The English Novel and the Principle of its Development

by Sidney Lanier

  XI.

  The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered fromthe rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her penhad been appearing regularly each year. The _Scenes from ClericalLife_ had appeared in book form in 1858, _Adam Bede_ was printed in1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ came out in 1860, and now, in 1861,followed _Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. It is with thegreatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this bookwithout comment. In some particulars _Silas Marner_ is the mostremarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read theimmortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, thebutcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussingghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mindruns to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare weresitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downrightghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing thelong-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries mestraight to that pitiless _Pardoner's Tale_ of Chaucer in which goldis so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me ifI spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories sofar as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's _Pardoner's Tale_three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern.In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before adead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. Theylearn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three becomesuddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forthresolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meetan old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him."Because," says he,

  "Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif; Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knocke with my staf erlich and late And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'"

  "Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand thethree young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oaktree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving atthe oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their goodfortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lestthey be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait untilnight and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one ofthe three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out ofhearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder theircompanion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portionof the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual intown, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drinkhe is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all.

  To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon ashe who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him andmurder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he hasbrought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead underthe oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction hascome true, and they _have_ found death under that tree. In GeorgeEliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in findinggold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late atnight from a fox-hunt on foot--for he had killed his horse in thechase--finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaverhas long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed alarge sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money;he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; hemakes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and findsthe door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from thehut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where theweaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filledwith guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into thedarkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds;nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years;the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has oneday found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floorwhere he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who hadfallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wanderedinto Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; whenone day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happensthat in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry,which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house,becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathernbag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark,laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years tobe afterwards brought to light as another phase of the frequentidentity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to rememberthose doubly dreadful words in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Romeo havingwith difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries:

  "There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh."

  I must also instance one little passing picture in _Silas Marner_which though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some ofthe greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done.Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of asmall manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation oftheft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against himbrings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his wholefaith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to thevillage of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving,presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he issmit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently wefind him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, whichhad previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser'spassion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his twoleathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid picturesof how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up thefire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerlylift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kepthis treasure concealed, pour out the bright yellow heaps of coin andrun his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy.But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul--and one canimagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentiallyreligious--becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading herlittle golden-haired child is making her way along the road pastMarner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of theSquire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him foryears has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a greatmerry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose alland demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she hasbecome an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage theeffect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies downand falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantimethe little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door ofMarner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places herhead with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner usedto lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep,while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates thelittle one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding whatseems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on thefloor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings upthe little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter tohim. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previousbrutal misanthropy softens into something at least approachinghumanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that sheconstantly places before us lives which change in a manner of whichthis is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing us intenseand hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon thatwhich is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier,then finding where love _is_ worthy, and thereafter loving largerloves, and living larger lives.

  Is n
ot this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of AdamBede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; ofRomola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth?

  This last name brings us directly to the work which we were speciallyto study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationshipsamong themselves which cause them to fall into various groupsaccording to various points of view. There is one point however fromwhich her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which oneincludes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other groupconsists solely of _Daniel Deronda_. This classification is based onthe fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of atime which is past. It is only in _Daniel Deronda_, after she has beenwriting for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first venturesto deal with English society of the present day. To this importantclaim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which willin the sequel develop into great significance. _Daniel Deronda_ hashad the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such adegree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even venturedto call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusingGwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirahand Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt toawaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of theJews. This comparative failure of _Daniel Deronda_ to please currentcriticism and even the ardent admirers of George Eliot, so clearlyopens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness incertain vital portions of the structure of our society that I havethought I could not render better service than by conducting ouranalysis of _Daniel Deronda_ so as to make it embrace some of the mostcommon of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall inlargest possible outline the movement of _Daniel Deronda_. This can bedone in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns twopeople--one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought upwith all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understandwhen we think of the highest English refinement, wayward--mainlybecause she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow thanher own--and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontentwhich desires the best and which will only be small when its horizoncontains but small objects. The other main personage is DanielDeronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has astriking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful andnoble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities ofEnglish political life and to shrink from involving his own existencein such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of hisyouth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the firstbook as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whetherlife is worth living.

  It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found askingherself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, bythe chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her owndesire--guilty enough in such a connection--for plenty of horses toride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form sointegral a portion of modern English life; driven, too, by what onemust not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name andposition of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearanceof lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blasebrutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand ofGrandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffersa thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found--as is justsaid--wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living.

  Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to thequestions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answersthem satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the courseof her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; hisloftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, hisgeneral passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,--in a word,his goodness--form a complete revelation to her. She suddenlydiscovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibilityof making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interestwhose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasureswhich had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, DanielDeronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visionsof a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and thewealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause ofreestablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also forhim, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worthliving, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energiesof the loftiest kind.

  Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands ofstory. One of these might be called _The Repentance of GwendolenHarleth_, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. Theother might be called _The Mission of Daniel Deronda_. These twostrands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread bythe organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair andsatisfactory answer to the common question over which these two youngprotagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?"

  Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, thedevelopment of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into agreat and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is donewith such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, withsuch a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether sosubtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I wereasked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious andaltogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I shouldspecify _Daniel Deronda_.

  It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn arepentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required inorder to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that throughwhich our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards aclear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examiningthe instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me onthis point--as mentioned in my last lecture--I find that the realdifference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare everdrew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly arein Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones undermistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. Butsurely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be felt byany man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatlywronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexionthat all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come atlast. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engagedto its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by thenew,--that total substitution of some higher motive for the wholeexisting body of emotions and desires,--that emergence out of thetwilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of alove which does not turn upon self,

  "Which bends not with the remover to remove" Nor "alters when it alteration finds."

  For example, Leontes, in _Winter's Tale_, who is cited as a chiefinstance of Shakspeare's repentances, quite clearly shows by word andact that his regret is mainly a sense of personal loss, not a changeof character. He is sorrowful not so much because he has sinned asbecause he has hurt himself. In Act V. just before the catastrophewhich restores him his wife and daughter, we find him exclaiming:

  "Good Pauline O that ever I Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes Have taken treasure from her lips--&c,"

  And again in the same scene, where Florizel and Perdita have beenbrought before him, he cries:

  "What might I have been, Might I a son and daughter now have looked on Such goodly things as you!"

  In these it is clear that Leontes is speaking from personal regret;there is no thought here of that total expansion of an ego into aburning love of all other egos, implied in the term repentance, as Ihave used it. Similarly, King Lear, who has also been cited as anexample of Shakspeare's repentances is simply an example of r
egret forthe foulest of wrongs done in a moment of silly passion. After thepoor old man, upon regaining his consciousness under Cordelia's tenderministrations, is captured together with Cordelia, in Scene III of ActV, Cordelia says, as if to comfort him:

  "We are not the first Who with best meaning have incurred the worst. For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down.

  Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?" _Lear._--No, no, no, no! Come let's away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage; When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness."

  Here, clearly enough, is regret for his injury to Cordelia, but quiteas clearly, no general state of repentance; and in the very few otherwords uttered by the old king before the play ends surely nothingindicating such a state appears. Of all the instances suggested onlyone involves anything like the process of character-change which Ihave called a repentance, such as Gwendolen Harleth's for example; butthis one, unfortunately, is not drawn by Shakspeare: it is onlymentioned as having occurred. This is the repentance of Duke Frederickin _As you Like it_. Just at the end of that play, when Orlando andRosalind, Oliver, and Celia and all the rest have unraveled all theircomplications, and when everything that can be called plot in the playis finished, the son of old Sir Rowland appears before the company inthe wood and calls out:

  "Let me have audience for a word or two.

  * * * *

  Duke Frederick hearing how that every day Men of great worth resorted to this forest Addressed a mighty power purposely to take His brother here and put him to the sword, And to the skirts of this wild wood he came, Where meeting with an old religious man, After some questions with him was converted Both from his enterprise and from the world; His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, And all their lands restored to them again That were with him exiled."

  Here we have indeed a true repentance, but this is all we have of it;the passage I have read contains the whole picture.

  If we now go on and ask ourselves why these fascinating phenomena ofrepentance, which George Eliot has treated with such success, neverengaged Shakspeare's energy, we come at the very first step upon alimitation of the drama as opposed to the novel which, in thestrongest way, confirms the view I was at such pains to set forth inmy earlier lectures of that necessity for a freer form than thedramatic, which arises from the more complete relations between modernpersonalities and which has really developed the novel out of thedrama.

  How, for instance, could Shakspeare paint the yeas and nays, thetwists, the turns, the intricacies of Gwendolen Harleth's thoughtduring the long weeks while she was debating whether she should acceptGrandcourt? The whole action of this drama, you observe, is confinedwithin the small round head of the girl herself. How could such actionbe brought before the audience of a play? The only hope would be in aprolonged soliloquy, for these are thoughts which no young woman wouldnaturally communicate to any one; but what audience could stand soprolonged a soliloquy, even if any character could be found in whom itwould be natural? And sometimes, too, the situation is so subtlycomplex that Gwendolen is soliloquizing in such a manner that we, theaudience, hear her while Grandcourt, who is standing by, does not.

  "I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold in his chest.

  "Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen.

  (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)

  "Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally sees people missing and simpering."

  "And do you care about the turf? or is that among the things you have left off?"

  (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.)

  "You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff after that."

  "You are fond of danger then?"

  (Pause, during which Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be decided.)

  "One must have something or other. But one gets used to it."

  "I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me; it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left off shooting."

  (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the whole, the thought that most persons were dull, and that she had not observed husbands to be companions.)

  "Why are you dull?"

  "This is a dreadful neighborhood, there is nothing to be done in it. That is why I practised my archery."

  (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of anything, must necessarily be dull through all the degrees of comparison as time went on.)

  "You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first prize."

  "I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well Miss Arrowpoint shot?"

  (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.)

  At this point we come upon an element of difference between the noveland the drama which has not hitherto been fairly appreciated, so faras I know. Consider for a moment the wholly supernatural power whichis necessarily involved in the project of thus showing the most secretworkings of the mind and heart of this young girl Gwendolen Harleth!In real life what power less than God's can make me see the deepestthought and feeling of a fellow-creature? But since the novel isalways a transcript of real, or at any rate of possible, life, youobserve that wherever these workings of heart and brain are thus laidbare, the tacit supposition is, in plain terms, that God is thewriter, or that the writer is a god. In the drama no supposition isnecessary because here we become acquainted with only such matters asare shown us in the ordinary way, by scenery or by the speech orgesture of the actor. This consideration seems to me to lift the novelto the very highest and holiest plane of creative effort; he whotakes up the pen of the novelist assumes, as to that novel, to take upalong with it the omniscience of God. He proposes, in effect, to bringabout the revelations of Judgment Day long before the trumpet hassounded. George Eliot shows us the play of Gwendolen Harleth's soulwith the same uncompromising fulness with which the most literalbeliever expects to give account of the deeds done in the body at thelast day.

  In contemplating this vast ascent from the attitude of the dramatistto that of the novelist--the dramatist is a man; the novelist--as tothat novel, is a god--we are contemplating simply another phase of thegrowth of man from Shakspeare to George Eliot.

  And we reach still another view of that growth when we reflect thateven if Shakspeare could have overcome the merely mechanicaldifficulty of presenting a repentance without overmuch soliloquy, hewould probably have found but poorly-paying houses at the GlobeTheatre to witness any drama so purely spiritual as that which GeorgeEliot has shown us going on upon the little ill-lighted stage of ayoung girl's consciousness. Just as we found that the prodigiousadvance in the nearness of man to his fellow from the time of Aeschylusto that of George Eliot was implied in the fact that the latter couldgather an interested audience about a couple of commonplace children(as in _The Mi
ll on the Floss_), whilst the former required the largerstimulus of Titanic quarrel and angry Jove; so here we have reached anevidence of still more subtle advance as between the times ofShakspeare and of George Eliot when we find the latter gathering agreat audience about this little inward, actionless, complex drama ofGwendolen Harleth, while we reflect that Shakspeare must have hisstimulant passion, his crime, his patriotism, and the like, as theonly attracting motives. In truth I find what seems to be a cunningindication that George Eliot herself did not feel quite sure of heraudience for this same little play. At the end of Chapter XI., shebreaks off from a description of one of Gwendolen's capricious turns,and as if in apologetic defense says:

  "Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves and the universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely; ... a time when the soul of man was waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him unheard.... What, in the midst of that mighty drama, are girls and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring or fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections."

