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spoil a great writer. He selects the following "specimen reflection " as especially marvellous:

"Our lives make a moral tradition for our

individual selves, as the life of mankind at large makes a moral tradition for the race, and to have once acted greatly seems a reason why we should always be noble. But Tito was feeling the effect of an opposite tradition: he had won no memories of self-conquest and perfect faithfulness from which he could have a sense of falling."

Beside this may be placed the following in the same style :

"And it has been well believed through many ages that the beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life; that the mind which sees itself blameless may be called dead in trespasses in trespasses on the love of others, in trespasses on their weaknesses, in trespasses on all those great claims which are the image of

our own need."

acters. Their proceedings are dictated by motives so utterly inadequate that we have no feeling for them, or with them, in what they do. This fault-as indeed most of the her-is conspicuous in Felix Holt, and for faults in art which can be brought against the plain reason that, in Felix Holt, she has made her most elaborate endeavour after artistic completeness. Almost all the leading characters in that book act unnaturally, and the finish-off is a climax of absurdity. No woman in Esther's position, and with Es ther's feelings, would have gone to visit the Transomes. Delicacy, not less than common sense, would have made such a step impossible. It is impossible to measure the force of a woman's love; but very few, we think, would throw away a fortune justly her own, in order to gratify a wild and irrational caprice on the part of a lover, to whose faults, moreover, she is by no means blind. Certainly no woman of Esther's temperament would have done so, and therefore we feel instinctively that the result will be a dismal failure. Esther, with a large family living on £100 a year, we feel to be an utter blunder. In taking the absurd step she does, she has been false to her own character, and nothing but unhappiness to herself and her husband can ensue. And what can be said of Harold Transome's position at the close of the book? He is represented as living on quite happily and contentedly in the possession of wealth not his own; nay, worse than that, which he knows to be the property of a woman whom he has deliberately made love to for the sake of this wealth, and who has refused him. It is not worth while to point out that Harold's powerful and hard character renders this peculiarly impossible to him; no man could stoop to such a life. We can recall few things in fiction more unnatural or absurd. But all absurdities are as nothing compared with the absurdities of Felix Holt himself. One can imagine Esther giving up a fortune for love of him; but why should he have demanded this sacrifice? From what motive did his resolution to refuse riches spring? All men can sympathize with a St. Francis accepting poverty as his Heaven-destined bride; but what affinity has the foolish petulance of Felix Holt with such emotions as those which moved the saint of Assisi? A reviewer in the Westminster says, that if George Eliot's doctrine as to this choice of her hero is to be taken in its We have before remarked on George ordinary meaning, it is "simply mischievous." Eliot's tendency towards improbable inci- We believe it is intended so to be taken; dent. To the same cause-namely, an ina- and we agree with the reviewer in thinking bility to work out a plot-may be ascribed that, if it shall ever have any effect, such the unnaturalness of action which sometimes effect can be for mischief only. As a matalienates our sympathy from her best charter of fact, it will, of course, have no effect

We quote these passages, both because of the over-praise we have alluded to, and because they serve to illustrate the power of George Eliot's style. There is nothing in either of them very new or striking. The thought in the former is merely that action, of whatever kind it be, reacts upon a man's nature; and the thought in the latter is merely that very self-satisfied people are apt to be uncharitable. Thackeray would have put them both in two lines. But that is not George Eliot's way. She uses her splendid diction to give dignity to the thought. There is a pomp and stateliness about the above sentences which prevents the reader from discovering that he has heard the same thing a hundred times before. Carried away by the sounding words, he is at once impressed with the profundity of a reflection in which, if translated into homely language, he would recognise a very old friend. We are far from making this matter of reproach against George Eliot. If not in the very highest or purest style of art, it is at least a perfectly justifiable device. George Eliot is rarely gifted with a commanding eloquence, and no writer could be expected to relinquish the power which such a gift confers. And if at times she presses it a little too far, no one would be hasty to judge her. Only, when the thing is forced upon our notice, it is right to distinguish between depth of thought and force of expression.

