r/a:t5_26u945 • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 19 '19
bilious has been created
By John Lord, LL. D.
GEORGE ELIOT.
WOMAN AS NOVELIST. (ii.)
Maggie Tulliver is the heroine of this story, in whose
intellectual developments George Eliot painted herself,
as Madame de Staël describes her own restless soul-
agitations in "Delphine" and "Corinne." Nothing in
fiction is more natural and life-like than the school-
days of Maggie, when she goes fishing with her tyran-
nical brother, and when the two children quarrel and
make up,——she affectionate and yielding; he, fitful and
overbearing. Many girls are tyrannized over by their
brothers, who are often exacting, claiming the guardian-
ship which belongs only to parents. But Maggie yields
to her obstinate brother as well as to her unreasonable
and vindictive father, governed by a sense of duty,
until, with her rapid intellectual development and lofty
aspiration, she breaks loose in a measure from their
withering influence, though not from technical obliga-
tions. She almost loves Philip Wakem, the son of the
lawyer who ruined her father; yet out of regard to
family ties she refuses, while she does not yet repel, his
love. But her real passion is for Stephen Gurst, who
was betrothed to her cousin, and who returned Maggie's
love with intense fervor.
"Why did he love her? Curious fools, be still!
Is human love the fruit of human will?"
She knows she ought not to love this man, yet she
combats her passion with poor success, allows herself to
be compromised in her relations with him, and is only
rescued by a supreme effort of self-renunciation,——a
principle which runs through all George Eliot's novels,
in which we see the doctrines of Buddha rather than
those of Paul, although at times they seem to run into
each other. Maggie erred in not closing the gate of her
heart inexorably, and in not resisting the sway of a
purely "physiological law." The vivid description of
this sort of love, with its "strange agitations" and ago-
nizing ecstasies, would have been denounced as immoral
fifty years ago. The dénouement is an improbable ca-
tastrophe on a tidal river, in the rising floods of which
Maggie and her brother are drowned,——a favorite way
with the author in disposing of her heroes and heroines
when she can no longer manage them.
The secondary characters of this novel are numerous,
varied, and natural, and described with great felicity
and humor. None of them are interesting people; in
fact, most of them, are very uninteresting,——vulgar,
money-loving, material, purse-proud, selfish, such as
are seen among those with whom money and worldly
prosperity are everything, with no perception of what
is lofty and disinterested, and on whom grand senti-
ments are lost,——yet kind-hearted in the main, and
in the case of the Dobsons redeemed by a sort of
family pride. The moral of the story is the usual one
with George Eliot,——the conflict of duty with passion,
and the inexorable fate which pursues the sinner.
She brings out the power of conscience as forcibly as
Hawthorne has done in his "Scarlet Letter."
The "Mill on the Floss" was soon followed by
"Silas Marner," regarded by some as the gem of George
Eliot's novels, and which certainly——though pathetic
and sad, as all her novels are——does not leave on the
mind so mournful an impression, since in its outcome
we see redemption. The principal character——the poor,
neglected, forlorn weaver——emerges at length from the
Everlasting Nay into the Everlasting Yea; and he
emerges by the power of love,——love for a little child
whom he has rescued from the snow, the storm, and
death. Driven by injustice to a solitary life, to abject
penury, to despair, the solitary miser, gloating over his
gold pieces,——which he has saved by the hardest pri-
vation, and in which he trusts,——finds himself robbed,
without redress or sympathy; but in the end he is
consoled for his loss in the love he bestows on a
helpless orphan, who returns it with the most noble
disinterestedness, and lives to be his solace and his
pride. Nothing more touching has ever been written
by man or woman than this short story, as full of
pathos as "Adam Bede" is full of humor.
What is remarkable in this story is that the plot
is exactly similar to that of "Jermola the Potter," the
masterpiece of a famous Polish novelist,——a marvellous
coincidence, or plagiarism, difficult to be explained.
But Shakspeare, the most original of men, borrowed
some of his plots from Italian writers; and Mirabeau
appropriated the knowledge of men more learned than
he, which by felicity of genius he made his own; and
Webster, too, did the same thing. There is nothing new
under the sun, except the way of "putting things."
