The Online Library of Liberty

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• Introduction
• The Autobiography
• Literary Essays
• Appendices
• Textual Principles and Methods
• Acknowledgments
• Autobiography and Literary Essays
• Autobiography Parallel Reading Texts of the Early Draft and the Columbia Ms
• Editors’ Note
• [early Draft]
• [yale Fragment]
• Chapter I: Childhood, and Early Education
• Chapter II: Moral Influences In Early Youth. My Father’s Character and Opinions
• Chapter III: Last Stage of Education, and First of Self-education
• Chapter IV: Youthful Propagandism. the Westminster Review
• Chapter V: A Crisis In My Mental History. One Stage Onward
• Chapter VI: Commencement of the Most Valuable Friendship of My Life. My Father’s Death. Writings and Other Proceedings Up to 1840
• Chapter VII: General View of the Remainder of My Life
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review 1824
• Editors’ Note
• Periodical Literature: Edinburgh Review
• On Genius 1832
• Editors’ Note
• On Genius
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Thoughts On Poetry and Its Varieties
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [i]
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii] 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Junius Redivivus [ii]
• Views of the Pyrenees 1833
• Editors’ Note
• Views of the Pyrenees
• Tennyson’s Poems 1835
• Editors’ Note
• Tennyson’s Poems
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd 1837
• Editors’ Note
• Aphorisms: Thoughts In the Cloister and the Crowd
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Ware’s Letters From Palmyra
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Writings of Alfred De Vigny
• Milnes’s Poems 1838
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poems
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People 1840
• Editors’ Note
• Milnes’s Poetry For the People
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome 1843
• Editors’ Note
• Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill 1844
• Editors’ Note
• Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, On James Mill[*]
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Juvenilia
• The History of Rome By John Stuart Mill Aged 6½ Yrs
• Appendix B: Mill’s Early Reading, 1809-22
• Appendix C: Mill’s Early Writing, 1811?-22
• Appendix D: A Few Observations On Mr. Mill (1833)
• Appendix E: Browning’s Pauline (1833)
• Appendix F: Editorial Notes In the London and Westminster Review
• Appendix H: Helen Taylor’s Continuation of the Autobiography
• Appendix I: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

Appendix H

Helen Taylor’s Continuation of the Autobiography

The last portion of this memoir was written, at Avignon, in the winter of 1869-1870. The works mentioned in the concluding paragraph are two—one on Socialism upon which the author was still occupied to the last, and which therefore is in an incomplete state; and one on Theism which he had finished, but kept by him, as was his custom with most of his works, for further consideration and retouching. The last three years of his life were fully occupied with literary work in addition to these more important productions; and he himself was of opinion that if his life were prolonged to complete it, his work on Socialism would rank as, at the least, on a level with that on Representative Government. Of his work on Theism the world will be able to judge.

Early in the year 1870 he was in England and delivered a speech at a meeting held at the Hanover Square Rooms in favour of women’s suffrage.^[*] This was the last speech he spoke on that subject with the exception of one at Edinburgh in January 1871.^[†] During the year 1870 he wrote three articles for the FortnightlyReview; one on Professor Cliffe Leslie’s work on the Land Systems of different countries; one on Taine’s work De l’Intelligence and one on “Treaty Obligations”:^[*] he also wrote two letters to the Times in the month of November 1870 on the same topic.^[†] They were called forth by a cry, that arose at that time in a portion of the English press, for plunging England into a war with Russia. They were the first protest that appeared in any well known name against such a war; they called forth others and helped to calm down the warlike excitement that was being aroused.

In 1871 he spoke at a public meeting called by the Land Tenure Reform Association, a speech which was afterwards published by the Association.^[‡] During that year he was much occupied with the subject of Land Tenure. He wrote for the Land Tenure Association a programme or Expository Statement,^[§] setting forth his scheme of reform, and explaining his idea of the equitable claim of the State, as representing the Community, to the increase in the value of land that may arise from the labour of the community as a whole, and at the same time, suggesting the appropriation of this increased value by means of a land tax. Sir Henry Maine’s work on Village Communities interested him greatly at this time, bearing as it does on the question of the tenure of land, and he wrote a review of it for the Fortnightly Review, published in May 1871.^[¶] The illness and death of his old friend Mr. Grote; the threatening illness of a younger but not less valued friend to whom he looked as the man best qualified to carry on his own work;^[∥] and the failing health of a member of his own family,^[**] combined to depress his spirits during the spring and summer of this year and he derived so little benefit from several botanizing excursions he took with an old friend^[*] in Cornwali, Yorkshire and Scotland, that there seemed danger of his own health giving way. A few weeks in Switzerland and a residence at Avignon however produced the effect that mountain air and a southern climate seldom failed to produce on him, and he seemed to have recovered his usual health. In November 1871 he published, in the Fortnightly Review, an article on Berkeley’s Life and Writings, suggested by Professor Fraser’s new edition of Berkeley’s Works.^[†]

