Birmingham age-herald., 1895-04-28

terS O1 George Eliot, with WnlcH MISS Sherrill delighted the club at a recent meeting. We of Birmingham know so many others of those dear girls, too. It was indeed a pretty company they made as they listened to these apt words of gifted co-worker. As we read Miss Sher- rills pages we have a sweet sense of new and better acquaintance with them and we are proud of them, every one of them. These are Miss Sherrills ideas of some of the conspicuous figures in George Eliot's novels:
 Recollections of George Eliot.
 Surely this club does not expect from me a real critique of the works of "her, the largest minded of all the writers of novels in English, who called herself George Eliot It were worse than use less-yes it would be gratuitous audac- ity-for me to tell you that 1 haven't in several years looked beyond the cover of any of her books except Middle march, and that have had no time this week for any serious preparation for this undertaking, for these excuses would seem to imply that with little freshening of impressions and an unbroken week of study 1 would be able to do, in some worthy fashion, what you have summoned me to do In any case, of course, 1 could not have becomingly offered you any more than I now ask you to accept which l prefer to call My IaSSoilSCtlou Ol 1eOISc EllOl
 ''How the subject theme may gang,
 Let time ana chance deterniine.
 Perhaps tmay turn out a sang,
 Perhaps turn out sermon.'
 More likely the latter, for this most prominent English woman of our age, who Is perhaps only approached by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is much given herself to sermonizing-one reason why she was never a favorite of mine
 Sermons in stones" may prove grate- full, but l can confess no partiality for preaching novels; nor does one listen with complaisance 10 lecture on morals when 1t is given us by woman who lived as she did with MT. Lewes. Per haps 1t was marriage. Yet more patient might we be had Adam Bede not given impetus to that train of Nineteenth cen tury thought which has bored us with a Robert Elsmere and now diSgusts us with a pair of twins by some mischance called heavenly"
 However one cannot read the pages of George Eliot and fail to see that their author had passed through deep re- 1igious troubles, though the outcome was not that orthodoxy of which we may ap- prove. Be that as it may, in the power to describe the tragedies which under lie so much of human life, to analyze the subtleties of character and the light touch which unraVclS the web of complex human motives, she seems almost with out rival in the English tongue, save by him who was the master of all arts Shakespeare.
 Indeed, notwithstanding the immeasnr- able unlikenesS between these two geniuses, one might easily trace resem- blance in the thoroughly English minds of both and with little effort fancy kin ship of spirit. The same green fields, the same gently sloping hills, the same forest of Arden gave them inspiration the one leading to us in her novels (eX- cepting the highest and lowest stratum of society," as perfect a picture of the early Victorian age as we have in the others plays of Elizabeth's England. Many, indeed most of the scenes and in- cidents in George Eliots books are said to be taken from real life, and a slight proof of this is in the fact that her best attachments are not shown where the scene is removed from her native War; wickshire. In Romola there is plainly an effort at preparation. I remember thinking the heroine of the story un- natural-a studied character lacking life and spontaneity. She has been com pared with some of George Sands favor ite heroines, but the latter have more passion and impulse-the difference be- tween French and English women.
 Tito is weak, dishonest, selfish, cow ardly and mean, though with personal magnetism that made him acceptable to women, while Romola'S secluded, quiet life, attended closely and alone to her fathers whims and fancies, guided and trained by the auStere Savonarola, made her more susceptible to the charm of his handsome face and grace of manner. Her own nature was too pure, too in nocent to imagine that such a lovely casket could contain a soul so heartless, false and base.
 My remembrance of Adam Bede" which took the world by storm at the time of it's publication, is very dim, but can recall liking it (as I did all those I've read) in Spots I can only tell you that Dinah was a very pure, noble wo- man in her way, full of religious en- thusiasm. It is said that to an extent she was a real character, touching Miss Evans life, and the latter tells us that ''Dinah's sermons and prayers and speeches were written with hot tears as they surged up in my own heart" Adam himself was all gravity and hon. esty, a Stoic in resignation and content. He is probably a type of carpenters at their very best, but which is not too fre- quently met with
 Daniel Deronda." novel written to please the Jews and which is not of spe- cial interest to the world at large, has not generally been very favorably crit icised. Maybe because most of the crit ics are not Jews, but typical Christians in their ignorance of much that is strong and beautiful in the Israelite faith. De- ronda is undoubtedly a veritable prig melancholy and self-sufficient. By the way, is not this melancholic disposition discernable in most of George Eliots prominent characters? l think it must