has given us of the Borders and Highlands in older days, with their wilder and more adventurous people. But there is a great difference in method between the two novelists, corresponding pretty closely to the difference between their favourite subjects. Sir Walter loved to show his favourites embarked in perilous adventures. George Eliot, on the other hand, is seldom so successful as when she patiently develops her characters in rather slow but humorous dialogue-such dialogue as Shakespeare loved to interpolate in his plays when he chose to show us how the 'Goodman Dull' of the Midlands talked away in his stupid but comfortable self-satisfaction. Perhaps now and then she a little overdoes this microscopic view of inarticulate natures. In that curious short story of hers, The Lifted Veil, she gives a picture of a man with a quite preternatural insight into the vagrant and frivolous background of the minds of those amongst whom he lives, who is made to complain of the obtrusion on my mind of the mental process going forward in first one person and then another, with whom I happened to be in contact; the vagrant, frivolous ideas and emotions of some uninteresting acquaintance. . . would force themselves on my consciousness like an importunate, ill-played musical instrument, or the loud activity of an imprisoned insect.' Had not George Eliot herself some curious gift of the same kind? She seems sometimes to have had the buzz of dull but excited gossip almost revealed to her by a kind of disagreeable intuition, and to have written it down at too great length in order to rid herself of its leaden predominance over her imagination. At all events, she is greatly inferior to Scott in play and richness of pictorial imagination, in rapidity of movement, and in warmth of colour. Romola, her one historical romance-though it is full of subtlety of conception, contains some very striking figures, and is painted with a surprising minuteness of realistic detail-is a doubtful success. Sir Walter Scott never failed in making the chief historical figure of his historical romances the most interesting figure in his group. George Eliot did not thus succeed in painting Savonarola ; it was in Tito and Tessa that she achieved her great successes. As regards the historical background of Romola, one can hardly say that it holds its place at all as compared with even the least successful historical romance of Sir Walter Scott. George Eliot's imagination was not buoyant enough to travel back into these far regions of history, and create them anew for us; nor does her story move rapidly enough to make up for the difficulty of transporting our sympathies to so distant a region. We miss the vividness and we miss the action which are needful for the art of historical romance. In her poetry, too, George Eliot falls far short of Sir Walter Scott; she is sombre, stately, even Miltonic after a fashion of her own, but Miltonic without Milton's felicity and charm. She is as grandiose as Milton without being as grand. Sometimes she attains true grandeur-though not Milton's sweet and winning grandeur-as in her delineation of the selfishness that remained at the heart even of the inspired musician Jubal : This little pulse of self that living glowed Through thrice three centuries, and divinely strowed The light of music through the vague of sound, Ached smallness, still in good that had no bound. Usually she falls quite short of true grandeur in her poetry, and seems to be impressive without actually impressing the reader. The rhythm is laboured, the thought is laboured, the feeling is laboured, and the effect is more artificial than artistic. Perhaps the most curious feature of George Eliot's genius is that she wrote so very much better and with so much more ease when she was writing dramatically than she did when she was writing her own thoughts in her own name. There is hardly a good letter-considered as a letterin the whole three volumes, made up chiefly out of her letters, which Mr Cross gave to the world. There is, on the contrary, hardly an ineffective speech put into the mouth of any of the characters whom she delineated in her novels. Sir Walter Scott has given us a far larger proportion of ineffectively painted characters than George Eliot, though also a greater number of effectively painted characters. There is hardly a country squire, or dairymaid, or poacher, or innkeeper, or country lad or lass to whom George Eliot does not give a thoroughly individual voice; but when she comes to speak for herself, her voice is measured, artificial, monotonous, and a little over-sweet. Her letters read as if they were turned out by machinery, though machinery invented by some gently intellectual and laborious mind. Scott's letters are delightful reading; Miss Brontë's are full of interest; even Miss Austen's, though they disappointed everybody, give the impression of a lively and observant mind. But George Eliot's have no freedom or personal stamp upon them, unless the absence of personal feeling be itself a personal stamp. It almost seems