phy and socialistic speculation to the aid
of the naturalistic method. Indeed, she so far departed from that method,
and from the soundest theories of art, as to become to some extent a
_doctrinaire_.

Her novels, like much of the poetry of the same period, are eclectic in
spirit, combining with the naturalistic methods those of the historic,
socialistic, culture and speculative schools. Art and culture for their own
sake combined in her novels with the purpose to use history and social life
obedient to a distinct conception of their meanings. To describe life
accurately there must be a clear conception of what life means. Genius
never works aimlessly; and in seeing life as it is, always sees that it has
a tendency and direction. A mind so thoughtful as George Eliot's, with so
strong a love of speculative interest in it, was likely to give to
novel-writing done by her a large philosophic element. Yet her philosophy
is nearly always subject to her imagination and to her naturalism. Her love
of nature, her intimate interest in life and its elemental problems, her
passionate sympathy with all human passions and experiences, saves her from
becoming a mere _doctrinaire_, and gives to her speculations a pathetic,
living interest. The poetic elements of her novels are so many as to
subordinate the philosophic to the true purposes of art.

In one direction George Eliot departed from the methods of her
predecessors, and to so great an extent as to be herself the originator of
a new school of fiction. She followed the bent of her time for analysis and
psychologic interpretation. It is here more than anywhere else she differs
from Charlotte Bronte and George Sand. These two great novelists create
character by direct representation, by making their persons live and act.
George Eliot shows her characters to the reader by analyzing their motives
and by giving the history of their development. The disadvantages of the
analytic method are apparent when George Eliot is compared with Scott.
Unique, personal and human are his creations, instinct with all human
emotions, and profoundly real. It is only the poetic side of life which he
sees, not its philosophic. George Eliot wanted to know the meanings of
things, and this very desire brings a largeness into her books which is not
found in Scott's. She was much the more thoughtful of the two, the one who
tried to realize to the intellect what life means. Yet her method of doing
this is not a