  Thus it appears that for Shakspeare to draw such repentances asGwendolen Harleth's was not only difficult from the playwright's pointof view, but premature from the point of view of the world's growth.In truth, I suspect, if we had time to pursue this matter, that weshould find it leading us into some very instructive views of certainrugged breaking-off places in Shakspeare. I suppose we must considerthe limitations of his time; though it is just possible there may belimitations of his genius, also. We should presently find ourselvesasking further how it is that Shakspeare not only never drew a greatreformation, but never painted a great reformer? It seems a naturalquestion: How is it, that it is Milton, and not Shakspeare, who hastreated the subject of Paradise Lost and Regained; how is it, thatthe first-class subject was left for the second-class genius? We allknow how Milton has failed in what he intended with his poem, and howastonished he would be at finding that the only one of his characterswhich has taken any real hold upon the world is his Satan. It seemsirresistible to ask ourselves why might not our most eloquent tonguehave treated our most lofty theme? Or, if we should find specialreasons in the temper of his time why Shakspeare could not or shouldnot have treated this theme, we may still ask, why did he never paintfor us one of those men who seem too large to be bounded in theiraffections merely by limits of country, but who loved and worked forthe whole world, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Socrates, Luther; nay,why may not the master have given us a master's picture of ChristopherColumbus, or even of John Vanini, the scientific martyr; even of thefantastic Giordano Bruno, who against all warnings boldly wanderedfrom town to town defending his doctrines until he was burned, in1600? And if any of the academicians now in my audience should inclineto pursue this strange psychologic literary problem, I make no doubtthat useful light would be cast upon the search if you should consideralong with these questions the further inquiries why Shakspeare nevermentions either of the two topics which must have been foremost in thetalk of his time: namely, America and tobacco. Among all the allusionsto contemporary matter in his plays the nearest he ever comes toAmerica is the single instance in _The Tempest_, where Ariel ismentioned as "fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes"(Bermudas). As for tobacco; although pretty much all London must havebeen smoking vigorously about the time Shakspeare was writing _MuchAdo About Nothing_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; althoughcertainly to a countryman not a great while out of the woods ofWarwickshire it must have been the oddest of sights to see peoplesucking at hollow tubes and puffing smoke from their mouths andnostrils; although, too, the comedies of his contemporaries are oftencloudy with tobacco smoke: nevertheless there is not, so far as myrecollection goes, the faintest allusion to the drinking of tobacco(as it was then called), in the whole body of his writings. Now allthese omissions are significant because conspicuous; always, instudying genius, we learn as much from what it has not done, as fromwhat it has done; and if research should succeed in arranging theseneglects from any common point of view, it is possible that somethingnew might still be said about Shakspeare.

  But, to return to _Daniel Deronda_. A day or two after George Eliot'sdeath the _Saturday Review_ contained an elaborate editorial summaryof her work. For some special ends, permit me to read so much of it asrelates to the book now under consideration. "_Daniel Deronda_ isdevoted to the whimsical object of glorifying real or imaginary Jewishaspirations. It cannot be doubted that so fantastic a form ofenthusiasm was suggested by some personal predilection or association.A devotion to the Jewish cause unaccompanied by any kind of interestin the Jewish religion is not likely to command general sympathy; buteven if the purpose of the story had been as useful as it ischimerical and absurd, the inherent fault of didactic fiction wouldscarcely have been diminished.... It is significant that when GeorgeEliot deliberately preferred the function of teaching to her properoffice of amusing she sacrificed her power of instruction as well asher creative faculty."

  Of course, in general, no man in his senses thinks of taking inserious earnest every proposition in the _Saturday Review_. It is anodd character which long ago assumed the role of teasing Englishsociety by gravely advancing any monstrous assertions at random andlaughing in its sleeve at the elaborate replies with which theseassertions would be honored by weak and unsuspecting people. But itsposition upon this particular point of _Daniel Deronda_ happens to besupported by similar views among her professed admirers.

  Even _The Spectator_ in its obituary notice completely mistakes themain purpose of _Daniel Deronda_; in declaring that "she takesreligious patriotism for the subject," though as I have justindicated, surely the final aim of the book is to furnish to two youngmodern people a motive sufficient to make life not only worth livingbut fascinating; and of the two distinct plots in the book one--andthe one to which most attention is paid--hinges upon GwendolenHarleth's repentance, while it is only the other and slighter which isconcerned with what these papers call religious patriotism, and herethe phrase "religious patriotism" if we examine it is not onlymeaningless--what is religious patriotism?--but has the effect ofdwarfing the two grand motives which are given to _Daniel Deronda_;namely religion and patriotism.

  Upon bringing together, however, all the objections which have beenurged against _Daniel Deronda_, I think they may be classified anddiscussed under two main heads. First it is urged that Daniel Derondaand Mirah--and even Gwendolen Harleth, after her change of spirit--areall prigs; secondly, it is urged that the moral purpose of the bookhas overweighted the art of it, that what should have been pure natureand beauty have been obscured by didacticism, thus raising the wholequestion of Art for Art's sake which has so mournfully divided themodern artistic world. This last objection, opening, as it does, thewhole question of how far fervent moral purpose injures the work ofthe true artist, is a matter of such living importance in the presentstate of our art,--particularly of our literary art; it so completelysums up all these contributory items of thought which have beengradually emerging in these lectures regarding the growth of humanpersonality together with the correlative development of the novel:and the discussions concerning it are conducted upon such small planesand from such low and confusing points of view that I will ask todevote my next lecture to a faithful endeavor to get all the lightpossible upon the vexed matter of Art for Art's sake, and to showinghow triumphantly George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ seems to settle thatentire debate with the most practical of answers.

  Meantime in discussing the other class of objections which we managedto generalize, to wit that the three main characters in _DanielDeronda_ are prigs, a serious difficulty lies in the impossibility oflearning from these objectors exactly what _is_ a prig. And I confessI should be warned
off from any attempt at discussion by this initialdifficulty if I did not find great light thrown on the subject bydiscovering that the two objections of prig-ism and that ofdidacticism already formulated are really founded upon the samecunning weakness in our current culture. The truth is George Eliot'sbook _Daniel Deronda_, is so sharp a sermon that it has made the wholeEnglish contemporary society uncomfortable. It is curious andinstructive to see how unable all the objectors have been to put theirfingers upon the exact source of this discomfort; so that in theirbewilderment one lays it to prig-ism, another to didacticism, and soon. That a state of society should exist in which such a piece ofcorruption as Grandcourt should be not only the leader but thecrazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidiousyoung women in that society; that a state of society should exist inwhich those pure young girls whom George Eliot describes as "thedelicate vessels in which man's affections are hoarded through theages," should be found manoeuvring for this Grandcourt infamy,plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror;that a state of society should exist in which such a thing waspossible as a marriage between a Gwendolen Harleth and a Grandcourt;this was enough to irritate even the thickest-skinned Philistine, andthis George Eliot's book showed with a terrible conclusiveness. Yetthe showing was made so daintily and with so light a hand that, as Ihave said, current society did not know, and has not yet recognizedwhere or how the wound was. We have all read of the miraculous swordin the German fable whose blade was so keen that when, upon a certainoccasion, its owner smote a warrior with it from crown to saddle, thewarrior nevertheless rode home and was scarcely aware he had beenwounded until, upon his wife opening the door, he attempted to embraceher and fell into two pieces. Now, as I said, just as _Daniel Deronda_made people feel uncomfortable by even vaguely revealing a sharptruth--so, a prig, so far as I can make out, is a person whosegoodness is so genuine, essential and ever-present that all ungenuinepeople have a certain sense of discomfort when brought in contact withit. If the prig-hater be questioned he will not deny the real goodnessof the _Daniel Deronda_ people; he dare not--no one in this agedare--to wish explicitly that Mirah and Daniel Deronda might be lessgood; but as nearly as anything definite can be obtained what hedesires is that the prig should be good in some oily and lubricativeway so as not to jar the nerves of those who are less good. Conform,conform! seems to be the essential cry of the prig-haters; if you goto an evening party you wear your dress coat and look like every otherman; but if your goodness amounts to a hump, a deformity, we do notask you to cut it off, but at least pad it; if every one grows as bigas you we shall have to enlarge all our drawing-rooms and society willbe disorganized. In short, the cry against the prig turns out to benothing more than the old claim for conformity and the conventional.For one, I never hear these admonitions to conformity withoutrecalling a comical passage of Tom Hood's in which the fellows of aZoological society propose to remedy the natural defects of animalmorphology, such as the humps of dromedaries and the overgrowth ofhair upon lions so as to bring all the grotesqueness of the animalcreation into more conformity with conventional ideas of proportion.The passage occurs in a pretended report from the keeper of theanimals to the President of the society. After describing thecondition of the various beasts the keeper proceeds:

