LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF THE GREAT
BY Elbert Hubbard
GEORGE ELIOT
May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-- Be the good presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world. Warwickshire gave to the world William Shakespeare. It also gave Mary Ann Evans. No one will question that Shakespeare's is the greatest name in English literature; and among writers living or dead, in England or out of it, no woman has ever shown us power equal to that of George Eliot, in the subtle clairvoyance which divines the inmost play of passions, the experience that shows human capacity for contradiction, and the indulgence that is merciful because it understands.