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whatever; but this unnatural folly is a serious blemish. There is no adequate motive for such a proceeding, and therefore the book is, so far, unnatural. The man who commits this extravagance is, inferentially at least, praised and honoured for it, and therefore a false standard of right and wrong is to this extent inculcated. Many instances of a similar nature might be given from George Eliot's novels, but this one is perhaps the most marked; and at all events it is quite sufficient to illustrate our criticism.

merely amusing; and if such purposes belong to the dramatist, why not to the novelist likewise? And especially at the present time, when novel-writing, like the rod of Moses, has swallowed up almost every other form of literature.

Adopting, then, this point of view, and granting to George Eliot the appropriateness of her position as a teacher and moral instructor, the question remains, What is the purport of her teaching? or, in other words, What subjects does she touch upon, and how does she handle them? Foremost, and most striking of all, is her treatment of religion. She does not go out of her way to seek this subject, but when it does occur, she treats it freely, with knowledge and experience, and with perfect frankness. The following quotation reminds one of the

"I don't understand these new sort o' doc

The

Thus far we have considered George Eli-
ot's powers as a writer generally, and espe-
cially her powers as a writer of fiction. But
her ardent admirers put forth claims on her
behalf far beyond this scope. They insist
that she should be looked upon as the teach-
er of the age; and that in the sense in which
all the supreme writers of fiction, whether" Northern Farmer: "-
in prose or verse, may be said to be teach-
ers. Now, taking this point of view, the
first question which occurs is, whether she
is in her fitting pulpit ?—or, in other words,
Has the novel writer any title to higher
aims than the amusement of readers? Syd-
ney
Smith expresses a pretty clear opinion
on the point: "The main question as to a
novel is-did it amuse? Were you surpris-
ed at dinner coming so soon? Did you mis-
take eleven for ten, and twelve for eleven?
Were you too late to dress? and did you sit
up beyond the usual hour? If a novel pro-
duces these effects, it is good; if it does not
-story, language, love, scandal itself cannot
save it. It is only meant to please: and it
must do that, or it does nothing." But this
doctrine, especially the last sentence, is too
extreme for the present day. We are, as
we so often hear, an "carnest" generation;
and crave for instruction at all seasons, and
in divers places. Admirers of Carlyle will
remember how strongly he objects on this
score to the Waverley Novels: "Not profita-
ble for doctrine, for reproof, for edification,
for building up or elevating in any shape!
The sick heart will find no healing here,
the darkly struggling heart no guidance;
the heroic, that is in all men, no divine
awakening voice." We cannot now discuss
the truth of this charge; we refer to it
merely as showing that such high themes
are now demanded from novelists. It is
not meant that our novels are to be sermons
in disguise, even though the disguise be worn
with the grace of Miss Edgeworth. But it
is meant that trivial aims and light emo-
tions are sufficing motives in no work of fic-
tion; that novels which hope to last should
rest upon the permanent interests of man-
kind, and reach the depths of the heart.
Literature has higher purposes than that of

trines. When Mr. Barton comes to see me, he
talks about nothing but my sins and my need
o' marcy. Now, Mr. Hackit, I've never been
a sinner.
went into service, I al'ys did my duty by my
From the fust beginning, when I
emplyers. I was as good a wife as any's in the
county-never aggravated my husband.
cheese-factor used to say my cheese was al'ys
to be depended on. I've known women, as
their cheeses swelled a shame to be seen, when
their husbands had counted on the cheese-
three gowns to my one.
money to make up their rent; and yet they'd
If I'm not to be saved,
I know a many as are in a bad way. But it's
well for me as I can't go to church any longer,
for if th' old singers are to be done away with,
there'll be nothing left as it was in Mr. Pat-
ten's time; and what's more, I hear you've
settled to pull the church down and build it up
new?"

