The religion inculcated, to be sure, is not that of faith in a personal God and a personal immortality, but that which is based on the mystery of life and nature, impressed on the sensitive soul of man in fears, sorrows, hopes, aspirations, and built up into great ideals and institutions through tradition. Daniel Deronda gives us the gospel of altruism, a new preaching of love to man. Daniel Deronda proves as no other writing has ever done, what is the charm and the power of these ideas when dissociated from any spiritual hopes which extend beyond humanity.

In order to give the most adequate expression to her ideas, and to show forth the power of the spiritual life as she conceived it, George Eliot made use of that race and religion which presents so remarkable an illustration of the influence of tradition and heredity. She saw in Judaism a striking confirmation of her theories, and a proof of what ideal interests can do to preserve a nation. To vindicate that race in the eyes of the world, to show what capacity there is in its national traditions, was also a part of her purpose. That this was her aim may be seen in what she said to a young Jew in whom she was much interested.

I wrote about the Jews because I consider them a fine old race who have done great things for humanity. I feel the same admiration for them as I do for the Florentines.

The same idea is to be seen very clearly in the last essay in the Impressions of Theophrastus Such. She regarded the great memories and traditions of this people as a priceless legacy which may and ought to draw all the scattered Israelites together and unite them again in a common national life.

A people having the seed of worthiness in it must feel an answering thrill when it is adjured by the deaths of its heroes who died to preserve its national existence; when it is reminded of its small beginnings and gradual growth through past labors and struggles, such as are still demanded of it in order that the freedom and well-being thus inherited may be transmitted unimpaired to children and children's children; when an appeal against the permission of injustice is made to great precedents in its history and to the better genius breathing in its institutions. It is this living force of sentiment in common which makes a national consciousness. Nations so moved will resist conquest with the very breasts of their women, will pay their millions and their blood to abolish slavery, will share privation in famine and all calamity, will produce poets to sing "some great story of a man," and thinkers whose theories will bear the test of action. An individual man, to be harmoniously great, must belong to a nation of this order, if not in actual existence, yet existing in the past, in memory, as a departed, invisible, beloved ideal, once a reality, and perhaps to be restored. A common humanity is not yet enough to feed the rich blood of various activity which makes a complete man. The time is not come for cosmopolitanism to be highly virtuous, any more than for communism to suffice for social energy.

This was one of the favorite ideas of George Eliot, which she has again and again expressed. She was impressed with the conviction that such a national life is necessary to the world's growth and welfare, that the era of a common brotherhood, dissociated from national traditions and hopes, has not yet come. Hence her belief that Judaism ought to speak the voice of a united race, occupying the old home of this people, and sending forth its ideas as a national inheritance and inspiration. This belief inspires the concluding words of her essay, as well as the last chapters of the novel.

There is still a great function for the steadfastness of the Jew: not that he should shut out the utmost illumination which knowledge can throw on his national history, but that he should cherish the store of inheritance which that history has left him. Every Jew should be conscious that he is one of a multitude possessing common objects of piety in the immortal achievements and immortal sorrows of ancestors who have transmitted to them a physical and mental type strong enough, eminent enough in faculties, pregnant enough with peculiar promise, to constitute a new beneficent individuality among the nations, and, by confuting the traditions of scorn, nobly avenge the wrongs done to their fathers.

There is a sense which the worthy child of a nation that has brought forth industrious prophets, high and unique among the poets of the world, is bound by their visions.

Is bound?

Yes; for the effective bond of human action is feeling, and the worthy child of a people owning the triple name of Hebrew, Israelite and Jew, feels his kinship with the glories and the sorrows, the degradation and the possible renovation of his national family.

Will any one teach the nullification of this feeling and call his doctrine a philosophy? He will teach a blinding superstition—the superstition that a theory of human well-being can be constructed in disregard of the influences which have made us human.

The purpose of Daniel Deronda, however, is not merely to vindicate Judaism. This race and its religion are used as the vehicles for larger ideas, as an illustration of the supreme importance to mankind of spiritual aims concentrated into the form of national traditions and aspirations. Her own studies, and personal intercourse with the Jews, helped to attract her to this race; but the main cause of her use of them in this novel is their remarkable history. Their moral and spiritual persistence, their wonderful devotedness to their own race and its aims, admirably adapted them to develop for her the ideas she wished to express. What nation could she have taken that would have so clearly illustrated her theory of national memories and traditions? In the forty-second chapter of Daniel Deronda she has put into the month of Mordecai her own theories on this subject. He vindicates his right to call himself a rational Jew, one who accepts what is reasonable and true.

"It is to see more and more of the hidden bonds that bind and consecrate change as a dependent growth—yea, consecrate it with kinship; the past becomes my parent, and the future stretches toward me the appealing arms of children. Is it rational to drain away the sap of special kindred that makes the families of man rich in interchanged wealth, and various as the forests are various with the glory of the cedar and the palm?"

He declares that each nation has its own work to do in the world, in the uplifting and maintenance of some special idea which is necessary to the welfare and development of humanity. The place he assigns to Judaism is precisely that which made it dear to George Eliot, because it embodied her conception of religion and its social functions.

"Israel is the heart of mankind, if we mean by heart the core of affection which binds a race and its families in dutiful love, and the reverence for the human body which lifts the needs of our animal life into religion, and the tenderness which is merciful to the poor and weak and to the dumb creature that wears the yoke for us."

Again, he utters words which are simply an expression of George Eliot's own sentiments.

"Where else is there a nation of whom it may be as truly said that their religion and law and moral life mingled as the stream of blood in the heart and made one growth—where else a people who kept and enlarged their spiritual store at the very time when they were hunted with a hatred as fierce as the forest fires that chase the wild beast from his covert? There is a fable of the Roman that, swimming to save his life, he held the roll of his writings between his teeth and saved them from the waters. But how much more than that is true of our race? They struggled to keep their place among the nations like heroes—yea, when the hand was hacked off, they clung with the teeth; but when the plow and the harrow had passed over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the fruitfulness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and planters, they said, 'The spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting habitation—lasting because movable—so that it may be carried from generation to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the things that have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable foundation.' They said it and they wrought it, though often breathing with scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap of slain. Hooted and scared like the unowned dog, the Hebrew made himself envied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them to fill the bath of Gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he diffused it; his dispersed race was a new Phoenicia working the mines of Greece and carrying their products to the world. The native spirit of our tradition was not to stand still, but to use records as a seed, and draw out the compressed virtues of law and prophecy."

Then Mordecai unfolds his theory of national unity and of a regenerated national life; and it is impossible to read his words attentively without accepting them as an expression of George Eliot's own personal convictions. As an embodiment of her conception of the functions of national life they are full of interest aside from their place in the novel.

"In the multitudes of the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the confession of the Divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West—which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, us of old, a medium of transmission and understanding. Let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread to the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition will vanish, not in the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts which widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young offspring of beloved memories.... The effect of our separateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality. That is the fulfilment of the religious trust that moulded them into a people, whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What is it to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the children of Judah have mixed themselves with the Gentile populations as a river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts spread afar; they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jewelled breast-plate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned in all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political counsellors, who carry in their veins the Hebrew blood which has maintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the Hebrew genius for which difficulty means new device—let them say, 'We will lift up a standard, we will unite in a labor hard but glorious like that of Moses and Ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, refusing the ease of falsehood.' They have wealth enough to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old—a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western freedom amidst the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defence in the court of nations, as the outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom; there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I know there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement move in the great among our people, and the work will begin....

