"Littré, 'Vie d'Auguste Comte.'
St. Hilaire, 'Vie et travaux de Geoffroy St. Hilaire.'
Gassendi, 'Vita Tychonis Brahei, Copernici.'
Bertrand, 'Fondateurs de l'Astronomie Moderne.'
Morley, 'Life of Palissy' (passionate devotion to research).
Morley, 'Life of Cardan.'
Berti, 'Vita di Giordano Bruno.'
Bartholmess, 'Vie de Jordano Bruno.'
Muir's 'Life of Mahomet.'
Stanley's 'Life of Arnold.'
Mazzuchelli, 'Vita di Archimede.'
Blot's 'Life of Newton.'
Drinkwater's 'Kepler and Galileo.'
"All these are first-rate, especially the two last, published by the Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, together with some others, under the title of 'Lives of Eminent Persons.'
"The 'Biographie Universelle' will give you, no doubt, references as to the best works under each head.
"We did not go abroad this year, but buried ourselves in absolute solitude in Surrey—near Haslemere, if you know the lovely region; and there I worked like a man going in for the Senior Wranglership, and Mrs. Lewes, who was ailing most of the time, went on with her new work. This work, by the way, is a panorama of provincial life, to be published in eight parts, on alternative months, making four very thick vols. when complete. It is a new experiment in publishing. While she was at her art, I was at the higher mathematics, seduced into those regions by some considerations affecting my personal work. The solitude and the work together were perfectly blissful. Except Tennyson, who came twice to read his poems to us, we saw no one.
"No sooner did we return home than Mrs. Lewes, who had been incubating an attack, hatched it—and for five weeks she was laid up, getting horribly thin and weak. But now she is herself again (thinner self) and at work.
"She begs me to remember her most kindly to you and to Mrs. Hamerton.
"Ever yours truly,
"G. H. LEWES."
Almost in every letter that my husband received from Mr. Lewes, he had this confirmation of what George Eliot had told him about the heavy penalty in health attending or following her labors.
Mr. Lewes had not mentioned his lives of Goethe and Aristotle, but they were ordered with the other books he had recommended, and I began to read them aloud to my husband whilst he was etching the plates for an illustrated edition of the "Painter's Camp," that he had always hoped to see accepted by Mr. Macmillan.