Note 250 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
The Subjection of Women, pp. 98, 99, London, 1909.
The idea herein expressed is beautifully accentuated in the touching dedication to the author's work On Liberty, which reads as follows:
"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings—the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward—I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision, some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom."
The chivalrous sentiments expressed in this generous tribute by one of the deepest thinkers of his time, to the memory of his noble and gifted life-companion, extravagant as they may seem, are but echoes of similar sentiments often voiced before by the world's greatest leaders of thought and science.