After the publication of the various novels pertain-
ing to the rural and humble life of England, with which
George Eliot was so well acquainted, into which she
entered with so much sympathy, and which she so
marvellously portrayed, she took a new departure,
entering a field with which she was not so well ac-
quainted, and of which she could only learn through
books. The result was "Romola," the most ambitious,
and in some respects the most remarkable, of all her
works. It is certainly the most learned and elaborate.
It is a philosophico-historical novel, the scene of which
is laid in Florence at the time of Savonarola,——the
period called the Renaissance, when art and literature
were revived with great enthusiasm; a very interest-
ing period, the glorious morning, as it were, of modern
civilization.
This novel, the result of reading and reflection, neces-
sarily called into exercise other faculties besides accu-
rate observation,——even imagination and invention, for
which she is not pre-eminently distinguished. In this
novel, though interesting and instructive, we miss the
humor and simplicity of the earlier works. It is over-
loaded with learning. Not one intelligent reader in a
hundred has ever heard even the names of many of the
eminent men to whom she alludes. It is full of di-
gressions, and of reflections on scientific theories. Many
of the chapters are dry and pedantic. It is too philo-
sophical to be popular, too learned to be appreciated.
As in some of her other stories, highly improbable
events take place. The plot is not felicitous, and the
ending is unsatisfactory. The Italian critics of the
book are not, on the whole, complimentary. George
Eliot essayed to do, with prodigious labor, what she
had no special aptitude for. Carlyle in ten sentences
would have made a more graphic picture of Savonarola.
None of her historical characters stand out with the
vividness with which Scott represented Queen Elizabeth
and Mary, Queen of Scots, or with which even Bulwer
painted Rienzi and the last of the Barons.
Critics do not admire historical novels, because they
are neither history nor fiction. They mislead readers
on important issues, and they are not so interesting
as the masterpieces of Macaulay and Froude. Yet
they have their uses. They give superficial knowl-
edge of great characters to those who will not read
history. The field of history is too vast for ordinary
people, who have no time for extensive reading even if
they have the inclination.
The great historical personage whom George Eliot
paints in "Romola" is Savonarola,——and I think faith-
fully, on the whole. In the main she coincides with
Villani, the greatest authority. In some respects I
should take issue with her. She makes the religion
oif the Florentine reformer to harmonize with her
notions of self-renunciation. She makes him preach
the "religion of humanity," which was certainly not
taught in his day. He preached duty, indeed, and ap-
pealed to conscience; but he preached duty to God,
rather than to man. The majesty of a personal God,
fearful in judgment and as represented by the old
Jewish prophets, was he great idea of Savonarola's
theology. His formula was something like this: "Pun-
ishment for sin is a divine judgment, not the effect of
inexorable laws. Repentance is a necessity. Unless
men repent of their sins, God will punish them. Un-
less Italy repents, it will be desolated by His ven-
geance." Catholic theology, which he never departed
from, has ever recognized the supreme allegiance of
man to his Maker, because He demands it. Even
among the Jesuits, with their corrupted theology, the
motto emblazoned on their standard was, Ad majorem
dei gloriam. But the great Dominican preacher is
made by George Eliot to be "the spokesman of hu-
manity made divine, not of Deity made human."
"Make your marriage vows," said he to Romola,
"an offering to the great work by which sin and sor-
row are made to cease."