Equally natural, yet entirely different in feeling, is this:

lost sheep, and the joy there is in heaven over "Mrs. Raynor had been reading about the the sinner that repenteth. Surely the eternal love she believed in through all the sadness of her lot would not leave her child to wander farther and farther into the wilderness till there was no turning-the child so lovely, so pitiful to others, so good, till she was goaded into sin by woman's bitterest sorrows! Mrs. Raynor had her faith and her spiritual comforts, though she was not in the least evangelical, and knew nothing of doctrinal zeal. I fear most of Mr. Tryan's hearers would have considered her destitute of saving knowledge, and I am quite sure she had no well-defined views on justification. Nevertheless, she read her Bible a great deal, and thought she found dily, and be merciful. Let us hope that there is a saving ignorance, and that Mrs. Raynor was justified without knowing exactly how."

vine lessons there-how to bear the cross meek

And then compare with these as in a lofti- | ashamed of their trivial, futile past. The first er vein of thought :

"His mind was destitute of that dread which has been erroneously decried as if it were nothing higher than a man's animal care for his own skin that awe of the Divine Nemesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it took

a more positive form under Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind simply as a vague fear at anything which is called wrong-doing. Such terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it will annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations which can never be proved to have any sanctity in the absence of feeling."

condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence. And this latter precious gift was brought to Milby by Mr. Tryan and Evangelicalism."

This knowledge of the various forms of religious feeling to be found in the heart of man, and this sympathy with them all, enhance greatly the power of George Eliot's writings. It would be well if such knowledge and sympathy were possessed in the same measure by our professed religious teachers. This present age is in no real sense of the word sceptical, yet we suspect there has seldom been a time in which there was a greater gulf fixed between the clergy and the educated laity. Our clerical dignitaries are startled now and again by some outspoken heresy; they would be a good deal more startled were they made aware how much of what they call heresy is unspoken, merely because it has become an ordinary habit of thought. They are absorbed in their noisy contests-believing sincerely that matters of vital import are at stake; unconscious that the great bulk of the laity looks on with indifference, nay with contempt, of clerical intolerance more heinous than save when indignation is roused by some act common, yet also with a feeling of sorrowful regret, that between them and their teachers there is no sympathy, that to their teachers they can look for no guidance. It is full time the clergy should look to it, when laymen find more that is akin to their modes of thought on religious subjects in the writings of novelists like Thackeray or George Eliot, than in all the teaching of all the churches. In this particular, George Eliot's subtlety, liberality, sympathy with mankind, and fervour of feeling, deserve the heartiest mis-recognition. Few can hope to rival her powers; but all might seek to imitate the spirit in which she approaches these themes.

"Nevertheless, Evangelicalism had brought into palpable existence and operation in Milby society that idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, which is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses. Whatever might be the weaknesses of the ladies who pruned the luxuriance of their lace and ribbons, cut out garments for the poor, distributed tracts, quoted Scripture, and defined the true gospel, they had learned this-that there was a divine work to be done in life, a rule of goodness higher than the opinion of their neighbours; and if the notion of a heaven in reserve for themselves was a little too prominent, yet the theory of fitness for that heaven consisted in purity of heart, in Christlike compassion, in the subduing of selfish desires. They might give the name of piety to much that was only puritanic egoism; they might call many things sin that were not sin; but they had at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided and resisted, and colour-blindness, which may take drab for scarlet, is better than total blindness which sees no distinction of colour at all. Miss Rebecca Linnet, in quiet attire, with a somewhat excessive solemnity of countenance, teaching at the Sunday school, visiting the poor, and striving after a standard of purity and goodness, had surely more moral loveliness than in those flaunting peony-days, when she

had no other model than the costumes of the heroines in the circulating library. Miss Eliza Pratt, listening in rapt attention to Mr. Tryan's evening lecture, no doubt found evangelical channels for vanity and egoism; but she was clearly in moral advance of Miss Phipps giggling under her feathers at old Mr. Crewe's peculiarities of enunciation. And even elderly fathers and mothers, with minds, like Mrs. Linnet's, too tough to imbibe much doctrine, were the better for having their hearts inclined towards the new preacher as a messenger from God. They became ashamed, perhaps, of their evil tempers, ashamed of their worldiness,

