Savonarola forgot the better spirit of his own teachings, he sought to become a political leader. It was his ruin, for his purpose was vitiated, and his influence waned. George Eliot well says that "no man ever struggled to retain power over a mixed multitude without suffering vitiation; his standard must be their lower needs, and not his own best insight." This was the sad fate of the great Florentine preacher and reformer. He lost his faith, and he spoke without the moment's conviction. When this result came about, all hope for Savonarola as a reformer was gone. He was then only the leader of a party. George Eliot has well painted the effect upon Romola of this fall, and given deep insight into the results of losing our trust in those great souls who have been our guides. All the ties of life had snapped for Romola; her marriage had proved a failure, her friend had become unworthy of her confidence; and she fled. Romola went away, found herself in the midst of a plague-stricken people, gave her life to an assuagement of suffering and sorrow. Then she could come back to her home purified, calm and noble. In the "Epilogue," we find her speaking the word which gives meaning to the whole book. Tessa's child, whom she had rescued, says to her that he would like to lead a life which would give him a good deal of pleasure. Romola says to him,-- "That is not easy, my Lille. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world that no man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he gives up thinking much about pleasures or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo--you know why I keep to-morrow sacred; _he_ had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds they are capable of, And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the