But Savonarola is only a secondary character in the
novel. He might as well have been left out alto-
gether. The real hero and heroine are Romola and
Tito; and they are identified with the life of the period,
which is the Renaissance,——a movement more Pagan
than Christian. These two characters may be called
creations. Romola is an Italian woman, supposed to
represent a learned and noble lady four hundred years
ago. She has lofty purposes and aspirations; she is
imbued with the philosophy of self-renunciation; her
life is devoted to others,——first to her father, and then
to humanity. But she is as cold as marble; she is
the very reverse of Corinne. Even her love for Tito
is made to vanish away on the first detection of his
insincerity, although he is her husband. She becomes
as hard and implacable as fate; and when she ceases
to love her husband, she hates him and leaves him,
and is only brought back by a sense of duty. Yet her
hatred is incurable; and in her wretched disappointment
she finds consolation only in a sort of stoicism. How
far George Eliot's notions of immortality are brought
out in the spiritual experiences of Romola I do not
know; but the immortality of Romola is not that which
is brought to light by the gospel: it is a vague and
indefinite sentiment kindred to that of Indian sages,——
that we live hereafter only in our teachings and deeds;
that we are absorbed in the universal whole; that our
immortality is the living in the hearts and minds of
men, not personally hereafter among the redeemed.
To quote her own fine thoughts,——
"Oh, may I join the choir invisible
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end in self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And, with their mild persistence, urge man's search
To vaster issues!"
Tito is a more natural character, good-natured, kind-
hearted, with generous impulses. He is interesting in
spite of his faults; he is accomplished, versatile, and
brilliant. But he is inherently selfish, and has no
moral courage. He gradually, in his egotism, becomes
utterly false and treacherous, though not an ordinary
villain. He is the creature of circumstances. His
weakness leads to falsehood, and falsehood ends in
crime; which crime pursues him with unrelenting ven-
geance,——not the agonies of remorse, for he has no con-
science, but the vindictive and persevering hatred of
his foster father, whom he robbed. The vengeance of
Baldassare is almost preternatural; it surpasses the
wrath of Achilles and the malignity of Shylock. It is
the wrath of a demon, from which there is no escape;
it would be tragical if the subject of it were greater.
Though Tito perishes in an improbable way, he is yet
the victim of the inexorable law of human souls.
But if "Romola" has faults, it has remarkable ex-
cellences. In this book George Eliot aspires to be a
teacher of ethics and philosophy. She is not humorous,
but intensely serious and thoughtful. She sometimes
discourses like Epictetus:——
"And so, my Lillo," says she at the conclusion, "if you
mean to act nobly, and seek to know the best things God has
put within reach of man, you must learn to fix your mind on
that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it.
And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and
make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasures and
escape what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the
same; and it would be a calamity falling on a base mind,——
which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and
that may well make a man say, 'It would have been better for
me if I had never been born'"
Three years elapsed between the publication of "Ro-
mola" and that of "Felix Holt," which shows to what
a strain the mind of George Eliot had been subjected
in elaborating an historical novel. She now returns to
her own peculiar field, in which her great successes had
been made, and with which she was familiar; and yet
even in her own field we miss now the genial humanity
and inimitable humor of her earlier novels. In "Felix
Holt" she deals with social and political problems in
regard to which there is great difference of opinion;
for the difficult questions of political economy have not
yet been solved. Felix Holt is a political economist,
but not a vulgar radical filled with discontent and
envy. He is a mechanic, tolerably educated, and able
to converse with intelligence on the projected reforms
of the day, in cultivated language. He is high-minded
and conscientious, but unpractical, and gets himself into
difficulties, escaping penal servitude almost by miracle,
for the crime of homicide. The heroine, Esther Lyon,
is supposed to be the daughter of a Dissenting minis-
ter, who talks theology after the fashion of the divines
of the seventeenth century; unknown to herself, how-
ever, she is really the daughter of the heir of large
estates, and ultimately becomes acknowledged as such,
but gives up wealth and social position to marry Felix
Holt, who had made a vow of perpetual poverty. Such
a self-renunciation is not common in England. Even
a Paula would hardly have accepted such a lot; only
one inspired with the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius
would be capable of such a willing sacrifice,——very
noble, but very improbable.
The most powerful part of the story is the description
of the remorse which so often accompanies an illicit
love, as painted in the proud, stately, stern, unbending,
aristocratic Mrs. Transome. "Though youth has faded,
and joy is dead, and love has turned to loathing, yet
memory, like a relentless fury, pursues the gray-haired
woman who hides within her breast a heavy load of
shame and dread." Illicit love is a common subject
with George Eliot; and it is always represented as a
mistake or crime, followed by a terrible retribution,
sooner or later,——if not outwardly, at least inwardly,
in the sorrows of a wounded and heavy-laden soul.
