George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy
by
George Willis Cooke

Part 8 out of 8




There is wanting in George Eliot's books that freshness of spirit, that
faith in the future, and that peaceful poise of soul which is to be found
in the writings of Tennyson, Ruskin and Mrs. Browning. Even with all his
constitutional cynicism and despair, the teachings of Carlyle are much more
hopeful than hers. An air of fatigue and world-weariness is about all her
work, even when it is most stimulating with its altruism. Though in theory
not a pessimist, yet a sense of pain and sorrow grows out of the touch of
each of her books. In this she missed one of the highest uses of
literature, to quicken new hopes and to awaken nobler purposes. There is a
tone of joy and exultation in the power life confers, an instinctive sense
of might to conquer the world, in the best writing. To make men think, to
move men to action, to confer finer feelings and motives, is the power of
the true poet. When he does not accomplish this he has written to a lesser
purpose. Literature aims either to please or to quicken the mind. It cannot
please when it leaves the heart depressed and burdened with the failures
and sadness of the world. If it is to please, it must make use of that
goodness and joy which are in excess of evil and misery. It cannot quicken
when it unnerves the mind and brings despair of moral purpose. If it is to
inspire it must show that something great is to be done, and awaken the
courage to do it.

That life has its sad and painful elements is a terrible fact, and the
novelist who would paint life as it is must recognize them. It is quite as
true that the good and the hopeful are more than the sad and painful, that
right is more powerful in human life than wrong. The novelist who would
paint life with an exact and even-handed justice, must not make all his
endings sorrowful, for very many in real life are not so. _The Mill on the
Floss_ would have been a more powerful and effective book could Maggie have
been made to conquer. It would have been quite as true to nature to have
represented her as overcoming her defects, and as being purified through
suffering. Is all suffering to conquer us, instead of our being able to
conquer it, and gaining a more peaceful and a purer life through its aid?
If Maggie is George Eliot in her youthful experiences, then the novel is
untrue to fact in that Marian Evans conquered and Maggie failed. The same
fault is to be found in _Middlemarch_, that Dorothea, great as she is,
deserved a much better fate than that accorded to her. The elements of
womanly greatness were in her character, and with all the barriers created
by society she would have done better things had her creator been true to
her capacities in unfolding her life-history. The effect of both these
great novels is one of depression and disappointment. The reader always
expects more as he goes on his way through these scenes, depicted with such
genius, than is realized at the end. Disappointment is almost inevitable,
for the promise is greater than the fulfilment. The like result is produced
by those books which have the brightest closing scenes, as in _Adam Bede_
and _Daniel Deronda_, where the author's aim was evidently hopeful and
constructive. _Silas Marner_ and _Felix Holt_ are the only exceptions to
this pessimistic tone, and in which justice is done to the better side of
life. In all her later books the ending is painful. In _The Mill on the
Floss_, Maggie and Tom are drowned after Maggie had been led to a most
bitter end of her love-affairs. In _Romola_ the heroine is left a widow,
after her husband's treachery had brought him to a terrible death, and
after Savonarola had suffered martyrdom. Dorothea marries into a life of
ordinary drudgery, and Lydgate fails. Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen are
separated from each other, and Deronda goes to the east in furtherance of a
wild scheme of Jewish colonization. Fedalma loses her father by the
treachery of her lover, and without hope conducts her tribe to Africa.
Jubal dies dishonored, and Armgart loses her voice. Yet it is not merely
that the conclusion does not lead to the expected result, but throughout
there is a tone of doubt and failure. That George Eliot purposed to give
life this tinge of sadness is not to be accepted as the true explanation of
it. It is known that she did not have such a purpose, that she was
surprised and disappointed that her books should produce such a result on
her readers. The explanation is to be found in another direction.

She was an agnostic; life had no wide horizon for her. The light of a
genuinely ideal and spiritual conception of life was not hers. The world
was bounded to her vision, rounded into the little capacity possessed by
man. Where others would have cast a glow of hope and sunset brilliance,
promise of a brighter day yet to dawn over the closing scenes of her
novels, she could see nothing beyond but the feeble effect of an earthly
transmitted good. In this regard her books afford a most interesting
contrast to those of the two other great women who have adorned English
literature with their genius. The lot of Mrs. Browning and Charlotte Bronte
was much sadder and more depressing than that of George Eliot; more of
darkness and pain affected their lives. A subtle tone of sadness runs
through their books, but it is not burdensome and depressing as is the case
of George Eliot. There is hope with it, and a buoyant faith in the good,
which lies above and beyond all pain and sorrow. With neither of them was
this faith conventional, a mere reflection of the religion taught them in
childhood. It was a thoughtful result of a large experience, and of hard
contact with many of the severest facts of human experience. That wide
horizon of spiritual reality which shone for them on every hand, lights all
their work with a brilliance which almost puts out of sight the pain and
sorrow of the world. The reader of their books is made to believe that life
is an endless good; he is cheered and made stronger for what life offers
him.

Agnosticism may have its great and heroic incentives, it may impel men to a
nobler activity, but its literary effect, as a motive towards a more
inspiring life, has not been satisfactory in the hands of George Eliot.
Shakspere is not a teacher of philosophy or ethics, he has no doctrines to
preach, no theories to advocate. What he believed, it would be difficult to
ascertain from his writings; yet he is an effective teacher of morals, he
stimulates into activity all that is best in man, life widens and deepens
under the touch of his genius. So is it with Milton, Schiller, Moliere,
Calderon, Montaigne and Wordsworth. So is it with George Eliot in all that
concerns our duties, and even with our human sympathies. In the one
direction of trust she is wanting, and her books are devoid of it.
Shakspere makes us realize that God rules over the world; George Eliot
leaves us with the feeling that we know nothing, and can hope for but
little. That her theories really cast a shadow over the world, may be seen
in all her dealings with love. Love is with her a human passion, deep,
pure, blessed. It crowns some of her characters with joy and peace and
strength; it is never impure and base in her pages. Yet it is human, it is
a social force, it is to be made altruistic. It never gains that high
poetic influence and charm which glorifies it in the writings of Mrs.
Browning, Browning and Tennyson. Browning conceives of it as an eternal
passion, as one with all that is divinest in man, as a medium of his
spiritual development. In his pages it glows with moral promise, it
inspires and regenerates. The poet should deal with love, not as a thing
base and susceptible of abuse, but as an influence capable of the most
beneficent results in the uplifting of man's nature. If it degrades, it
also sweetens; and only that is love which makes life richer and more
worthy. The true artist can afford to deal with that which pleases, not
with that which saddens and disgusts. The real love is the pure love, not
the depraved. The natural is the noble, not the debased life.

George Eliot's originality of method has given rise to a new school in
fiction. Her imitators, even when at their best, are not her equals, and
they have degraded her methods oftentimes to paltry uses. They have tried
to take photographs of life, supposing that art has for its aim to copy
nature. They have failed to see, what she did see, though not so clearly as
could have been desired, that art must do much more than imitate some scene
or fact out of nature. It must give beauty, meaning and expression to what
it copies. And it must do more than imitate: it must go beyond mere
description, and introduce unity, purpose and thought into its work. True
art has a soul as well as a body, says something to the mind as well as to
the eye, appeals to the soul as well as to sense. Had George Eliot done
nothing more than to describe common English life there would have been
small excuse for her work. She did more, touched that life with genius,
made it blossom into beauty, and gave to it deep moral meanings. The
defects of her method are to be seen in the fact that her imitators cannot
get above life's surface, and deal mainly with shallow or degraded natures.
Her methods do not inspire great work, while her own genius redeemed the
false ways into which she was led by her philosophic theories.

