which the publishers of this magazine were in frequent communication with her, they feel that it is due to their departed friend to put on record some aspects of her character which they perhaps had better opportunities of discerning than the other friends who met her in society. George Eliot was the most careful and accurate among authors. Her beautifully written manuscript, free from blur or erasure, and with every let ter delicately and distinctly finished, was only the outward and visible sign of the inward labor which she had taken to work out her ideas. She never drew any of her facts or impressions from second-hand; and thus, in spite of the number and variety of her illustrations, she had rarely much to correct in her proofsheets. She had all that love of doing her work well for the work's sake, which she makes prominent characteristics of "Adam Bede" and "Stradivarius.' Her grasp of business was not less striking than her literary power; and her shrewdness and foresight were such as are seldom to be met with. Anxious as she always was to retain her hold on the public, she steadily shrank from receiving in her own person the homage which the world would have gladly paid to her genius. It was in her letters that she was most wont to open her heart; and those who had the privilege of being among her correspondents will sadly miss the thoughtful and tender notes which entered so fully into the feelings and affairs of those to whom they were addressed. Her publishers cannot think without a feeling of deep regret, that the many tokens of George Eliot's regard which were wont to come to them in the form of letters, are now at an end, and that there can be in future no red-letter

days in their calendar to mark the arrival of a manuscript from George Eliot.

Not merely a great writer but a great woman has passed away. In addition to the spell which bound the world to her by her genius, she had a personal power of drawing to herself in ties of sympathy and kindly feeling all who came under her influence. She never oppressed any one by her talents; she never allowed any one to be sensible of the depth and variety of her scholarship; she knew, as few know, how to draw forth the views and feelings of her visitors, and to make their sympathies her own. There was a charm in her personal character which of itself was sufficient to conciliate deep and lasting regard. Every one who entered her society left it impressed with the conviction that they had been under the influence of a sympathy and tenderness not less remarkable than the force of her mental power. But attractive as the theme would be to all who knew her, it would be doing injustice to George Eliot's own feelings if we were to dwell upon her personal qualities. Her deep and catholic love for Humanity in its broadest and best sense, which was in itself the strongest quickening motive of her genius, will maintain her influence in the future as in the present. All too soon has her eloquent prayer been granted :

not at a sufficient distance from the object of our admiration to measure its true elevation. We are liable to a double illusion on the morrow of such events. In political life we fancy that all heroism is extinct with the dead leader, whilst there are within the realm five hundred good as he. Yet the most daring optimist can hardly suppose that consolatory creed to be generally true in literature. If contemporaries sometimes exaggerate, they not unfrequently underestimate their loss. When Shakespeare died, nobody imagined-we may suspect -that the English drama had touched its highest point. When men are crossing the lines which divide one of the fruitful from one of the barren epochs in literature, they are often but faintly conscious of the change. It would require no paradoxical ingenuity to maintain that we are even now going through such a transition. The works of George Eliot may hereafter appear as marking the termination of the great period of English fiction which began with Scott. She may hereafter be regarded as the last great sovereign of a literary dynasty, who had to bequeath her sceptre to a comparatively petty line of successors; though for anything that we can say to the contrary-it may also be true that the successor may appear to-morrow, or may even be now amongst us in the shape of some writer who is struggling against a general want of recognition.

Ephemeral critics must not pretend to pronounce too confidently upon such questions. They can only try to say, in Mr. Browning's phrase, how it strikes a contemporary. And a contemporary is prompted by the natural regret to stray into irrelevant reflections, and dwell needlessly in the region of mighthave-beens. Had George Eliot lived a little longer, or begun to write a little earlier, or been endowed with some additional quality which she did not in fact possess, she might have done greater things still. It is very true, and true of others besides George Eliot. It often seems as if even the greatest works of the greatest writers were but fragmentary waifs and strays-mere indications of more splendid achievements which would have been within their grasp, had they not been forced, like weaker people, to feel out the way to success

through comparative failure, or to bend their genius to unworthy tasks. So, of the great writers in her own special department, Fielding wasted his powers in writing third-rate plays till he was fiveand-thirty, and died a broken-down man at forty-seven. Scott did not appear in the field of his greatest victories till he was forty-three, and all his really first-rate work was done within the next ten years. George Eliot's period of full activity, the time during which she was conscientiously doing her best under the stimulus of high reputation, lasted some twenty years; and so long a space is fully up to the average of the time allowed to most great writers. If not a voluminous writer, according to the standard of recent novelists, she has left enough work, representative of her powers at their best, to give a full impress of her mind.