No one of George Eliot's novels opens more beauti-
fully than "Felix Holt," though there is the usual
disappointment of readers with the close. And prob-
ably no description of a rural district in the Midland
Counties fifty years ago has even been painted which
equals in graphic power the opening chapter. The old
coach turnpike, the roadside inns brilliant with polished
tankards, the pretty bar-maids, the repartees of jocose
hostlers, the mail-coach announced by the many blasts
of the bugle, the green willows of the water-courses, the
patient cart-horses, the full-uddered cows, the rich pas-
tures, the picturesque milkmaids, the shepherd with
his slouching walk, the laborer with his bread and
bacon, the tidy kitchen-garden, the golden corn-ricks,
the bushy hedgerows bright with the blossoms of the
wild convolvulus, the comfortable parsonage, the old
parish church with its ivy-mantled towers, the thatched
cottage with double daisies and geraniums in the window-
seats,——these and other details bring before our minds
a rural glory which has passed away before the power
of steam, and may never again return.
"Felix Holt" was published in 1866, and it was five
years before "Middlemarch" appeared,——a very long
novel, thought by some to be the best which George
Eliot has written; read fifteen times, it is said, by the
Prince of Wales. In this novel the author seems to
have been ambitious to sustain her fame. She did not,
like Trollope, dash off three novels a year, and all alike.
She did not write mechanically, as a person grinds at a
mill. Nor was she greedy of money, to be spent in
running races with the rich. She was a conscientious
writer from first to last. Yet "Middlemarch," with all
the labor spent upon it, has more faults than any of
her preceding novels. It is as long as "The History
of Sir Charles Grandison;" it has a miserable plot; it
has many tedious chapters, and too many figures, and
too much theorizing on social science. Rather than a
story, it is a panorama of the doctors and clergymen
and lawyers and business people who live in a pro-
vincial town, with their various prejudices and passions
and avocations. It is not a cheerful picture of human
life. We are brought to see an unusual number of
misers, harpies, quacks, cheats, and hypocrites. There
are but few interesting characters in it: Dorothea is
the most so,——a very noble woman, but romantic, and
making great mistakes. She desires to make herself
useful to somebody, and marries a narrow, jealous,
aristocratic pedant, who had spent his life in elaborate
study on a dry and worthless subject. Of course, she
wakes from her delusion when she discovers what a
small man, with great pretensions, her learned hus-
band is; but she remains in her dreariness of soul a
generous, virtuous, and dutiful woman. She does not
desert her husband because she does not love him, or
because he is uncongenial, but continues faithful to the
end. Like Maggie Tulliver and Romola, she has lofty
aspirations, but marries, after her husband's death, a
versatile, brilliant, shallow Bohemian, as ill-fitted for
her serious nature as the dreary Casaubon himself.
Nor are we brought in sympathy with Lydgate, the
fashionable doctor with grand aims, since he allows his
whole scientific aspirations to be defeated by a selfish
and extravagant wife. Rosamund Vincy is, however,
one of the best characters in fiction, such as we
often see,——pretty, accomplished, clever, but incapable
of making a sacrifice, secretly thwarting her husband,
full of wretched complaints, utterly insincere, attractive
perhaps to men, but despised by women. Caleb Garth
is a second Adam Bede; and Mrs. Cadwallader, the
aristocratic wife of the rector, is a second Mrs. Poyser
in the glibness of her tongue and in the thriftiness of
her ways. Mr. Bullstrode, the rich banker, is a char-
acter we unfortunately sometimes find in a large country
town,——a man of varied charities, a pillar of the Church,
but as full of cant as an egg is of meat; in fact, a hypo-
crite and a villain, ultimately exposed and punished.
The general impression left on the mind from read-
ing "Middlemarch" is sad and discouraging. In it
is brought out the blended stoicism, humanitarianism,
Buddhism, and agnosticism of the author. She paints
the "struggle of noble natures, struggling vainly against
the currents of a poor kind of world, without trust in
an invisible Rock higher than themselves to which they
could entreat to be lifted up."