Science can dissect the human body, but it can do little towards an
explanation of the subtler meanings of life and mind. Its methods are
analytical; it has reached no truly synthetic results in the regions where
knowledge is most to be desired. Its effects on literature are destructive.
Science destroys poetry, dries up the poetic sense, closes the doors of
imagination. The attempt to make science co-operate with poetry is in
itself the promise of failure. The limitations of George Eliot's work are
the limitations of poetry subdued by science. Could she have rid herself of
that burden, been impelled by a faith and an ideal purpose commensurate
with her genius, the result would have been much greater. This limitation
suggests the fact that literature is synthetic and constructive in its
purpose and spirit. It is this fact which has made the classic literatures
so powerful in their effect on modern Europe. They have given unity,
spiritual purpose and ideal aims to the whole modern world. The freshness
as of an eternal spring was in the literature of Greece, the naturalness of
a healthy manhood. That literature is organic, it is one with life, it is
refreshing as nature itself. That literature lives and flames with power
because it is synthetic, buoyant, touched with an eternal spiritual beauty,
great with promise of a growing earth. Its poets do not dissect, but build;
they do not analyze, but create. And this is the literary need of the
present time. There is need of more poetry, a more poetic interpretation of
life, a richer imagination and a finer sense of beauty. The common is
everywhere, but it is not necessarily great or beautiful or noble. It may
have its elements of pathos and tragedy, its touches of beauty and its
motives of heroism. It has in it also the promise of better things to be.
That is the true poetry, the true fiction, which brings out this promise so
that we know it, so that it moves us to better deeds and enchants us with
music of purer living. The world is bad enough without dragging to the
light all its evils and discords; let us rather know what promise it
contains of the better. In one word, the real oppresses and enthralls; the
ideal liberates, and brings us to ourselves.

Genius redeems every fault. It must be taken for what it is, must not be
criticised, is to be used to the highest ends. Only when genius unites
itself to false methods and checks itself by false theories, has the critic
a right to complain. Genius, obedient to its own laws, accepts every fact
life presents, and lifts each one to be an instrument for the enlargement
of man's life. When it deliberately strikes out all that is not human,
however, from man's experience, denies the realty of that impression and
that conviction which comes from other than material sources, it cripples
and denies itself.




XX.


THE LIMITATIONS OF HER THOUGHT.

It must be remembered that George Eliot does not use the novel merely for
the purpose of inculcating certain doctrines, and that her genius for
artistic creation is of a very high order. In dealing with her as a thinker
and as a moral and religious teacher, she is to be regarded, first of all,
as a poet and an artist. Her ethics are subordinate to her art; her
religion is subsidiary to her genius. That she always deliberately set
about the task of introducing her positivism into the substance of her
novels is not to be supposed. This would be to imply a forgetfulness on her
part of her own methods, and a prostration of art to purposes she would
have scorned to adopt. This is evidently true, however, that certain
features of the positive and the evolution philosophy had so thoroughly
approved themselves to her mind as to cause them to be accepted as a
completely satisfactory explanation of the world, so far as any explanation
is possible. So heartily were they received, so fully did they become
incorporated with the substance of her thinking, that she viewed all human
experiences in their light. They had ceased to be theory and speculation
with her. When she thought about the world, when she observed the acts of
men, the positivist explanation was at once applied, and instinctively.

That she did teach positivism is unfortunately true, so far as her literary
touch and expression is concerned. That philosophy affects all her books
with its subtly insinuating flavor, and it gives meaning and bias to most
of them. They thus gain in definiteness of purpose, in moral vigor, in
minutely faithful study of some phases of human experience, and in a
massive impression of thoughtfulness which her work creates. At the same
time, they undoubtedly lose in value as studies of life; in free range of
expression for her genius, her poetry and her art; and in that spiritual
vision which looks forward with keen gazing eyes of hope and confident
inquiry.

Her teaching, like most teaching, is a mingled good and evil. In more than
one direction her ethical and religious influence was most wholesome and
effective. She brought into clear light a few great facts, and made them
the more conspicuous by the strong emphasis she gave them. This is, in the
main, the method of all teaching and of all progress. Development seldom
proceeds in a direct line, but rather, so far as man is concerned, by
forcible emphasis laid on some great fact which has been previously
neglected. The idealism of a previous age had shown the value of certain
facts and tendencies in human nature, but it had exaggerated some faculties
and capacities of man, as well as neglected others. In consequence, our own
time swings to the other extreme, and cannot have too much of evolution and
positivism.

Idealism is in human nature, and will give itself expression. Positivism is
also a result of our experience and of our study of the universe, both
material and mental; it is a result of the desire for definite knowledge.
As a re-action against the excesses of idealism it is a powerful leaven,
and it brings into necessary prominence those facts which are neglected by
the opposite philosophy. It takes account of facts, and scorns mysticism;
and it thus appeals to a deep-seated bias of the time.

George Eliot's books have an interest as an attempt at an interpretation
of life from its more practical and realistic side, and not less as a
re-action against the influences of very nearly all the great literary
minds of the earlier half of the century in England. Under the lead of
Coleridge and Wordsworth, and influenced by German thought and literature,
a remarkable movement was then developed in English literature. The outcome
of that movement has been surpassed only by that of the age of Shakspere.
Freshness of thought, love of nature, profound humanitarian convictions,
and spontaneity wedded to great largeness of ideas, characterize this
period and its noble work. Such an age is almost invariably followed by an
age of re-action, criticism, realism and analysis. An instinctive demand
for a portrayal of the more positive side of life, and the influence of
science, have developed a new literary school. For doctrine it teaches
agnosticism, and in method it cares mainly for art and beauty of form.
Towards the development of the new school George Eliot has been a leading
influence, though her sympathies have not gone with all its tendencies and
results.

If Wordsworth exaggerated the importance of the intuitive and personal,
George Eliot equally exaggerated the value of the historic and hereditary.
It was desirable, however, that the relations of life to the past should be
brought out more distinctly by a literary development of their relations to
the present, and that the influence of social heredity should be seen as
affecting life on all sides. Tradition is a large and persistent element in
the better life of the race, while the past certainly has a powerful
influence over the present. This fact was neglected by Wordsworth, and
especially is it neglected by the intuitive philosophies. They ignore the
lessons of the past, and assume that a new and perfect world is to be
evolved from the depths of consciousness. That to think a better world is
to create a better world, they seem to take for granted, while the fact is
that the truer life is the result of a painful and long-continued struggle
against adverse conditions. What has been, persists in remaining, and the
past, with all its narrowness and prejudices, continues to influence men
more powerfully than does clear thought or regard for the truth. Emotion
and sentiment cling about what has become sacred with age. Channels for
thought and activity having once been made, it is very difficult to abandon
them for untried paths approved even by reason.

The historic view is one of much importance, and is likely to be overlooked
by the poets and novelists. It is also ignored by the radicals in morals
and religion. Much which George Eliot says on this subject is of great
value, and may be heeded with the utmost profit. Her words of wisdom,
however, lose much of their value because they utterly ignore those
spontaneous and supernatural elements of man's higher life which lift it
quite out of the region of dependence on history.

There is something to be said in behalf of George Eliot's attitude towards
religion, which caused her to hold it in reverence, even when rejecting the
objective validity of its dogmas. Yet much more is to be said for that
other attitude, which is faithful to the law of reason, and believes that
reason is competent to say some truer and larger word on a subject of such
vital importance and such constant interest to man. That both reason and
tradition are to be listened to reverently is true, but George Eliot so
zealously espoused the cause of tradition as to give it an undue
prominence. Her lesson was needed, however, and we may be all the better
able to profit by it because she was so much an enthusiast in proclaiming
its value. The even poise of perfect truth is no more to be had from her
pages than from those of others.

