The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1881-01-15
Q from such easy influences as hers were

to which COmte gave the form OF negative
religion. In her writings, she has given us
! absolutely no traces or hints OF her real intel
lectual POSITION Her earlier novels are pic
,ured memories, one and all; and not even III
the latest are there any signs whatever OF a
want of sympathy with the most conservative
sentiment concerning the old times ana the
old ways 1t can only be said that nothing is
more common in nature at once highly
imaginative and highly rational, than for the
sentiment and the reason to pull in opposite
directions and tor neither to yield. Mine"
she SAYS at the beginning OF "Ihe Sad For.
tunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" mine, /
fear, is not u wellregulated mind; 1t fingers
with a certain tondness over the days OF nasal
clerks and top booted parsons, and has sight
;, for the departed shades of vulgar errors"
What she says here humorously we take serl
Ously, and we find therein much OF the charm
OF her earlier novels for many Englishmen
and women, and yet for greater number OF
Americans.
Her period of culture began early, and has
never been broken When first in London she
/ lived in the Strand, over the place of bushes
of DR.. Chapman, the founder Of the West
minister Repte,c, to which she atterward be-
came a frequent contributor. Partly as
cause, partly rs a consequence, OF her connec-
ton with the Westminster, she became one OF
the Postivlst thinkers who accompanied Mr..
John Stuart Mill as far as he led them or fol-
lowed them. That this student OF lard science
and arid metaphysics should aiterward be-
come great exponent of the world OF human
emotion and passion in their most direct and
simple forms, seemed of all things the most
unlikely; nor were her studies in art and Ian
guage of the kind to lead her out OF the line
which she had seemingly chosen for her own.
! Her first published work was translation OF
Strauss Leben Jesu cLife Of Jesus,D which
appeared in 1916 when she was, therefore,
about twenty-slX years old. Her translation
of Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity" APP
peared in 1853
Up TIL tie age of nearly forty, therefore,
Mary Ann Evans gave little slgn-save per
haps, to the one or two who knew her best
of becoming more than highly accomplished,
fairly learned, and exceedingly industrious
literary lady, whose mission was to asslmllate
and reproduce the thoughts of other minds,
with not very attractive preference for the
supremacy OF pure reason and for the extreme
of theoretical liberty to which pure reason
leads those who accept its dOgmas without
question But in 1853 appeared those Scenes
Of Clerical Life" which, so soon as the light OF
adam Rede" was turned back upon them
next year, became recognized as the more than
ample promise of what was to follow them.
1t is very hard to connect them with the stu
dent of advanced German theology.
Has 1t ever been noticed, by the way, how,
while poetry, painting and music belong to
youth, the art of fiction seems naturally TO be-
long to middle and even to old age? TIL
Thackeray was nearer forty thansthirty, his
= name was practically unknown. "Waverly"
did not appear till Scott was torty-three
Richardson did not become an author till he
was tftv-one. Det0e did not write his first
novel till he was tifty-eight years old. "Gil
=, Bias" was not finished till its author was
:, sixty. seven. George Eliot was no exception
to the rule, and, like the honess in the fable,
E her works have been few and their production
slow--she has written but seven novels dur
i. ing her career Of twenty-One years. In lSGO
appeared THE Mill on the Floss" wherein
depth of tragedy is equalled in an entirely
original humor which compels the most hope
| lessy coarse and common men and women to
become great studies of human naturcin spite
of themselves. People who waste their wits
in making comparisons disputed over the
4 comparative merits of Adam Bede' and "Ihc
Mill on the Floss" on the whole, perhaps,
I the general verdict goes to the former. "Sllas
Mariner is the crown and pinnacle of her
first periOd"-to use a common and useful
critical phrase. For "Romola" belongs to a
distinctly new departure. 1t was, we believe
refused by Messrs. Blackwood on the ground
that in spite of her name, it was not likely to
prove successful judgment which must
have been arrived at unwillngly, and on very
strong critical grounds and which the popular
estimation in which it is held has justified, on
the whole; though some, who are by no means
the worst jud yes of great work, put "Romola"
first among George Ellot's novels. But it is
not known and loved as adam Bede" and
"Silas Mariner" are, and is a tavorite among
her most critical rather than among her
warmest and heartiest admirers. 1t reads as
if thought out rather than felt out, and is full
of selfconsclous purposc-it belongs to its
authors second period" in which George
Eliot, the portrait painter of natural life, be
comes more or less subordinate to George
Eliot, the learner and teacher. After Felix
Holt" five years passed without new novel
that is to say, till the production of Mid
Idlemarch" in eight parts during the years
I1S7l-12. This marvellous contribution to the
cOntedie humane, this compressed library of
human nature, belongs to what we have called
her second period, but is painted upon her
earliest and most congenal background and
reproduced all that is best III her first manner,
las summer afternoon Is q continuance and
Ifulfillment of its morning.
Another four years passed before the publ
cation of Daniel Deronda'-a work belong
Ii ing entirely to that second period which com
menced with "Romola" Financial success
literary failure" was the curt judgment
passed upon it at the time by some who
thought 1t sound criticism to condemn Dan
el Dcronda' because it was not adam
Bede." We believe, however that as time
goes on the reputation of "Danlel Dcronda"
will be found to grow, though it would require
Il long and special criticism to say why. Many
have already accepted Gwcndolen Harleth as
well nigh supreme among George Eliots
studies of the war between the lives and the
souls of women. But no doubt the novelist
thought, after her manner, much more of her
book than of her readers. Mordecai, the Jew,
went over their heads, and Gwedolen was just
as hard to understand as real men and women