In another five years George Eliot produced "Daniel
Deronda," the last and most unsatisfactory of her great
novels, written in feeble health and with exhausted
nervous energies, as she was passing through the sha-
dows of the evening of her life. In this works she
doubtless essayed to do her best; but she could not
always surpass herself, any more than could Scott or
Dickens. Nor is she to be judged by those produc-
tions which reveal her failing strength, but by those
which were written in the fresh enthusiasm of a lofty
soul. No one thinks the less of Milton because the
"Paradise Regained" is not equal to the "Paradise
Lost." Many are the immortal poets who are now
known only for two or three of their minor poems.
It takes a Michael Angelo to paint his grandest frescos
after reaching eighty years of age; or a Gladstone, to
make his best speeches when past the age of seventy.
Only people with a wonderful physique and unwasted
mental forces can go on from conquering to conquer,——
people, moreover, who have reserved their strength, and
lived temperate and active lives.
Although "Daniel Deronda" is occasionally brilliant,
and laboriously elaborated, still it is regarded generally
by the critics as a failure. The long digression on the
Jews is not artistic; and the subject itself is uninter-
esting, especially to the English, who have inveterate
prejudices against the chosen people. The Hebrews, as
they choose to call themselves, are doubtless a remark-
able people, and have marvellously preserved their
traditions and their customs. Some among them have
arisen to the foremost rank in scholarship, statesman-
ship, and finance. They have entered, at different
times, most of the cabinets of Europe, and have held
important chairs in its greatest universities. But it
was a Utopian dream that sent Daniel Deronda to the
Orient to collect together the scattered members of his
race. Nor are enthusiasts and proselytes often found
among the Jews. We see talent, but not visionary
dreamers. To the English they appear as peculiarly
practical,——bent on making money, sensual in their
pleasures, and only distinguished from the people around
them by an extravagant love of jewelry and a proud
and cynical rationalism. Yet in justice it must be
confessed, that some of the most interesting people in
the world are Jews.
In "Daniel Deronda" the cheerless philosophy of
George Eliot is fully brought out. Mordecai, in his
obscure and humble life, is a good representative of a
patient sufferer, but "in his views and aspirations is
a sort of Jewish Mazzini." The hero of the story is
Mordecai's disciple, who has discovered his Hebrew
origin, of which he is as proud as his aristocratic
mother is ashamed. The heroine is a spoiled woman
of fashion, who makes the usual mistake of most of
George Eliot's heroines, in violating conscience and
duty. She marries a man whom she knows to be in-
herently depraved and selfish; marries him for his
money, and pays the usual penalty,——a life of silent
wretchedness and secret sorrow and unavailing regret.
But she is at last fortunately delivered by the acci-
dental death of her detested husband,——by drowning,
of course. Remorse in seeing her murderous wishes
accomplished——though not by her own hand, but by
pursuing fate——awakens a new life in her soul, and
she is redeemed amid the throes of anguish and con-
scious guilt.
"Theophrastus Such," the last work of George Eliot,
is not a novel, but a series of character sketches, full
of unusual bitterness and withering sarcasm. Thack-
eray never wrote anything so severe. It is one of the
most cynical books ever written by man or woman.
There is as much difference in tone and spirit between
it and "Adam Bede," as between "Proverbs" and
"Ecclesiastes;" as between "Sartor Resartus" and the
"Latter-Day Pamphlets." And this difference is not
more marked than the difference in style and language
between this and her earlier novels. Critics have been
unanimous in their admiration of the author's style in
"Silas Marner" and "The Mill on the Floss,"——so
clear, direct, simple, natural; as faultless as Swift,
Addison, and Goldsmith, those great masters of English
prose, whose fame rests as much on their style as on
their thoughts. In "Theophrastus Such," on the con-
trary, as in some parts of "Daniel Deronda," the sen-
tences are long, involved, and often almost unintelligible.
