Part 7

George Eliot was thirty-eight years old when she made the amazing discovery that she was by nature, not what she had thought herself, a philosophical essayist and a translator of arid German treatises against revealed religion, but something very different—a novelist of human souls, and especially of the souls of women. It was the noteworthy success of her three long short stories, _Amos Barton_, _Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story_, and _Janet’s Repentance_, printed in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ in 1857, that revealed her to herself and to the world.

“Depend upon it, [she says to her imaginary reader in the first of these stories,] you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see something of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of the human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes and speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.”

It was the interior drama of human life that attracted her interest and moved her heart with pity and fear, laughter and love. She found it for the most part in what we should call mediocre surroundings and on rather a humble and obscure stage. But what she found was not mediocre. It was the same discovery that Wordsworth made:

“A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.”

By this I do not mean to say that a close study of the humanness of human nature, a searching contemplation of character, an acute and penetrating psychological analysis is all that there is in her novels. This is her predominant interest, beyond a doubt. She belongs to the school of Hawthorne, Henry James, Thomas Hardy—realists or romancers of the interior life. But she has other interests; and there are other things to reward us in the reading of her books.

There is, first of all, an admirable skill in the setting of her stories. No other novelist has described English midland landscape, towns, and hamlets, better than she. No other writer has given the rich, history-saturated scenery of Florence as well.

She is careful also not to exclude from her stage that messenger of relief and contrast whom George Meredith calls “the comic spirit.” Shakespeare’s clowns, wonderful as some of them are, seem at times like supernumeraries. They come in to make a “diversion.” But George Eliot’s rustic wits and conscious or unconscious humourists belong to the story. Mrs. Poyser and Bartle Massey, Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Tulliver and Bob Jakin, could not be spared.

And then, her stories are really stories. They have action. They move; though sometimes, it must be confessed, they move slowly. Not only do the characters develop, one way or the other, but the plot also develops. Sometimes it is very simple, as in _Silas Marner_; sometimes it is extremely complicated, as in _Middlemarch_, where three love-stories are braided together. One thing it never is—theatrical. Yet at times it moves into an intense scene, like the trial of Hetty Sorrel or the death of Tito Melema, in which the very essence of tragedy is concentrated.

From the success of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ George Eliot went on steadily with her work in fiction, never turning aside, never pausing even, except when her health compelled, or when she needed time to fill her mind and heart with a new subject. She did not write rapidly, nor are her books easy to read in a hurry.

It was an extraordinary series: _Adam Bede_ in 1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ in 1860, _Silas Marner_ in 1861, _Romola_ in 1863, _Felix Holt, the Radical_ in 1866, _Middlemarch_ in 1871, _Daniel Deronda_ in 1876; no padding, no “seconds,” each book apparently more successful, certainly more famous, than its predecessor. How could one woman produce so much closely wrought, finely finished work? Of what sturdy mental race were the serious readers who welcomed it and found delight in it?

Mr. Oscar Browning of Cambridge said that _Daniel Deronda_ was the climax, “the sun and glory of George Eliot’s art.” From that academic judgment I venture to dissent. It is a great book, no doubt, the work of a powerful intellect. But to me it was at the first reading, and is still, a tiresome book. Tediousness, which is a totally different thing from seriousness, is the unpardonable defect in a novel. It may be my own fault, but Deronda seems to me something of a prig. Now a man may be a prig without sin, but he ought not to take up too much room. Deronda takes up too much room. And Gwendolen Harleth, who dressed by preference in sea-green, seems to me to have a soul of the same colour—a psychological mermaid. She is unconvincing. I cannot love her. The vivid little Jewess, Mirah, is the only character with charm in the book.

_Middlemarch_ is noteworthy for its extraordinary richness of human observation and the unexcelled truthfulness of some of its portraits. Mr. Isaac Casaubon is the living image of the gray-minded scholar and gentleman,—as delicately drawn as one of Miss Cecelia Beaux’ portraits of aged, learned, wrinkled men. Rosamund Vincy is the typical “daughter of the horse-leech” in respectable clothes and surroundings. Dorothea Brooke is one of George Eliot’s finest sacrificial heroines:

“A perfect woman, nobly plann’d.”

The book, as a whole, seems to me to have the defect of superabundance. There is too much of it. It is like one of the late William Frith’s large canvases, “The Derby Day,” or “The Railway Station.” It is constructed with skill, and full of rich material, but it does not compose. You cannot see the people for the crowd. Yet there is hardly a corner of the story in which you will not find something worth while.