When any question of morality arises, George Eliot's tone is not less lofty than in treating of matters more peculiarly religious. Her point of view is always pure and high-minded. Her comments and criticisms, either upon

the actual transactions of ted with a striking nobility of sentiment. the tale, or upon life generally, are penetra

But the case is different with her characters in action. Her precepts may be admirable; her example is not so. We hardly know how to account for this; but the same thing is remarkable in other writers, as, for example, in Dickens, with whom the disposition to high-flown sentiment is strong. When this sentiment comes into harsh collision with the facts of life, unnaturalness, it may

be immorality of action, is the frequent result. George Eliot cannot be called a sentimental writer; but in her hands high moral theories applied to ordinary realities lead to similar results. Perhaps the sentiment in the one case, the moral doctrine in the other, may be too bright and good for human nature's daily food, and therefore prove at the critical moment an insufficient power; but however this may be, neither of them necessarily, nor even commonly, is associated with rectitude of conduct.

Whatever may be the explanation, the fact is certain. It is not too much to say that George Eliot's characters rarely or never act from principle. They are actuated sometimes by real and fervent religious feeling, often by noble and lofty sentiment; but principle, in the proper sense of the word, very seldom has power over them. The existence of such a motive is forgotten in her psychology. The only instance we can remember of any of her characters acting from rational conviction is when Romola, persuaded by the exhortation of Savonarola, gives up her intention of flying from her husband's home. This refusal to recognise principle as a cause of action is common enough among women, both in their walk and conversation, and (in the case of such of them as are authors) in their writings. Miss Yonge is a striking instance of it. But a more masculine power of thought might have been expected from George Eliot.

Much in the same way there is in her writings a noticeable disregard of the secondary principles of morality. Unless her characters are animated by the most exalted motives, they are without any influence sufficient to restrain them from serious offences. We do not, of course, mean that George Eliot has drawn no ordinary charactersinfluenced often by commonplace motives. What we mean is, that the principles to which we have referred are not allowed sufficient scope on the whole-that they have not their proper place among the motives which influence human action generally that the power they have to restrain when religion is absent is not duly acknowledged. Honour, for example, the most powerful, perhaps, of those secondary principles, has no part in her drama. There is a strong instance of this in Adam Bede. Arthur Donnithorne is represented as a young English gentleman in the best sense of the word, thoroughly generous-hearted and honourable. And yet he seduces a girl, the niece of a farmer of the better class, whom he has known all his life, and with whose family, the principal tenants on the estate, he has all his life been on terms of condescending intimacy, as befits the

young squire. The seduction is peculiarly bad, because it is carried out by real lovemaking,-marriage, if not actually promised, being prominently brought before the girl's mind. When found out by Adam Bede, he takes leave of Hetty in a very cool letter, the purport of which is to assure her that the marriage which he had led her to expect could never take place. He leaves her without the smallest thought of or provision for the future, and is, when away, greatly cheered by the intelligence that she is about to marry Adam, who also had been one of the lowly friends of his youth. There are, of course, many men who would have done all this quite coolly, but Arthur Donnithorne could not. He would not, indeed, have been restrained by religion, nor by any very deep conceptions of morality, for neither one influence nor the other had much hold upon him; but he would have been restrained by a feeling of honour. The Arthur Donnithorne of the book would have felt that he was not behaving "like a gentleman," and that would have been enough to give him pause. It would have made him hasten from temptation when he saw that Hetty was dreaming of marriage, and was therefore likely to fall. But in George Eliot's treatment it is assumed that, the highest motives being absent, no lower motive could have had sufficient power. Now this is untrue to nature, and therefore makes the whole character inconsistent and unreal. The same mistake runs through all her writings. It is a mistake which would be committed by a certain order of preachers; but it rests upon an inadequate view of human nature,-leads to a false representation of life. The world would be in a very bad way were it not for the authority of those lower principles of morality which George Eliot, at any crisis of action, utterly disregards. And the extremes of wrongdoing into which her characters, inconsistently with their natures, are often hurried, arises mainly from this source. For a teacher of morality, that being the light in which we are now regarding George Eliot, thus to undervalue the influence of those principles, is a grievous blunder, and a blunder of a directly pernicious tendency.