"What is needed is the leaven—what is needed is the seed of fire. The heritage of Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in their veins as a power without understanding, like the morning exultation of herds; it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream among writings on the walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide into speech. Let the torch of visible community be lighted! Let the reason of Israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a national hearth, and a tribunal of national opinion. Will any say, 'It cannot be'? Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish heart, though he had sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of Jewish tradition. He laid bare his father's nakedness and said, 'They who scorn him have the higher wisdom.' Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed he saw not why Israel should not again be a chosen nation. Who says that the history and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as the history and literature of Greece and Home, which have inspired revolutions, enkindled the thought of Europe and made the unrighteous powers tremble? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human frames....

"I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but the good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our religious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of aught but wrong. The masters have said an offence against man is worse than an offence against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the breasts of Jews who are children of the ignorant and oppressed—what wonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians? Our national life was a growing light. Let the central fire be kindled again, and the light will reach afar. The degraded and scorned of our race will learn to think of their sacred land not as a place for saintly beggary to await death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic where the Jewish spirit manifests itself in a new order founded on the old, purified, enriched by the experience our greatest sons have gathered from the life of the ages. How long is it?—only two centuries since a vessel earned over the ocean the beginning of the great North American nation. The people grew like meeting waters; they were various in habit and sect. There came a time, a century ago, when they needed a polity, and there were heroes of peace among them. What had they to form a polity with but memories of Europe, corrected by the vision of a better? Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a better. A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art and wisdom. So will a new Judea, poised between East and West—a covenant of reconciliation. Will any say the prophetic vision of your race has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry; the angel of progress hag no message for Judaism—it is a half-buried city for the paid workers to lay open—the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken field? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. The sons of Judah have to choose, that God may again choose them. The Messianic time is the time when Israel shall will the planting of the national ensign. The Nile overflowed and rushed onward; the Egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and make channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became the land of corn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and resolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or purpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict the blasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future of the world—not renounce our higher gift and say, 'Let us be as if we were not among the populations;' but choose our full heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there: it will be fulfilled."

These words put into the mouth of Mordecai, indicate how thoroughly George Eliot entered into the spirit of Judaism. She read Hebrew with ease, and had delved extensively in Jewish literature, besides being familiar with the monumental works in German devoted to Jewish history and opinions. The religious customs, the home life, the peculiar social habits of the race, she carefully studied. The accuracy of her information has been pointed out by her Jewish critics, by whom the book has been praised with the utmost enthusiasm. One of these, Prof. David Kaufmann, of Buda-Pesth, in an excellent notice of Daniel Deronda, bears testimony to the author's learning and to the faithfulness of her Jewish portraitures. He says that, "led by cordial and loving inclination to the profound study of Jewish national and family life, she has set herself to create Jewish characters, and to recognize and give presentment to the influences which Jewish education is wont to exercise—to prove by types that Judaism is an intellectual and spiritual force, still misapprehended and readily overlooked, but not the less an effective power, for the future of which it is good assurance that it possesses in the body of its adherents a noble, susceptible and pliant material which only awaits its final casting to appear in a glorious form." He also says of the author's learning, that it is loving and exact, that her descriptions of Jewish life are always faithful and her characters true to nature.

"Leader of the present so-called realistic school, our author keeps up in this work the reputation she has won of possessing the most minute knowledge of the subjects she handles, by the manner in which she has described the Jews—the great unknown of humanity. She has penetrated into their history and literature affectionately and thoroughly; and her knowledge in a field where ignorance is still venial if not expressly authorized, has astonished even experts. In her selection of almost always unfamiliar quotations, she shows a taste and a facility of reference really amazing. When shall we see a German writer exhibiting the courteous kindliness of George Eliot, who makes Deronda study Zunz's Synagogale Poesie, and places the monumental words which open his chapter entitled 'Leiden,' at the head of the passage in which she introduces us to Ezra Cohen's family, and at the club-meeting at which Mordecai gives utterance to his ideas concerning the future of Israel? She is familiar with the views of Jehuda-ha-Levi as with the dreams and longings of the cabalists, and as conversant with the splendid names of our Hispano—Arabian epoch as with the moral aphorisms of the Talmud and the subtle meaning contained in Jewish legends.... It is by the piety and tenderness with which she treats Jewish customs that the author shows how supreme her cultivation and refinement are; and the small number of mistakes which can be detected in her descriptions of Jewish life and ritual may put to blush even writers who belong to that race." Again this critic says of the visionary Mordecai, who has been pronounced a mere dreamer and untrue to nature, that he is an altogether probable character and portrayed with a true realistic touch." Mordecai is carved of the wood from which prophets are made, and so far as the supersensuous can be rendered intelligible, it may even be said that in studying him we are introduced into a studio or workshop of the prophetic mind. He is one of the most difficult as well as one of the most successful essays in psychological analysis ever attempted by an author; and in his wonderful portrait, which must be closely studied, and not epitomized or reproduced in extracts, we see glowing enthusiasm united to cabalistic profundity, and the most morbid tension of the intellectual powers united to clear and well-defined hopes. How has the author succeeded in making Mordecai so human and so true to nature? By mixing the gold with an alloy of commoner metal, and by giving the angelic likeness features which are familiar to us all."

Another Jew has borne equally hearty testimony to the faithfulness with which George Eliot has described Jewish life and the spirit of the Jewish religion. "She has acquired," this writer says, "an extended and profound knowledge of the rites, aspirations, hopes, fears and desires of the Israelites of the day. She has read their books, inquired into their modes of thought, searched their traditions, accompanied them to the synagogue; nay, she has taken their very words from their lips, and, like Asmodeus, has unroofed their houses. To say that some slight errors have crept into Daniel Deronda is to say that no human work is perfect; and these inaccuracies are singularly few and unimportant." [Footnote: James Picciotto, author of "sketches of Anglo-Jewish History," in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1876.] Still another Jewish critic says that in her gallery of portraits she "gives in a marvellously full and accurate way all the many sides of the Jewish complex national character." He also says that Mordecai is a true successor of the prophets and moral leaders of the race, that the national spirit and temper are truly represented in him. [Footnote: Joseph Jacobs, in Macmillian's Magazine for 1877.]

That the main purpose of Daniel Deronda is not that of defending Judaism, must be apparent to every attentive reader. The Jewish race is made use of for purposes of illustration, as a notable example in proof of her theories. There is a deeper purpose conspicuous throughout the hook, which rests on her conceptions of the spiritual life as a development of tradition. This larger purpose also jests on her altruistic conception of the moral and spiritual life. As Professor Kaufmann has pointed out, the story falls into two widely separated portions, in one of which the Jewish element appears, in the other the English. Jewish life and its religious spirit are contrasted with English life and a common type of its religion. This is not a contrast, however, which is introduced for the purpose of disparaging Christianity or English social life, but with the object of comparing those whose life is anchored in the spiritual traditions of a great people, with those who find the centre of their life in egotism and an individualistic spirit. Grandcourt is a type of pure egotism; Gwendolen is a creature who lives for self and with no law outside of her own happiness. This is the spirit of the society in which they both move. On the other hand, Mordecai lives in his race, Deronda gives his life constantly away for others, and Mirah is unselfishness and simplicity itself. So distinctly is this contrast drawn, so clearly are these two phases of life brought over against each other, that the book seems to be divided in the middle, and to be two separate works joined by a slender thread. This artistic arrangement has been severely criticised, but its higher purpose is only understood when this comparison and antagonism is recognized. Then the true artistic arrangement vindicates itself, and the unity of the book becomes apparent. Deronda moves in both these worlds, and their influence on him is finely conceived. He finds no spiritual aim and motive for his life until he is led into the charmed circle of a traditional environment, and learns to live in and for his race. Living for self, the life of Gwendolen is blasted, her hopes crushed, and she finds no peace or promise except in the steadfast spiritual strength yielded her by Deronda. That such a contrasting of the two great phases of life was a part of George Eliot's purpose she has herself acknowledged. A comparison of the spiritual histories of Gwendolen and Deronda will show how earnest was this purpose of the author. Gwendolen is a type of those souls who have no spiritual anchorage in the religious life and traditions of their people. At the opening of chapter third we are told she had no home memories, that "this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been wanting in Gwendolen's life." At the end of the sixth chapter we are also told that she had no insight into spiritual realities, that the bonds of spiritual power and moral retribution had not been made apparent to her mind.