The emphasis she laid on feeling and sentiment was a needed one, as a
counterpoise to the exaggerations of rationalism. Man does live in his
feelings more than in his reason. He is a being of sentiment, a creature of
impulse, his social life is one of the affections. In all the ranges of his
moral, religious and social life he is guided mainly by his emotions and
sentiments. It cannot be said, however, as George Eliot would have us say,
that these are human born and have no higher meaning. They are the
outgrowth of spiritual reality, as well as of human experience; they repeat
the foregleams and foresights of a

"far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."

Life is enriched and flooded with light by the emotions, and feeling, true
and tender and pure, is as much the symbol of humanity as reason itself. It
was therefore well that some one should attempt to justify the emotional
life against the aspersions of those who have done it grave injustice. It
is true that man is not a being who wholly arrives at his method of life
through reason, but feeling lends quite as important aid. He does not only
think, but he has emotions as well; he not only weighs evidence, but he
acts by impulse. He is continually led by the emotions, sentiments and
impulses created for him by the life of ages past. Without emotion there
could be no art, no poetry and no music. Without emotion there would be no
religion and no spiritual life. Sentiment sweetens, beautifies and endears
all that is human and natural.

Emotion and the affections, however, seem to be shorn of their highest
beauty and glory when they are restricted to a merely earthly origin and
compass of power. It is altogether impossible to believe that their own
impulse to look beyond the human is a delusion, and that they really have
nothing to report that is valid from beyond the little round which man
treads. To believe in the human beauty and glory of the feelings, and to
rejoice in their power to unite us to our kind, need imply no forgetfulness
of their demand for a wider expression and a higher communion.

Her theory of the origin of feeling is not to be accepted. It means
something more than an inheritance of ancestral experience. It is the
result rather than the cause of reason, for reason has an influence she did
not acknowledge, and an original capacity which she never saw. Her view of
feeling was mainly theoretical, for she was led in her attitude towards the
facts of life, not by sentiment, but by reason. Hers was a thoughtful
rather than an impulsive mind, and given to logic more than to emotion.

Her enthusiasm for altruism, her zeal for humanity, lends a delightful
feature to her books. It gives a glow and a consecration to her work, and
makes her as great a prophet as positivism is capable of creating. And it
is no idle power she awakens in her positivist faith in man. She shames
those who claim a broader and better faith. Zeal for man is no mean gospel,
as she gives life and meaning to it in her books. To live for others, too
many are not likely to do. She made altruism beautiful, she made it a
consecration and a religion. Those who cannot accept her agnosticism and
her positivism may learn much from her faith in man and from her enthusiasm
for humanity. No faith is worth much which does not lead to a truer and a
more helpful love of man. Any faith is good in so far as it makes us more
humane and sympathetic. In this regard, the radicalism of George Eliot was
a great advance on much of the free-thinking of our century. She desired to
build, not to destroy. She was no iconoclast, no hater of what other men
love and venerate. Her tendencies were all on the side of progress, good
order and social growth.

Her conception of the organic social life of the race is one of great
value. It led her to believe in the possibility of a social organization in
the future based on science, and better capable of meeting all the wants of
mankind than the more personal and competitive methods have done. This
belief in the organic unity of the race is not necessarily positivist in
its character, for Hegel entertained it as fully as does Herbert Spencer.
The larger social life will come, however, as individuals are moved to lead
the way, and not alone as the result of a general evolutionary process. On
its mental side, her social theory is to be regarded with grave suspicions,
for it brings all minds to the same level. No mind of commanding influence
is to be found in her books. No powerful intellect gives greatness to any
of her plots. Her Felix Holt is not a man of original and positive thought.
We accept, but do not enthusiastically admire him. Deronda is a noble
character, but he in no sense represents the largest things of which a
social leader is capable. He disappoints and is weak, and he has no power
to create the highest kind of leadership. In other words, he is not a great
man. The world's reformers have been of another temper and mettle. He is no
Mazzini, no Luther. George Eliot's social theories loft no room for such
men. They were superfluous in her social system. The man not to be
explained by heredity and tradition had no place in her books; and no
genius, no great man, can ever be explained by heredity and tradition
alone.

George Eliot evidently desired to destroy individualism as a social force.
The individual, according to her teaching, is to renounce himself for the
sake of the race. He is to live, not as a personal being, but as a member
of the social organization; to develop his altruistic nature, not to
perfect his personal character. The finer flavor of personality is brushed
mercilessly away by this method.

Reason needs to be justified in opposition to her excessive praise of
feeling. Meanwhile, the capacity of man to live a life higher than that of
his social state is to be asserted. He is indeed a member of humanity, but
humanity does not absorb him to the cost of his personality. Life is strong
in those ages in which the individual is able to assert his own
personality, in opposition to what is imperfect and untrue in the life of
his time. This failure to recognize the worth and capacity of the
individual is a most serious defect in George Eliot's work, and mars it in
many directions. A very competent critic has shown how serious is the
limitation arising in this manner, and permeating her books with a false
conception of life.

"So far as George Eliot's life is concerned," says Mr. Stopford Brooke,
"she was eager in her self-development, and as eager in her sympathies.
But it was a different matter in the main drift of her work. She lowered
the power of individualism. Nay, she did not believe in its having any
self-caused or God-caused existence. Few have individualized their
characters more than she did, and of these characters we have many distinct
types. But she individualized them with, I may say, almost the set purpose
of showing that their individualism was to be sacrificed to the general
welfare of the race. The more her characters cling to their individuality
the more they fail in reaching happiness or peace. If they are noble
characters, they are finally obliged, through their very nobility, to
surrender all their ideals, all their personal hopes, all the individual
ends they hoped to develop; and they reach peace finally only through utter
surrender of personality in humanity. The characters in her books who do
not do this, who cling to their individuality and maintain it, succeed in
life, for the most part, if they are strong; are broken to pieces if they
are weak; but in all cases, save one, are not the noble but the ignoble
characters. The whole of her books is a suppressed attack on individualism,
and an exaltation of self-renunciation as the only force of progress, as
the only ground of morality. I leave aside here, as apart from the moral
side of the subject, the view that individual power or weakness of any kind
is the consequence of the past, of race, of physical causes. What a man is
found to do is not affected by that, in her view.... No one can deny that
the morality is a lofty one, and, as far as it asserts self-renunciation,
entirely useful; we have with all our hearts to thank George Eliot for that
part of her work. But when sacrifice of self is made, in its last effort,
equivalent to the sacrifice of individuality, the doctrine of
self-renunciation is driven to a vicious extreme. It is not self-sacrifice
which is then demanded, it is suicide ... Fully accepted, it would reduce
the whole of the human race to hopelessness. That, indeed, is the last
result. A sad and fatal hopelessness of life broods over all the nobler
characters. All their early ideals are sacrificed, all their early joys
depart, all the pictures they formed are blotted out. They gain peace
through renunciation, after long failure; some happiness in yielding to the
inevitable, and harmonizing life with it; and some blessedness in doing all
they can for the progress of those who follow them, for the good of those
that are with them. Their self is conquered, not through ennoblement of
personality, but through annihilation of personality. And having
surrendered their separate personality, they then attain the fitting end,
silence forevermore. It is no wonder that no characters are so sad, that
none steep the reader in such hopelessness of joy, as the noble characters
of the later works of George Eliot. They want the mighty power, the
enkindling hopes, the resurrection of life, the joy and rapture which
deepens towards death and enables man to take up the ideals of youth
again."

