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GEORGE ELIOT.
111

I not have given if the volumes could have come a few days before his death; for his mind was perfectly clear, and he would have felt some joy in that sign of his work being effective. I do not know whether you enter into the comfort I feel that he never knew he was dying, and fell gently asleep after ten days of illness, in which the suffering was comparatively mild.

"One of the last things he did at his desk was to despatch a manuscript of mine to the publishers. The book (not a story and not bulky) is to appear near the end of May, and as it contains some words I wanted to say about the Jews, I will order a copy to be sent to you.

"I hope that your labors have gone on uninterruptedly for the benefit of others, in spite of public troubles. The aspect of affairs with us is grievous—industry languishing and the best part of our nation indignant at our having been betrayed into an unjustifiable war (in South Africa).

"I have been occupied in editing my husband's MSS., so far as they are left in sufficient completeness to be prepared for publication without the obtrusion of another mind instead of his. A brief volume on 'The Study of Psychology' will appear immediately, and a further volume of psychological studies will follow in the autumn. But his work was cut short while he still thought of it as the happy occupation of far-reaching months. Once more let me thank you for remembering me in my sorrow, and believe me,

"Yours with high regard,
"M. E. Lewes."

In 1880, George Eliot again married, becoming the wife of Mr. John Walter Cross, long the friend of herself and her husband. Her second union gave every promise of happiness, and a wedding tour in Italy appeared to restore her health, which had been drooping since the