  Honnerd Sur,--Their is an aggitating skeem of witch I humbly approve very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail Fellers,-- ... For instances the Buffloo and Fallo dears and cetra to have their horns Gilded and Sheaps is to hav Pink ribbings round there nex. The Ostreaches is to have their plums stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always spred out on fraime wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to be tort to Dance to Wippert's Quadrils and the Lions manes is to be subjective to pappers and the curling tongues. The gould and silver Fesants is to be Polisht every day with Plait Powder and the Cammils and Drumdearis and other defourmed anymills is to be paddid to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howard is to file down the tusks of the wild Bores, and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to maid as like the King's Patten as possible. The elifunt will be himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the Flaminggoes will be touched up with Frentch ruge. The Sloath is proposed to have an illegant Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware one of Perren's lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters baldness will be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains will be put into trousirs and the Hippotamus tite laced for a waste. Experience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, with witch I conclud that I am

  Your Honners, Very obleeged and humbel former servant,

  STEPHEN HUMPHREYS.

  Such is the ideal to which the prig is asked to conform, but after thefirst six lectures of this course we are specially in position to seein all this cry nothing but the old clamor against personality. Uponus who have traced the growth of personality from Aeschylus to GeorgeEliot and who have found that growth to be the one direction for theadvance of our species this cry comes with little impressiveness.

  XII.

  In the last lecture we obtained a view of George Eliot's _DanielDeronda_ as containing two distinct stories, one of which might havebeen called _The Repentance of Gwendolen Harleth_, and the other, _TheMission of Daniel Deronda_; and we generalized the principalobjections against the work into two: namely, that the main characterswere prigs, and that the artistic value of the book was spoiled by itsmoral purpose. In discussing the first of these objections we foundthat probably both of them might be referred to a common origin; forexamination of precisely what is meant by a prig revealed that he is aperson whose goodness is so downright, so unconforming and so reducedthat it makes the mass of us uncomfortable. Now there can be noquestion that so far as the charge of being overloaded with moralpurposes is brought against _Daniel Deronda_, as distinguished fromGeorge Eliot's other works, it is so palpably contrary to all facts inthe case that we may clearly refer it to some fact outside the case:and I readily find this outside fact in that peculiar home-thrust ofthe moral of _Daniel Deronda_ which has rendered it more tangible thanthat of any preceding work which concerned time past. You willremember we found that it was only in _Daniel Deronda_, written in1876, after thirty years of study and of production, that George Eliotallowed herself to treat current English society; you will remembertoo, how we found that this first treatment revealed among otherthings a picture of an unspeakable brute, Grandcourt, throned like anIndian lama above the multitude, and receiving with a blase stare,the special adoration of the most refined young English girls; apicture which made the worship of the golden calf or the savage dancearound a merely impotent wooden idol, fade into tame blasphemy. No mancould deny the truth of the picture; the galled jade was obliged towince; this time it was _my_ withers that were wrung. Thus the moralpurpose of _Daniel Deronda_ which is certainly beyond all comparisonless obtrusive than that of any other book written by George Eliot,grew by its very nearness, out of all perspective. Though a mere gnat,it sat on the very eyelash of society and seemed a monster.

  In speaking of George Eliot's earlier stories I was at pains to showhow explicitly she avowed their moral purpose; in _Amos Barton_, in_Janet's Repentance_, in _Adam Bede_, everywhere there is the fullestavowal of didacticism; on almost every other page one meets thosedirect appeals from the author in her own person to the reader, inwhich George Eliot indulged more freely than any novelist I know,enforcing this or that moral view in plain terms of preaching. But itcuriously happens that even these moral 'asides' are conspicuouslyabsent in _Daniel Deronda_: the most cursory comparison of it in thisparticular with _Adam Bede_, for example, reveals an enormousdisproportion in favor of _Deronda_ as to the weight of thiscriticism. Yet people who had enthusiastically accepted and extolled_Adam Bede_, with all its explicitly moralizing passages and itsprofessedly preaching characters, suddenly found that _Daniel Deronda_was intoler
ably priggish and didactic. But resting then on the factsin the case--easily possible by comparing _Daniel Deronda_ with anyprevious work--as to show how this censure of didacticism loses allmomentum as against this particular book; let us advance to the moreinteresting, because more general, fact that many people--some ingreat sincerity--have preferred this censure against all of GeorgeEliot's work and against all didactic novels in general. The objectioninvolved many shades of opinion, and is urged with the most diversemotives and manner. At one extreme we have the _Saturday Review_growling that the office of the novelist is to amuse, never toinstruct, that George Eliot, in seeking the latter has even forfeitedthe former, and that _Daniel Deronda_ neither amuses nor instructs;whereupon George Eliot is derisively bid, in substance, to put on thecap and bells again, and leave teaching to her betters; with a voice,by the way, wondrously like that with which the _Edinburgh Review_some years ago cried out to our adorable John Keats, "Back to yourgallipots, young man." From this extreme we have all shades of opinionto that vague and moderate apprehension much current among youngpersons influenced by a certain smart sound in the modern Frenchphrase _l'Art pour l'Art_, or by the German nickname of"tendency-books," that a moral intention on the part of an artist isapt to interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work;that in art the controlling consideration must always be artisticbeauty; and that artistic beauty is not only distinct from, but oftenopposed to moral beauty. Now, to discuss this question _a priori_: togo forward and establish an aesthetic basis for beauty, involving anexamination which must range from Aristotle to Kant and Burke and Mr.Grant Allen's physiological theories, would require another course oflectures quite as long as that which is now ending; so that all I canhope to do is but to throw, if I can, some light upon this question.And, so to proceed immediately to that work with some system: permitme to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has beenfrom time immemorial that wherever there is contest as betweenartistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost.Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tendercurves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the liphave a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow beinsincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest amoral ugliness, that sculptor--unless he be portraying a moralugliness for a moral purpose--may as well give over his marble forpaving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will notaccept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yetperceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lineswhich run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is notafire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty--that he, inshort, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy inwhich the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean onething, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him;--he is notyet the great artist. Here it is most instructive to note how fine andbeautiful souls of time appear after awhile to lose all sense ofdistinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom,Goodness, and the like. Hear some testimony upon this point: this is acase for witnesses. Let us call first Keats. Keats does not hesitateto draw a moral even from his Grecian Urn, and even in the veryclimacteric of his most "high sorrowful" song; and that moral effacesthe distinction between truth and beauty. "Cold pastoral" he cries, atthe end of the Ode on a Grecian Urn.