So far, I think, we have little reason for regret. When once a writer has managed to express the best that was in him to say, the question of absolute mass is trifling. Though some very great have also been very voluminous writers, the immortal part of their achievement bears a slight proportion to the whole. Goethe lived to a good old age, and never lapsed into indolence; yet all of Goethe that is really of the highest excellence will go into some half dozen volumes. Putting aside Scott, hardly any great English writer has left a greater quantity of work representing the highest level of the author's capacity than is equivalent to the "Scenes of Clerical Life," 'Adam Bede," the Mill on the Floss,' Silas Marner," Romola," and "Middlemarch.'' Certainly, she might have done more. She did not begin to write novels till a period at which many popular authors are already showing symptoms of exhaustion, and indulging in the perilous practice of self-imitation. Why, it may be said, did not George Eliot write immortal works in her youth, instead of translating German authors of a heterodox tendency? If we could arrange all such things to our taste, and could foresee a writer's powers from the beginning, we might have ordered matters differently. Yet one may observe that there is another side to the question. Imaginative minds often ripen quickly;

44

64

and much of the finest poetry in the language derives its charm from the freshness of youth. But writers of the contemplative order-those whose best works represent the general experience of a rich and thoughtful nature-may be expected to come later to their maturity. The phenomenon of early exhaustion is too common in these days to allow us to regret an occasional exception. If during her youth George Eliot was storing the thoughts and emotions which afterward shaped themselves into the "Scenes of Clerical Life," we need not suppose that the tiine was wasted. CerCertainly, I do not think that any one who has had a little experience in such matters would regard it as otherwise than dangerous for a powerful mind to be precipitated into public utterance. The Pythagorean probation of silence may be protracted too long; but it may afford a most useful discipline: and I think that there is nothing preposterous in the supposition that George Eliot's work was all the more powerful because it came from a novelist who had lain fallow through a longer period than ordinary.

If it is rather idle to pursue such speculations, it is still more idle to indulge in that kind of criticism which virtually comes to saying that George Eliot ought to have been Walter Scott or Charlotte Brontë. You may think her inferior to those writers; you may dislike her philosophy or her character; and you are fully justified in expressing your dislike. But it is only fair to ask whether the qualities which you disapprove were mere external and adventitious familiarities or the inseparable adjunct of those which you admire. It is important to remember this in considering some of the common criticisms. The poor woman was not content simply to write amusing stories. She is convicted upon conclusive evidence of having indulged in ideas; she ventured to speculate upon human life and its meaning, and still worse, she endeavored to embody her convictions in imaginative shapes, and probably wished to infect her readers with them. This was, according to some people, highly unbecoming in a woman and very inartistic in a novelist. I confess that, for my part, I am rather glad to find ideas any

