Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-28
GEORGE ELror,s INFLUENCE.
One Woman's Attitude in Literature Has
 Been the Slightest

One Woman's Attitude in Literature Has Been the Slightest. From Lippincott's Magazine: It is somewhat singular that the most emil nent author among women has appar- ently exercised little influence in this matter of determining the feminine at titude in literature. The works of George Eliot have been mighty force among men and women alike; her art and philosophy have been studied with conscientious care, and her methods have been analysed and initiated with seriousness and often with fatal faith fulness. But one of the best models she gave to art has been generally over looked: her special message to her own sex has been misinterpreted or missed altogether. Many writers, like the au- thor of '"The Story of Avis have fallen temporarily under the spell of her crea- tions, but 1t was the spell of Gwendo- lens dynamic glance" rather than of Dorothea's tears. They have accepted her realism as a working theory, but have preferred ..Tess of the D Urber- villes' to Adam Bede'' as a type for imitation and reproduction. They have failed to discover or to feel the force of the immanent womanhood of her works, and, therefore, have missed one of the lessons that she especially sought to teach.
 Early in her career of authorship George Eliot formed literary creed which was thoroughly exempli1ied in her works In one of her first essays she wrote: Tt is an immense mistake to maintain that there is no sex in litera- ture. Science has no sex; the mere knowing and reasoning faculties, if they act correctly, must go through the same process and arrive at the same results. But in art and literature, which imply the action of the entire being, in which every fibre of the nature is engaged, in which every peculiar modification of the individual makes itself felt, woman has something specific to contribute.'
 George Eliot'S heroines are objective realities, being of flesh and blood. whose moral struggles are expressed in throbbing hearts and aching nerves like our own. For this reason they live with us from day to day as Hamlet and Des- demona live with us. Compare her hero ines with those of any man you will outside the circle of Shakespeare-wit Tennyson's airy fairy Lilans and moonshine Madelines or Scott's romantic distractions, or Thackeray's society portraits-and the lofty uniqueness of her work is at once recognizable. More over, no one will venture to maintain that her genius was limited or weak be- cause it's freeSt exercise was found In the expression of woman's life. Her pie lures Of the maSculinity of coarse and vulgar life are strangely real and pow erful, but this power was adventitious, and she never exercised it at the sacri- flee of decorum. By a confident instinct and a clear judg ment she kept her work within her womanhood, and in the end it was pure-toned woman's voice that joined "the choir invisible,' whose music is forever the g1adness of the world. She won that immortality for which her spirit yearned, the enduring presence in the lives of others
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the
 night like stars;
 And with their mild persistence urge
 mans search To yaster issues.