  "When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say'st Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

  Again, bearing in mind this identity of truth and beauty in Keats'view, observe how Emerson, by strange turns of thought, subtly refersboth truth and beauty to a common principle of the essential relationof each thing to all things in the universe. Here are the beginningand end of Emerson's poem called _Each and All_:

  "Little thinks in the field yon red-cloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The sexton tolling his bell at noon Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse and lists with delight While his files sweep 'round Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone."

  Nothing is fair or good alone: that is to say fairness or beauty, andgoodness depend upon relations between creatures; and so, in the endof the poem, after telling us how he learned this lesson by findingthat the bird-song was not beautiful when away from its properrelation to the sky and the river and so on, we have this:--

  "Then I said 'I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth,' As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard The rolling river, the morning bird; Beauty through my senses stole, I yielded myself to the perfect whole."

  But again, here Mrs. Browning, speaking by the mouth of Adam in _TheDrama of Exile_, so far identifies _beauty_ and _love_ as to make theformer depend on the latter; insomuch that Satan, created the mostbeautiful of all angels, becomes the most repulsive of all angels fromlack of _love_, though retaining all his original outfit of beauty. In_The Drama of Exile_, after Adam and Eve have become wise with thegreat lessons of grief, love and forgiveness, to them comes Satan,with such talk as if he would mock them back into their misery; but itis fine to see how the father of men now instructs the prince of theangels upon this matter of love and beauty.

  _Eve._--Speak no more with him, Beloved! it is not good to speak with him. Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more! We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, We would be alone. Go.

  _Luc._--Ah! ye talk the same, All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart! In Heaven they said so; and at Eden's gate,-- And here, reiterant, in the wilderness. None saith, stay with me, for thy face is fair! None saith, stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?

  _Eve._--Thou hast a glorious darkness.

  _Luc._--Nothing more?

  _Eve._--I think, no more.

  _Luc._--False Heart--thou thinkest more! Thou canst not choose but think it, that I stand Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves Were fashioned very good at best, so we Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word Which thrilled behind us, God Himself being moved When that august mark of a perfect shape,-- His dignities of sovran angel-hood,-- Swept out into the universe,--divine With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, And silver-solemn clash of cymbal-wings! Whereof was I, in motion, and in form, A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, This beauty which I speak of is not here, As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown I do not know. What is this thought or thing Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing? Is it a thought accepted for a thing? Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word? Its meaning flutters in me like a flame Under my own breath: my perceptions reel For evermore around it, and fall off, As if, it, too, were holy.

  _Eve._--Which it is.

  _Adam._--The essence of all beauty, I call love. The attribute, the evidence, the end, The consummation to the inward sense, Of beauty apprehended from without, I still call love. As form, when colorless, Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, Without its black and green, being all a blank,--
So, without love, is beauty undiscerned, In man or angel. Angel! rather ask What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, And what collateral love moves on with thee; Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.

  _Luc._--Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love I darken to the image. Beauty--love!

  Let us now carry forward this connection between love and beauty inlistening to a further testimony of Emerson's in a poem called _TheCelestial Love_, where, instead of identifying _beauty_ and _truth_with Keats, we find him making _love_ and _truth_ to be one.

  "Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, Bound for the just but not beyond; Not glad, as the low-loving herd, Of self in other still preferred But they have heartily designed The benefit of broad mankind And they serve men austerely, After their own genius, clearly. Without a false humility; For this is love's nobility,-- Not to scatter bread and gold, Goods and raiment bought and sold; But to hold fast his simple sense, And speak the speech of innocence, And with hand, and body, and blood, To make his bosom-counsel good. For he that feeds men serveth few; He serves all that dares be true."

  And in connection with these lines:--

  "Not glad, as the low-loving herd, Of self in other still preferred,"

  I must here beg you to observe the quite incalculable advance in theideal of love here presented by Emerson, and the ideal which wasthought to be the crown and boast of the classic novel a hundred yearsago, and which is still pointed to with exultation by thoughtlesspeople. This ideal, by universal voice was held to have beenconsummated by Fielding in his character of Squire Allworthy, in thefamous novel, _Tom Jones_. And here it is: we have a dramaticpresentation of Squire Allworthy early on a May morning, pacing theterrace before his mansion which commanded a noble stretch of country,and then Fielding glows thus: "In the full blaze of his majesty uprose the sun, than which one object alone in this lower creation couldbe more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a humanbeing replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he mightrender himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good tohis creatures." Here Mr. Allworthy's benevolence has for its object torender himself most acceptable to his Creator; his love, in otherwords, is only another term for increasing his account in the Bank ofHeaven; a perfect example, in short, of that love of the low-lovingherd which is self in other still preferred.

  But now let me once more turn the tube and gain another radiantarrangement of these kaleidoscopic elements, beauty and love and thelike. In Emerson's poem called "Beauty," which must be distinguishedfrom the "Ode to Beauty," the relation between love and beauty takesthis turn: "Seyd," he says, "chased beauty

  "Everywhere, In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. He smote the lake to feed his eye With the beryl beam of the broken wave; He flung in pebbles well to hear The moment's music which they gave. Oft pealed for him a lofty tone From nodding pole and belting zone.

  He heard a voice none else could hear From centred and from errant sphere. The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime, In dens of passion, pits of woe, He saw strong Eros struggling through, To sum the doubt and solve the curse And beam to the bounds of the universe. While thus to love he gave his days In loyal worship, scorning praise,"

  (where, you observe, love is substituted for beauty, as that to whichhe gave his days, in the most naive _assumption_ that the one involvedthe other.)

  "While thus to love he gave his days In loyal worship, scorning praise, How spread their lures for him in vain Thieving ambition and paltering gain! He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty,--than live for bread."

