Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1885-10-01

About tt-
or Miss Cleyeiand's book, a. George
Eliot's Poetry ind other Studies" JaIues
Ashcroft Noble says in the Academy for
September Every page IN this volume
bears witness 20 the fact that the sister Of
President Cleveland is an intelligent, cul-
.;Yhted, and well-informed woman; but
no page bears witness TO anything more,
and the book accordingly fails in the i'm
pressiyeness which belongs either to
striking thought or memorable ex-
preston. This failure, like most failures
of the same kind, is owing to defects
partly Of matter, partly Of manner. A
critic who has not space for illustrative
quotations shrinks from hard sayings
which he cannot justify by evidence but,
in spite Of his shrinking, lie feels bound
to tell what seems to him the truth.
and what seems to me the truth
concerning Miss Cleyellnd's matter
is this-that it is, for the most part
either obvious or extravagant." He ex-
ainines her first essay, which is devotedto
a proof of the sterile proposition that
George Eliot as a poet ranks below Mrs.
| Browning-a proposition which it mny
safely be affirmed is doubled by no sane
reader-and says it is difficult to discover
whether she absolutely denies that George
| Eliot is poet at all. Poetry of the
highest kind is produced without effort !;
George Eliot's poetry is characterized by
continuous effort; therefore George
Eliots poetry is not Of the highest kind.
Such is the syllogism TO the expansion of
which the first part Of Miss Oleveland's
essay is devoted. Here we have major
and minor premigs, both of which are
in the highest degree disputable and, as
Miss Cleveland makes no real attempt to
establish either of them, what becomes of
her conclusion? I do not say that
within certain limitations il may
not be sound. Miss Cleveland is,
as / have said, undoubtedly right in
awarding supremacy to Mrs. Browning /;
but the question she raises has nothing TO
10 with mere degrees of rank, but with
the essential nature of poetry; and that
the best poetry is effortless would be
denied byevery great poet who ever lived
IL may seem effortless, but that is q very
. different thing, and Miss Cleveland con-
stantly vitiatss her argument by con-
founding seeming with being. But the
critic has more TO see than this. Passing
from form 10 substance, she goes on to
declare that George Eliot could not be a
great poet because she was an Agnostic
thinker for the essence of true poetry is
what the writer chooses to call the
antipode of Agnosticism.' Miss Cleve-
land writes very rhetorically, and can
not always be quite certain that
catch her exaet meaning; but what l
understand her to say is this-that poetry
may be the expression either of firm
belief or unhesitating denial, but cannot
be the expression of oscillation, dubiety
or suspense. If this were true, ii could
only affect the subjective poetry, which
gives scope to affirmation or denial, and
of such poetry George Eliot gives us
comparatively little, so it is difficult to
see the application of the proposition to
the main body of her work. But is it
true? That is the previous question, ;
| which must be answered and
if it be answered in the affirma-
tive, the result will be the setting aside
of some of the most widely accepted
yerdicts of the world. Competent
judges, for example, have long ago
decided that Arthur Clough is a true
poet that Mr.. Matthew Arnold is a great
poet, that Shakespeare is n supreme poet !;
but Clough is always q questioning spirit,
many of Mr.. Arnold's most Characteristic
poems are poems of doubt, and what is
probably the most popular passage in
Shakespeare the to be or not to be- So
liloquy, is, like the character in whose
mouth it is put, an embodiment of the
most absolute skepticism. II will not do.
| write without the smallest leaning
towards the Agnostic position; but
it is clear to me, as it is to
most other people, that poetry is
not conditioned by belief or dis
belief or doubt, but by the possession
of something which is independent of all
three-imaginatiye vision and the power
of rendering it." He finds good things in
the essays on Reciprocity, Altruistic
Faith and History, but declares that after
all they are only clever and sympathetic
limitations Of Emerson. Miss Cleveland
has loved the Sage of Concord no,
wisely, but too WE'LL / say not wisely
because Emerson has preached, above all
, things, the gospel of the preservation OF
individuality, and the writer of the essay,
/ we have named has suffered her indiyidu
atty to be absorbed"