n be done in the case of Dickens's prose, yet it
contains most of the elements of a high order of poetry. In the account of
the death of Maggie and Tom is to be found a fine specimen of her style,
the last words being good iambics.

The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace
never to be parted; living through again, in one supreme moment, the
days when they _had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the
daisied fields together_.

In the first paragraph of the thirty-third chapter of _Adam Bede_ is a
sentence which makes a successful stanza in iambics by the addition of a
single word.

The woods behind the chase,
And all the hedgerow trees,
Took on a solemn splendor _then_
Under the dark low-hanging skies.

It is very seldom, however, that George Eliot permits anything like meter
in her prose, and she is usually very reticent of rhythm. There is fervor
and enthusiasm, imagination and poetic insight, but all kept within the
limits of robust and manly prose. This capacity of prose to serve most of
the purposes of poetry may be seen in a marked degree in all of George
Eliot's novels. In the account of Adam Bede's love for Hetty this subtle
power of words and ideas to give the charm and impression of poetry without
rhythm or rhyme is exhibited in a characteristic manner.

I think the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, blossom-like,
dark-eyed Hetty, of whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came
out of the very strength of his nature, and not out of any inconsistent
weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite
music? to feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings
of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can
penetrate, and binding together your whole being, past and present, in
one unspeakable vibration; melting you in one moment with all the
tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through the toilsome
years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation
all the hard-learned lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your
present joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your
past joy? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon
by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek and neck and arms, by the
liquid depths of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet childish pout of her
lips.