Essays and Reviews of George Eliot Not Hitherto Reprinted; Together with an Introductory Essay on the Genius of George Eliot by Mrs. S. B. Herrick (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ...to see La Rochefoucauld's nervous anxiety about presenting himself before the public as an author; far from rushing into print, he stole into it, and felt his way by asking private opinions. Through Madame de Sable-he sent manuscript copies to various persons of taste and talent, both men and women, and many of the written opinions which she received in reply are still in existence. The women generally find the maxims distasteful, but the men write approvingly. These men, however, are for the most part ecclesiastics, who decry human nature that they may exalt divine grace. The coincidence between Augustinianism, or Calvinism, with its doctrine of human corruption, and the hard cynicism of the maxims, presents itself in quite a piquant form in some of the laudatory opinions on La Rochefoucauld. One writer says: "On ne pourroit faire une instruction plus propre a un catechumene pour convertir a Dieu son esprit et sa volonte.... Quand il n'y auroit que cet escrit au monde et l'Evangile je voudrois etre chretien. L'un m'apprendroit a connoistre mes miseres, et l'autre a implorer mon liberateur." Madame de Maintenon sends word to La Rochefoucauld, after the publication of his work, that the "Book of Job" and the "Maxims" are her only reading. That Madame de Sable herself had a tolerably just idea of La Rochefoucauld's character, as well as of his maxims, may be gathered not only from the fact that her own maxims are as full of the confidence in human goodness which La Rochefoucauld wants, as they are empty of the style which he possesses, but also from a letter in which she replies to the criticisms of Madame de Schomberg. "The author," she says, "derived the maxim on indolence from his own disposition, for...