The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-09-04
GEORGE ELIOT.

George Eliot. the greatest woman on the
roll of English literature, came of sound,
sensible, upright. rustic English stock.
On both sides her parents were persons of
great force Of character. piety and purity.
She was easily moved to smiles and tears;
q nature capable of the keenest enjoyment
and keenest suffering; affectionate. proud,
sensitive and unselfish to the highest de-
gree. She was homely woman, save that
she had splendid eyes, beautiful, soft, fine,
luxuriant hair and sweet, tender voice:
she played finely on the piano
and sang with exquisite taste and feeling.
She was wonderfully sensitive to the
beautiful in both inward and outward
effects. and always surrendered at sight to
the charm of pretty children; she had an
artist eye for q man or woman Of fine face
and figure set of by beautiful dress. So
strong was her passion for outw ard
beauty and so fine and delicate her taste
that she confessed that it once was a great
grief to her to know and feel that not
only she was not handsome, but was what
the world would call an exceptionally
homely woman.
She was passionately anxious to be
sincerely loved by those who attracted her
and yet her sensibility to her want of per-
sonal comeliness made her shy woman,
save in the circle of very intimate friends.
This tender. emotional exquisitely sensi-
tive. sympathetic quality was the womanly
side of this great genius, but it was mar
ried to one of the most powerful, subtle
and versatile intellects that God has given
to any of his children in this century. A
great reader, brilliant scholar in many
languages; at once humorist, wit, satirist,
philosopher, poet, moralist, preacher and
teacher, she was furnished by nature with
both that masculine and feminine genius
. that is displayed by no other writer more
splendidly short of Shakespeare.
The genius of Shakespeare to our day is
essentially that of great novelist and to
find a greater novelist than Shakespeare
We must go back to George Eliot. In
Shakspeare's Henry the Fourth" the
yalor and chivalry of Hotspur is as splen-
did as that of Prince Hal, and yet tenn
peramentally distinct in spirit and action !;
the wit of Falstaff is contrasted with the
wit of the wild prince and with that of
Poins. Bardolph moves distinct from Pts
toll; Shallow does not blend with Silence;
the various speeches of Hotspur and the
solioquy of the king on sleep have each
distinct serious majesty of their own that
rises 10 as tine light of poetic eloquence
of sbah II ,tas
Macbeth.
1t is this surprising quality that George
Eliot has best displayed since Shakespeare,
the faculty of dramatic invention, motion,
energy. versatility; the faculty to create .
great variety of characters and clothe them
with flesh and blood and breathe into their
nostrls the illimitable and various spirit
and passion of human nature. making
them move easily and naturally TO and
fro without disorder or confusion as we
pass and repass them in her works. Adam
Bede, Mrs. poyser, Felix Holt, Maggie
Tulliver. Casaubon, Lydgate, the village
doctor in "Middlemarch." with the mill
stone of a selfish, mean wife tied TO his no.
BILE neck, are they not all characters
that are flesh and blood and color
in speech and aotion2 There
isn't q wooden figure even among the
minor characters, the clowns and village
gossip. Of both sexes. i'll the ale house. in
the cottage, at the hustings. high or low,
rich or poor, gentle or rutfianly. drunk or
sober. The figures that ill George Eliot's
books are like those OF Shakespeare; they
stand for life, not for caricaturs or rneIo-
dramatic standardization.
Fielding and Thackersy both lacked this
great womaa's morsl power and tender
eloquenee. She had q swseter and nobier
| soul shan was ever given 10 them, and il
| colo-s her thoughts with TINS OF paradise
| We miss IN their best works. The beauty.
| the rare and fascinating beauty of George
| Eliot's genius is that il is always mercifui,
| sympathetic and compassionate in the
| treatment of human weakness, while
| always truthful in her picture OF sin and
| ;olly. In "Jsnet's Repentance" We read she
| deepest voice OF her soul, when she SAYS
| Oar suotless snSIysis OF schools and scots
naa, Iaiss tie essential suga salsss Is % Ii,