  George Eliot has somewhere called this word love a word-of-all-work.If with another turn I add to these testimonies one from Swedenborg,in which this same love--which we have just seen to be beauty--whichbeauty we just before saw to be truth--is now identified with_wisdom_: we prove the justice of George Eliot's phrase. In Section Xof his work on the Divine Providence Swedenborg says: "The good oflove is not good any further than it is united to the truth of wisdom;and the truth of wisdom is not truth any further than it is united tothe good of love;" and he continues in section XIII: "Now becausetruth is from good, as wisdom is from love, therefore both takentogether are called love or good; for love in its form is wisdom, andgood in its form is truth."

  And finally does not David practically confirm this view where, inPsalm CXIX. he involves the love of the law of God with wisdom in theverse: "I understand more than the ancients because I keep thyprecepts?"

  But I grieve that there is no time to call more witnesses; for I loveto assemble these lofty spirits and hear them speak upon one topic. Isit not clear that in the minds of these serious thinkers truth,beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, appear as if they were but orators ofone and the same essential God?

  And if this be true cannot one say with authority to the youngartist,--whether working in stone, in color, in tones or incharacter-forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moralpurpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in theclear conviction that unless you are suffused--soul and body, onemight say--with that moral purpose which finds its largest expressionin love--that is, the love of all things in their properrelation--unless you are suffused with this love do not dare to meddlewith beauty, unless you are suffused with beauty, do not dare tomeddle with love, unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare tomeddle with goodness,--in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty,truth, wisdom, goodness _and_ love, abandon the hope that the ageswill accept you as an artist.

  Of course I leave out of view here all that field of artistic activitywhich is merely neutral, which is--not immoral but--merely _un_moral.The situations in Scott's novels for instance do not in general put usupon any moral question as between man and man. Or when our own Mr.Way paints his luminous bunches of grapes, one of which will feed thepalates of a thousand souls though it is never eaten, and thus showsus how Art repeats the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding themultitude and leaving more of the original provision than was atfirst; we have most delightful unmoral art. This is not onlylegitimate, but I think among the most beneficent energies of art; itrests our hearts, it gives us holiday from the Eternal Debate, itre-creates us for all work.

  But now secondly, as to the influence of moral purpose in art: we havebeen in the habit, as you will remember, of passing at the earliestpossible moment from abstract discussion to the concrete instance; andif we now follow that course and inquire,--not whether moral purpose_may_ interfere with artistic creation,--but whether moral purpose_has_ interfered with artistic creation, as matter of fact, in theworks of those whom the ages have set in the highest heaven of art, weget a verdict which seems to leave little room for question. At thebeginning we are met with the fact that the greatest work has alwaysgone hand in hand with the most fervent moral purpose. For example,the most poetical poetry of which we know anything is that of theauthor of Job, and of David and his fellow psalm-writers. I have usedthe expression "most poetical" here with design; for regarded as pureliterature these poems in this particular of poeticalness, of purespirituality, lift themselves into a plane not reached by any others.A single fact in proof of this exceeding poeticalness will suffice: itis the fact that these poems alone, of all ever written, beartranslation from one language into another without hurt. Surely thiscan be said of no other poetic work. If we strike away all allowancesof amateurishness and good fellowship and judge with theuncompromising truth of the pious artist; how pitiful is Homer as heappears in even Pope's English; or how subtly does the simplicity ofDante sink into childishness even with Mr. Longfellow interpreting; orhow tedious and flat fall the cultured sentences of Goethe even inTaylor's version, which has by many been declared the most successfultranslation ever made, not only of _Faust_ but of any foreign poem;nay, how complet
ely the charm of Chaucer exhales away even whenredacted merely from an older dialect into a later one, by hands soskillful as those of Dryden and Wordsworth.

  Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, notideas; there is no _idea_, whether originating in a Hebrew, Greek orother mind, which cannot be adequately produced as idea in Englishwords; the reason why Shakspeare and Dante are practicallyuntranslatable is that recognizing how every word means more thanitself to its native users,--how every word is like the bright head ofa comet drawing behind it a less luminous train of vague associationswhich are associations only to those who have used such words frominfancy,--Shakspeare and Dante, I say, have used this fact, and haveconstructed poems which necessarily mean more to native hearers thanthey can possibly mean to any foreign ear.

  But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed ofideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personalityof man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,--that theyremain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever languagethey are couched.

  For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness withwhich Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall uponmany ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality ofideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and ofassociation,--what could be more nearly perfect as pure literaturethan this:

  "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. I opened my mouth and panted; for I longed for Thy commandments. Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep Thy precepts. Order my steps in Thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; and teach me Thy statutes. Rivers of waters run down my eyes because they kept not Thy law."

  Or this:

  "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth even for evermore."

  Or this, of Isaiah's:

  "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

  Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb _shall_ sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.

  In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there;

  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

  Or this, from the author of _Job_:

  "Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where they fine it....

  As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.

  But where shall wisdom be found?

  And where is the place of understanding?

  ... The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is not with me.

  ... Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears; God understandeth the ways thereof and he knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the _whole_ heaven;

  ... When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder:

  Then did He see it and declare it; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man He said: "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."

  Here it is apparent enough that the moral purpose with which thesewriters were beyond all question surcharged, instead of interferingwith the artistic value of their product, has spiritualized the art ofit into an intensity which burns away all limitations of language andsets their poems as indestructible monuments in the hearts of thewhole human race.

  If we descend to the next rank of poetry I have only to ask you toobserve how, in Shakspeare, just as the moral purpose becomes loftierthe artistic creations become lovelier. Compare, for example, theforgiveness and reconciliation group of plays as they have beencalled, _Winter's Tale_, _Henry VIII_, and _The Tempest_, (which musthave been written late in Shakspeare's life when the moral beauty oflarge forgiveness seems to have taken full possession of his fancy,and when the moral purpose of displaying that beauty to his fellow-menseemed to have reigned over his creative energy): compare, I say,these plays with earlier ones, and it seems to me that all the maincreations are more distinctly artistic, more spiritually beautiful,lifted up into a plane of holy ravishment which is far above that ofall the earlier plays. Think of the dignity and endless womanlypatience of Hermione, of the heavenly freshness and morning quality ofPerdita, of the captivating roguery of Autolycus, in _Winter's Tale_;of the colossal forgiveness of Queen Katherine in _Henry VIII_, of theequally colossal pardon of Prospero, of the dewy innocence of Miranda,of the gracious and graceful ministrations of Ariel, of thegrotesqueries of Caliban and Trinculo, of the play of ever-freshdelights and surprises which make the drama of _The Tempest_ a loneand music-haunted island among dramas! Everywhere in these latterplays I seem to feel the brooding of a certain sanctity which breathesout of the larger moral purpose of the period.