If too severe in some directions, this criticism is substantially sound. It
does not matter what theory of personality we adopt, in a philosophical
sense, if that theory upholds personal confidence and force of will. If it
does not do this, the whole result is evil. This lack of faith in
personality saddened all the work done by George Eliot. In theory a
believer in an ever-brightening future, and no pessimist, yet the outcome
of her work is dark with despondency and grief.

Life is sad, hard and ascetic in her treatment of it. An ascetic tone runs
through all her work, the result of her theories of renunciation. The same
sternness and cheerlessness is to be seen in the poetry and painting of the
pre-Raphaelites. The joy, freshness and sunniness of Raphael is not to be
found in their work. Life is painful, puritanic and depressing to them. Old
age seems to be upon them, or the decadence of a people that has once been
great. Human nature does not need that this strain be put upon it. Life is
stronger when more assertive of itself. It has a right to assert itself in
defiance of mere rules, and only when it does so is it true and great. The
ascetic tone is one of the worst results of a scientific view of the world
as applied to literature; for it is thoroughly false both in fact and in
sentiment. The strong, hopeful, youthful look at life is the one which
literature demands, and because it is the nearest the heart and spirit of
life itself. The dead nation produces a dead literature. The age made
doubtful by an excess of science produces a literature burdened with
sadness and pain. Great and truthful as it may be, it lacks in power to
conquer the world. It shows, not the power of Homer, but the power of
Lucretius.

Her altruism has its side of truth, but not all of the truth is in it. Any
system of thought which sees nothing beyond man is not likely to find that
which is most characteristic in man himself. He is to be fathomed, if
fathomed at all, by some other line than that of his own experience. If he
explains the universe, the universe is also necessary to explain him. Man
apart from the supersensuous is as little to be understood as man apart
from humanity. He belongs to a Universal Order quite as much as he belongs
to the human order. Man may be explained by evolution, but evolution is not
to be explained by anything in the nature of man. It requires some larger
field of vision to take note of that elemental law. Not less true is it
that mind does not come obediently under this method of explanation, that
it demands account of how matter is transformed into thought. The law of
thought needs to be solved after mind is evolved.

There is occasion for surprise that a mind so acute and logical as George
Eliot's did not perceive that the evolution philosophy has failed to settle
any of the greater problems suggested by Kant. The studies of Darwin and
Spencer have certainly made it impossible longer to accept Locke's theory
of the origin of all knowledge in individual experience, but they have not
in any degree explained the process of thought or the origin of ideas. The
gulf between the physiological processes in the brain and thought has not
been bridged even by a rope walk. The total disparity of mind and matter
resists all efforts to reduce them to one. The utmost which the evolution
philosophy has so far done, is to attempt to prove that mind is a function
of matter or of the physiological process. This conclusion is as far as
possible from being that of the unity of mind and matter.

That man is very ignorant, and that this world ought to demand the greater
share of his attention and energies, are propositions every reasonable
person is ready to accept. Granted their truth, all that is necessarily
true in agnosticism has been arrived at. It is a persistent refusal to see
what lies behind outward facts which gives agnosticism all its practical
justification. Art itself is a sufficient refutation of the assertion that
we know nothing of what lies behind the apparent. That we know something of
causes, every person who uses his own mind may be aware. At the same time,
the rejection of the doctrine of rights argues obedience to a theory,
rather than humble acceptance of the facts of history. That doctrine of
rights, so scorned by George Eliot, has wrought most of the great and
wholesome social changes of modern times. Her theory of duties can show no
historic results whatever.

To separate George Eliot's theories from her genius it seems impossible
to do, but this it is necessary to do in order to give both their proper
place. All praise, her work demands on its side where genius is active.
It is as a thinker, as a theorizer, she is to be criticised and to be
declared wanting. Her work was crippled by her philosophy, or if not
crippled, then it was made less strong of limb and vigorous of body by that
same philosophy. It is true of her as of Wordsworth, that she grew prosy
because she tried to be philosophical. It is true of her as it is not true
of him, that her work lacks in the breadth which a large view of the world
gives. His was no provincial conception of nature or of man. Hers was so in
a most emphatic sense. The philosophy she adopted is not and cannot become
the philosophy of more than a small number of persons. In the nature of the
case it is doomed to be the faith of a few students and cultured people.
It can stir no common life, develop no historic movements, inaugurate no
reforms, nor give to life a diviner meaning. Whether it be true or
not,--and this need not here be asked,--this social and moral limitation of
its power is enough to condemn it for the purposes of literature. In so far
as George Eliot's work is artistic, poetic, moral and human, it is very
great, and no word too strong can be said in its praise. It is not too
excessive enthusiasm to call her, on the whole, the equal of any novelist.
Her genius is commanding and elemental. She has originality, strength of
purpose, and a profound insight into character. Yet her work is weakened by
its attachment to a narrow theory of life. Her philosophy is transitory in
its nature. It cannot hold its own, as developed by her, for any great
length of time. It has the elements of its own destruction in itself. The
curious may read her for her speculations; the many will read her for her
realism, her humanity and her genius. In truth, then, it would have been
better if her work had been inspired by great spiritual aims and
convictions.




XXI.


BIBLIOGRAPHY.

As an aid to those who may wish to carry further the preceding study of
George Eliot, the following bibliography and lists of references have been
compiled. In their preparation constant use has been made of _Poole's Index
of Periodical Literature_, the bibliography contained in _The Manchester
Literary Club Papers_ for 1881, and a list of references published in
_The Literary World_ (Boston) for February 24, 1883. Numerous additions
have been made to these bibliographies, while the references have been
verified as far as possible. An occasional reference given in these lists
has not been discoverable, as that of the Manchester Club to the _London
Quarterly Review_ for January, 1874, for an article on "George Eliot and
Comtism," and Poole's reference to the same article in the _London
Quarterly_, 47:446. This will be found in the number for January 1877,
volume ninety-four.


1. WRITINGS.

1846. _The Life of Jesus_, by Strauss. Translated from the fourth German
edition, 3 vols. Chapman Brothers, London.

1852-3. Assistant editor of the Westminster Review.

1852. The Westminster Review for January contained her notice of
Carlyle's Life of John Sterling.

In the July number appeared her article on _The Lady Novelists_.

1854. _The Essence of Christianity_, by Feuerbach. Translated from the
second German edition. John Chapman, London.

The Westminster Review for October published her _Woman in France:
Madame de Sable_.

She wrote, it is supposed, occasionally for The Leader newspaper,
of which journal Lewes was the literary editor. None of her
contributions have been identified. [Footnote: There is a nearly
complete set of The Leader in the Boston Athenaeum Library.]

1855. Westminster Review, October, _Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming_.

1856. Westminster Review, January, _German Wit: Heinrich Heine_. July,
_The Natural History of German Life_. October, _Silly Novels by
Lady Novelists_.

1857. Westminster Review, January, _Worldliness and other-Worldliness:
the Poet Young_.

In Blackwood's Magazine for January and February appeared _The Sad
Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton_; in March, April, May and
June, _Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_; from July to December, _Janet's
Repentance_. In December these stories were published in two
volumes under the title of _Scenes of Clerical Life_, by George
Eliot. Edinburgh, Blackwood & Sons. Reprinted in Living Age from
April to December, 1857.