Her ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect. She had no permanent consciousness of other fetters, or of more spiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever was presented to her under the name of religion, in the same way that some people dislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in her, no alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it, had not occurred to her, any more than it had occurred to her to inquire into the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she had had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was dependent. All these facts about herself she would have been ready to admit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. What she unwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be unaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread, though this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into connection with the religion taught her, or with any human relations. She was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in remembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for example, she was walking without companionship and there came some rapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her with an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in the midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself. The little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her imagination at work in a way that made her tremble; but always when some one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in which she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world, in which her will was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to this world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions of awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With human ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her confidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire.

Her difficulties all came out of this egoistic spirit, this want of spiritual anchorage and religious faith. Gradually her bitter experiences awakened in her a desire for a purer life, and the influence of Deronda worked powerfully in the same direction. She is to be regarded, however, as simply a representative of that social, moral and spiritual life bred in our century by the disintegrating forces everywhere at work. No moral ideal, no awe of the divine Nemesis, no spiritual sympathy with the larger life of the race, is to be found in her thought. The radicalism of the time, which neglects religious training, which scorns the life of the past, which lives for self and culture, is destroying all that is best in modern society. Gwendolen is one of the results of these processes, an example of that impoverished life which is so common, arising from religious rebellion and egotism.

Another motive and spirit is represented in the character of Deronda. As a boy, his mind was full of ideal aspirations, he was chivalrous and eager to help and comfort others. He would take no mean advantages in his own behalf, he loved the comradeship of those whom he could help, he was always ready with his sympathy.

He was early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on those heights.

He would not regard his studies as instruments of success, but as the means whereby to feed motive and opinion. He had a strong craving for comprehensiveness of opinion, and was not content to store up knowledge that demanded a mere act of memory in its acquisition. He had a craving after a larger life, an ideal aim of the most winning attractiveness. Though Deronda was educated amidst surroundings almost identical with those which helped to form Gwendolen's character, yet a very different result was produced in him because of his inherited tendencies of mind. After he had seen his mother, learned that he was a Jew, he said to Mordecai,—

"It is you who have given shape to what I believe was an inherited yearning—the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in my ancestors— thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for painting, and born blind—the ancestral life would be within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly wrought musical instrument never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy, mysterious moanings of its intricate structure that, under the right touch, gives music. Something like that, I think, has been my experience. Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for some ideal task in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a multitude—some social captainship which would come to me as a duty, and not be striven for as a personal prize. You have raised the image of such a task for me—to bind our race together in spite of heresy."

This inherited sense of a larger life made Deronda what he was, and developed in him qualities absent in Gwendolen. This inherited power made him a new Mazzini, a born leader of men, a new saviour of society, a personal magnet to attract and inspire other souls. A magnetic power of influence drew Gwendolen to him from the first time they met, he shamed her narrow life by his silent presence, and he quickened to life in her a desire for a purer and nobler existence. George Eliot probably meant to indicate in his character her conception of the true social reformation which is needed to-day, and how it is to be brought about. The basis on which it is to be built is the traditional and inherited life of the past, inspired with new energies and meanings by the gifted souls who have inherited a large and pure personality, and who are inspired by a quickened sense of what life ought to be. On the one side a life of altruism, on the other a life of egotism, teach that the liner social and moral qualities come out of an inheritance in the national ideals and conquests of a worthy people, while the coarser qualities come of the neglect of this source of spiritual power and sustenance. Two letters written to Professor David Kaufmann indicate that this was the purpose of the hook. At the same time, they show George Eliot's mind on other sides, and give added insights into her character. As an indication of her attitude towards Judaism, and her faith in the work she had done in Daniel Deronda, they are of great value.

THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, May 31, '77.

MY DEAR SIR,—Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction, I may say a more heartfelt joy, than you have given me in your estimate of Daniel Deronda. [Footnote: George Eliot and Judaism: an Attempt to Appreciate Daniel Deronda. By Prof. David Kaufmann, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Buda-Pesth.]

I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.

My husband reads any notices of me that come before him, and reports to me (or else refrains from reporting) the general character of the notice, or something in particular which strikes him as showing either an exceptional insight or an obtuseness that is gross enough to be amusing. Very rarely, when he has read a critique of me, he has handed it to me, saying, "You must read this." And your estimate of Daniel Deronda made one of these rare instances.

Certainly, if I had been asked to choose what should be written about my book and who should write it, I should have sketched—well, not anything so good as what you have written, but an article which must be written by a Jew who showed not merely sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind. Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions. Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is," but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative, narrow perception of what one has been intending and professedly feeling in one's work, impresses one with the sense that it must be poor perishable stuff without roots to hike any lasting hold in the minds of men; while any instance of complete comprehension encourages one to hope that the creative prompting has foreshadowed, and will continue to satisfy, a need in other minds.

Excuse me that I write but imperfectly, and perhaps dimly, what I have felt in reading your article. It has affected me deeply, and though the prejudice and ignorant obtuseness which has met my effort to contribute something to the ennobling of Judaism in the conception of the Christian community and in the consciousness of the Jewish community, has never for a moment made me repent my choice, but rather has been added proof to me that the effort has been needed,—yet I confess that I had an unsatisfied hanger for certain signs of sympathetic discernment, which you only have given. I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish element and those of English social life.

I work under the pressure of small hurries; for we are just moving into the country for the summer, and all things are in a vagrant condition around me. But I wished not to defer answering your letter to an uncertain opportunity....

My husband has said more than once that he feels grateful to you. For he is more sensitive on my behalf than on his own.

Hence he unites with me in the assurance of the high regard with which I remain

Always yours faithfully, M.E. LEWES.

This first letter was followed a few months later by a second.

THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, REGENT'S PAKE, Oct. 12, '77.

MY DEAR SIR,—I trust it will not be otherwise than gratifying to you to know that your stirring article on Daniel Deronda is now translated into English by a son of Prof. Ferrier, who was a philosophical writer of considerable mark. It will be issued in a handsomer form than that of the pamphlet, and will appear within this autumnal publishing season, Messrs. Blackwood having already advertised it. Whenever a copy is ready we shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. There is often something to be borne with in reading one's own writing in a translation, but I hope that in this case you will not be made to wince severely.

In waiting to send you this news I seem to have deferred too long the expression of my warm thanks for your kindness in sending me the Hebrew translations of Leasing and the collection of Hebrew poems, a kindness which I felt myself rather presumptuous in asking for, since your time must be well filled with more important demands. Yet I must further beg you, when you have an opportunity, to assure Herr Bacher that I was most gratefully touched by the sympathetic verses with which he enriched the gift of his work.