  Leaving these illustrations, for which time fails, it seems to me thatwe have fairly made out our case against these objections if, afterthis review of the connection between moral purpose and artisticcreation we advance thirdly to the fact--of which these objectors seemprofoundly oblivious--that the English novel at its very beginningannounces itself as the vehicle of moral purposes. You will rememberthat when discussing Richardson and Fielding, the first Englishnovelists, I was at pains to show how carefully they sheltered theirworks behind the claim of this very didacticism. Everywhere in_Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Tom Jones_, in the preface, sometimesin the very title-page, it is ostentatiously set up that the object ofthe book is to improve men's _moral_ condition by setting before themplain examples of vice and virtue.

  Passing by, therefore, the absurdity of the statement that the properoffice of the novelist is to amuse, and that when George Eliotpretended to do more, and to instruct, she necessarily failed to doeither; it is almost as odd to find that the very objectors who urgethe injurious effect of George Eliot's moral purpose upon her work arepeople who swear by Richardson and Fielding, utterly forgetting thatif moral purpose is a detriment to _Daniel Deronda_, it is simplydestruction to _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_.

  And lastly upon this point, when I think of the crude and hastycriticism which confines this moral purpose in _Daniel Deronda_ to thepushing forward of Deronda's so-called religious patriotism inendeavoring to re-establish his people in the ancient seat of theHebrews,--a view which I call crude and hasty because it completelyloses sight of the much more prominent and important moral purpose ofthe book, namely, the setting forth of Gwendolen Harleth's repentance;when, I say, I hear these critics not only assume that Deronda'smission is _the_ moral purpose of this book, but even belittle that bydeclaring that George Eliot's enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of theJews must have been due to a chance personal acquaintance of hers withsome fervid Jew who led her off into these chimerical fancies; andwhen, I find this tone prevailing not only with the Philistines, butamong a great part of George Eliot's otherwise friends and lovers:then I am in a state of amazement which precludes anything likecritical judgment on my part. As for me, no Jew--not even the poorestshambling clothes-dealer in
Harrison street--but startles meeffectually out of this work-a-day world: when I look upon the faceof a Jew, I seem to receive a message which has come under the wholesea of time from the further shore of it: this wandering person, whowithout a home in any nation has yet made a literature which is athome in every nation, carries me in one direction to my mysteriousbrethren, the cavemen and the lake dwellers, in the other direction tothe carpenter of Bethlehem, climax of our race. And now, to gathertogether these people from the four ends of the earth, to rehabilitatethem in their thousand-fold consecrated home after so many ages ofwandering, to re-make them into a homologous nation at once the newestand the oldest upon the earth, to endow the 19th Century with thatprodigious momentum which all the old Jewish fervor and spiritualityand tenacity would acquire in the backward spring from such long agesof restraint and oppression, and with the mighty accumulation ofcosmopolitan experiences; the bare suggestion would seem enough tostir the blood of the most ungentle Gentile.

  But I must hasten to complete the account of George Eliot's personalexistence which we suspended at the point where she had come to Londonin 1851.

  She had been persuaded to this step by Dr. Chapman, who was at thattime editor of the _Westminster Review_, and who asked her to come andhelp him to conduct that publication. At this time she must have beenone of the most captivating companions imaginable. She knew French,German and Italian, and had besides a good knowledge of Latin, Greek,Russian and Hebrew. She was a really good player of the piano, and hadsome proficiency on the organ; she had already mixed in some of thebest society of London, for, in 1841, her father had moved toFoleshill, near Coventry, and here she quickly became intimate in thehousehold of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, where she met such people asEmerson, George Combe, Mr. Froude, and many other noted ones of theliterary circles which the Brays delighted in drawing about them; hermind had been enlarged by the treasures of the Continent which shevisited with her life-long friends, the Brays, in 1849, after thedeath of her father, remaining at Geneva after the Brays returned toEngland; she had all that homely love which comes with the successfuladministration of breakfast, dinner and supper, for her sisters andbrothers had all married, and she lived alone with her father afterhis removal to Coventry in 1841, and kept his house for him from thattime until his death, not only with great daughterly devotion but, itis said, with great success as a domestic manager; besides thusknowing the mysteries of good coffee and good bread she was widelyversed in theology, philosophy and the movements of modern science:all of which equipment was permeated with a certain intensity whichstruck every one who came near her. With this endowment she came toLondon in 1851, as I have said, by Dr. Chapman's invitation, and tookup her residence at Dr. Chapman's house. Here she immediately began tomeet George H. Lewes, Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer. Of herrelations to Lewes it seems to me discussion is not now possible. Itis known that Lewes' wife had once left him, that he had generouslycondoned the offense and received her again, and that in a year sheagain eloped; the laws of England make such a condonation precludedivorce; Lewes was thus prevented from legally marrying again by atechnicality of the law which converted his own generosity into apenalty; under these circumstances George Eliot, moved surely by purelove, took up her residence with him, and according to universalaccount, not only was a faithful wife to him for twenty years untilhis death, but was a devoted mother to his children. That her failureto go through the form of marriage was not due to any contempt forthat form, as has sometimes been absurdly alleged, is conclusivelyshown by the fact that when she married Mr. Cross, a year and a halfafter Lewes' death, the ceremony was performed according to theregular rites of the Church of England.

  The most congenial of George Eliot's acquaintances during these early daysat the Chapman's in London was Mr. Herbert Spencer. For a long time indeedthe story went the rounds that Mr. Spencer had been George Eliot's tutor;but you easily observe that when she met him at this time in London she wasalready thirty-one years old, long past her days of tutorship. The storyhowever has authoritatively been denied by Mr. Spencer himself. That GeorgeEliot took pleasure in his philosophy, that she was especially conversantwith his _Principles of Psychology_, and that they were mutually-admiringand mutually-profitable friends, seems clear enough; but I cannot helpregarding it a serious mistake to suppose that her novels were largelydetermined by Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, as I find asserted by arecent critic who ends an article with the declaration that "the writingsof George Eliot must be regarded, I think, as one of the earliest triumphsof the Spencerian method of studying personal character and the laws ofsocial life."

  This seems to me so far from being true that many of George Eliot'scharacters appear like living objections to the theory of evolution.How could you, according to this theory, evolve the moral stoutnessand sobriety of Adam Bede, for example, from _his_ precedentconditions, to wit, his drunken father and querulous mother? Howcould you evolve the intensity and intellectual alertness of MaggieTulliver from _her_ precedent conditions, to wit, a flaccid mother,and a father wooden by nature and sodden by misfortune? Though surelyinfluenced by circumstances her characters everywhere seem to floutevolution in the face.

  But the most pleasant feature connected with the intercourse of GeorgeEliot and Herbert Spencer is that it appears to have been Mr. Spencerwho first influenced her to write novels instead of heavy essays in_The Westminster_. It is most instructive to note that this was donewith much difficulty. Only after long resistance, after carefulthought, and indeed after actual trial was George Eliot persuaded thather gift lay in fiction and not in philosophy; for it was pending theargument about the matter that she quietly wrote _Scenes from ClericalLife_ and caused them to be published with all the precaution ofanonymousness, by way of actual test.