1859. In February, _Adam Bede_ appeared in three volumes, Blackwoods.

Blackwood's Magazine for July contained _The Lifted Veil_.

1860. In April, _The Mill on the Floss_ was published in three volumes,
Blackwoods.

1861. _Silas Marner_ in March, one volume, Blackwoods.

1863. _Romola_ appeared in the Cornhill Magazine from July, 1862, to
July, 1863, and was illustrated. It was published in three volumes
in July; Smith, Elder & Co., London.

1864. The Cornhill Magazine for July contained _Brother Jacob_, with
illustrations.

1865. The Fortnightly Review for May 15 contained _The Influence of
Rationalism_, and a review of Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament.

1866. In June, _Felix Holt_ was issued in three volumes, Blackwoods.

1868. Blackwood's Magazine, January, contained an _Address to Workingmen,
by Felix Holt_.

In June, _The Spanish Gypsy_ was published by Blackwoods.

1869. Blackwood's Magazine for May printed _How Lisa Loved the King_.

The Atlantic Monthly for August contained _Agatha_.

1870. In Macmillan's Magazine for May, _The Legend of Jubal_.

1871. Macmillan's Magazine for July, _Armgart_.

Middlemarch was issued in twelve monthly numbers, beginning with
December, by Blackwoods.

1874. _The Legend of Jubal and other Poems_ was published by Blackwoods.
It contained: _The Legend of Jubal_, _Agatha_, _Armgart_, _How Lisa
Loved the King_, _A Minor Prophet_, _Brother and Sister_,
_Stradivarius_, _Two Lovers_, _Arion_, _O May I Join the Choir
Invisible_.

1876. _Daniel Deronda_ was issued in eight monthly parts, beginning in
February, by Blackwoods.

1878. Macmillan's Magazine for July, _A College Breakfast Party_.

1879. _The Impressions of Theophrastus Such_ was published in June by
Blackwoods.

_The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems, Old and New_, was issued by
Blackwoods, containing, in addition to those in the first edition,
_A College Breakfast Party_, _Self and Life_, _Sweet Evenings Come
and Go_, _Love_, _The Death of Moses_.

In Blackwood's cabinet edition of George Eliot's complete works,
_The Lifted Veil_ and _Brother Jacob_ are reprinted with _Silas
Marner_.

After the death of Lewes she edited his _Study of Psychology_ and
his _Mind as a Function of the Organism_.

1881. The Pall Mall Gazette of January 6 contained her letter to Sara
Hennell concerning the origin of _Adam Bede_.

Three letters to Professor David Kaufmann appeared in the Athenaeum
of November 26, 1881.

The following articles also contain sayings of George Eliot's, or
extracts from her letters: In the Contemporary Review, by "One who
knew her," on the Moral Influence of George Eliot; C. Kegan Paul
in Harper's Magazine; F.W.H. Myers in The Century; W.M.W. Call in
the Westminster Review, and a nephew of William Blackwood in
Blackwood's Magazine.

1882. In Harper's Magazine for March, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps published
numerous extracts from George Eliot's letters under the title of
_Last Words from George Eliot_.

1883. George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind,--London, W.H. Allen, and Boston,
Roberts Brothers,--contains extracts from several letters.

The Essays of George Eliot, collected by Nathan Sheppard,--New
York, Funk & Wagnalls,--contains _Carlyle's Life of Sterling_,
_Woman in France_, _Evangelical Teaching_, _German Wit_,
_Natural History of German Life_, _Silly Novels by Lady
Novelists_, _Worldliness and other-Worldliness_, _The Influence
of Rationalism_, _The Grammar of Ornament_, _Felix Holt's Address
to Workingmen_.

The Complete Essays of George Eliot, Boston, Estes & Lauriat, 1883,
in addition to the above, contains _The Lady Novelists, George
Foster, the German Naturalist, Weimar and its Celebrities_.


2. SELECTIONS, TRANSLATIONS AND PORTRAITS.

Wise, Witty and Tender Sayings in Prose and Verse, Selected by Alexander
Main. Blackwoods, 1872.

Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot. Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1878; enlarged
and with a biographical memoir prefixed, 1881.

George Eliot Birthday Book. Blackwoods, 1878.

George Eliot: Fragments et Pensees, extraits et traduits des ses Oeuvres,
par Ch. Ritter. Geneve, Georges, 1879.

Character Readings from George Eliot, selected and arranged by Nathan
Sheppard. New York, Harpers, 1882.

The following translations have been published:--

_French_.--Adam Bede, by A. Durade; Mill on the Floss, by A. Durade;
Silas Marner, by Durade; Romola, by Durade; Mr. Gilfil's Love Story,
by E. Pasquet; Dorlcote Mill, by E.D. Forques in Revue des Deux Mondes,
June 15, 1860; The Lifted Veil, in Revue des Deux Mondes, September, 1880.

_Dutch_.--Felix Holt, by Merv. Van Westrheeve, 1867, and by P. Bruyn,
1873; Middlemarch, by Merv. Van Westrheeve, 1873; Adam Bede, by P. Bruyn,
1870; Mill on the Floss, by P. Bruyn, 1870; Romola, by P. Bruyn, 1870,
and by J.C. Van Deventer, 1864; Novelettes, by P. Bruyn, 1870.

_German_.--Adam Bede, by J. Frese; Silas Marner, by J. Frese, 1861;
Mill on the Floss, by J. Frese, 1861; Romola, by A.V. Metzsch, 1864;
Middlemarch, by E. Lehmann, 1872-3; Daniel Deronda, by Strodtmann, 1876;
Felix Holt (no translator's name given), 1867. Der Gelueftche Schleier,
Bruder Jakob, by Lehmann.

The portrait of George Eliot appearing as the frontispiece to this
volume is from that published in The Century for November, 1881.
Accompanying it was the following account of it and of other
portraits:--

"We have the pleasure of presenting to our readers an authentic portrait of
George Eliot, the only one by which it is likely that she will be known to
posterity. We are indebted for this privilege, as we shall presently
explain, to the kindness and courtesy of her husband, Mr. J.W. Cross, who
has allowed us to be the first to usher this beautiful work of art to the
world. In doing so, we believe it will interest readers of The Century
Magazine to learn, for the first time, the exact truth regarding the
portraits of George Eliot, and we have therefore obtained from the three
artists to whom, at different times in her life, she sat, some particulars
of those occasions.

"Miss Evans passed the winter of 1849-50 at Geneva, in the house of M.F.
d'Albert Durade, the well-known Swiss water-color painter, who is also the
translator of the authorized French version of her works. At that time she
had, however, written nothing original, and had attracted no general
interest. While she stayed with M. Durade and his wife, the Swiss painter
amused himself by making a small portrait of her in oils--a head and
shoulders. This painting remains in the possession of M. Durade, who has
not merely refused to sell it, but will not allow it to be photographed or
reproduced in any form. He has, however, we understand, consented to make a
replica of it for Mr. Cross. We have not seen this interesting work, but we
hear that it is considered, by those who still remember the great writer as
she looked in her thirtieth year, to be remarkably faithful. M. Durade
recently exhibited this little picture for a few days at the Athenee in
Geneva, but has refused to allow it to be brought to London.

