GEORGE ELIOT.
(Mrs. Lewes.)
IT is with a feeling of considerable deprecating delicacy that I venture to write of this woman, whom I so much admire. She has been heretofore so persistently reserved and reticent as to her past life that I cannot avoid feeling as if this sketch were almost an unwarranted infringement upon the personal privacy she so evidently courts. But this series of sketches would not be anything like what I wish it to be with this eminent name omitted; and although my materials for the sketch are necessarily scant and incomplete, yet I feel assured that the little I have been able to glean in regard to her antecedents will be of in-
