for the sake of a pure and holy life, inspired her.

To her, as to him, there had come one of those moments in life when the
soul must dare to act on its own warrant, not only without external law
to appeal to, but in face of a law which is not unarmed with divine
lightnings--lightnings that may yet fall if the warrant has been false.

It is reason's lamp by which "we walk evermore to higher paths;" and by its
aid, new deeds are to be done, new memories created, fresher traditions
woven into feeling and hope. National memories are to be superseded by the
spirit of brotherhood, for, as the race advances, nations are brought
closer to each other, have more in common, and development is made of
world-wide traditions. Theophrastus Such, in the last of his essays, tells
us that "it is impossible to arrest the tendencies of things towards the
quicker or slower fusion of races."

The environment of her characters George Eliot makes of very great
importance. She dwells upon the natural scenery which they love, but
especially does she magnify the importance of the social environment, and
the perpetual influence it has upon the whole of life. Mr. James Sully has
clearly interpreted her thought on this subject, and pointed out its
engrossing interest for her.

"A character divorced from its surroundings is an abstraction. A
personality is only a concrete living whole, when we attach it by a network
of organic filaments to its particular environment, physical and social.
Our author evidently chooses her surroundings with strict regard to her
characters. She paints nature less in its own beauty than in its special
aspect and significance for those whom she sets in its midst. 'The bushy
hedgerows,' 'the pool in the corner of the field where the grasses were
dank,' 'the sudden slope of the old marl-pit, making a red background for
the burdock'--these things are touched caressingly and lingered over
because they are so much to the 'midland-bred souls' whose history is here
recorded; so much because of cumulative recollection reaching back to the
time when they 'toddled among' them, or perhaps 'learnt them by heart
standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.' And what
applies to the natural environment applies still more to those narrower
surroundings which men construct for themselves, and which form their daily
shelter, their work-shop, their place of social influence. The human
interest which our