The relations between the sexes, in one aspect or another, occupy a prominent place in all novels. The majority preserve the beaten track of falling in love, courtship under difficulties of various sorts, ending, as the case may be, in marriage, or in some untoward catastrophe. Others begin with matrimonial felicity, and seek to awaken an interest by setting forth the troubles to which that felicity may be exposed; while some avoiding matrimony altogether, narrate

a tale of vice or crime, as in Clarissa Harlowe or Rosamond Gray. George Eliot has taken up this theme in many of its aspects. With her the ordinary love-story is not very frequent, nor always successful. The loves of Esther and Felix Holt do not enlist our sympathies. We doubt the truth to nature in making a girl like Esther be subjugated by a man like Felix Holt,-clever, indeed, but coarse, overbearing, and without genius sufficient to justify his unpleasant eccentric ities. Her taste must have revolted from him; while her acute intellect would have detected the pretentiousness of his nature, and the want of any sound basis for his opinions. Of the two, Harold Transome, with all his faults, has far more reality about him. Felix Holt is precisely the character a woman would create, meaning him to be very fine; but he is not the man a woman would readily fall in love with. On the other hand, nothing can be more purely beautiful than the episode of Rufus Lyon and Esther's mother; nothing more deeply true than the growth of the affection of Dinah Morris for Adam Bede. No reader can forget the scene in which the young Methodist confesses the power of an earthly love, and the author's passionate comment: "What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the last parting?"

reserve and delicacy, and they must be exceptional-the results of overmastering cir cumstance. George Eliot fulfils neither of these conditions. So far from approaching these matters with reserve, she enters into every detail with an indecorous and unpleasing minuteness. Thus in Adam Bede we have an elaborate analysis of the mental process by which a silly girl is carried on to her fall. It is executed with wonderful skill; but it is neither a pleasant nor a profitable subject for meditation, and might well have been spared. But, worse than this, we have forced on us minute descriptions of the physical steps which led to the result-pictures of Hetty's pouting lips and swimming eyes, of the two wandering together in the wood, etc., for all of which we can imagine no defence. Attentive readers will remember the suggestive introduction, at a later part of the book, of a pink silk neckerchief -a touch which would have done credit to any French novelist. It is disagreeable to recall these things; but censure, especially on such a ground as this, must be justified. And this style of writing seems to us deserving of the severest censure. It is not, indeed, openly indecent; but it is not the less evil because it is suggestive only. For ourselves we think it but the worse on that account, and of the two prefer the frank coarseness of such scenes as the adventure of Tom Jones with Lady Bellaston. How differently is the same theme handled in The Heart of Midlothian!-our feelings and sympathies far more strongly stirred, and yet not an allusion which can offend good taste. Elsewhere in George Eliot's writings, especially in the third volume of The Mill on the Floss, there is a certain tone of sensuality, less disagreeable than the suggestive style, but still quite unworthy of her:

It is matter for regret that a writer who can thus portray the beauty of romance and the purity of affection should ever have stooped to themes less lovely. But the pleasant aspect of the relations between man and woman is not that which George Eliot loves best to look upon. She dislikes those "O may I get this rose?' said Maggie, relations as at present constituted. She is making a great effort to say something, and the champion of woman against the selfish- dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable conness and oppression of man. "God was fession. I think I am quite wicked with roses cruel when He made woman," is the wild-I like to gather them and smell them till they exclamation of one of her characters, with have no scent left." which the writer evidently sympathizes. A writer animated by such a spirit naturally turns away from cheerful views. cordingly the less fortunate of the relations between the sexes-seduction, unhappy marriage, breach of the marriage vow-are of constant occurrence in her writings. What may be the exact merits of this "teaching," we are at a loss to discover. To us it seems purely pernicious.

Ac

We do not deny that these, like any of the other crimes or calamities of life, may be proper subjects of fiction. But to make them so, they must be treated with studious

"Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large halfopened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?-the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow and all the varied gentlylessening curves down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the he wrought an image of it for the Parthenon time-worn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that-and it had the warm tints of life.

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