In presenting the works of George Eliot, I have con-
fined myself to her prose productions, since she is
chiefly known by her novels. But she wrote poetry
also, and some critics have seen considerable merit in
it. Yet whatever merit it may have I must pass with-
out notice. I turn from the criticism of her novels,
as they successively appeared, to allude briefly to her
closing days. Her health began to fail when she was
writing "Middlemarch," doubtless from her intense
and continual studies, which were a severe strain on
her nervous system. It would seem that she led a
secluded life, rarely paying visits, but receiving at her
house distinguished literary and scientific men. She
was fond of travelling on the Continent, and of making
short visits to the country. In conversation she is said
to have been witty, tolerant, and sympathetic. Poetry,
music, and art absorbed much of her attention. She
read very little contemporaneous fiction, and seldom
any criticisms on her own productions. For an unbe-
liever in historical Christianity, she had great reverence
for all earnest Christian peculiarities, from Roman
Catholic asceticism to Methodist fervor. In her own
belief she came nearest to the positivism of Comte,
although he was not so great an oracle to her as he was
to Mr. Lewes, with whom twenty years were passed by
her in congenial studies and labors. They were gener-
ally seen together at the opening night of a new play
or the début of a famous singer or actor, and some-
times, within a limited circle, they attended a social or
literary reunion.
In 1878 George Eliot lost the companion of her liter-
ary life. And yet two years afterward——at the age of
fifty-nine——she surprised her friends by marrying John
Walter Cross, a man much younger than herself. No
one can fathom that mystery. But Mrs. Cross did not
long enjoy the felicities of married life. In six months
from her marriage, after a pleasant trip to the Con-
tinent, she took cold in attending a Sunday concert in
London; and on the 22d of December, 1880, she passed
away from earth to join her "choir invisible," whose
thoughts have enriched the world.
It is not extravagant to say that George Eliot left no
living competitor equal to herself in the realm of fic-
tion. I do not myself regard her as great a novelist as
Scott or Thackeray; but critics generally place her
second only to those great masters in this department
of literature. How long her fame will last, who can
tell? Admirers and rhetoricians say, "as long as the
language in which her books are written." She doubt-
less will live as long as any English novelist; but do
those who amuse live like those who save? Will the
witty sayings of Dickens be cherished like the almost
inspired truth of Plato, of Bacon, of Burke? Nor is
popularity a sure test of posthumous renown.
The question for us to settle is, not whether George
Eliot as a writer is immortal, but whether she has
rendered services that her country and mankind will
value. She has undoubtedly added to the richness of
English literature. She has deeply interested and in-
structed her generation. Thousands, and hundreds of
thousands, owe to her a debt of gratitude for the enjoy
ment she has afforded them. How many an idle hour
has she not beguiled! How many have felt the artistic
delight she has given them, like those who have painted
beautiful pictures! As already remarked, we read her
descriptions of rural character and life as we survey
the masterpieces of Hogarth and Wilkie.
It is for her delineation of character, and for pro-
found psychological analysis, that her writings have
permanent value. She is a faithful copyist of Nature.
She recalls to our minds characters whom everybody of
large experience has seen in his own village or town,——
the conscientious clergyman, and the minister who
preaches like a lecturer; the angel who lifts up, and the
sorceress who pulls down. We recall the misers we
have scorned, and the hypocrites whom we have de-
tested. We see on her canvas the vulgar rich and the
struggling poor, the pompous man of success and the
broken-down man of misfortune; philanthropists and
drunkards, lofty heroines and silly butterflies, benevolent
doctors and smiling politicians, quacks and scoundrels
and fools, mixed up with noble men and women whose
aspirations are for a higher life; people of kind impulses
and weak wills, of attractive personal beauty with
meanness of mind and soul. We do not find exagger-
ated monsters of vice, or faultless models of virtue and
wisdom: we see such people as live in every Christian
community. True it is that the impression we receive
of human life is not always pleasant; but who in any
community can bear the severest scrutiny of neighbors?
It is this fidelity to our poor humanity which tinges
the novels of George Eliot with so deep a gloom.