where. They are not very common ; and there are a vast number of excellent fictions which these sensitive critics may study without the least danger of a shock to their artistic sensibilities by anything of the kind. But if you will permit a poor novelist to indulge in such awkward possessions, I cannot see why he or she should not be allowed occasionally to interweave them in her narrative, taking care of course to keep them in their proper place. Some of that mannerism which offends many critics represents in fact simply George Eliot's way of using this privilege. We are indeed told dogmatically that a novelist should never indulge in little asides to the reader. Why not? One main advantage of a novel, as it seems to me, is precisely that it leaves room for a freedom in such matters which is incompatible with the requirements, for example, of dramatic writing. I can enjoy Scott's downright story-telling, which never reminds you obtrusively of the presence of the author; but with all respect for Scott, I do not see why his manner should be the sole type and model for all his successors. I like to read about Tom Jones or Colonel Newcome; but I am also very glad when Fielding or Thackeray puts his puppets aside for the moment and talks to me in his own person. A child, it is true, dislikes to have the illusion broken, and is angry if you try to persuade him that Giant Despair was not a real personage like his favorite Blunderbore. But the attempt to produce such illusions is really unworthy of work intended for full-grown readers. The humorist in particular knows that you will not mistake his puppet-show for reality, nor does he wish you to do So. He is rather of opinion that the world itself is a greater puppet-show, not to be taken in too desperate earnest. It is congenial to his whole mode of thought to act occasionally as chorus, and dwell upon some incidental suggestion. The solemn critic may step forward, like the physician who attended Sancho Panza's meal, and waive aside the condiment which gives a peculiar relish to the feast. It is not prepared according to his recipe. But till he gives me some better reason for obedience than his ipse dixit, I shall refuse to respect what would destroy many charm

ing passages and obliterate touches which clearly contribute to the general effect of George Eliot's work.

Were it not indeed that some critics in authority have dwelt upon this supposed defect, I should be disposed simply to plead not guilty," for I think that any one who reads the earlier books with the criticism in his mind, and notes the passages which are really obnoxious upon this ground, will be surprised at the rarity of the passages to which it applies. One cannot help suspecting that what is really offensive is not so much the method itself as the substance of the reflections introduced, and occasionally the cumbrous style in which they are expressed. And upon these points there is more to be said. But it is more desirable, if one can do it, to say what George Eliot was than what she was not; and to try to catch the secret of her unique power rather than to dwell upon shortcomings, some of which, to say the truth, are so obvious that it requires little critical acumen to discover them, and a decided tinge of antipathy to dwell upon them at length. What is it, in fact, which makes us conscious that George Eliot had a position apart; that, in a field where she had so many competitors of no mean capacity, she stands out as superior to all her rivals; or that, while we can easily imagine that many other reputations will fade with a change of fashion, there is something in George Eliot which we are confident will give delight to our grandchildren as it has to ourselves? To such questions there is one obvious answer at hand. There is one part of her writings upon which every competent reader has dwelt with delight, and which seems fresher and more charming whenever we come back to it. There is no danger of arousing any controversy in saying that the works of her first period, the Scenes of Clerical Life,'

66

Adam Bede," "Silas Marner," and the “Mill on the Floss," have the unmistakable mark of high genius. They are something for which it is simply out of the question to find any substitute. Strike them out of English literature, and we feel that there would be a gap not to be filled up; a distinct vein of thought and feeling unrepresented; a characteristic and delightful type of so

cial development left without any adequate interpreter. A second-rate writer can be more or less replaced. When you have read Shakespeare you can do very well without Beaumont and Fletcher, and a study of the satires of Pope makes it unnecessary to plod through the many volumes filled by his imitators. But we feel that, however much we may admire the other great English novelists, there is none who would make the 'study of George Eliot superfluous. The sphere which she has made specially her own is that quiet English country life. which she knew in early youth. It has been described with more or less vivacity and sympathy by many observers. Nobody has approached George Eliot in the power of seizing its essential characteristics and exhibiting its real charm. She has done for it what Scott did for the Scotch peasantry, or Fielding for the eighteenth century Englishman, or Thackeray for the higher social stratum of his time. Its last traces are vanishing so rapidly amidst the changes of modern revolution, that its picture could hardly be drawn again, even if there were an artist of equal skill and penetration. And thus, when the name of George Eliot is mentioned, it calls up, to me at least, and, I suspect, to most readers, not so much her later and more ambitious works, as the exquisite series of scenes so lovingly and vividly presented in the earlier stage snuffy old Mr. Gilfil, drinking his gin-andwater in his lonely parlor, with his faithful Ponto snoring on the rug and dreaming of the early romance of his life; and the inimitable Mrs. Poyser in her exquisite dairy, delivering her soul in a series of pithy aphorisms, bright as the little flames in Mr. Biglow's pastoral, that "danced about the chaney on the dresser ;" and the party in the parlor of the "Rainbow" discussing the evidences for "ghos'es;" or the family conclaves in which the affairs of the Tulliver family were discussed from so many and such admirably contrasted points of view. Where shall we find a more delightful circle, or quainter manifestations of human character, in beings grotesque, misshapen, and swathed in old prejudices, like the mossy trees in an old-fashioned orchard, which, for all their vagaries of growth, are yet full of

