She made her younger admirers feel the deeper influence of her great personality by inspiring them with the largest moral purposes. To awaken and to arouse the moral nature seems always to have been her purpose, and to lead it to the highest attainable results. Earnest young minds never "failed to feel in her presence that they were for the time, at all events, raised into a higher moral level, and none ever left her without feeling inspired with a stronger sense of duty, and positively under the obligation of striving to live up to a higher standard of life." Hence her personal influence was considerable, though she led the close life of a student, and did not go into general society at all. This high moral earnestness made her a prophet to her friends, as in her books it made her a great moral teacher to the world at large. Those who had the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Lewes have pronounced the woman greater than her books. She was not only a great writer but a great woman. Human nature in its largest capacities was represented in her, for she rose above the limitations of sex; and she is thought of less as a great woman than as a large human personality. Hers was a massive nature, emphatic, individual, many-sided. Genius of a very high order, though not the highest, was hers, while she was possessed of a broad culture and great learning. Seldom does genius carry with it talents so varied and well-trained or a culture so full and thorough. And her culture was of that kind which entered into every fibre of her nature and became a part of her own personality. It was thoroughly digested and absorbed into good healthy red blood, and became a quickened, sustained motive to the largest efforts. How vital this love of culture was, may be seen when we are told that "she possessed in an eminent degree that power which has led to success in so many directions, of keeping her mind unceasingly at the stretch without conscious fatigue. She would cease to ponder or to read when other duties called her, but never because she herself felt tired. Even in so complex an effort as a visit to a picture gallery implies, she could continue for hours at the same pitch of earnest interest, and outweary strong men. Nor was this a mere habit of passive reception. In the intervals between her successive compositions her mind was always fusing and combining its fresh stores."