as if her mind had been intended more as an instrument for interpreting the minds of others, more as a phonograph through the agency of which the natures of all the various interlocutors with whom she met could be delicately registered and made to report themselves to the world, than as a distinct organ of her own taste and purpose. George Eliot is in the highest degree original in her power of interpreting others, but she gives an effect of faded second-hand suavity when she comes to interpret herself. Nevertheless she will be named in the same category with Sir Walter Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens, perhaps even above Miss Austen, if only for the richness and quantity of her admirable work. Death of Mrs Barton. The following Wednesday, when Mr and Mrs Hackit were seated comfortably by their bright hearth, enjoying the long afternoon afforded by an early dinner, Rachel, the housemaid, came in and said 'If you please 'm, the shepherd says, have you heard as Mrs Barton's wuss, and not expected to live?' Mrs Hackit turned pale, and hurried out to question the shepherd, who, she found, had heard the sad news at an alehouse in the village. Mr Hackit followed her out and said, 'You'd better have the pony-chaise, and go directly.' 'Yes,' said Mrs Hackit, too much overcome to utter any exclamations. 'Rachel, come an' help me on wi' my things.' When her husband was wrapping her cloak round her feet in the pony-chaise, she said— 'If I don't come home to-night, I shall send back the pony-chaise, and you'll know I'm wanted there.' 'Yes, yes.' It was a bright frosty day, and by the time Mrs Hackit arrived at the Vicarage, the sun was near its setting. There was a carriage and pair standing at the gate, which she recognised as Dr Madeley's, the physician from Rotherby. She entered at the kitchen door that she might avoid knocking, and quietly questioned Nanny. No one was in the kitchen, but, passing on, she saw the sitting-room door open, and Nanny, with Walter in her arms, removing the knives and forks, which had been laid for dinner three hours ago. 'Master says he can't eat no dinner,' was Nanny's first word. 'He's never tasted nothin' sin' yisterday mornin' but a cup o' tea.' "When was your missis took worse?' 'O' Monday night. They sent for Dr Madeley i' the middle o' the day yisterday, an' he's here again now.' 'Is the baby alive?' 'No; it died last night. The children's all at Mrs Bond's. She come and took 'em away last night, but the master says they must be fetched soon. stairs now, wi' Dr Madeley and Mr Brand.' He's up At this moment Mrs Hackit heard the sound of a heavy, slow foot, in the passage; and presently Amos Barton entered, with dry despairing eyes, haggard and unshaven. He expected to find the sitting-room as he left it, with nothing to meet his eyes but Milly's workbasket in the corner of the sofa, and the children's toys overturned in the bow-window. But when he saw Mrs Hackit come towards him with answering sorrow in her face, the pent-up fountain of tears was opened; he threw himself on the sofa, hid his face, and sobbed aloud. Bear up, Mr Barton,' Mrs Hackit ventured to say at last; bear up, for the sake o' them dear children.' 'The children,' said Amos, starting up. 'They must be sent for. Some one must fetch them. Milly will us to tell her how long she had to live, and then asked for the children.' The pony carriage was sent; and Mrs Hackit, returning to Mr Barton, said she would like to go upstairs now. He went upstairs with her and opened the door. The chamber fronted the west; the sun was just setting, and the red light fell full upon the bed, where Milly lay with the hand of death visibly upon her. The featherbed had been removed, and she lay low on a mattress, with her head slightly raised by pillows. Her long fair neck seemed to be struggling with a painful effort; her features were pallid and pinched, and her eyes were closed. There was no one in the room but the nurse, and the mistress of the free school, who had come to give her help from the beginning of the change. Amos and Mrs Hackit stood beside the bed, and Milly opened her eyes. 'My darling, Mrs Hackit is come to see you.' Milly smiled and looked at her with that strange, faroff look which belongs to ebbing life. 'Are the children coming?' she said, painfully. Presently the pony-carriage was heard; and Amos, motioning to Mrs Hackit to follow him, left the room. On their way downstairs she suggested that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterwards, and Amos assented. There they stood in the melancholy sitting-room—the five sweet children, from Patty to Chubby-all with their mother's eyes-all, except Patty, looking up with a vague fear at their father as he entered. Patty understood the great sorrow that was come upon them, and tried to check her sobs as she heard her papa's footsteps. 