"Ten years after this, in 1859, as the distinguished portrait-painter, Mr.
Samuel Laurence, was returning from America, he happened to meet with 'Adam
Bede,' then just published. He was so delighted with the book that he was
determined to know the author, and it was revealed to him that to do so he
had but to renew his old acquaintance with Mr. George Henry Lewes, whom he
had met years before at Leigh Hunt's. He made George Eliot's acquaintance,
and was charmed with her, and before long he asked leave to make a study of
her head. She assented without any affectation, and, in the early months of
1861, Mr. Lewes commissioned the painter to make a drawing of her. She gave
him repeated sittings in his studio at 6 Wells Street, London, and Mr.
Laurence looks back with great pleasure on the long conversations that
those occasions gave him with his vivacious sitter. The drawing was taken
front face, with the hair uncovered, worn in the fashion then prevalent,
and it was made in chalks. While it was proceeding, Mr. Laurence asked her
if he might exhibit it, when finished, at the Royal Academy, and she at
once consented. But when the time for sending in drew near, the artist
received a letter from Mr. Lewes absolutely withholding this consent, and a
certain strain, of which this was the first symptom, began to embarrass the
relations of the two gentlemen, until Mr. Lewes finally refused to take the
drawing at all. But before the summer was out, Mr. Langford, the reader of
Messrs. Blackwood of Edinburgh, who published George Eliot's works, called
on Mr. Laurence, and asked if he would consent to make a copy of the
drawing for the firm. The artist replied that he should be happy to sell
them the original, and accordingly it passed from his studio, in June,
1861, into the back parlor of Mr. Blackwood's shop, where it now hangs.
Like that of M. Durade, Mr. Laurence's portrait of George Eliot is not to
be in any way reproduced.

"The remaining portrait is that which we reproduce with this number. It is
an elaborate chalk drawing, in black and white, with a slight touch of
color in the eyes, and was executed in the latter part of 1868 and the
early part of 1867, by Mr. Frederick W. Burton, at that time member of the
Society of Painters in Watercolors, and now director of the National
Gallery in London. George Eliot gave Mr. Burton many sittings in his studio
at Kensington, and the picture was eventually exhibited in the Royal
Academy, in 1867, as No. 735, 'The Author of "Adam Bede."' It passed into
Mr. Lewes's possession, was retained at his death by George Eliot, and is
now the property of Mr. J.W. Cross. In the spring of this year, Mr. Cross
came to the conclusion that--as the shop windows were likely to become
filled with spurious and hideous 'portraits' of George Eliot--it was
necessary to overcome the dislike felt by the family of the great novelist
to any publication of her features, to which in life she had been averse,
and he thereupon determined to record in a monumental way what he felt to
be the best existing likeness. Mr. Cross took the drawing over to M. Paul
Rajon, who is acknowledged to be the prince of modern etchers, and in
his retirement at Auvers-sur-Oise, the great French artist has produced
the beautiful etching which we have been permitted to reproduce in
engraving. For this permission, and for great courtesy and kindness under
circumstances the peculiar nature of which it is not necessary here to
specify, we have to tender our most sincere thanks to Mr. J.W. Cross and to
Mr. Burton.

"These are regarded by her friends to be the only important portraits of
George Eliot which exist, but Mr. Cross possesses a very interesting black
silhouette, cut with scissors, when she was sixteen. In this profile, the
characteristics of the mature face are seen in the course of development.
There is also a photograph, the only one ever taken, dating from about
1850, the eyes of which are said to be exceedingly fine. As an impression
of later life, there should be mentioned a profile drawn in pencil by Mrs.
Alma Tadema, in March, 1877. Of all the portraits here alluded to, the one
we engrave is the only one at present destined for publication. It may be
added that there exist one or two other profile sketches, which, however,
are not approved by the friends of George Eliot."


3. BIOGRAPHICAL.

Atlantic Monthly, 14:66, December, 1864, Kate Field on "English Authors in
Florence." Louise M. Alcott in the Independent for Nov. 1,1866. The Galaxy,
7:801, June, 1869, Justin McCarthy on "George Eliot and George Lewes;"
reprinted in "Modern Leaders," 1872 "Home Sketches in France and other
Papers," by the late Mrs. Henry M. Field, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1875, p. 208,
"The Author of Adam Bede in Her own Home." International Review, 10:447,
497, May and June, 1881, W. Fraser Rae. The Century. 23:55, with portrait,
F.W.H. Myers, reprinted in Essays: Modern, London, 1883; 23:47, "The
Portrait of George Eliot." The Nineteenth Century, 9:778, Edith Simcox.
Blackwood's Magazine February, 1881. Harper's Magazine, May, 1881, C. Kegan
Paul; reprinted in Biographical Sketches, London, 1883; March, 1882,
E.S. Phelps. Westminster Review, 116:154, July, 1881, W.M.W. Call, "George
Eliot: her Life and Writings." Le Livre, April 10, 1881, "Life in Geneva."
London Daily Graphic, 23:27, January 8, 1851, "Reminiscences of George
Eliot." Lippincott's Magazine, 31:510, May, 1883, J.A. Dickson, "An
Afternoon at Ashbourne." Inquirer, January, 1881, Dr. Sadler's address.
Pall Mall Gazette, December 30, 1880, "Early Life." London Daily News,
December, 30, 1880, account of her funeral. Eclectic Magazine, March, 1881,
account of her early life and of her funeral; April, A personal sketch.
"George Eliot," Mathilde Blind, 1883, W.H. Allen, London. "Pen pictures of
Modern Authors," Wm. Sheppard, 1882, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. The
Congregationalist, May 28, 1879, Mrs. Annie Downs, "A Visit to George
Eliot." The Christian Leader, October 27,1881, Mrs. M.E. Bruce.


4. GENERAL CRITICISMS.

Quarterly Review, 108:469. Macmillan's Magazine, 14:272, J. Morley; same,
Eclectic Magazine, 67:488; reprinted in "Critical Miscellanies," first
series. Atlantic Monthly, 18:479, H. James. Christian Examiner, 70:227,
I.M. Luyster. North British Review, 45:141, 197. H.H. Lancaster; reprinted
in "Essays and Reviews," Edinburgh, 1876. National Review, 11:191. Home and
Foreign Review, 3:522, Richard Simpson. Fraser's Magazine, 103:263,
February, 1881, T.E. Kebbel, "Village Life according to George Eliot;"
same, Living Age, 148:608. National Quarterly, 1:455, E.L. Wentworth.
Potter's American Monthly, 9:260, 334. British Quarterly Review, 45:141.
Catholic World, 17:775, J. McCarthy, "Comparison between George Eliot and
Fleurange." Canadian Monthly, 11:261, "Later Manner of George Eliot."
Dublin Review, 88:371. Southern Review (new style), 13:205, Mrs. S.B.
Herrick. R.H. Hutton, "Essays, Theological and Literary," 2d vol. 1871.
Contemporary Review, 20:403; same, Living Age, 115:109, Eclectic Magazine,
79:562, Professor E. Dowden; reprinted in "Studies of Literature." Atlantic
Monthly, 33:681, June, 1874, George P. Lathrop, "The Growth of the Novel."
A.C. Swinburne, "A Note on Charlotte Bronte," 1877. International Review,
7:17, July, 1879, Francis Maguire, Jr. Cornhill Magazine, 43:152, Leslie
Stephen, "Critical Study of George Eliot;" same, Living Age, 148:731,
Eclectic Magazine, 96:443. Month, 42:272. Every Saturday, 10:186. North
British Review, 33:165, "George Eliot and Hawthorne." Eclectic Magazine,
88:111, "George Eliot and George Sand." The Nation, 32:201, J. Bryce,
"George Eliot and Carlyle;" 31:456, W.C. Brownell. London Quarterly,
57:154. Blackwood's Magazine, 129:255; same, Living Age, 148:664; Eclectic
Magazine, 96:433. St. Paul's, 12:592, G.B. Smith. Living Age, 58:274;
148:318. Eclectic Magazine, 96:353. Southern Monthly, 14:65. Tinsley's
Monthly, 3:565. Victoria, 31:56. The Century, 23:619, February, 1882,
"George Eliot and Emerson." Library Magazine, 7:84, Nathan Sheppard,
"George Eliot's Analysis of Motives;" reprinted as an introduction to
George Eliot's Essays, Funk & Wagnalls, 1883. Macmillan's Magazine, 46:488,
October, 1882, Annie Matheson, "George Eliot's Children;" same, Living Age,
155:211. The Critic, January, 1881, Edward Eggleston; reprinted in Essays
from the Critic, 1881. Christian Union, February, 1881, Noah Porter. The
Independent, February 17, 1881, Mrs. Lippincott, "Three Great Women." A
History of English Prose Fiction from Sir Thomas Malory to George Eliot,
Bayard Tuckerman, New York, 1882. The English Novel and the Principle of
its Development, Sidney Lanier, New York, 1883. Modern Review, 2:399,
April, 1881, George Sarson, "George Eliot and Thomas Carlyle." Literary
World (London), January, 1881, Peter Bayne Athenaeum, January 1, 1881:20.
The Academy, 19:27, January 8, 1881. Temps, December 26, 1880, Edmond
Scherer. Le Roman Naturaliste, Ferdinand Brunetere, 1883, has a chapter on
"English Naturalism: a Study of George Eliot." Etudes sur la Litterature
Contemporaine, E. Scherer, Paris, 1878. The Pen, 1880, Robert E.
Francillon. East and West: 1:203, June, 1881. Papers of the Manchester
Literary Club, 1881; Bibliography, Charles W. Sutton; "George Eliot as a
Poet," George Milner; "George Eliot as a Novelist," John Mortimer; "George
Eliot's Use of Dialect," William E.A. Axon. National Review, April, 1883,
"New School of Fiction." Merry England, May, 1883, C. Kegan Paul, "The
Rustic of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy." Blackwood's Magazine, April,
1883. Nineteenth Century, October, 1881, John Buskin on "Fiction: Fair and
Foul."