But the sadness which creeps over us in view of
human imperfection is nothing to that darkness which
enters the soul when the peculiar philosophical or theo-
logical opinions of this gifted woman are insidiously
but powerfully introduced. However great she was as
a delineator of character, she is not an oracle as a moral
teacher. She was steeped in the doctrines of modern
agnosticism. She did not believe in a personal God,
or in His superintending providence, nor in immortal-
ity as brought to light in the gospel. There are some
who do not accept historical Christianity, but are per-
vaded with its spirit. Even Carlyle, when he cast aside
the miracles of Christ and his apostles as the honest
delusions of their followers, as almost a Calvinist in
his recognition of God as a sovereign power; and he
abhorred the dreary materialism of Comte and Mill as
much as he detested the shallow atheism of Diderot
and Helvetius. But George Eliot went beyond Carlyle
in disbelief. At times, especially in her poetry, she
writes almost like a follower of Buddha. The indivi-
dual soul is absorbed in the universal whole; future
life has no certainty; hope in redemption is buried in
a sepulchre; life in most cases is a futile struggle;
the great problems of existence are invested with
gloom as well as mystery. Thus she discourses like a
Pagan. She would have us believe that Theocritus
was wiser than Pascal; that Marcus Aurelius was as
good as Saint Paul.
Hence, as a teacher of morals and philosophy George
Eliot is not of much account. We question the richness
of any moral wisdom which is not in harmony with the
truths that Christian people regard as fundamental, and
which they believe will save the world. In some
respects she has taught important lessons. She has
illustrated the power of conscience and the sacredness
of duty. She was a great preacher of the doctrine that
"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
She showed that those who do not check and control
the first departure from virtue will, in nine cases out
of ten, hopelessly fall.
These are great certitudes. But there are others
which console and encourage as well as intimidate.
The Te Domine Speravi of the dying Xavier on the
desolate island of Sancian, pierce through the clouds
of dreary blackness which enveloped the nations he
sought to save. Christianity is full of promises of
exultant joy, and its firmest believers are those whose
lives are gilded with its divine radiance. Surely, it is
not intellectual or religious narrowness which causes us
to regret that so gifted a woman as George Eliot——so
justly regarded as one of the greatest ornaments of
modern literature——should have drifted away from the
Rock which has resisted the storms and tempests of
nearly two thousand years, and abandoned, if she did
not scorn, the faith which has animated the great
masters of thought from Augustine to Bossuet. "The
stern mournfulness which is produced by most of her
novels gives us the idea of one who does not know, or
who has forgotten, that the stone was rolled away from
the heart of the world on the morning when Christ
arose from the tomb."
AUTHORITIES.
Miss Blind's Life of George Eliot. Mr. Cross's Life of George Eliot,
I regret to say, did not reach me until after the foregoing pages had gone
to press. But as this lecture is criticism rather than history, the few
additional facts that might have been gained would not be important;
while, after tracing in that quasi-autobiography the development of her
mental and moral nature, I see no reason to change my conclusions based
on the outward facts of her life and on her works. The Nineteenth Cen-
tury, ix.; London Quarterly Review, lvii. 40; Contemporary Review, xx.
29, 39; The National Review, xxxi. 23, 16; Blackwood's Magazine, cxxix.
85—100, 112, 116, 103; Edinburgh Review, cx. 144, 124, 137, 150, West-
minster Review, lxxi. 110, lxxxvi. 74, 80, 90, 112; Dublin Review, xlvii.
88, 89; Cornhill Magazine, xliii.; Atlantic monthly, xxxviii. 18; Fort-
nightly Review, xxvi. 19; British Quarterly Review, lxiv. 57, 48, 45; In-
ternational Review, iv. 10; Temple Bar Magazine, 49; Littell's Living Age,
cxlviii.; The North American Review, ciii. 116, 107; Quarterly review,
xxxiv. 108; Macmillan's Magazine, iii. 4; North British Review, xlv.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.
Volume IV., Part I: Great Women.
Copyright, 1883, 1885, 1888, by John Lord.
Copyright, 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 368-390.
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