_Felix Holt, the Radical_ is marred, at least for me, by a fault of another kind. It is a novel of problem, of purpose. I do not care for problem-novels, unless the problem is alive, and even then I do not care very much for political economy in that form. It is too easy for the author to prove any proposition by attaching it to a noble character, or to disprove any theory by giving it an unworthy advocate. English radicalism of 1832 has quite passed away, or gone into the Coalition Cabinet. All that saves _Felix Holt_ now (as it seems to me, who read novels primarily for pleasure) is the lovely figure of Esther Lyon, and her old father, a preacher who really was good.

Following the path still backward, we come to something altogether different. _Romola_ is a historical romance on the grand scale. In the central background is the heroic figure of Savonarola, saintly but not impeccable; in the middle distance, a crowd of Renaissance people immersed in the rich and bloody turmoil of that age; in the foreground, the sharp contrast of two epic personalities—Tito Melema, the incarnation of smooth, easy-going selfishness which never refuses a pleasure nor accepts a duty; and Romola, the splendid embodiment of pure love in self-surrendering womanhood. The shameful end of Tito, swept away by the flooded river Arno and finally choked to death by the father whom he had disowned and wronged, has in it the sombre tone of Fate. But the end of the book is not defeat; it is triumph. Romola, victor through selfless courage and patience, saves and protects the deserted mistress and children of her faithless husband. In the epilogue we see her like _Notre Dame de Secours_, throned in mercy and crowned with compassion.

Listen to her as she talks to Tito’s son in the loggia looking over Florence to the heights beyond Fiesole.

“‘What is it, Lillo?’ said Romola, pulling his hair back from his brow. Lillo was a handsome lad, but his features were turning out to be more massive and less regular than his father’s. The blood of the Tuscan peasant was in his veins.

“‘Mamma Romola, what am I to be?’ he said, well contented that there was a prospect of talking till it would be too late to con _Spirto gentil_ any longer.

“‘What should you like to be, Lillo? You might be a scholar. My father was a scholar, you know, and taught me a great deal. That is the reason why I can teach you.’

“‘Yes,’ said Lillo, rather hesitatingly. ‘But he is old and blind in the picture. Did he get a great deal of glory?’

“‘Not much, Lillo. The world was not always very kind to him, and he saw meaner men than himself put into higher places, because they could flatter and say what was false. And then his dear son thought it right to leave him and become a monk; and after that, my father, being blind and lonely, felt unable to do the things that would have made his learning of greater use to men, so that he might still have lived in his works after he was in his grave.’

“‘I should not like that sort of life,’ said Lillo. ‘I should like to be something that would make me a great man, and very happy besides—something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure.’

“‘That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great—he can hardly keep himself from wickedness—unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo—you know why I keep to-morrow sacred: _he_ had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, 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 pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be 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.” I will tell you something, Lillo.’

“Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo’s cheeks between her hands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.

“‘There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds—such as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him.’

“Again Romola paused. Her voice was unsteady, and Lillo was looking up at her with awed wonder.

“‘Another time, my Lillo—I will tell you another time. See, there are our old Piero di Cosimo and Nello coming up the Borgo Pinti, bringing us their flowers. Let us go and wave our hands to them, that they may know we see them.’”

Hardly one of George Eliot’s stories has a conventional “happy ending.” Yet they leave us not depressed, but strengthened to endure and invigorated to endeavour. In this they differ absolutely from the pessimistic novels of the present hour, which not only leave a bad taste in the mouth, but also a sense of futility in the heart.

Let me turn now to her first two novels, which still seem to me her best. Bear in mind, I am not formulating academic theories, nor pronouncing _ex cathedrâ_ judgments, but simply recording for the consideration of other readers certain personal observations and reactions.

_Adam Bede_ is a novel of rustic tragedy in which some of the characters are drawn directly from memory. Adam is a partial portrait of George Eliot’s father, and Dinah Morris a sketch of her aunt, a Methodist woman preacher. There is plenty of comic relief in the story, admirably done. Take the tongue duel between Bartle Massey, the sharp-spoken, kind-hearted bachelor school-master, and Mrs. Poyser, the humorous, pungent, motherly wife of the old farmer.

“‘What!’ said Bartle, with an air of disgust. ‘Was there a woman concerned? Then I give you up, Adam.’

