l to give the utmost
sanctity of tenderness to our relations with each other. It is that
above all which gives us new sensibilities to "the web of human things,
birth and the grave, that are not as they were." And by that faith we
come to find for ourselves the truth of the old declaration, that there
is a difference between the ease of pleasure and blessedness, as the
fullest good possible to us wondrously mixed mortals.

In these words she suggests that sorrow for the dead is a solemn initiation
into that full measure of human sympathy and tenderness which best fits us
to be men. Looking upon all human experience through feeling, she regarded
death as one of the most powerful of all the shaping agents of man's
destiny in this world. She speaks of death, in _Adam Bede, as "the great
reconciler" which unites us to those who have passed away from us. In the
closing scenes of _The Mill on the Floss it is presented as such a
reconciler, and as the only means of restoring Maggie to the affections of
those she had wronged. It is in _The Legend of Jubal, however, that George
Eliot has expressed her thought of what death has been in the individual
and social evolution of mankind. The descendants of Cain

in glad idlesse throve,
Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove;

but all was peace and joy with them. There were no great aspirations, no
noble achievements, no tending toward progress and a higher life. On an
evil day, Lamech, when engaged in athletic sport, accidentally struck and
killed his fairest boy. All was then changed, the old love and peace passed
away; but good rather than evil came, for man began to lead a larger life.

And a new spirit from that hour came o'er
The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,
But even the sunshine had a heart of care,
Smiling with hidden dread--a mother fair
Who folding to her breast a dying child
Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.
Death was now lord of Life, and at his word
Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
With measured wing now audibly arose
Throbbing through all things to some unknown close.
Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
And Work grew eager, and Devise was born.
It seemed the light was never loved before,
Now each man said, "'Twill go and come no more."
No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
From the o