In the first half of 1872 he was chiefly occupied with the preparation of a new edition of his System of Logic,^[‡] upon which he bestowed more than usual time and labour. The summer of that year was spent in the Alps of Tyrol, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli and Venetia, and it was his invariable custom to do no literary work during the excursions he took for health. In the autumn and winter he wrote a review of Grote’s Aristotle, published in the Fortnightly Review for January 1873, and two articles for the Examiner (published January 4th and 11th, 1873) on Land Reform.^[§]

[[*] ]Speech to the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, in the Hanover Square Rooms, on 26 Mar., 1870 (see the reports on 28 Mar. in The Times, p. 5, the Daily News, p. 2, and the Daily Telegraph, p. 3). The speech was printed in Report of a Meeting of the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage, . . . March 26th, 1870 (London: n.p., 1870), pp. 4-9.

[[†] ]Speech in the Music Hall, Edinburgh, on 12 Jan., 1871 (see the report in The Times, 13 Jan., p. 3, and a leading article in the Daily Telegraph, 14 Jan., p. 5). The speech was printed in Women’s Suffrage, Great Meeting in Edinburgh . . . on 12th January 1871 (Edinburgh: printed Greig, 1871), pp. 7-12.

[[*] ]Professor Leslie on the Land Question,” Fortnightly Review, n.s. VII (June, 1870), 641-54, reviewing T. E. C. Leslie, Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England, and Continental Countries (London: Longmans, Green, 1870); “Taine’s De l’intelligence,” n.s. VIII (July, 1870), 121-4, reviewing Hippolyte Taine, De l’intelligence, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1870); and “Treaty Obligations,” n.s. VIII (Dec., 1870), 715-20. The three articles were reprinted (posthumously) in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 86-110, 111-18, and 119-29, respectively; the first two in CW, Vol. V, pp. 669-85, and Vol. XI, pp. 441-7.

[[†] ]“Mr. Mill on the Treaty of 1856,” The Times, 19 Nov., 1870, p. 5; “The Treaty of 1856,” ibid., 24 Nov., 1870, p. 3.

[[‡] ]Speech in the Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen St., on 15 May, 1871 (see the reports on 16 May in the Daily News, p. 2, and the Daily Telegraph, p. 2, and on 17 May in The Times, p. 7). Printed in Land Tenure Reform Association, Report of the Inaugural Public Meeting, . . . 15th May, 1871 (London: Land Tenure Reform Association, 1871); reprinted (posthumously) in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 251-65.

[[§] ]Programme of the Land Tenure Reform Association, with an Explanatory Statement by John Stuart Mill (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1871); reprinted (posthumously) in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 239-50, and in CW, Vol. V, pp. 687-95.

[[¶] ]“Maine on Village Communities,” Fortnightly Review, n.s. IX (May, 1871), 543-56 (reprinted, posthumously, in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 130-53), reviewing Henry James Sumner Maine, Village-Communities in the East and West (London: Murray, 1871).

[[∥] ]John Elliot Cairnes.

[[**] ]I.e., Helen Taylor herself.

[[*] ]Alexander Irvine.

[[†] ]“Berkeley’s Life and Writings,” Fortnightly Review, n.s. X (Nov., 1871), 505-24 (reprinted, posthumously, in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 154-87, and in CW, Vol. XI, pp. 449-71), reviewing Alexander Campbell Fraser, ed., The Works of George Berkeley, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871).

[[‡] ]The 8th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1872).

[[§] ]“Grote’s Aristotle,” Fortnightly Review, n.s. XIII (Jan., 1873), 27-50 (reprinted, posthumously, in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 188-230, and in CW, Vol. XI, pp. 473-510), reviewing George Grote, Aristotle, ed. Alexander Bain and George Croom Robertson, 2 vols. (London: Murray, 1872); and “Advice to Land Reformers,” Examiner, 4 Jan., 1873, pp. 1-2, and “Should Public Bodies Be Required to Sell Their Lands?” ibid., 11 Jan., 1873, pp. 29-30 (both reprinted, posthumously, under the title “Advice to Land Reformers,” in D&D, Vol. IV, pp. 266-77).