I see by your last letter to my husband that your Theological Seminary was to open on the 4th of this month, so that this too retrospective letter of mine will reach you in the midst of your new duties. I trust that this new institution will be a great good to professor and students, and that your position is of a kind that you contemplate as permanent. To teach the young personally has always seemed to me the most satisfactory supplement to teaching the world through books, and I have often wished that I had such a means of having fresh, living, spiritual children within sight.

One can hardly turn one's thought toward Eastern Europe just now without a mingling of pain and dread; but we mass together distant scenes and events in an unreal way, and one would like to believe that the present troubles will not at any time press on you in Hungary with more external misfortune than on us in England.

Mr. Lewes is happily occupied in his psychological studies. We both look, forward to the reception of the work you kindly promised us, and he begs me to offer you his best regards.

Believe me, my dear sir, Yours with much esteem, M.E. LEWES.

It was a part of George Eliot's purpose in Daniel Deronda to criticise the social life of England in the spirit in which she had criticised it in Middlemarch, as being deficient in spiritual power, moral purpose and noble sentiment. If she made it clear in Middlemarch that the individual is crippled and betrayed by society, it was her purpose to make it quite as clear in Daniel Deronda how society may become the true inspirer of the individual. We may quarrel with her theory of the origin and nature of the spiritual life in man, but she has somewhat truly conceived its vast importance and shown the character of that influence it everywhere has over man's life. As types of spiritual lifts, and as individual conceptions of human character, the personages of this novel are drawn with marvellous skill. Mr. E.P. Whipple says that Daniel Deronda is "one of the noblest and most original characters among the heroes imagined by poets, dramatists and novelists." With equal or even greater justice can it be said that Gwendolen Harleth is one of the most powerful and grandly conceived of imaginary creations in all literature. In the characters, the situations, and the whole working out of this novel, George Eliot shows herself one of the great masters of literary creation.

When the prejudices aroused by the Jewish element in it are allayed, and Daniel Deronda is read as a work of literary genius, it will be found not to be the least interesting and important of George Eliot's books. It has the religious interest and inspiration of Adam Bede, the historic value of Romola, and the critical elements of Middlemarch; and these are wrought into a work of lofty insight and imagination, along with a high spiritual ardor and a supreme ethical purpose. In this novel, for the first time, as Professor Dowden says, her poetical genius found adequate expression, and in complete association with the non-poetical elements of her nature.



XVII.

THE SPANISH GYPSY AND OTHER POEMS.

It was The Spanish Gypsy, published in 1868, which brought the name of George Eliot before the public as a poet. This work is a novel written in blank verse, with enough of the heroic and tragic in it to make the story worthy of its poetic form. The story is an excellent one, well conceived and worked out, and had it been given the prose form would have made a powerful and original novel. While it would doubtless have gained in definiteness of detail and clearness of purpose by being presented in the prose form, yet its condensation into a poem is a gain, and the whole setting of the story has been made of greater interest by this method of expression. The poetic form is as original as are the theories of life which the poem is designed to inculcate. In structure it combines, with a method quite its own, the descriptive and dramatic forms of poetry. In this it nearly approaches the method followed in her novels of combining description and dialogue in a unitary structure of great strength and perfection. The descriptive passages in her prose works are strong and impressive, lofty in tone, and yet lovingly faithful in detail. Her conversations are often highly dramatic and add greatly to the whole outcome of these novels. In The Spanish Gypsy the surroundings of the story are first described in verse which, if not always perfectly poetic, is yet imaginatively thought out and executed in a manner befitting the subject. Suddenly, however, the narrative and descriptive form ceases and the dramatic begins. By means also of full "stage directions" to the dramatic portions of the poem, the story is wrought out quite as much in detail as it needs to be; and much is gained of advantage over the length of her novels by this concentration of scene and narrative. While the narrative portion of the poem is much less in extent than the dramatic, yet it has in it some of the main elements of the plot, and those without which the action could not be worked out. The dramatic element gives it a real and living power. The characters are strongly conceived, and nearly all of them are individualities of an original type and of an action thoroughly distinct and human.

As a work of art, the most serious defect in The Spanish Gypsy is its doctrinal tone. It is speculative in its purpose quite as much as poetical, and the speculation is so large an element as to intrude upon the poetry. Thought overtops imagination, the fervor and enthusiasm of the poet are more than matched by the ethical aims of the teacher. This ethical purpose of unfolding in a dramatic form the author's theories of life has filled the book, as it has her novels, with epigrams which are original, splendid and instructive. Into a few lines she condenses some piece of wisdom, and in words full of meaning and purpose. Into the mouth of Sephardo, a character distinctive and noteworthy, she puts some of her choicest wisdom. He says,—

Thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead.

Again he utters the same idea, but in more expressive words.

Our growing thought Makes growing revelation.

Don Silva is made to use this highly poetic imagery.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken.

Zarca, that truest and most original character in the poem, says of the great work he purposes to accomplish,

To my inward vision Things are achieved when they are well begun.

Again, he says,—

New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings.

Expressive and original as The Spanish Gypsy is, yet it gives the impression of lacking in some poetic quality which is necessary to the highest results. Difficult as it may be to define precisely what it is that is wanting, nearly every reader will feel that something which makes poetry has been somehow left out. Is it imagination, or is it a flexible poetic expression, which is absent? While George Eliot has imagination enough to make a charming prose style, and to adorn her prose with great beauty and an impressive manner, yet its finer quality of subtle expression is not to be found in her poetry. Those original and striking shades of meaning which the poet employs by using words in unique relations, she does not often attain to. It is the thought, the ethical meaning, in her poetry as in her prose, which is often of more importance than the manner of expression; and she is too intent on what is said to give full heed always to how it is said. She has, however, employed that form of verse which is best suited to her style, and one which does not demand those lyrical or those imaginative qualities in which she is deficient. The blank verse is well adapted to her realism, though it does not always answer well to the more dramatic and tragical and impassioned portions of the story.

As a study of an historic period, The Spanish Gypsy is not so great a success as Romola; yet it more perfectly unfolds a unitary moral purpose, and the various types of character are more originally developed. The conflict of motives, the contrasted and opposed national interests, are distinctly brought out, but the aroma of the time and place are wanting. To describe a poetic and heroic era she is never content to do. Her method is totally different from that of Scott, who reflects the spirit and life of the time he depicts with almost absolute faithfulness. No gypsy was ever such a character as Zarca, no gypsy girl ever had the conscience of Fedalma. As in the case of Romola, so here, an historic period is used, not so much for artistic as for philosophic purposes, because it is well designed to present her ideas about heredity and tradition. The Spanish Gypsy is essentially a romance, and contains much of those more poetic and ideal elements which distinguish Daniel Deronda from her other novels. This romantic element, if it does not develop poetry of the highest quality, does bring out in its most perfect form all the finest characteristics of her style.