“‘But it’s a woman you’n spoke well on, Bartle,’ said Mr. Poyser. ‘Come, now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha’ been a bad invention if they’d all been like Dinah.’

“‘I meant her voice, man—I meant her voice, that was all,’ said Bartle. ‘I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears. As for other things, I dare say she’s like the rest o’ the women—thinks two and two ’ull come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.’

“‘Ay, ay!’ said Mrs. Poyser; ‘one ’ud think, an’ hear some folks talk, as the men war ’cute enough to count the corns in a bag o’ wheat wi’ only smelling at it. They can see through a barn door, _they_ can. Perhaps that’s the reason they can see so little o’ this side on’t.’

“‘Ah!’ said Bartle, sneeringly, ‘the women are quick enough—they’re quick enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows ’em himself.’

“‘Like enough,’ said Mrs. Poyser; ‘for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun ’em, an’ they can only catch ’em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man’s getting’s tongue ready; an’ when he outs wi’ his speech at last, there’s little broth to be made on’t. It’s your dead chicks take the longest hatchin’. Howiver, I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the men.’

“‘Match!’ said Bartle; ‘ay, as vinegar matches one’s teeth. If a man says a word, his wife’ll match it with a contradiction; if he’s a mind for hot meat, his wife’ll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs, she’ll match him with whimpering. She’s such a match as the horsefly is to th’ horse: she’s got the right venom to sting him with—the right venom to sting him with.’

“‘What dost say to that?’ said Mr. Poyser, throwing himself back and looking merrily at his wife.

“‘Say!’ answered Mrs. Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her eye; ‘why, _I say as some folks’ tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin’, not to tell you the time o’ the day, but because there’s summat wrong i’ their own inside_.’ ...”

The plot, as in Scott’s _Heart of Midlothian_, turns on a case of seduction and child murder, and the contrast between Effie and Jeannie Deans has its parallel in the stronger contrast between Hetty Sorrel and Dinah Morris. Hetty looked as if she were “made of roses”; but she was, in Mrs. Poyser’s phrase, “no better nor a cherry wi’ a hard stone inside it.” Dinah’s human beauty of face and voice was the true reflection of her inward life which

“cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turned it by degrees to the soul’s essence.”

The crisis of the book comes in the prison, where Dinah wrestles for the soul of Hetty—a scene as passionate and moving as any in fiction. Dinah triumphs, not by her own might, but by the sheer power and beauty of the Christian faith and love which she embodies.

In George Eliot’s novels you will find some passages of stinging and well-merited satire on the semi-pagan, conventional religion of middle-class orthodoxy in England of the nineteenth century—“proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes”—read the chapter on “A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet,” in _The Mill on the Floss_. But you will not find a single page or paragraph that would draw or drive the reader away from real Christianity. On the contrary, she has expressed the very secret of its appeal to the human heart through the words and conduct of some of her best characters. They do not argue; they utter and show the meaning of religion. On me the effect of her books is a deepened sense of the inevitable need of Christ and his gospel to sustain and nourish the high morality of courage and compassion, patience, and hope, which she so faithfully teaches.

The truth is, George Eliot lived in the afterglow of Christian faith. Rare souls are capable of doing that. But mankind at large needs the sunrise.

_The Mill on the Floss_ is partly an autobiographic romance. Maggie Tulliver’s character resembles George Eliot in her youth. The contrast between the practical and the ideal, the conflict between love and duty in the heart of a girl, belong to those _problematische Naturen_, as Goethe called them, which may taste keen joys but cannot escape sharp sorrows. The centre of the story lies in Maggie’s strong devotion to her father and to her brother Tom—a person not altogether unlike the “elder brother” in the parable—in strife with her love for Philip, the son of the family enemy. Tom ruthlessly commands his sister to choose between breaking with him and giving up her lover. Maggie, after a bitter struggle, chooses her brother. Would a real woman do that? Yes, I have known some very real women who have done it, in one case with a tragic result.

The original title of this book (and the right one) was _Sister Maggie_. Yet we can see why George Eliot chose the other name. The little river Floss, so tranquil in its regular tidal flow, yet capable of such fierce and sudden outbreaks, runs through the book from beginning to end. It is a mysterious type of the ineluctable power of Nature in man’s mortal drama.

