John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor : Their Correspondence
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UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/johnstuartmillhaOOmill JOHN STUART MILL AND HARRIET TAYLOR ERRATA On the title page instead of Their Correspondence read Their Friendship On p. 25, line 14, instead of given as a frontispiece to read reproduced opposite page 128 of On p. 35, line 8, instead of form read from On p. 60, line 16, instead of morally read morality On p. 140, line 6, instead of his read this On p. 218, line 26, instead of Avignon, read Avignon- On p. 236, line 11, instead of of Antinous read or Antinous On p. 240, line 19, instead of Molo read Molos On p. 246, line 11, instead of clothers read clothes On p. 249, line 23, instead of Galiagni s read Galignani's On p. 264, lines 13 and 14, instead of malherreux read malheureux On p. 266, line 21, instead of on opposite page read on the opposite page On p. 284, line i, insert is before given On p. 294, line 4, instead of on typed envelope read on a typed enve- lope On p. 294, line 14, instead of at least, read at least as a note. On p. 301, line 31, instead of Chateuroux read Chateauroux On p. 311, line 6, instead of {1791-1892) read {1791-1862) JOHN STUART MILL AND HARRIET TAYLOR JOHN STUART MILL AND HARRIET TAYLOR Their Correspondence and Subsequent Marriage BY F. A. HAYEK THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO ILLINOIS [40. M^ s1 a. ^ The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 37 Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London E.C.4., England British Book Services (Canada) Ltd., Toronto, Canada Copyright in the International Copyright Union All rights reserved. Published 195 1. Printed in Great Britain Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page O, ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS USED I I INTRODUCTION 13 I. HARRIET TAYLOR AND HER CIRCLE (1830) 23 II. ACQUAINTANCE AND EARLY CRISES (1830-1833) 36 III. ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE {about I 832) $J iv. friends and gossip (1834-1842) 79 v. the years of friendship (1834.-1847) 91 vi. a joint production (1847-1849) 117 vii. john taylor's illness and death (1849) 152 viii. marriage and break with mill's family (1851) 165 IX. ILLNESS (1851-1854) l82 X. ITALY AND SICILY (1854-1855) 212 XI. GREECE (1855) 232 XII. LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF MRS. MILL (1856-1858) 25I APPENDICES I. POEMS BY HARRIET TAYLOR 27I II. AN EARLY ESSAY BY HARRIET TAYLOR 275 III. FAMILY TREES 280 NOTES 283 INDEX 315 3 Illustrations A LETTER BY JOHN STUART MILL TO HARRIET TAYLOR, c. 1834 between pages 92- Facsimile of original in Tale University Library Harriet taylor, c. I 834 facing page 128 Oil portrait in possession of the Author HARRIET TAYLOR, C. I 844 I 29 Two Miniatures in the British Library of Political and Economic Science JOHN TAYLOR I44 Miniature in the British Library of Political and Economic Science JOHN STUART MILL, I 840 145 Medallion reproduced from 'The Letters of John Stuart Mill\ ed. by H. S. R. Elliot Acknowledgements 'HE originals of most of the letters and other documents repro- duced in this volume are preserved in the Yale University Library and in the British Library of Political and Economic Science and my greatest obligation is to the Library Committees of these two institutions for their permission to reproduce these docu- ments which has made this volume possible. I am similarly indebted to the Provost and Fellows of King's College, Cambridge, who have not only allowed me to use some letters bequeathed to them by the late Lord Keynes but have also presented to the British Library of Political and Economic Science a set of letters by Mrs. Mill when it was noticed that at some earlier stage these had become accidentally detached from a larger collection of similar documents now in the latter Library; to the National Library of Scotland and to the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The National Provincial Bank, Ltd. (as repre- sentatives of the late Miss Mary Taylor), and Mr. Stuart Mill Colman of Galmpton, Devonshire, have made substantial contributions to this volume by presenting documents in their possession to the British Library of Political and Economic Science; and Mrs. Hugh Gemmel of East London, S.A., and Mrs. Vera Eichelbaum of Wellington, New Zealand, have similarly assisted by their permission to reproduce or use documents in their possession. Of those who have helped in other ways I must in the first place mention Professor Jacob Viner of Princeton University, who originally drew my attention to the collection at Yale University Library. To Professor