While The Spanish Gypsy affords many points of attack for the critic, yet it cannot be dismissed by saying it is not a great poem. Its strong qualities are too many to permit of its being disposed of in haste. With all its defects it is a noble piece of work, and genuinely adds to the author's expression of genius. It is one of those poems which win, not popularity, but the heartiest admiration of a choice and elect few who find life and highest inspiration in it, because giving strength to their thoughts and purpose to their moral convictions. As a study of some of the deeper problems of the ethical and social life of man, it is unsurpassed, and the teaching imparted by it is singularly well and impressively conveyed by the whole make of the poem. It is also remarkable for its large and impressive style, its rich command of words, and the lofty beauty of its diction. One of its most striking qualities, as Mr. Henry James, Jr., suggests, "is its extraordinary rhetorical energy and eloquence," and "its splendid generosity of diction." The same writer says of the character of Don Silva, that "nowhere has her marvellous power of expression, the mingled dignity and pliancy of her style, obtained a greater triumph." The critics have almost without exception dealt severely with the poem, but they have applied to it the canons of poetic art as interpreted by themselves. Genius creates its own laws, makes its own methods, reverses old decisions and triumphs against the whole brood of critics. The world accepts what is true and excellent, however defective in technical requirements. Imperfect meters, and poetic structures not orthodox, may disturb those who deal in criticism, but such limitations as these are not sufficient to fix the final acceptance of a poem. More than one of the greatest poems could not endure such tests. That The Spanish Gypsy has vitality of purpose, enduring interest in treatment, and a lofty eloquence of diction, is doubtless enough to insure it an accepted place among the few greater poems in the language. Its profoundly thoughtful interpretation of some of the greater social problems mankind has to deal with, will necessarily give a permanent interest for the lovers of speculative poetry, while its genuine poetic merits will largely add to that interest, and add to it by its tragic power, its rich ethical wisdom, and its fine portrayal of character.

No other book of George Eliot's is so filled and inspired by the spirit of her teachings as The Spanish Gypsy. Its inspiration and its interest lie mainly in the direction of its moral and spiritual inculcations. Verse did not stimulate her, but was a fetter; it clogged her highest powers. The rich eloquence of her prose, with its pathos and sentiment, its broad perspective and vigorous thought, was to her a continual stimulus and incentive. Her poems are more labored than her novels, and for this very reason they show the philosophy which gives them meaning more clearly. Their greater concentration and less varied elements also largely help to make apparent the teachings they contain. Her sympathy with the evolution philosophy of the day is conspicuous in The Spanish Gypsy. It is simply a dramatic interpretation of the higher phases of Darwinism. The doctrinal element does not intrude itself, however; it is not on the surface, it is well subordinated to the artistic elements of the poem. Even intelligent readers may not detect it, and the majority of those who read the poem without any preconceptions may not discover its philosophic bearings. Yet to the studious reader the philosophy must be the most conspicuous element which enters into the poem, and it gives character and meaning to the work far more fully than in the case of any of her novels.

The aim of the poem is to show how hereditary race influences act as a tragic element in opposition to individual emotions and inclinations. The teaching of Romola is much of it reproduced, at least that portion of it which inculcates renunciation and altruism. Its distinguishing features, however, more nearly resemble those of Daniel Deronda. The race element is introduced, and the effect of the past is shown as it forms character and gives direction to duties. One phase of its meaning has been very clearly described by Mr. R.H. Hutton, who says the poem teaches "how the inheritance of the definite streams of impulse and tradition stored up in what we call race, often puts a veto upon any attempt of spontaneous individual emotion or volitions to ignore or defy their Control, and to emancipate itself from the tyranny of their disputable and apparently cruel rule." "How the threads," he says again, "of hereditary capacity and hereditary sentiment control as with invisible chords the orbits of even the most powerful characters,—how the fracture of those threads, so far as can be accomplished by mere will, may have even a greater effect in wrecking character than moral degeneracy would itself produce,—how the man who trusts and uses the hereditary forces which natural descent has bestowed upon him, becomes a might and a centre in the world, while the man, intrinsically the nobler, who dissipates his strength by trying to swim against the stream of his past, is neutralized and paralyzed by the vain effort,—again, how a divided past, a past not really homogeneous, may weaken this kind of power, instead of strengthening it by the command of a larger experience—all this George Eliot's poem paints with tragical force."

The main thought of The Spanish Gypsy is, that the moral and spiritual in man is the result of social conditions which, if neglected, lead to the destruction of all that is best in human nature. In the description of Mine Host, in the opening pages of the poem, this evil result of a severing of life from tradition is described. He was educated in the Jewish faith, but was made a Christian at the age of ten.

So he had to be converted with his sire, To doff the awe he learned as Ephriam, And suit his manners to a Christian name.

The poet then delivers one of her doctrinal utterances, and one which is in this case the keynote of the whole poem.

But infant awe, that unborn moving thing, Dies with what nourished it, can never rise From the dead womb and walk and seek new pasture.

That awe which grows up in childhood, if destroyed later, brings anarchy into human life. All the characters of the poem exemplify this teaching, and each is but a product of his past, individual or social. Don Silva, Zarca, Fedalma, the Prior, Sephardo, illustrate this idea. The latter gives utterance to the thought of the poem, when Don Silva says to him that he has need of a friend who is not tied to sect or party, but who is capable of following his "naked manhood" into what is just and right, without regard to other considerations.

My lord, I will be frank; there's no such thing As naked manhood. If the stars look down On any mortal of our shape, whose strength Is to judge all things without preference, He is a monster, not a faithful man. While my heart beats, it shall wear livery— My people's livery, whose yellow badge Marks them for Christian scorn. I will not say Man is first man to me, then Jew or Gentile: That suits the rich marranos; but to me My father is first father and then man. So much for frankness' sake. But let that pass. 'Tis true at least, I am no Catholic But Salomo Sephardo, a born Jew, Willing to serve Don Silva.

[Footnote: In a note George Eliot gives the following explanation of the word marranos: "The name given by the Spanish Jews to the multitudes of their race converted to Christianity at the end of the fourteenth century and beginning of the fifteenth. The lofty derivation from Maran-atha, the Lord cometh, seems hardly called for, seeing that marrano is Spanish for pig. The 'old Christians' learned to use the word as a term of contempt for the 'new Christians,' or converted Jews and their descendants; but not too monotonously, for they often interchanged it with the fine old crusted opprobrium of the name Jew. Still, many Marranos held the highest secular and ecclesiastical prizes in Spain, and were respected accordingly."]

In the conversation between Don Silva and this uncle, the Prior expresses in the strongest language his conviction that Fedalma will in time reveal her gypsy blood, and that any rejection on the part of Don Silva of the life assigned him by his birth will end in sorrow and misery. When Don Silva declares his intention of following his own inclinations the Prior answers,—

Your strength will turn to anguish, like the strength Of fallen angels. Can you change your blood? You are a Christian, with the Christian awe In every vein. A Spanish noble, born To serve your people and your people's faith. Strong, are you? Turn your back upon the Cross— Its shadow is before you. Leave your place: Quit the great ranks of knighthood: you will walk Forever with a tortured double self, A self that will be hungry while you feast, Will blush with shame while you are glorified, Will feel the ache and chill of desolation Even in the very bosom of your love.

This eloquent expostulation against rejection of any of those ties and obligations imposed by birth and race is repeated again in the plea of Zarca to his daughter, when he urges that there is no life and joy for Fedalma apart from that race to which she belongs and those social conditions which gave her mind its characteristics.

Will you adopt a soul without its thoughts, Or grasp a life apart from flesh and blood? Till then you cannot wed a Spanish Duke And not wed shame at mention of your race, And not wed hardness to their miseries— Nay, wed not murder.

Zarca and the Prior are each faithful to race, religion and social tradition. Each knows his duty, is content with the opportunities given him by social inheritance, is thoroughly in harmony with his own past. Both are consequently strong, resolute, successful. Zarca is a grand character, and though a hero in a nation of vagabonds, he wholly identifies himself with his people and accepts their destiny as his own. The Prior is a haughty Spanish Churchman, who has inherited all the traits of a noble family, and is proud of his priestly functions.

