“In fact, the one is a theory of life, the other a disease of the soul.”

Distinguishing a lived philosophy from a state of spiritual collapse · Biography, George Eliot (1883)

• Despair
• Truth

“It must be confessed that though, as a rule, we know very little of heaven, our experience of hell is pretty considerable.”

A darkly witty reflection on how familiar suffering is to human experience · Lecture, Shelley's View of Nature Contrasted with Darwin's (1886)

• Despair
• Mortality

“Her personality is a singular mixture of untutored instincts joined to an ultra-modern subtlety of brain and nerves.”

Capturing the collision of instinct with a highly modern intelligence · Introduction to The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff (1890)

• Art
• Truth