Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/333

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GEORGE ELIOT.
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forms, or creeds; which ignores priesthoods and dogmas, and cares only for the moral and physical welfare of her fellow-men. Both herself and Mr. Lewes are said to be followers of Auguste Comte, but they are of those who can never become "followers” of any one man or creed, though it is doubtless true that in the philosophy of Comte they find the nearest assimilation to their own philosophical conclusions.

George Eliot’s literary success has been remarkably rapid. Wonderfully so, when we consider the multitude of new novelists who demand attention, and the long list of romance writers whose names we forget from year to year. To make so decided an impression on the public mind in such an era of fiction-writing speaks volumes for her fitness for her chosen work. Yet hers has not been an easily won, easily earned fame. For years before her success, she had served a long, faithful, and apparently ill-paid apprenticeship to her vocation as writer for the press; but at last came her reward