In the case of Don Silva and Fedalma there is a conflict between love and race. The one is a Spanish nobleman, the other the daughter of a Zincala chief. Yet they love, and feel that no outward circumstances are sufficient to separate them. This verdict of their hearts is the verdict of mankind in all ages; but it is not the one arrived at by George Eliot in obedience to her philosophy. The reasons why these two should not wed grew entirely out of the social circumstances of the time. An English nobleman of to-day could marry such a woman as Fedalma without social or other loss. The capacities of soul are superior to conditions of race. Virtue and genius do not depend on social circumstances. Yet The Spanish Gypsy has for its motive the attempt to prove that the life of tradition and inheritance is the one which provides all our moral and social and religious obligations. In conformity with this theory the conflict of the poem arises, because Don Silva is not in intellectual harmony with his own character. A thoughtful, fastidious, sensitive soul was his, not resolute and concentrated in purpose, He was no bigot, could not be content with any narrow aim, saw good on many sides.

A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious In his acceptance, dreading all delight That speedy dies and turns to carrion: His senses much exacting, deep instilled With keen imagination's airy needs;— Like strong-limbed monsters studded o'er with eyes, Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision, Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed With a man's thought-propelled relenting heart. Silva was both the lion and the man; First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang, Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught. A nature half-transformed, with qualities That oft betrayed each other, elements Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects, Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes. Haughty and generous, grave and passionate; With tidal moments of devoutest awe, Sinking anon to furthest ebb of doubt; Deliberating ever, till the sting Of a recurrent ardor made him rush Right against reasons that himself had drilled And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed Too proudly special for obedience, Too subtly pondering for mastery: Born of a goddess with a mortal sire, Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity, Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness And perilous heightening of the sentient soul.

Too noble and generous to accept the narrow views of his uncle, Don Silva insisted on marrying Fedalma, because he loved her and because she was a pure and true woman. He had a poet's nature, was sensitive to all beauty, and his heart vibrated to all ideal excellence. His love became to him a thing apart, a sacred shrine; and Fedalma was made one with all joy and beauty.

He thought all loveliness was lovelier, She crowning it; all goodness credible, Because of that great trust her goodness bred.

His love gave a delicious content and melody to his day dreams.

O, all comforters, All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy, Came with her coming, in her presence lived. Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall Pencilled upon the grass; high summer morns When white light rains upon the quiet sea And cornfields flush with ripeness; odors soft— Dumb vagrant bliss that seems to seek a home And find it deep within 'mid stirrings vague Of far-off moments when our life was fresh; All sweetly tempered music, gentle change Of sound, form, color, as on wide lagoons At sunset when from black far-floating prows Comes a clear wafted song; all exquisite joy Of a subdued desire, like some strong stream Made placid in the fulness of a lake— All came with her sweet presence, for she brought The love supreme which gathers to its realm All powers of loving. Subtle nature's hand Waked with a touch the far-linked harmonies In her own manifold work. Fedalma there, Fastidiousness became the prelude fine For full contentment; and young melancholy, Lost for its origin, seemed but the pain Of waiting for that perfect happiness.

So strong was Don Silva's love, so ardent his passion for Fedalma, that he forsook all duties and social obligations and became a Zincala for her sake. Yet once awakened to the real consequences of his act, he killed Zarca and sought to regain by hard penances his lost knighthood.

With Fedalma also love was an absorbing passion. The passionate devotion of a woman is in her words.

No ills on earth, though you should count them up With grains to make a mountain, can outweigh For me his ill who is my supreme love. All sorrows else are but imagined flames, Making me shudder at an unfelt smart; But his imagined sorrow is a fire That scorches me.

With great earnestness she says she will—

Never forsake that chief half of her soul Where lies her love.

With what depth of love does she utter these words:

I belong to him who loves me—whom I love— Who chose me—whom I chose—to whom I pledged A woman's truth. And that is nature too, Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth.

Though her love is deep and passionate and full of a woman's devotedness, the mark of race is set deep within her soul. The moment the claim of race is brought clearly before her as the claim of duty, as the claim of father and of kindred, she accepts it. Her love is not thrown hastily aside, for she loves deeply and truly, and it tears her heart in sunder to renounce it; but she is faithful to duty. Her love grows not less, loses none of its hold upon her heart.

No other crown Is aught but thorns on my poor woman's brow.

Hers is not a divided self, however; to see the way of duty with her, was to follow in it. Her father's invincible will, courage and patient purpose are her own by inheritance. Once realizing the claim of birth and race, she does not falter, love is resolutely put aside, all delight in culture and refinement becomes dross in her eyes.

I will not count On aught but being faithful. I will take This yearning self of mine and strangle it. I will not be half-hearted: never yet Fedalma did aught with a wavering soul. Die, my young joy—die, all my hungry hopes! The milk you cry for from the breast of life Is thick with curses. O, all fatness here Snatches its meat from leanness—feeds on graves. I will seek nothing but to shun base joy. The saints were cowards who stood by to see Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain— The grandest death, to die in vain—for love Greater than sways the forces of the world! That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed The curse that blights my people. Father, come!

The poem distinctly teaches that Fedalma was strong, because the ties of blood were strongly marked upon her mind and willingly accepted by her intellect and conscience; while Don Silva was weak, because he did not acknowledge those ties and accept their law. In the end, however, both declare that the inherited life is the only one which gives joy or duty, and that all individual aims and wishes are to be renounced. The closing scene of this great poem is full of sadness, and yet is strong with moral purpose. Don Silva and Fedalma meet for the last time, she on her way to Africa with her tribe to find a home for it there, he on his way to Rome, to seek the privilege of again using his knightly sword. Both are sad, both feel that life has lost all its joy, both believe it is a bitter destiny which divides them from the fulfilment of their love, and yet both are convinced that love must be forsworn for a higher duty. Their last conversation, opened by Don Silva, is full of power, and concentrates into its last words the total meaning of the poem.

I bring no puling prayer, Fedalma—ask No balm of pardon that may soothe my soul For others' bleeding wounds: I am not come To say, "Forgive me:" you must not forgive, For you must see me ever as I am— Your father's...

FEDALMA.

Speak it not! Calamity Comes like a deluge and o'erfloods our crimes, Till sin is hidden in woe. You—I—we two, Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight, Opened the sluices of that deep.

DON SILVA.

We two?— Fedalma, you were blameless, helpless.

FEDALMA.

No! It shall not be that you did aught alone. For when we loved I willed to reign in you, And I was jealous even of the day If it could gladden you apart from me.

And so, it must be that I shared each deed Our love was root of.

DON SILVA.

Dear! you share the woe— Nay, the worst part of vengeance fell on you.

FEDALMA.

Vengeance! She does but sweep us with her skirts. She takes large space, and lies a baleful light Revolving with long years—sees children's children, Blights them in their prime. Oh, if two lovers leane To breathe one air and spread a pestilence, They would but lie two livid victims dead Amid the city of the dying. We With our poor petty lives have strangled one That ages watch for vainly.

DON SILVA.

Deep despair Fills all your tones as with slow agony. Speak words that narrow anguish to some shape: Tell me what dread is close before you?

FEDALMA.

None. No dread, but clear assurance of the end. My father held within his mighty frame A people's life: great futures died with him Never to rise, until the time shall ripe Some other hero with the will to save The outcast Zincali.

DON SILVA.

And yet their shout— I heard it—sounded as the plenteous rush Of full-fed sources, shaking their wild souls With power that promised sway.

FEDALMA.