'My children,' said Amos, taking Chubby in his arms, 'God is going to take away your dear mamma from us. She wants to see you to say good-bye. You must try to be very good and not cry.' He could say no more, but turned round to see if Nanny was there with Walter, and then led the way upstairs, leading Dickey with the other hand. Mrs Hackit followed with Sophy and Patty, and then came Nanny with Walter and Fred. It seemed as if Milly had heard the little footsteps on the stairs, for when Amos entered her eyes were wide open, eagerly looking towards the door. They all stood by the bedside-Amos nearest to her, holding Chubby and Dickey. But she motioned for Patty to come first, and clasping the poor pale child by the hand, said'Patty, I'm going away from you. Love your papa. Comfort him; and take care of your little brothers and sisters. God will help you.' Patty stood perfectly quiet, and said, 'Yes, mamma.' The mother motioned with her pallid lips for the dear child to lean towards her and kiss her; and then Patty's great anguish overcame her, and she burst into sobs. Amos drew her towards him and pressed her head gently to him, while Milly beckoned Fred and Sophy, and said to them more faintly— 'Patty will try to be your mamma when I am gone, my darlings. You will be good and not vex her.' They leaned towards her, and she stroked their fair heads, and kissed their tear-stained cheeks. They cried because mamma was ill and papa looked so unhappy; but they thought, perhaps next week things would be as they used to be again. The little ones were lifted on the bed to kiss her. Little Walter said, 'Mamma, mamma,' and stretched out his fat arms and smiled; and Chubby seemed gravely wondering; but Dickey, who had been looking fixedly at her, with lip hanging down, ever since he came into the room, now seemed suddenly pierced with the idea that mamma was going away somewhere; his little heart swelled and he cried aloud. Then Mrs Hackit and Nanny took them all away. Patty at first begged to stay at home and not go to Mrs Bond's again; but when Nanny reminded her that she had better go to take care of the younger ones, she submitted at once, and they were all packed in the pony-carriage once more. Milly kept her eyes shut for some time after the children were gone. Amos had sunk on his knees, and was holding her hand while he watched her face. Byand-by she opened her eyes, and, drawing him close to her, whispered slowly 'My dear-dear-husband-you have been-verygood to me. You-have-made me-very-happy.' She spoke no more for many hours. They watched her breathing becoming more and more difficult, until evening deepened into night, and until midnight was past. About half-past twelve she seemed to be trying to speak, and they leaned to catch her words. 'Music-music-didn't hear it?' you Amos knelt by the bed and held her hand in his. He did not believe in his sorrow. It was a bad dream. He did not know when she was gone. But Mr Brand, whom Mrs Hackit had sent for before twelve o'clock, thinking that Mr Barton might probably need his help, now came up to him, and said 'She feels no more pain now. Come, my dear sir, come with me.' 'She isn't dead?' shrieked the poor desolate man, struggling to shake off Mr Brand, who had taken him by the arm. But his weary, weakened frame was not equal to resistance, and he was dragged out of the room. (From The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton.) Mr Tulliver and the Uncles and Aunts. 'Why,' said Mr Tulliver, not looking at Mrs Glegg, but at the male part of his audience, 'you see, I've made up my mind not to bring Tom up to my own business. I've had my thoughts about it all along, and I made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and his son. I mean to put him to some business, as he can go into without capital, and I want to give him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyers and folks, and put me up to a notion now an' then.' Mrs Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips, that smiled in mingled pity and scorn. 'It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people,' she said after that introductory note, 'if they'd let the lawyers alone.' 'Is he at the head of a grammar-school, then, this clergyman-such as that at Market Bewley?' said Mr Deane. 'No-nothing o' that,' said Mr Tulliver. He won't take more than two or three pupils-and so he'll have the more time to attend to 'em, you know.' 'Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner: they can't learn much at a time when there's so many of 'em,' said Uncle Pullet, feeling that he was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter. 'But he 'll want the more pay, I doubt,' said Mr Glegg. 'Ay, ay, a cool hundred a-year-that's all,' said Mr Tulliver, with some pride at his own spirited course. 'But then, you know, it's an investment; Tom's eddication 'ull be so much capital to him.' 'Ay, there's something in that,' said Mr Glegg. 'Well, well, neighbour Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right: "When land is gone and money 's spent, Then learning is most excellent." I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbour Pullet?' Mr Glegg rubbed his knees and looked very pleasant. 'Mr Glegg, I wonder at you,' said his wife. 'It's very unbecoming in a man o' your age and belongings.' 'What's unbecoming, Mrs G.?' said Mr Glegg, winking pleasantly at the company. 'My new blue coat as I've got on?' 'I pity your weakness, Mr Glegg. I say it's unbecoming to be making a joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin.' If you mean me by that,' said Mr Tulliver, considerably nettled, 'you needn't trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own affairs without troubling other folks.' 'Bless me,' said Mr Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, 'why, now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send his son-the deformed lad-to a clergyman, didn't they, Susan?' (appealing to his wife). 'I can give no account of it, I'm sure,' said Mrs Deane, closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs Deane was not a woman to take part in a scene where missiles were flying. 'I've been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven't been over-ready at giving,' said Mrs Glegg. There's folk I've lent money to, as perhaps I shall repent o' lending money to kin.' 'Come, come, come,' said Mr Glegg soothingly. But Mr Tulliver was not to be hindered of his retort. 'You've got a bond for it, I reckon,' he said; 'and you've had your five per cent., kin or no kin.' 'Sister,' said Mrs Tulliver pleadingly, ‘drink your wine, and let me give you some almonds and raisins.' 'Bessy, I'm sorry for you,' said Mrs Glegg, very much with the feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of diverting his bark towards the man who carries no stick. 'It's poor work, talking o' almonds and raisins.' 'Lors, sister Glegg, don't be so quarrelsome,' said Mrs Pullet, beginning to cry a little. You may be struck with a fit, getting so red in the face after dinner, and we are but just out o' mourning, all of us-and all wi' gowns craped alike and just put by—it's very bad among sisters." 'I should think it is bad,' said Mrs Glegg. "Things are come to a fine pass when one sister invites the other to her house o' purpose to quarrel with her and abuse her.' fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with embarrassing sadness. At last Mr Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher: 'Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, Bob?' The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat and replied, 'And they wouldn't be fur wrong, John.' After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely as before. 'Was it a red Durham?' said the farrier, taking up the thread of discourse after the lapse of a few minutes. The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of answering. 'Red it was,' said the butcher, in his good-humoured 'Softly, softly, Jane-be reasonable-be reasonable,' husky treble-‘and a Durham it was.' said Mr Glegg. But while he was speaking, Mr Tulliver, who had by no means said enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again: 'Who wants to quarrel with you?' he said. 'It's you as can't let people alone, but must be gnawing at 'em for ever. I should never want to quarrel with any woman, if she kept her place.' My place, indeed!' said Mrs Glegg, getting rather more shrill. 'There's your betters, Mr Tulliver, as are dead and in their grave, treated me with a different sort o' respect to what you do-though I've got a husband as 'll sit by and see me abused by them as 'ud never ha' had the chance if there hadn't been them in our family as married worse than they might ha' done.' 'If you talk o' that,' said Mr Tulliver, my family's as good as yours-and better, for it hasn't got a damned ill-tempered woman in it.' 'Well!' said Mrs Glegg, rising from her chair, ‘I¦ don't know whether you think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr Glegg; but I'm not going to stay a minute longer in this house. You can stay behind, and come home with the gig-and I'll walk home.' 'Dear heart, dear heart!' said Mr Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he followed his wife out of the room. 'Mr Tulliver, how could you talk so?' said Mrs Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes. 'Let her go,' said Mr Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount of tears. 'Let her go, and the sooner the better: she won't be trying to domineer over me again in a hurry.' (From The Mill on the Floss.) A Conversation in the 'Rainbow.' The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas approached the door of the Rainbow,' had, as usual, been slow and intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the 'Then you needn't tell me who you bought it of,' said the farrier, looking round with some triumph; ‘I know who it is has got the red Durhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white star on her brow, I'll bet a penny?' The farrier leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly. 'Well, yes-she might,' said the butcher slowly, considering that he was giving a decided affirmative. I don't say contrairy.' 'I knew that very well,' said the farrier, throwing himself backward again, and speaking defiantly; 'if / don't know Mr Lammeter's cows, I should like to know who does-that's all. And as for the cow you've bought, bargain or no bargain, I've been at the drenching of her -contradick me who will.' The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher's conversational spirit was roused a little. 'I'm not for contradicking no man,' he said; 'I'm for peace and quietness. Some are for cutting long ribs— I'm for cutting 'em short myself; but I don't quarrel with 'em. All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss-and any body as was reasonable, it 'ud bring tears into their eyes to look at it.' 'Well, it's the cow as I drenched, whatever it is, pursued the farrier angrily; and it was Mr Lammeter's cow, else you told a lie when you said it was a red Durham.' 'I tell no lies,' said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as before, and I contradick none-not if a man was to swear himself black: he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss. And what I say I'll stick to; but I'll quarrel wi' no man.' 'No,' said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company generally; ‘and p'rhaps you aren't pig. headed; and p'rhaps you didn't say the cow was a red Durham; and p'rhaps you didn't say she 'd got a star on her brow-stick to that, now you 're at it.' 'Come, come,' said the landlord; let the cow alone. The truth lies atween you: you 're both right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as for the cow's being Mr Lammeter's, I say nothing to that; but this I say, as the "Rainbow" 's the "Rainbow." And for the matter o' that, if the talk is to be o' the Lammeters, you know the most upo' that head, eh, Mr Macey? You remember when first Mr Lammeter's father come into these parts, and took the Warrens?' Mr Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord's appeal, and said: Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: they've learnt pernouncing; that's come up since my day.' (From Silas Marner.) O may I Join the Choir Invisible. O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues. So to live is heaven : To make undying music in the world, Which martyred men have made more glorious (1867.) [The above article on George Eliot is abridged from that originally written for Chambers's Encyclopædia in 1889 by Richard Holt Hutton. See the Life of her edited by J. W. Cross (3 vols. 1885-86); the books on her by Miss Blind (1883), Mr Oscar Browning (1890), Joseph Jacobs (1891), and Sir Leslie Stephen ('Men of Letters, 1902); Essays, by F. W. H. Myers (1883); Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Jane Austen-Studies in their Works, by H. H. Bonnell (1903); R. H. Hutton's Essays (1871) and his Modern Guides of English Thought; and Scherer's Essays in English Literature. Scherer said George Eliot was inferior to no one of her sex except Madame de Staël (George Sand not being excepted) in depth, brilliancy, and flexibility of genius; and he endorsed Lord Acton's opinion that George Eliot was the most considerable literary personality that had till then appeared since the death of Goethe.] Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901), the only daughter of a Hampshire squire and magistrate, was born at Otterbourne near Winchester; and when Keble came to Hursley vicarage (to which the living of Otterbourne was annexed) he found her an intellectual, impressionable, and welleducated girl of thirteen. When she began to write authorship was considered unladylike, and a family council consented to the publication of Abbey Church only on condition that she should not accept the pecuniary returns for any personal end-a condition she then and afterwards cheerfully complied with. She gained a large constituency of readers by her Heir of Redclyffe (1853) and its successors; and her industry may be judged from the fact that within forty-four years (1848-92) she had published well over a hundred volumes (almost three annually), besides books translated and edited, and work done as editor of the Monthly Packet. Her novels are straightforward and natural, show not a little dramatic skill and literary grace, and inculcate a high and healthy morality, though they have not the charm of works of genius. Many of them are made the vehicle of High Church opinions; for though Miss Yonge was bred in an evangelical household, the teaching of the Tractarians and her close personal friendship with Keble were the most outstanding influences in the formation of her life" and thought. An unwonted element of chivalry was happily grafted on the realism of contemporary English domestic life. Charles Kingsley said Heartsease was the most wholesome and delightful novel he had ever read; and, singular to relate (as it seems to us now), William Morris, Burne Jones, and their group at Oxford adopted as their model the hero of the Heir of Redclyffe, Sir Guy Morville, a Crusader in modern life. The profits from the Heir of Redclyffe were largely devoted to fitting out a missionary schooner for Bishop Selwyn; as were the returns from the Daisy Chain |