In her general attitude toward life George Eliot was neither optimist nor pessimist. She held to the middle term, which she invented for herself, of “meliorist.” She was cheered by the hope and by the belief in gradual improvement of the mass; for in her view each individual must find the better part of happiness in helping another. She often thought it wisest not to raise too ambitious an ideal, especially for young people, but to impress on ordinary natures the immense possibilities of making a small home circle brighter and better. Few are born to do the great work of the world, but all are born to this. And to the natures capable of the larger effort the field of usefulness will constantly widen. J. W. CROSS: ‘George Eliot’s Life.’ LIST OF WORKS QUOTED IN VOL. II. ARNOLD.--Mixed Essays, by Matthew Arnold. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1883. (Quoted on George Sand.) _Atlantic Monthly._--Anonymous Article on Mrs. Browning, September, 1881. English Authors in Florence, by Kate Field, December, 1864. (Quoted on George Eliot.) _Blackwood’s Magazine._--Article on George Eliot, February, 1881. BLIND.--George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind (Famous Women Series). Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883. BRAY.--Phases of Opinion and Experience during a Long Life, by Charles Bray. London: Longmans & Co., 1885. (Quoted on George Eliot.) BRONTË.--Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, with biographical preface by Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1850. (Quoted on Emily Brontë.) BROWNING.--Letters to R. H. Horne, by E. B. Browning; with prefatory memoir by R. H. Stoddard. New York: James Miller, 1877. (Quoted also for H. Martineau and George Sand.) ----.--Last Poems, with memorial preface, by Theodore Tilton. New York: James Miller, 1862. _Century Magazine._--George Eliot, by F. W. H. Myers, November, 1881; George Eliot’s County, by Rose G. Kingsley, July, 1885; Zweibak, or Notes of a Professional Exile, February, 1886. (Quoted on Geo. Eliot and H. Martineau.) CHORLEY.--Autobiography, Memoir and Letters, by Henry F. Chorley. London: Bentley, 1873. (Quoted on E. B. Browning.) _Congregationalist._--A Visit to George Eliot, by Mrs. Annie Downs, May 28th, 1879. COLERIDGE.--Memoir and Letters, by Sara Coleridge, edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874. (Quoted on E. B. Browning.) Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883. (Quoted on Harriet Martineau and Margaret Fuller.) The same.--Supplementary Letters. Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1886. CROSS.--George Eliot’s Life, by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885. (Quoted also for H. Martineau, Charlotte Brontë and E. B. Browning.) EMERSON, R. W., CHANNING, W. H., and CLARKE, J. F.--Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874. (Quoted also for George Sand.) FIELD.--Home Sketches in France, etc., by Mrs. H. M. Field. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1875. (Quoted on George Eliot.)