  As to her personal habits I have gleaned that her manuscript waswonderfully beautiful and perfect, a delight to the printers, withoutblot or erasure, every letter carefully formed; that she read theBible every day and that one of her favorite books was Thomas a Kempison _The Imitation of Christ_; that she took no knowledge atsecondhand; that she had a great grasp of business, that she workedslowly and with infinite pains, meditating long over her subjectbefore beginning; that she was intensely sensitive to criticism; thatshe believed herself a poet in opposition to the almost unanimousverdict of criticism which had pronounced _The Spanish Gypsy_,_Agatha_ and _The Legend of Jubal_ as failing in the gift of song,though highly poetic; that the very best society in London--that is tosay in the world--was to be found at her Sunday afternoon receptionsat the Priory, Regent's Park, where she and Mr. Lewes lived so long;and that she rarely left her own home except when tempted by a finepainting or some unusually good performance of music.

  I have given here a list of complete works, with dates of publication,as far as I have been able to gather. I believe this is nearlycomplete.

  Translation of Strauss' _Leben Jesu_, 1846; contributions toWestminster Review, from about 1850, during several years; translationof Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_, 1854; _Scenes of ClericalLife_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1857,--book-form 1858; _Adam Bede_, 1859;_The Mill on the Floss_, 1860; _The Lifted Veil_, Blackwood'sMagazine, 1860; _Silas Marner_, 1861; _Romola_, Cornhill Magazine,book-form, 1863; _Felix Holt_, 1866; _The Spanish Gypsy_, 1868:_Address to Workmen_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1868; _Agatha_, 1869; _HowLisa loved the king_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1869; _Middlemarch_, 1871;_The Legend of Jubal_, 1874; _Daniel Deronda_, 1876; The _Impressionsof Theophrastus Such_, 1879; and said to have left a translation of_Spinoza's Ethics_, not yet published.

  As the mind runs along these brief phrases in which I have with apurposed brevity endeavored to flash the whole woman before you, andas you supplement that view with this rapid summary of her literaryproduct,--the details of fact seem to bring out the extraordinarynature of this woman's endowment in such a way that to add any generaleulogium would be necessarily to weaken the picture. There is but onefact remaining so strong and high as not to be liable to thisobjection, wh
ich seems to me so characteristic that I cannot do betterthan close this study with it. During all her later life the centraland organic idea which gave unity to her existence was a burning lovefor her fellow-men. I have somewhere seen that in conversation sheonce said to a friend: "What I look to is a time when the impulse tohelp our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as thatwhich I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling," and thenarrator of this speech adds that at the end of it she grasped themantel-piece as if actually saving herself from a fall, with anintensity which made the gesture most eloquent.

  You will observe that of the two commandments in which the Mastersummed up all duty and happiness--namely, to love the Lord with allour heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself, George Eliot's wholelife and work were devoted to the exposition of the latter. She hasbeen blamed for devoting so little attention to the former; as for me,I am too heartily grateful for the stimulus of human love whichradiates from all her works to feel any sense of lack or regret. This,after all--the general stimulus along the line of one's wholenature--is the only true benefit of contact with the great. More thanthis is hurtful. Now a days, you do not want an author to tell you howmany times a day to pray, to prescribe how many inches wide shall bethe hem of your garment. This the Master never did; too well He knewthe growth of personality which _would_ settle these matters, each foritself; too well He knew the subtle hurt of all such violations ofmodern individualism; and after our many glimpses of the heartinesswith which George Eliot recognized the fact and function of humanpersonality one may easily expect that she never attempted to teachthe world with a rule and square, but desired only to embody in livingforms those prodigious generalizations in which the Master'sphilosophy, considered purely as a philosophy, surely excelled allother systems.

  In fine, if I try to sum up the whole work of this great and beautifulspirit which has just left us in the light of all the various views Ihave presented in these lectures, where we have been tracing thegrowth of human personality from Aeschylus, through Plato, Socrates,the contemporary Greek mind, through the Renaissance, Shakspeare,Richardson and Fielding, down to Dickens, and our author, I find allthe numerous threads of thought which have been put before yougathered into one, if I say that George Eliot shows man what he maybe, in terms of what he is.

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  _The Boy's Froissart._

  EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

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  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED KAPPES.

  One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00.

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maintain right and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this is still the way to win love and glory in the nineteenth._"--EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE.

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  _The Boy's King Arthur._

  Being Sir THOMAS MALORY'S History of King Arthur and his Knights ofthe Round Table.

  Edited, with an Introduction, by SIDNEY LANIER.

  With 12 Illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES.

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  Two famous books--The History of King Arthur, and the inexhaustibleChronicles of Froissart--have furnished nearly all those stories ofchivalry and knightly adventure that are scattered through allliteratures, and that have been the favorite reading of boyhood forhundreds of years. Boys of the last few generations, however,--eventhough the separate stories in some form will never die out,--havelost sight of the two great sources themselves, which were in dangerof becoming utterly hidden under cumbrous texts and laboredcommentary.

  Last year Mr. Sidney Lanier opened one of these sources again by thepublication of his _Boy's Froissart_. He has now performed the sameoffice for the noble old English of Sir Thomas Malory's History ofKing Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and under the title of_The Boy's King Arthur_, has given the _Froissart_ a companion, whichperhaps even surpasses it. However familiar the Arthurian heroes maybe to him, as mere names encountered in poetry and scattered legends,not one boy in ten thousand will be prepared for the endlessfascination of the great stories in their original shape, and vigor oflanguage. He will have something of the feeling with which, at theirfirst writing, as Mr. Lanier says in his preface "the fascinated worldread of Sir Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, ofQueen Isolde, of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, ofSir Galahad, and of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup, called the'Saint Graal.'"

  The _Boy's King Arthur_, like the _Froissart_, will have Mr. AlfredKappes's vigorous and admirable illustrations; and the subject herehas given him, if possible, even greater opportunity to embody thespirit of the knightly stories which he has caught so thoroughly.

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  _THE Science of English Verse._

  BY SIDNEY LANIER.

  1 vol., crown 8vo.--$2.00.

  This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of Englishliterature--a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthyAmerican contribution made in many years. It embodies opinionsthoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thoroughscholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not inany sense the mere putting forth of a theory.

  Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have becometraditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of ourolder poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clearstyle, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable forits results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the bookto every student of letters is the author's presentation of his ownsuggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirelyas analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as reallygoverned by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and veryskillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics insupporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution toliterature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is inthis union of elements that the work shows an altogether new directionof thought.

  [**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will besent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

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