Arthur H. Cole, Librarian of Harvard University, I am under a special obligation for his help in procuring in war-time from British Columbia, where it had strayed, the portrait of Harriet Taylor reproduced facing page 128 of this volume. Mrs. Z. J. Powers, Librarian of Historical Manuscripts of Yale University Library, and Mr. W. Park and Mr. J. S. Ritchie of the Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of Scotland have been good enough more than 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS once to supply copies or to check transcriptions when I was not able myself to inspect documents in their care. Finally I must mention Dr. Ruth Borchardt and Mrs. Dorothy Hahn, who in different stages of the work on the collection of John Stuart Mill's general correspondence have assisted me for long periods and on the result of whose work I have been able to draw to a large extent in preparing this volume. To all these as well as to the many others who have more indirectly helped in its production I wish to express my most sincere thanks. 10 Abbreviations and Symbols Used J.S.M.: John Stuart Mill. H.T. : Harriet Taylor (Mrs. John Taylor—until 1 85 1). H.M.: Harriet Mill (Mrs. John Stuart Mill—from 1851). MTColl.: Mill-Taylor Collection in the British Library of Political and Economic Science (London School of Economics). The references (e.g. XXVII/233) are to the volume and the number of the item {not the folio), unless they refer expressly to one of the boxes separately numbered in Roman numerals. Letters (ed. Elliot) : The Letters of John Stuart Mill, edited with an Introduction by Hugh S. R. Elliot, Two volumes, London, 1910. Letter of T.C. to J.S.M.: Letters of Thomas Carlyle to John Stuart Mi//, John Sterling and Robert Browning, edited by Alexander Carlyle, London, 1910. MacMinn, et a/., Bibliography : Bibliography ofthe Published Writings of John Stuart Mill. Edited from his Manuscript with Correc- tions and Notes by Ney MacMinn, J. R. Hainds and James McNab McCrimmon. North-Western University, Evanston, Illinois, 1945. Autobiography: J. S. Mill, Autobiography . The page references are to the 'World's Classics' edition (Oxford University Press), except where they are expressly to the complete edition published in 1924 by Columbia University Press. D.D.: J. S. Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, London, 1858, and later. editorial [ ] Square brackets are used to indicate insertions in the text of documents. [?] and [??] indicates a gap of one or more words. (?) and (??) indicates that the reading of the preceding word or words is doubtful. indicates omissions or parts missing from the manuscript. 11 Introduction ' I 'he literary portrait which in the Autobiography John Stuart Mill has drawn for us of the woman who ultimately became his j J\. wife creates a strong wish to know more about her. If Harriet Taylor, to give her the name which she bore during the greater part of her life, was anything like what Mill wished us to believe, we should have to regard her as one of the most remarkable women who ever lived. Even if merely her influence on Mill was as great as he asserts, we should have to think of her as one of the major figures who shaped opinion during the later Victorian era. Yet until now it has been solely Mill's account on which we have had to rely in forming an estimate; and the very extravagance of the language he employed in her praise has generally produced more disbelief than conviction. It is natural to dismiss as the product of an extraordinary if not singular delusion a description which represents her as more a poet than Car- lyle, more a thinker than Mill himself and as the only equal to his father in 'the power of influencing by mere force of mind and character the convictions and purposes of others and in the strenuous exertion of that power to promote freedom and progress'. 1 The best known version of Mill's estimate of his wife's genius in the Autobiography is too long to be quoted in full, and it would probably be unnecessary to do so. A few sentences will recall the general tone of a description which extends over many pages: 2 'In general spiritual characteristics, as well as in temperament and organization, I have often compared her, as she was at this time, to Shelley: but in thought and intellect, Shelley, so far as his powers were developed in his short life, was but a child compared with what she ultimately became. Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same per- fect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter; l 3 INTRODUCTION always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in times when such a carriere was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind.