Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/83

And somewhat later there is a fine passage descriptive of fireworks seen on the Lake of Geneva, with 'the pale moon looking at it all with a sort of grave surprise.' We may notice the strain of ethical reflection so characteristic of the novels in the recognition of the purgative effect of war, in the. maxim, 'Live and teach,' proposed as a substitute for the proverbial 'Live and learn,' in her estimate of trouble as being a deepened gaze into life. Among the chief intellectual influences before her father's death in 1849, which formed the first great crisis in her life, we can trace George Sand, Carlyle, Rousseau, and Spinoza, and, above all, the converse with the Hennells and the work at Strauss which resulted from this. But perhaps the chief impression of power is left by a few brief but weighty remarks on the men she came in contact with, even before she left the provincial circles. George Dawson she estimates at once as 'not a great man,' whereas Emerson is appreciated as the first man she had known. The same with men known through their writings. Disraeli has 'good veins, as Bacon would say, but there is not enough blood in them.' Hannah More was that most disagreeable of all monsters, a blue-stocking. Somewhat later, when on the Westminster staff, she rated J. S. Mill at something more nearly his true value