Ah yes, that shout Came from full hearts: they meant obedience. But they are orphaned: their poor childish feet Are vagabond in spite of love, and stray Forgetful after little lures. For me— I am but as the funeral urn that bears The ashes of a leader.

DON SILVA.

O great God! What am I but a miserable brand Lit by mysterious wrath? I lie cast down A blackened branch upon the desolate ground. Where once I kindled ruin. I shall drink No cup of purest water but will taste Bitter with thy lone hopelessness, Fedalma.

FEDALMA.

Nay, Silva, think of me as one who sees A light serene and strong on one sole path Which she will tread till death... He trusted me, and I will keep his trust: My life shall be its temple. I will plant His sacred hope within the sanctuary And die its priestess—though I die alone, A hoary woman on the altar-step, Cold 'mid cold ashes. That is my chief good. The deepest hunger of a faithful heart Is faithfulness. Wish me naught else. And you— You too will live....

DON SILVA.

I go to Rome, to seek The right to use my knightly sword again; The right to fill my place and live or die So that all Spaniards shall not curse my name. I sate one hour upon the barren rock And longed to kill myself; but then I said, I will not leave my name in infamy, I will not be perpetual rottenness Upon the Spaniard's air. If I must sink At last to hell, I will not take my stand Among the coward crew who could not bear The harm themselves had done, which others bore. My young life yet may fill some fatal breach, And I will take no pardon, not my own, Not God's—no pardon idly on my knees; But it shall come to me upon my feet And in the thick of action, and each deed That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting That drives me higher up the steep of honor In deeds of duteous service to that Spain Who nourished me on her expectant breast, The heir of highest gifts. I will not fling My earthly being down for carrion To fill the air with loathing: I will be The living prey of some fierce noble death That leaps upon me while I move. Aloud I said, "I will redeem my name," and then— I know not if aloud: I felt the words Drinking up all my senses—"She still lives. I would not quit the dear familiar earth Where both of us behold the self-same sun, Where there can be no strangeness 'twixt our thoughts So deep as their communion." Resolute I rose and walked.—Fedalma, think of me As one who will regain the only life Where he is other than apostate—one Who seeks but to renew and keep the vows Of Spanish knight and noble. But the breach— Outside those vows—the fatal second breach— Lies a dark gulf where I have naught to cast, Not even expiation—poor pretence, Which changes naught but what survives the past, And raises not the dead. That deep dark gulf Divide us.

FEDALMA.

Yes, forever. We must walk Apart unto the end. Our marriage rite Is our resolve that we will each be true To high allegiance, higher than our love. Our dear young love—its breath was happiness! But it had grown upon a larger life Which tore its roots asunder. We rebelled— The larger life subdued us. Yet we are wed; For we shall carry each the pressure deep Of the other's soul. I soon shall leave the shore. The winds to-night will bear me far away. My lord, farewell!

What has been said of The Spanish Gypsy applies very nearly as well to all her other poems. They are thoughtful, philosophic, realistic; they are sonorous in expression, stately in style, and of a diction eloquent and beautiful. On the whole, the volume containing the shorter poems is a poetical advance on The Spanish Gypsy, containing more genuine poetry, more lyrical fire, and a greater proportion of humor, sympathy and passion. They are carefully polished and refined; and yet that indefinable something which marks the truest poetry is wanting. They are saturated with her ideas, the flavor of her thought impregnates them all, with but two or three exceptions.

Her artistic conceptions are more fully developed in some of these poems than in any of her novels, especially in "Armgart" and "The Legend of Jubal." The special thought of "Armgart" is, that no artistic success is of so much worth as a loving sympathy with others. The longing of Armgart was to be—

a happy spiritual star Such as old Dante saw, wrought in a rose Of light in Paradise, whose only self Was consciousness of glory wide-diffused, Music, life, power—I moving in the midst With a sublime necessity of good.

Her ambition runs very high.

May the day be near when men Think much to let my horses draw me home, And new lands welcome me upon their beach, Loving me for my fame. That is the truth Of what I wish, nay, yearn for. Shall I lie? Pretend to seek obscurity—to sing In hope of disregard? A vile pretence! And blasphemy besides. For what is fame But the benignant strength of One, transformed To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come As necessary breathing of such joy; And may they come to me!

Armgart is beloved of the Graf, and he tries to persuade her to abandon her artistic career and become his wife. He says to her,—

A woman's rank Lies in the fulness of her womanhood: Therein alone she is loyal.

Again he says to her,—

Pain had been saved, Nay, purer glory reached, had you been throned As woman only, holding all your art As attribute to that dear sovereignty— Concentering your power in home delights Which penetrate and purify the world.

Armgart will not listen; her whole heart is enlisted in music. She says to the Graf,—

I will live alone and pour my pain With passion into music, where it turns To what is best within my better self.

A year later Armgart's throat has failed, and her career has ended in nothing. Then her servant and friend, Walpurga, who has devoted her life to Armgart, speaks that lesson George Eliot would convey in this little story, that a true life is a life of service. Walpurga chides Armgart's false ambition in these words:

I but stand As a small symbol for the mighty sum Of claims unpaid to needy myriads; I think you never set your loss beside That mighty deficit. Is your work gone— The prouder queenly work that paid itself And yet was overpaid with men's applause! Are you no longer chartered, privileged, But sunk to simple woman's penury, To ruthless Nature's chary average— Where is the rebel's right for you alone? Noble rebellion lifts a common load; But what is he who flings his own load off And leaves his fellows toiling? Rebel's right? Say, rather, the deserter's.

Armgart learns from her master, the old and noble Leo, that he had also been ambitious, that he had won only small success, and that he now lived for the sake of the good he could do to those about him. He says to her,—

We must bury our dead joys, And live above them with a living world.

Then Armgart is brought to see that there is a noble privilege in living as her friend has lived, in making music a joy to others, and in doing what she can to make life better for humanity.

There are two very distinct ideas running through the poem, that a life guided by altruism is better than—a merely artistic life, and that woman is to find in home and wedded joys that opportunity for the development of her soul, without which no artistic career can be complete. The words of the Graf speak George Eliot's own thought, that Armgart's life and her art would have been both more perfect and more noble had she held all her art as attribute to the dear sovereignty of affection.

The same artistic conception pervades "The Legend of Jubal." That fame for which Jubal also yearns comes to him, he is taught, in the good which he leaves behind him for humanity to enjoy. He dies, and ceases to be as a personal being. At least this may be inferred from the concluding lines.

Quitting mortality, a quenched sun-wave, The All-creating Presence for his grave.

A sun-wave while living, his being is now quenched. But he lives on in the life of the race, lives on in man's joy of music, in the deeper life which music awakens in all bosoms through all ages. He is told that he has no need of—

aught else for share Of mortal good, than in his soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world's springtide in his conscious breast.

His own loved Past says to him,—

This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred.

This poem views death as positivism conceives it, and gives a poetic interpretation of that subjective immortality, or that immortality in the race, in which George Eliot so heartily believed. No other artistic presentation of this theory has ever been made which equals that given in this poem, and in the one beginning, "O may I join the choir invisible." This latter poem is not only beautiful in itself, but it has made altruism attractive and lovely. Its tone of thought is elevated, its spirit lofty and noble, and its ideal pure and gracious. All that can be said to make altruism lovely and winning, to inspire men with its spirit and motive, is here said. The thought presented in these two poems is repeated in "The Death of Moses." Here we have Moses living forever in the human influence he created.

He dwells not with you dead, but lives as Law.

