The Portland daily press., 1894-02-13
MR.. BELLoWS'S TALK.
George Eliot and the Realists Discussed
Before a Large Audience.

An unusually large audience was
gathered in the Second Advent church
yesterday afternoon to listen to MIR.
Bellows's talk OH George Eliot. The
lecturer said that the subject, Realism. in
Fiction, was such large one that he
could only touch upon some of its lead
ing features as illustrated by a few
modern stories and writers. He had no
fault to find with realism. if it only
looked deep enough into mans soul and
did not content itself, as too often in the
writings of Mr.. Howells, for instance,
with the mere surface of things. AS the
hest in man was his more zeal self, SO
the ideal is the real, as Balzac, the
father of realism," declared that the
material and the spiritual are one. Bret
Harte, in some of his Western stories,
bringing out the fact that something of
the divine nature is often found in the
worst of men, strikingly illustrated this
idea.
This thought is expressed in the
highest art. The great pictures OF the
world are not mere photographs, but
have in them "the light that never was
on sea or land,n streaming from lnl-
proved Ornaments, as in the "Angelus,"
where realism is TRANSPORTED by
spiritual grace. Music feels the same
stirring of the scientific spirit aud
Wagner is its chief exponent. Mr.. BIZ.
Lang. the we'll known Boston music
teacher, has recently published an article
in the Atlantic Monthly, showing how
people of no great musical taste might
be drawn through the literary and
dramatic element in this great composer
to larger enjoyment OF music.
Realism comes to US from FRANCE,
where reigns, at least in the world OF art,
a love of form, sof order, OF minute classl-
fcation. Balzac says in his preface TO
the Coincide Humane that he wished to
be the secretary of society, to describe
every phase of the life o. the century.
He has given US the most complete piano.
rama Of humanity, since Shakespeare,
with hundreds, if not thousands, OF
people as carefully marked as ii put
under the microscope. A passage from
. Pere Goriot" was read to illustrate this
authors scientific realism. The various
novels of Balzac teach many great lessons
as the limits of self-sacrifice, in .Pere
Goriot,n the dreadful effects of averice in
Eugene Grandet,n and the horrible con-
SEQ uences of sensualityin cousin Bate"
These works, indeed, describe repulslve
phases of humanity, but they cannot
fairly be called immoral because they
never make vice attractive, but, on the
contrary, always share its awful punish
meats.
Such clever writer as Guy de Maupas-
saut follows in the path OF realism IN
ais striking stories "A Coward" ane "A
Piece OF String"
Miss Jewett and Miss wilkins, in their
remarkable transcripts of New England
life are also realists, though there is
more of grace and tenderness in the
pictures Of Miss Jewett than in the grim
etchings of the author of Jane Field"
Mr.. Howells, the champion OF realism
in this country. has certainly practlced
the creed he has preached. IN the
he has portrayed with immense skill the
degreation and downfall of naturally
brilliant and ideally "smartn man, who
becomes a moral wreck (like George
EIiot's Tito Melaner) and drags down
with him the woman who has married
hin. A selection was read from
Howells's delightful Counterfeit Pre-
sentmentn to show the keenness and
lightness of his touch.
In taking up the SUBJECT OF george
Eliot and her work, the lecturer read
remarkable description by Myers of the
great woman, and of conversation he
once had with her. Everything about
her revealed the benevolence of wisdom
and the wisdom of benevolence. Among
the leading ethical thoughts to be fonud
in her novels are the love OF honest work,
as shown by Adam Bede and Caleb
~ fop and r1itU
as Illustrated by the hardness of Adam
and the cruel justice of Tom toward
Maggie Tulliver. the need of human
helDfulness so that Dinah is The cup Of
strength in Hetty's great agony"
Daniel Deronda helps Gwendolyn to be-
come a noble woman. Dorothea goes
with divine charity to serve selfish
Rosamond Vinay.
George Eliot pleads with Carlyle tnat
there is in man something higher than
G love of happiness" a devotionsto some
thing larger than the individual, as
family or race. Thus Deronda gives up
his life to the cause of the Jews, and
Fedalner resigns her love to go to serve
her desnlsed race. Another feature of
her ethical teaching is the way in which
she shows how every sin brings with 1T
inc of !" Romolan describes how man
who at first was charming and anniable,
brings misery upon every one with whom
he is related, because he cared only to
keep himself happy and comfortable.
George Eliot believes that life is not to
be estimated by its apparent failure or
success. All her noblest characters,
Romola, Dorothea, Maggie, make more or
less of a shipwreck. But spiritual
triumph often begins with seeming
defeat, as in "Armgart," where when
the great singer has lost her voice. she
begins to think Of Others and really
gains a higher plane than had been
hers as the queen of song"
Extracts were read from "Daniel
Deronda,n and 1.-The Mill on the Floss"
to show the high dramatic quality and
the keen humor which serve to make the
novels of George Eliot some of the most
wonderful pictures of human life that
were ever drawn, made by one whose
ethical teachings rank with some of the
wisest counsels of the worlds greatest
teachers.