102 



JOHN STUART MILL. 



grossest ignorance of human na- 

 ture, or the fiercest defiance of its 

 common sense and moral sentiments. 

 It is interesting tq^notice what he 

 says about this earth becoming the 

 " hoped-for heaven ;" for even athe- 

 ists do not like the idea of burying 

 a friend as one would put a favourite 

 animal near an apple-tree. 



'' I bought^a cottage as close as possi- 

 ble to the place where she is buried, 

 and there her daughter (my fellow-suf- 

 ferer and now my chief comfort) and I 

 live constantly during a great portion of 

 the year " (p. 25 1). " And though the in- 

 spirer of my best thoughts was no longer 

 with me, I was not alone : she had left 

 a daughter, my step-daughter, whose 

 ever-growing and ripening talents from 

 that day to this have been devoted to 

 the same great purposes. Surely no one 

 eTer before was so fortunate as, after 

 such a loss as mine, to draw another 

 prize in the lottery of life. Whoever, 

 either now or hereafter, may think of 

 me and of the work I have done, must 

 never forget that it is the product, not of 

 one intellect and conscience, but of 

 three " (p. 263). 



So much does egotism appear to 

 have predominated in Mill's nature, 

 that he would blow the trumpet of 

 himself and kith and kin surrounded 

 by all the solemnity of death itself. 

 There is something remarkable con- 

 nected with this firm of Mill, Son & 

 Co., which unfortunately was estab- 

 lished by the Forfarshire ladies edu- 

 cating the founder of it for an utter- 

 ly different purpose or calling than 

 the one he followed. The principles 

 of the house seem to have been well 

 maintained by its subsequent mem- 

 bers and ramifications ; even by 

 Mrs. Taylor's daughter, of whom 

 nothing is said in regard to the feel- 

 ings she should have had for her 

 father when deserted by her mother ; 

 feelings that are always entertained 

 and manifested by a girl under the 

 circumstances. But very probably 

 she was taken away when a mere 

 child, and had her mind poisoned, 

 and her sympathies perverted and 

 drawn into the Mill connection. 



The house thus established seems to 

 have chosen a horse's skeleton paint- 

 ed black for its sign or coat-of-arms. 

 We will now consider a few more 

 of the exalted gifts of this remark- 

 able woman, and the wonderful as- 

 sistance she was to Mill in his liter- 

 ary career, as described in the Auto- 

 biography. 



" Up to the time when I first saw her, 

 her rich and powerful nature had chiefly 

 unfolded itself according to the received 

 type of feminine genius. To her outer 

 circle she was a beauty and a wit, with 

 an air of natural distinction, felt by all 

 who approached her : to the inner, a 

 woman of deep and strong feeling, of 

 penetrating and intuitive intelligence, 

 and of an eminently meditative and 

 poetic nature" (p. 185). "Alike in the 

 highest regions of speculation and in 

 the smaller practical concerns of daily 

 life, her mind was the same perfect in- 

 strument, piercing to the very heart and 

 marrow of the matter ; always seizing 

 the essential idea or principle " (p. 186), 

 with qualities that would have fitted her 

 to be a "consummate artist," a "great 

 orator," and " eminent among the rulers 

 of mankind " (p. 187). " In both these 

 departments [ultimate aims and the im- 

 mediately useful and practicable] I have 

 acquired more from her teaching than 

 from all other sources taken together. 

 . . . . It is not the least of my in- 

 tellectual obligations to her that I have 

 derived from her a wise scepticism 

 which .... has put me on my 

 guard against holding or announcing 

 these conclusions [on all the subjects on 

 which he seems to have written], with a 

 degree of confidence which the nature 

 of such speculations does not warrant. 

 . . . . I have often received praise, 

 which in my own right I only partially 

 deserved, for the greater practicality 

 which is supposed to be found in my 

 writings, compared with those of most 

 thinkers who have been equally addicted 

 to large generalizations " (p. 189). [The 

 praise really was due to his wife, or 

 rather, for the most of the time, to an- 

 other man's wife.] 



He had the assistance, at least the 

 friendship, of this lady for six years 

 before he lost his father, of whom 

 he thus writes : 



" Though acutely sensible of my own 



