“Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul. The deeply-lined face, the too marked and massive features, were united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way was the more impressive because it seemed to proceed so entirely from within. Nay, the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the external harshness; there would be moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave appeal,--all these seemed the transparent symbols that showed the presence of a wise benignant soul. But it was the voice which best revealed her, a voice whose subdued intensity and tremulous richness seemed to environ her uttered words with the mystery of a work of feeling that must remain untold.... And then again, when in moments of more intimate converse some current of emotion would set strongly through her soul, when she would raise her head in unconscious absorption and look out into the unseen, her expression was not one to be soon forgotten. It had not, indeed, the serene felicity of souls to whose child-like confidence all heaven and earth are fair. Rather it was the look (if I may use a platonic phrase) of a strenuous Demiurge, of a soul on which high tasks are laid, and which finds in their accomplishment its only imagination of joy.” [Sidenote: William Morgan’s _George Eliot_. *] “I was disappointed when I found the illustrated papers gave no portraits of George Eliot, and I afterwards learned that, celebrated as she is in other ways, she enjoys the rare, and perhaps unique, distinction that she was never photographed. Two portraits of her are, however, in existence. One, by Mr. Lawrence, hangs in Mr. Blackwood’s drawing-room in Edinburgh; the other, by Mr. Buxton, was in her own house at Chelsea. She is described as a woman of large, massive, and homely features, which were softened and irradiated by a gracious and winning smile. The size, shape, and poise of her head were very noticeable, and some of her friends have been struck by her resemblance to the portrait of Savonarola by Fra Bartolommea. Her voice was rich and melodious, and those who best knew her speak of her as a strangely fascinating and sympathetic woman, who left on every one who approached her an impression of goodness and greatness. Her conversation had no traces of the rich humour which runs through some of her writings, but she joined very heartily in the jocularity of others.” HENRY FIELDING 1707-1754 [Sidenote: Roscoe’s _Life of Fielding_. *]