66

sap and capable of bearing mellow and toothsome fruit? "It was pleasant to Mr. Tryan," as we are told in "Janet's Repentance, to listen to the simple chat of the old man-to walk in the shade of the incomparable orchard and hear the story of the crops yielded by the red-streaked apple-tree, and the quite embarrassing plentifulness of the summer pears-to drink in the sweet evening breath of the garden as they sat in the alcove, and so, for a short interval, to feel the strain of his pastoral task relaxed." Our enjoyment is analogous to Mr. Tryan's. We are soothed by the atmosphere of the old-world country life, where people, no doubt, had as many troubles as ours, but troubles which, because they were different, seem more bearable to our imagination. We half wish that we could go back to the old days of stage-coaches and wagons and shambling old curates in "Brutus wigs," preaching to slumberous congregations enshrouded in highbacked pews, contemplating as little the advent of railways as of a race of clergymen capable of going to prison upon a question of ritual.

So far, indeed, it can hardly be said that George Eliot is unique. She has been approached, if she has not been surpassed, by other writers in her idyllic effects. But there is something less easily paralleled in the peculiar vein of humor which is the essential complement of the more tender passages. Mrs. Poyser is necessary to balance the solemnity of Dinah Morris. Silas Marner would lose half his impressiveness if he were not in contrast with the inimitable party in the "Rainbow' parlor. Omit the few pages in which their admirable conversation is reported, and the whole harmony of the book would be altered. The change would be as fatal as to strike out a figure in some perfect composition, where the most trifling accessory may really be an essential part of the whole design. It might throw some light upon George Eliot's peculiar power if we could fairly analyze the charm of that little masterpiece. Psychologists are very fond of attempting to define the nature of wit and humor. Hitherto they have not been very successful, though, of course, their failure cannot be due to any want of per

44

sonal appreciation of those qualities. But I should certainly despair of giving any account of the pleasure which one receives from that famous conflict of rustic wits. Why are we charmed by Ben Winthorp's retort to the parish clerk: "It's your inside as isn't right made for music; it's no better nor a hollow stalk;" and the statement that this unflinching frankness was regarded by the company as the most piquant form of joke;" or by the landlord's ingenious remarks upon the analogy between a power of smelling cheeses and perceiving the supernatural; or by that quaint stumble into something surprising to the speaker himself by its apparent resemblance to witty repartee, when the same person says to the farrier: "You're a doctor, I reckon, though you're only a cow-doctor; for a fly's a fly, though it may be a horse-fly?" One can understand at a proper distance how a clever man comes to say a brilliant thing, and it is still more easy to understand how he can say a thoroughly silly thing, and, therefore, how he can simulate stupidity. But there is something mysterious in the power possessed by a few great humorists of converting themselves for the nonce into that peculiar condition of muddle-headedness dashed with grotesque flashes of common-sense which is natural to a half-educated mind. It is less difficult to draw either a perfect circle or a purely arbitrary line than to see what will be the proportion of the regular figure on some queer, lop-sided, and imperfectlyreflecting surface. And these quaint freaks of rustic intelligence seem to be rags and tatters of what would make wit and reason in a cultivated mind, but when put together in this grotesque kaleidoscopic confusion suggests, not simple nonsense, but a ludicrous parody of sense. To reproduce the effect, you have not simply to lower the activity of the reasoning machine, but to put it together on some essential plan, so as to bring out a new set of combinations distantly recalling the correct order. We require not a new defect of logic, but a new logical structure.

There is no answer to this as to any other such problems. It is enough to take note of the fact that George Eliot possessed a vein of humor, of which it