In the last chapter, when the flood comes, and the erring sister who loved her brother so tenderly, rescues him who loved her so cruelly from the ruined mill, the frail skiff which carries them clasped heart to heart, reconciled in that revealing moment, goes down in the senseless irresistible rush of waters.

It is not a “bad ending.” The sister’s love triumphs. Such a close was inevitable for such a story. But it is not a conclusion. It cries out for immortality.

* * * * *

On the art of George Eliot judgments have differed. Mr. Oscar Browning, a respectable authority, thinks highly of it. Mr. W. C. Brownell, a far better critic, indeed one of the very best, thinks less favourably of it, says that it is too intellectual; that the development and conduct of her characters are too logical and consistent; that the element of surprize, which is always present in life, is lacking in her people. “Our attention,” he writes, “is so concentrated on what they think that we hardly know how they feel, or whether ... they feel at all.” This criticism does not seem to me altogether just. Certainly there is no lack of surprize in Maggie Tulliver’s temporary infatuation with the handsome, light-minded Stephen Guest, or in Dorothea Brooke’s marriage to that heady young butterfly, Will Ladislaw. These things certainly were not arrived at by logical consistency. Nor can one lay his hand on his heart and say that there is no feeling in the chapter where the fugitive Romola comes as Madonna to the mountain village, stricken by pestilence, or in the passage where Dinah Morris strives for Hetty’s soul in prison.

George Eliot herself tells us the purpose of her art—it is _verity_.

“It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in many Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise.... All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children—in our gardens and in our homes. But let us love that other beauty, too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy.”

It is Rembrandt, then, rather than Titian, who is her chosen painter. But she does not often attain his marvellous _chiaroscuro_.

Her style is clear and almost always firm in drawing, though deficient in colour. It is full of meaning, almost over-scrupulous in defining precisely what she wishes to express. Here and there it flashes into a wise saying, a sparkling epigram. At other times, especially in her later books, it spreads out and becomes too diffuse, too slow, like Sir Walter Scott’s. But it never repels by vulgar smartness, nor perplexes by vagueness and artificial obscurity. It serves her purpose well—to convey the results of her scrutiny of the inner life and her loving observation of the outer life in its humblest forms. In these respects it is admirable and satisfying. And it is her own—she does not imitate, nor write according to a theory.

Her general view of human nature is not essentially different from that expressed in a passage which I quoted from Thackeray in the previous chapter. We are none of us “irreproachable characters.” We are “mixed human beings.” Therefore she wishes to tell her stories “in such a way as to call forth tolerant judgment, pity, and sympathy.”

* * * * *

As I began so let me end this chapter—with a word on women. For myself, I think it wise and prudent to maintain with Plutarch that _virtue_ in man and woman is one and the same. Yet there is a difference between the feminine and the masculine virtues. This opinion Plutarch sets forth and illustrates in his brief histories, and George Eliot in her novels. But of the virtues of women she gives more and finer examples.

THE POET OF IMMORTAL YOUTH

One of the things that surprized and bewildered old Colonel Newcome when he gathered his boy’s friends around the mahogany tree in the dull, respectable dining-room at 12 Fitzroy Square, was to hear George Warrington declare, between huge puffs of tobacco smoke, “that young Keats was a genius to be estimated in future days with young Raphael.” At this Charles Honeyman sagely nodded his ambrosial head, while Clive Newcome assented with sparkling eyes. But to the Colonel, sitting kindly grave and silent at the head of the table, and recalling (somewhat dimly) the bewigged and powdered poetry of the age of Queen Anne, such a critical sentiment seemed radical and revolutionary, almost ungentlemanly.

How astonished he would have been sixty years later if he had taken up Mr. Sidney Colvin’s _Life of Keats_, in the “English Men of Letters Series,” and read in the concluding chapter the deliberate and remarkable judgment that “by power, as well as by temperament and aim, he was the most Shakespearean spirit that has lived since Shakespeare”!

In truth, from the beginning the poetry of Keats has been visited too much by thunder-storms of praise. It was the indiscriminate enthusiasm of his friends that drew out the equally indiscriminate ridicule of his enemies. It was the premature salutation offered to him as a supreme master of the most difficult of all arts that gave point and sting to the criticism of evident defects in his work. _The Examiner_ hailed him, before his first volume had been printed, as one who was destined to revive the early vigour of English poetry. _Blackwood’s Magazine_ retorted by quoting his feeblest lines and calling him “Johnny Keats.” The suspicion of log-rolling led to its usual result in a volley of stone-throwing.