5. DISCUSSIONS OF HER TEACHINGS.

Penn Monthly, 10:579, "The Art of George Eliot." Dublin Review, 89:433,
"Religion of George Eliot." Unitarian Review, 3:357, J.E. Carpenter,
"Religious Influence of George Eliot." "The Ethics of George Eliot's
Works," J.C. Brown, Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, 1879. Mind, 6:378,
July. 1881, "George Eliot's Art," James Sully. The Spectator, 52:751,
"George Eliot's Ideal Ethics;" same, Littell's Living Age, 142:123, July
12, 1879. Scribner's Magazine. 8:685, Wm. C. Wilkinson; reprinted in
"A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters," 1874. Westminster Review,
117:65, January, 1882, "George Eliot as a Moral Teacher." Contemporary
Review, 39:173, February, 1881, "Moral Influence of George Eliot;" same,
Living Age, 148:501. Unitarian Review, 16:125, 216, August and September,
1881, John A. Bellows, "Religious Tendency of George Eliot's Writings."
Atlantic Monthly, 51:243, February, 1883, M.L. Henry, "The Morality of
Thackeray and George Eliot." The Independent, March 24, 1883, Stopford A.
Brooke, "George Eliot and Thomas Carlyle." "The Religion of Our
Literature," George MacCrie, London, 1875. "George Eliot and Judaism,"
David Kaufmann, Blackwoods, 1878.


6. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.

Atlantic Monthly, 1:890.


7. ADAM BEDE.

Blackwood's Magazine, 85:490, April, 1859. Dublin Review, 47:33, November,
1859. Edinburgh Review, 110:223, July, 1859. Westminster Review, 71:486,
April, 1859. Athenaeum, February 26, 1859. Saturday Review, February 26,
1859:191 Atlantic Monthly, 4:521. Christian Examiner, 70:227, I.M. Luyster.
"Seth Bede, the Methody: his Life and Labors," chiefly by Himself. London:
Tallant & Co., 1859. "George Eliot in Derbyshire," London Society, 27:311,
439; 28:20, by Guy Roslyn (Joshua Hatton); reprinted in book form, London,
1876.


8. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.

Blackwood's Magazine, 87:611, May, 1860. Dublin University Review, 57:192.
Macmillan's Magazine, 3:441. Westminster Review, 74:24, July, 1860.
Christian Examiner, 69:145, L.G. Ware.


9. SILAS MARNER.

Christian Examiner, 70:227, I.M. Luyster. Macmillan's Magazine, 4:305.
Revue des Deux Mondes, September, 1861, C. Clarigny.


10. ROMOLA.

Blackwood's Magazine, 116:72. Land We Love, 1:134. Westminster Review,
80:344, October, 1863. Christian Remembrancer, 52:445. Revue des Deux
Mondes, December, 1863, E.D. Forques.


11. FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL.

Blackwood's Magazine, 100:94, July, 1866. Edinburgh Review, 124:435,
October, 1866; same, Living Age, 91:432. North American Review, 103:557,
July, 1866, A.G. Sedgwick. The Nation, 3:127, Henry James. Contemporary
Review, 3:51. Eclectic Review, 124:34. Chambers's Journal, 43:508.
Westminster Review, 86:200, July, 1866.


12. THE SPANISH GYPSY.

Atlantic Monthly, 22:380, W.D. Howells. North American Review, 107:620,
October, 1868, Henry James. The Nation, 7:13, July 2, 1868, Henry James.
Edinburgh Review, 128:525. Westminster Review, 90:183, Macmillan's
Magazine, 18:281, J. Morley; same, Eclectic Magazine, 71:1276. Blackwood's
Magazine, 103:760. British Quarterly Review, 48:503, Fraser's Magazine,
78:468, J. Skelton. St. James's, 22:478. St. Paul's, 2:583. London
Quarterly, 31:160. Southern Review (new Style), 4:383, W.H. Browne. Every
Saturday, 6:1.


13. POEMS.

Contemporary Review, 8:387, July 1868, Matthew Browne (W.B. Rands); same,
Every Saturday, 6:79. Every Saturday, 16:667, G.A. Simcox. The Argosy,
2:437, November, 1866, Matthew Browne. Saturday Review, 37:75. Macmillan's
Magazine, 22:1. North American Review, 119:484, Heary James. Atlantic
Monthly, 34:102, July, 1874, W.D. Howells. Harper's Magazine, 49:887.
Academy, 5:33, May 10, 1874, G.A. Simcox. Edinburgh Review, 128:523,
October, 1868. Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, 1881, p. 108, George
Milner. The Nation, 19:124. "Our Living Poets: an Essay in Criticism,"
H. Buxton Forman, London, 1871.


14. MIDDLEMARCH.

Quarterly Review, 134:336, April, 1873. Edinburgh Review, 137:246, January,
1873. Fortnightly Review, 19:142, Sidney Colvin. Blackwood's Magazine,
112:727; same, Living Age, 116:131; Eclectic Magazine, 80:215. The Nation,
16:60, 76, January, 1873, A.V. Dicey. North American Review, 116:432,
April, 1873, T.S. Perry. British Quarterly Review, 57:407, April, 1883.
London Quarterly Review, 40:99, April, 1873. Canadian Monthly, 3:549. Old
and New, 7:352, H.G. Spaulding. Southern Monthly, 12:373, W.H. Browne.
Atlantic Monthly, 31:490, A.G. Sedgwick. Catholic World, 17:775, September,
1873. Die Gegen-wart, 1874, Freidrich Speilhagen.


