carried the
narrative down to 1869. With regard to my single meeting with George
Eliot, I have to begin in 1865, and conclude even later. Before I left
England Mr. Williams, of Smith, Elder, & Co., offered me an
introduction to George Henry Lewes, and I expressed the hope that it
might also include an introduction to George Eliot, whose works I so
admired. Mr. Lewes being away from home when I called, I requested that
the introductory letter of Mr. Williams should be taken to George Eliot
herself. She received me in the big Priory drawing room, with the grand
piano, where she held her receptions and musical evenings; but she
asked me if I had any business relating to the article which Mr.
Williams had mentioned, and I had to confess that I had none. For once
I felt myself at fault. I did not get on with George Eliot. She said
she was not well, and she did not look well. That strong pale face,
where the features were those of Dante or Savanarola, did not soften as
Mill's had done. The voice, which was singularly musical and
impressive, touched me--I am more susceptible to voices than to
features or complexion--but no subject that I started seemed to fall in
with her ideas, and she started none in which I could follow her lead
pleasantly. It was a short interview, and it was a failure. I felt I
had been looked on as an inquisitive Australian desiring an interview
upon any pretext; and indeed, next day I had a letter from Mr.
Williams, in which he told me that, but for the idea that I had some
business arrangement to speak of, she would not have seen me at all. So
I wrote to Mr. Williams that, as I had been received by mistake, I
should never mention the interview; but that impertinent curiosity was
not at all my motive in going that unlucky day to The Priory.

Years passed by. I read everything, poetry and prose, that came from
George Eliot's pen, and was so strong an admirer of her that Mr. W. L.
Whitham, who took charge of the Unitarian Church while our pastor (Mr.
Woods) had a long furlough in England, asked me to lecture on her works
to his Mutual Improvement Society, and I undertook the task with joy.
Mr. H. G. Turner asked for the MS. to publish in the second number of
The Melbourne Review, a very promising quarterly for politics and
literature. I thought that, if I sent the review to George Eliot with a
note it might clear me from the suspicion of being a mere vulgar
lionhunter. Her answer was as follows:--"The Pri