The Position of Woman in Barbarism and among the Ancients, within Westminster Review, vol. 64, issue 126

Title

The Position of Woman in Barbarism and among the Ancients, within Westminster Review, vol. 64, issue 126

Text Read

The Position of Woman in Barbarism and among the Ancients, within Westminster Review, vol. 64, issue 126

Author

Chapman, John

Original Source

London: Open Court Publishing Co., 1855. Westminster Review, vol. 64, issue 126, 1855-10-01. pp. 378-436

Digitized by

Internet Archive

Publication Date

1855

Date(s) of Reading

  • 1855-06-25

Evidence

George Eliot to John Chapman, 25 June 1855. “I have just finished an attentive reading of your article, and I write down the remarks that occur to me while they are fresh in my mind. You seem to have a decided faculty for digesting facts as evidence. I was particularly struck with this in your account of the Martineau and Hodgson affair. In that part of your article which consists of digested narrative your style is on the whole clear, easy, and forcible; but whenever you pass from narrative to dissertation, certain old faults reappear -- inexactness of expression, triads and duads of verbs and adjectives, mixed metaphors and a sort of watery volume that requires to be reduced by evaporation. Passages with these characteristics chiefly occur in the manuscript sheets and I have marked most of them with a pencil line by the side; but by and bye I will specify one or two.” GEL 2: 205-6

Citation

Chapman, John, The Position of Woman in Barbarism and among the Ancients, within Westminster Review, vol. 64, issue 126, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57714