I believe, if I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this. Its daring conception--ideal in the highest sense of the word--is based on the purest truth, and wrought out with the concentrated knowledge of a life; its color is absolutely perfect, not one false or morbid hue in any part or line, and so modulated that every square inch of canvas is a perfect composition; its drawing as accurate as fearless; the ship buoyant, bending, and full of motion; its tones as true as they are wonderful; and the whole picture dedicated to the most sublime of subjects and impressions--(completing thus the perfect system of all truth, which we have shown to be formed by Turner's works)--the power, majesty, and deathfulness of the open, deep, illimitable sea. GEORGE ELIOT Born in 1819, died in 1880; assistant editor of the _Westminster Review_ in 1851; lived with George Henry Lewes from 1854 until his death in 1878; married John W. Cross in 1880; translated Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1846, published "Scenes of Clerical Life" in 1858, "Adam Bede" in 1859, "Romola" in 1862, "Middlemarch" in 1871, "Daniel Deronda" in 1876. AT THE HALL FARM[43] Evidently that gate is never opened; for the long grass and the great hemlocks grow close against it; and if it were opened, it is so rusty that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to pull down the square stone-built pillars, to the detriment of the two stone lionesses which grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability above a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the brick wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, and all but the very corners of the grassy inclosure. [Footnote 43: From "Adam Bede."] It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the door, I think, is like the gate--it is never opened: how it would groan and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy, handsome door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey who had just seen his master and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.