John Stuart Mill | Page 6

greatly assisted in all that he had written for some
time previous. But the assistance was to end now. Mrs. Mill died at
Avignon on the 3d of November, 1858, and over her grave was placed
one of the most pathetic and eloquent epitaphs that have been ever
penned. "Her great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful,
original, and comprehensive intellect," it was there written, "made her
the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and the example in
goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight, of those who had the
happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was
generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in
those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like hers,
this earth would already become the hoped-for heaven." Henceforth,
during the fourteen years and a half that were to elapse before he
should be laid in the same grave, Avignon was the chosen haunt of Mr.
Mill.
Passing much of his time in the modest house that he had bought, that
he might be within sight of his wife's tomb, Mr. Mill was also
frequently in London, whither he came especially to facilitate the new
course of philosophical and political writing on which he entered. He
found relief also in excursions, one of which was taken nearly every
year, in company with his step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, into
various parts of Europe. Italy, Switzerland, and many other districts,
were explored, partly on foot, with a keen eye both to the natural
features of the localities, especially in furtherance of those botanical
studies to which Mr. Mill now returned with the ardor of his youth, and
also to their social and political institutions. Perhaps the longest and
most eventful of these excursions was taken in 1862 to Greece. On this
occasion it had been proposed that his old friend, Mr. Grote, should
accompany him. "To go through those scenes, and especially to go

through them in your company," wrote Mr. Grote in January, "would
be to me pre-eminently delightful; but, alas! my physical condition
altogether forbids it. I could not possibly stay away from London,
without the greatest discomfort, for so long a period as two months.
Still less could I endure the fatigue of horse and foot exercise which an
excursion in Greece must inevitably entail." The journey occupied
more than two months; but in the autumn Mr. Mill was at Avignon; and,
returning to London in December, he spent Christmas week with Mr.
Grote at his residence, Barrow Green,--Bentham's old house, and the
one in which Mr. Mill had played himself when he was a child. "He is
in good health and spirits," wrote Mr. Grote to Sir G.C. Lewis after that
visit; "violent against the South in this American struggle; embracing
heartily the extreme Abolitionist views, and thinking about little else in
regard to the general question."
It was only to be expected that Mr. Mill would take much interest in the
American civil war, and sympathize strongly with the Abolitionist
party. His interest in politics had been keen, and his judgment on them
had been remarkably sound all through life, as his early articles in "The
Morning Chronicle" and "The London and Westminster Review," and
his later contributions to various periodicals, helped to testify; but
towards the close of his life the interest was perhaps keener, as the
judgment was certainly more mellowed. It was not strange, therefore,
that his admirers among the working classes, and the advanced radicals
of all grades, should have urged him, and that, after some hesitation, he
should have consented, to become a candidate for Westminster at the
general election of 1865. That candidature will be long remembered as
a notable example of the dignified way in which an honest man, and
one who was as much a philosopher in practice as in theory, can do all
that is needful, and avoid all that is unworthy, in an excited
electioneering contest, and submit without injury to the insults of
political opponents and of political time-servers professing to be of his
own way of thinking. The result of the election was a far greater honor
to the electors who chose him than to the representative whom they
chose; though that honor was greatly tarnished by Mr. Mill's rejection
when he offered himself for re-election three years later.
This is hardly the place in which to review at much length Mr. Mill's
parliamentary career, though it may be briefly referred to in evidence of

the great and almost unlooked-for ability with which he adapted
himself to the requirements of a philosophical politician as distinct
from a political