For her ideas about resignation we must turn to the pages of The Mill on the Floss and Romola, for those about heredity and the past to The Spanish Gypsy and Daniel Deronda; but in these shorter poems she has completely unfolded the positivist conception, as she accepted it, of death and immortality. The degree to which she was moved and inspired by this belief in an immortality in humanity is seen in the greater ardor and poetic merit of these poems than any others she wrote.

It is interesting to note that she introduces music into "The Legend of Jubal" and "Armgart". It was the art she most loved. She even said that if she could possess the power most satisfactory to her heart, it would be that of making music the instrument of the homage which the great performers secure. Yet she teaches in "Armgart" that there is a power higher than this, the power of affectionate service. Her books are full of the praise of music. She makes Maggie Tulliver express her own delight in it.

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."

In Adam Bede she becomes most poetic when extolling the power of exquisite music to work on the soul.

To feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life wherein memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being, past and present, in one unspeakable vibration, melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love, that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past joy.

In the "Minor Prophet" is to be found George Eliot's theory of progress. That poem also repeats her faith in common humanity, and gives new emphasis to her joy in the common toils and affections of men. In the "College Breakfast Party" and "Self and Life," her thoughts take a more truly philosophic form than in any of her other poems, but the first of these is the poorest piece of poetic work she gave to the public. Nothing new in the way of teaching appears in these or her other poems.

George Eliot is the poet of positivism. What is beautiful, touching and inspiring in that conception of the world she has sung, and in as poetic a manner as that philosophy is ever likely to inspire. Her poetry is full of the thoughts and sentiments of the time. It reflects the mood of her generation. Prof. Sidney Colvin has truly said that "there is nothing in the literature of the day so rousing—to the mind of the day there is scarcely anything so rousing in all literature—as her writing is. What she writes is full of her time. It is full of observation, imagination, pathos, wit and humor, all of a high class in themselves; but what is more, all saturated with modern ideas poured into a language of which every word bites home with peculiar sharpness to the contemporary consciousness." This is true even more of her poetry than of her prose. That poetry lacks where the age lacks, in true poetic quality. The ideal, the breath of eternal spring, is not in it.



XVIII.

LATER ESSAYS.

The later essays of George Eliot have the same characteristics as the earlier ones, and are mainly of interest because they furnish additional evidences of her philosophical, ethical and political opinions. While they indicate the profound thoughtfulness of her mind, her deep concern about the largest problems of human existence, and her rare ethical tone and purpose, they add little or nothing to her literary reputation. It is very plain that while George Eliot was not a poet in the largest, truest sense, she was still less an essayist in that genial, widely sympathetic sense which has adorned English literature with so many noble books of comment on the foibles and the virtues of man. Her manner is heavy, her thoughts philosophical, her purpose doctrinal: and the result is far from satisfactory to the lover of fine essay-writing.

She needs the glow of her imagination, the depth of her emotions, to relieve and lighten the burden of her thoughts. But in her essays she is less wise, less racy and expressive, than in the didactic passages of her novels. She could best make her comment on the ways of life while describing a character or studying an action. These additions to her narrative and conversation are, to the thoughtful reader, among the best portions of her novels, for they give meaning to all the rest, and throw a flood of light on the hidden facts of life. She is never so great, so wise, so profoundly inspired by her theme, as in many of these passages.

There is need, however, in her case, of the large surrounding life of her novels in order to draw out this wisdom and inspiration. Her essays lack in the fine sentiment and the fervid eloquence of the chorus-utterances in her novels. They give little evidence that she would have attained to great things had she followed the early purpose of her life. In view of what she has written in the shape of essays, no one can regret that she confined her chief efforts to her imaginative prose creations. Yet her essays have a special value on account of their subjects, and they will be read by many with a hearty appreciation, simply because they were George Eliot's. No one thoroughly interested in the work done by the great realistic novelist can afford to overlook her essays, even if they do not nearly touch the highest mark in their kind.

After she began her career as a novelist George Eliot wrote about twenty essays, nearly all of which are included in her last book, Impressions of Theophrastus Such. Previous to this, however, she had published in the first number of the Fortnightly Review, issued May 15, 1865, and edited by Lewes, an article on "The Influence of Rationalism," in review of Mr. W.H. Lecky's book on that subject. A year after the appearance of Felix Holt she wrote out her views on the subject of political reform, in the shape of an "Address to Workingmen by Felix Holt," which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1868. These essays are significant, because of the light they afford concerning the author's views on religious and political subjects. The first is a piece of thorough reviewing, and shows what George Eliot might have done in that direction. She is a merciless critic, and yet one inclined to appreciate all that is best in an author. Her sympathies with positivism and with the "scientific method" in philosophy find expression in the pages of this essay. In it she gives a most expressive utterance to her ideas about the universality of law and the influence of tradition. Her point of view is so antagonistic to Mr, Lecky's that she does not do full justice to his work. His idealism is repugnant to her, and he does not give prominence enough to please her to those positivist influences in which she so strongly believed. Her dissatisfaction with his idealism appears in her very first words.

There is a valuable class of books on great subjects which have something of the character and functions of good popular lecturing. They are not original, not subtle, not of close logical texture, not exquisite either in thought or style; but by virtue of these negatives they are all the more fit to act on the average intelligence. They have enough of organizing purpose in them to make their facts illustrative, and to leave a distinct result in the mind even when most of the facts are forgotten; and they have enough of vagueness and vacillation in their theory to win them ready acceptance from a mixed audience. The vagueness and vacillation are not devices of timidity; they are the honest result of the writer's own mental character, which adapts him to be the instructor and the favorite of "the general reader." For the most part, the general reader of the present day does not exactly know what distance he goes; he only knows that he does not go "too far." Of any remarkable thinker, whose writings have excited controversy, he likes to have it said "that his errors are to be deplored." leaving it not too certain what those errors are; he is fond of what may be called disembodied opinions, that float in vapory phrases above all systems of thought or action; he likes an undefined Christianity which opposes itself to nothing in particular, an undefined education of the people, an undefined amelioration of all things: in fact, he likes sound views—nothing extreme, but something between the excesses of the past and the excesses of the present. This modern type of the general reader may be known in conversation by the cordiality with which he assents to indistinct, blurred statements. Say that black is black, he will shake his head and hardly think it; say that black is not so very black, he will reply, "Exactly." He has no hesitation, if you wish it, even to get up at a public meeting and express his conviction that at times, and within certain limits, the radii of a circle have a tendency to be equal; but, on the other hand, he would urge that the spirit of geometry may be carried a little too far. His only bigotry is a bigotry against any clearly defined opinion; not in the least based on a scientific scepticism, but belonging to a lack of coherent thought—a spongy texture of mind, that gravitates strongly to nothing. The one thing he is staunch for is the utmost liberty of private haziness.

But precisely these characteristics of the general reader, rendering him incapable of assimilating ideas unless they are administered in a highly diluted form, make it a matter of rejoicing that there are clever, fair-minded men who will write books for him—men very much above him in knowledge and ability, but not too remote from him in their habits of thinking, and who can thus prepare for him infusions of history and science that will leave some solidifying deposit, and save him from a fatal softening of the intellectual skeleton. Among such serviceable writers, Mr. Lecky's History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe entitles him to a high place. He has prepared himself for its production by an unusual amount of well-directed reading; he has chosen his facts and quotations with much judgment; and he gives proof of those important moral qualifications, impartiality, seriousness and modesty. This praise is chiefly applicable to the long chapter on the history of Magic and Witchcraft, and to the two chapters on the antecedents and history of Persecution.