naif_, half funning, and wholly comic, "The newspaper fellows,
you know, would get hold of the story, and they would not do it as
well!"

And then our visit to the Lewes's in their lovely home drew to an end,
and we said our farewells, little thinking as we four stood in that
porch, that we should never in this world look on their faces more.

The history of George Eliot's intellect is to a great extent legible
in her books. But there are thousands of her readers in both
hemispheres who would like to possess a more concrete image of her
in their minds--an image which should give back the personal
peculiarities of face, voice, and manner, that made up her outward
form and semblance. I cannot pretend to the power of creating such an
image; but I may record a few traits which will be set down at all
events as truthfully as I can give them.

She was not, as the world in general is aware, a handsome, or even a
personable woman. Her face was long; the eyes not large nor beautiful
in colour--they were, I think, of a greyish blue--the hair, which she
wore in old-fashioned braids coming low down on either side of her
face, of a rather light brown. It was streaked with grey when last I
saw her. Her figure was of middle height, large-boned and powerful.
Lewes often said that she inherited from her peasant ancestors a frame
and constitution originally very robust. Her head was finely formed,
with a noble and well-balanced arch from brow to crown. The lips and
mouth possessed a power of infinitely varied expression. George Lewes