15. DANIEL DERONDA.

Atlantic Monthly, 38:084, Henry James, December, 1876. North American
Review, 124:31, E.P. Whippie, January, 1877. Edinburgh Review, 144:442,
October, 1876. Fortnightly Review, 26:601, November, 1876, Sidney Colvin.
The Nation, 23:230, 245, October 12, 19, 1876, A.V. Dicey. British
Quarterly Review, 64:472. Eclectic Magazine, 87:657. International Review,
4:68, R.R. Bowker. The Western, 3:603, O.G. Garrison. Potter's American
Monthly, 8:75. Gentleman's Magazine (new style), 17:593, November, 1876,
J. Picciotto; 17:411, R.E. Francillon. Canadian Monthly, 9:250, 343;
10:362. Victoria, 28:227, A.S. Richardson. Temple Bar, 49:542, "Deronda's
Mother;" same, Living Age, 133:248; same, Eclectic Magazine, 88:751.
Macmillan's Magazine, 36:101, J. Jacobs, "Mordecai: a Protest against the
Critics, by a Jew;" same, Living Age, 134:112. Athenacum, 1876:160, 327,
461, 593, 762. Westminster Review, 106:280,574. Appleton's Journal (new
style), 3:274, September, 1877, Wirt Sikes. Deutsche Rundachau, February 7,
1877. Contemporary Review, 29:348, February, 1877, Edward Dowden, reprinted
in "Studies of Literature."


16. IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH.

Edinburgh Review, 150:557. Fortnightly Review, 32:144, G. Allen.
Westminster Review, 112:185, July, 1879. The Nation, 28:422, June 19, 1879,
G.E. Woodberry. Fraser's Magazine, 100:103. Canadian Monthly, 16.333.
Unitarian Review, 12:292, R.W. Boodle.




INDEX


A.

Actions,
_Actors and Acting_
_Adam Bede_
_Adam Bede_, quoted
"Address to Workingmen," quoted
Agnosticism
Altruism
Analytic Method
_Animal Life, Studies in_
"Amos Barton," quoted
_Aristotle_
"Armgart," quoted
Art
Art, love of
Asceticism
Austen, Jane

B.

Blackwood, William
_Blackwood's Magazine_
Blind, Mathilde quoted
Brabant Dr.
Bray Charles
Bronte Charlotte
Brookbank
"Brother and Sister"
"Brother Jacob"
Browning, Robert
Browning, Mrs.

C.

Call, W.M.W., quoted
Carlyle
Causes
"Choir Invisible"
Chapman, John
Characteristics, personal
Childhood, influences surrounding
Child Life
Christianity
"College Breakfast Party"
Colvin, Sidney
Combe, George
Comte
Conscience
Conversation
_Cornhill Magazine_
Cosmopolitanism
Cowper
Criticism
Culture
Cumming, Dr.

D.

_Daniel Deronda_
_Daniel Deronda_ quoted
Darwin
Death
Deeds
Dialect
Dickens, Charles
Dowden, Prof., quoted
Downs, Annie, quoted
Dramatic power
Duty

E.

Emerson
Environment
Essays
"Evangelical Teaching"
Evans, Christiana
Evans, Mrs. Elizabeth
Evans, Isaac
Evans, Robert
Evans, Mrs. Robert
Evil
Evolution Philosophy
Experience

F.

Familiar, influence of the
Feeling
Feeling for others
_Felix Holt_
_Felix Holt_, quoted
Feuerbach
Fichte
Field, Kate, quoted
Fielding, Henry
Fields, Mrs., quoted
Foleshill
_Fortnightly Review_

G.

Garth, Caleb
"German life, natural history of"
God
Goethe
_Goethe, Life of_
Griff House

H.

Harrison, Frederic
Heine
Hennell, Charles
Hennell, Sara
Heredity
House
Howells, W.D.
Huge
Humor
Hutton, R.H., quoted

I.

Idealism
Imagination
Immortality
Immortality, subjective
Individuality
"Influence of Rationalism"
Inspiration
Intuition

J.

James, Henry
Jones, Owen
"Janet's Repentance," quoted

K.

Kant
Kaufmann, Prof.

L.

"Lady Novelists"
Law
_Leader_ newspaper
_Legend of Jubal_
Letters, extracts from
Lewes, George Henry
born
school days
early studies
in Germany
_History of Philosophy_
_Spanish Drama_
_Ranthorpe_
writes for Reviews
_Leader_
_Philosophy of the Sciences_
_Life of Goethe_, physiological studies
_Fortnightly Review_
_Problems of Life and Mind_
characteristics
death
Lewes, influence on George Eliot
Lewes, Marian Evans
born
parents
early reading
school in Nuneaton
school In Coventry
studying at home
moves to Foleshill
studies continued
early religious views
early scepticism
troubles with her family
finds friends
the Brays
the Hennells
drawn towards positivism
father dies
goes to continent
translates Strauss
Feuerbach
assistant editor of _Westminster Review_
_Review_ contributor
marriage
studies in Germany
writes _Clerical Scenes_
adopts name of "George Eliot"
again visits Germany
_Adam Bede_
controversy about _Adam Bede_
novel-writing
poems written
house
habits of study
description of person
receptions
summers in country
death of Lewes
marriage to John Walter Cross
death
literary traits
"Lifted Veil"
Liggins, Joseph
Lippincott, Mrs., quoted
Literary Methods
Literature defined
Locke
Love
Lucretius

M.

Marriage
Martineau, Harriet
Matter
Meliorism
_Middlemarch_
_Middlemarch_, quoted
Midland England
Mill, J.S.
_Mill on the Floss_,
_Mill on the Floss_, quoted
"Minor Prophet"
Morality
Mordecai
Morley, John
"Mr. Gilfil's Love Story"
Music, Love of
Myers, F.W.H., quoted
Mysticism

N.

Nemesis,
Newdigate, Sir Roger
Novel-writing

P.

Past, the
Paul, Kegan, quoted
Pessimism
Philosophy, George Eliot's
Philosophy, Lewes's _History of_
_Philosophy of the Sciences_
_Physiology of Common Life_
Plots
Poetry
Positivism
Prayer
Priory, The
_Problems of Life and Mind_
Psychology

R.

_Ranthorpe_
Realism
Reason
Receptions
Relativity, Moral
Religion
"Religion of Humanity"
Renaissance
Renunciation
Resignation
Retribution
Romanticism
_Romola_
_Romola_, quoted
_Rose, Blanche and Violet_
Ruskin

S.

Sadler, Dr., quoted
Sand, George
Satire
Savonarola
_Scenes of Clerical Life_
Schelling
Scientific illustration
Scott
_Seaside Studies_
"Self and Life"
Sex in literature
Shakspere
Shelley
_Silas Marner_
"Silly Novels"
Simcox, Edith, quoted
Society
Social Organism
Sorrow
_Spanish Drama_
_Spanish Gypsy_
Speculation, Love of
_Spectator_
Spencer, Herbert
Spinoza
Spiritual, the
"Stradivarius"
Strauss
Sterling, John
Sympathy
Sully, James, quoted
Supernatural
Swinburne, quoted

T.

Tennyson
Thackeray
_Theophrastus Such_
_Theophrastus Such_, quoted
Times
Tradition

W.

_Waverley Novel_
_Westminster Review_
"Weimar and its Celebrities"
Whipple, E.P., quoted
Wieland
"Woman in France"
Woman, Literary
Wordsworth

Y.

Young, Edward





 


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