Lot 124: MILL (JOHN STUART) Autograph letter signed, 1873

Autograph letter signed, inviting Mr Harrison and his wife to dinner on 28 March at seven, one page, integral blank, blindstamped heading, integral blank, light dust-staining, 8vo, Albert Hall Mansions, 20 March 1873

A FAREWELL MEETING WITH FREDERIC HARRISON: the recipient of this invitation is almost certainly the positivist philosopher Frederic Harrison, a frequent guest, and his equally remarkable wife, Ethelbertha, who like her husband, but unlike Mill, was a prominent opponent of woman's suffrage. Mill was to die in Avignon a little over a month later, on 7 May. It had been through Mill that Harrison had been introduced to the positivist philosophy of Comte, the determining influence of his life. On 11 May Harrison gave an address in Mill's memory at the Positivist School, ending: 'For us his high example, his noble philosophical calm, continue to live and to teach. He being dead, yet speaketh. And, if his great heart and brains are no longer amongst us as visible and conscious agencies, his spirit lives yet in all that he has given to the generation of to-day: the work of his spirit is not ended, nor the task of his life accomplished; but we feel that his nature is entering on a new and greater life amongst us, – one that is entirely spiritual, intellectual, and moral' (extract printed as 'His Relation to Positivism' in John Stuart Mill: His Life and Works, 1873, p. 90). This letter is not printed in the Collected Works. See illustration on preceding page.