 | |  |
Notes
Information in a letter from Mr. S. H. Barlow, F.L.A., former Librarian at Nuneaton Library. I would like to thank Mr. Barlow for his help, and also the Library Committee for their permission to use this material. Professor Joseph Wiesenfarth of the University of Wisconsin suggests that there is a possibility that the notebook was one of the items sold in a sale at Sotheby's on June 27, 1923. I would like to thank Prof. Wiesenfarth for this information, and also for his help and advice on other points of my argument. (Information in a letter to the present writer, 10 August, 1979).
Fol. 1. Not all the leaves are numbered, so some numbers given are inferential. Quotations are transcribed in quasi-facsimile.
Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot (1968), p. 469. The opening scene of Daniel Deronda is set in a casino, and the gambling metaphor is used at crucial points in the novel to define the heroine's character. On her wedding day, Gwendolen is described as "standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to win much—or if to lose, still with éclat and a sense of importance" (Chapter 31).
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874) edited by Jack Stillinger (1971), p. 127. Prof. Wiesenfarth has pointed out to me in a letter of August 10, 1979, that two other notebooks also refer to the Politique Positive. These are: 1) The Beinecke Library "Commonplace Notebook." Prof. Wiesenfarth relates these extracts to Felix Holt, and dates them in the sixties, and 2) Pforzheimer Library MS. No. 707, which is one of George Eliot's notebooks for Daniel Deronda. I base my later dating of the notebook under consideration upon the letter from The Times. The existence of the other two notebooks strengthens the case for considering her interest in Comte to be consistent over a long period.
| | |