NOTES:
1 (return)
[ In a subsequent stage of
boyhood, when these exercises had ceased to be compulsory, like most
youthful writers I wrote tragedies; under the inspiration not so much of
Shakspeare as of Joanna Baillie, whose Constantine Paleologus in
particular appeared to me one of the most glorious of human compositions.
I still think it one of the best dramas of the last two centuries.]
2 (return)
[ The continuation of this
article in the second number of the Review was written by me under
my father's eye, and (except as practice in composition, in which respect
it was, to me, more useful than anything else I ever wrote) was of little
or no value.]
3 (return)
[ Written about 1861.]
4 (return)
[ The steps in my mental
growth for which I was indebted to her were far from being those which a
person wholly uninformed on the subject would probably suspect. It might
be supposed, for instance, that my strong convictions on the complete
equality in all legal, political, social, and domestic relations, which
ought to exist between men and women, may have been adopted or learnt from
her. This was so far from being the fact, that those convictions were
among the earliest results of the application of my mind to political
subjects, and the strength with which I held them was, as I believe, more
than anything else, the originating cause of the interest she felt in me.
What is true is that, until I knew her, the opinion was in my mind little
more than an abstract principle. I saw no more reason why women should be
held in legal subjection to other people, than why men should. I was
certain that their interests required fully as much protection as those of
men, and were quite as little likely to obtain it without an equal voice
in making the laws by which they were bound. But that perception of the
vast practical bearings of women's disabilities which found expression in
the book on the Subjection of Women was acquired mainly through her
teaching. But for her rare knowledge of human nature and comprehension of
moral and social influences, though I should doubtless have held my
present opinions, I should have had a very insufficient perception of the
mode in which the consequences of the inferior position of women
intertwine themselves with all the evils of existing society and with all
the difficulties of human improvement. I am indeed painfully conscious of
how much of her best thoughts on the subject I have failed to reproduce,
and how greatly that little treatise falls short of what it would have
been if she had put on paper her entire mind on this question, or had
lived to revise and improve, as she certainly would have done, my
imperfect statement of the case.]
5 (return)
[ The only person from whom I
received any direct assistence in the preparation of the System of
Logic was Mr. Bain, since so justly celebrated for his philosophical
writings. He went carefully through the manuscript before it was sent to
the press, and enriched it with a great number of additional examples and
illustrations from science; many of which, as well as some detached
remarks of his own in confirmation of my logical views, I inserted nearly
in his own words.]
6 (return)
[ A few dedicatory lines
acknowledging what the book owed to her, were prefixed to some of the
presentation copies of the Political Economy on iets first
publication. Her dislike of publicity alone prevented their insertion in
the other copies of the work. During the years which intervened between
the commencement of my married life and the catastrophe which closed it,
the principal occurrences of my outward existence (unless I count as such
a first attack of the family disease, and a consequent journey of more
than six months for the recovery of health, in Italy, Sicily, and Greece)
had reference to my position in the India House. In 1856 I was promoted to
the rank of chief of the office in which I had served for upwards of
thirty-three years. The appointment, that of Examiner of India
Correspondence, was the highest, +next to that of Secretary, in the East
India Company's home service, involving the general superintendence of all
the correspondence with the Indian Governments, except the military,
naval, and financial. I held this office as long as it continued to exist,
being a little more than two years; after which it pleased Parliament, in
other words Lord Palmerston, to put an end to the East india Company as a
branch of the government of India under the Crown, and convert the
administration of that country into a thing to be scrambled for by the
second and third class of English parliamentary politicians. I was the
chief manager of the resistance which the Company made to their own
political extinction, and to the letters and petitions I wrote for them,
and the concluding chapter of my treatise on Representative Government, I
must refer for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this
ill-considered change. Personally I considered myself a gainer by it, as I
had given enough of my life to india, and was not unwilling to retire on
the liberal compensation granted. After the change was consummated, Lord
Stanley, the first Secretary of State for India, made me the honourable
offer of a seat in the Council, and the proposal was subsequently renewed
by the Council itself, on the first occasion of its having to supply a
vacancy in its own body. But the conditions of Indian government under the
new system made me anticipate nothing but useless vexation and waste of
effort from any participation in it: and nothing that has since happened
has had any tendency to make me regret my refusal.]
7 (return)
[ In 1869.]
8 (return)
[ The saying of this true
hero, after his capture, that he was worth more for hanging than any other
purpose, reminds one, by its combination of wit, wisdom, and
self-devotion, of Sir Thomas More.]
9 (return)
[ The first was in answer to
Mr. Lowe's reply to Mr. Bright on the Cattle Plague Bill, and was thought
at the time to have helped to get rid of a provision in the Government
measure which would have given to landholders a second indemnity, after
they had already been once indemnified for the loss of some of their
cattle by the increased selling price of the remainder.]
10 (return)
[ Among the most active
members of the Committee were Mr. P.A. Taylor, M.P., always faithful and
energetic in every assertion of the principles of liberty; Mr. Goldwin
Smith, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. Slack, Mr. Chamerovzow, Mr. Shaen, and
Mr. Chesson, the Honorary Secretary of the Association.]