whenever she took the pen in hand; some deep lesson of human experience,
some profound truth of human conduct, some tender word of sympathy for
human sorrow and suffering. She seems to have had no sympathy with that
theory which says that the poet and the novelist are to picture life as it
is, without regard to moral obligations and consequences. In this respect
she was one of the most partisan of all partisans, an absolute dogmatist;
for she never forgot for a moment the moral consequences of life. She was
one of the most ardent of modern preachers, her books are crowded with
teaching of the most positive character. In her way she was a great
believer, and when she believed she never restrained her pen, but taught
the full measure of her convictions. She did not look upon life as a scene
to be sketched, but as an experience to be lived, and a moral order to be
improved by sympathy and devotedness. Consequently the artist appears in
the teacher's garb, the novelist has become an ethical preacher. She does
not describe life as something outside of herself, nor does she regard
human sorrows and sufferings and labors merely as materials for the
artist's use; but she lives in and with all that men do and suffer and
aspire to. Hers is not the manner of Homer and Scott, who hide their
personality behind the wonderful distinctness of their personalities,
making the reader forget the author in the strength and power of the
characters described. It is not that of Shakspere, of whom we seem to get
no glimpse in his marvellous readings of human nature, who paints other men
as no one else has done, but who does not paint himself. Hers is rather the
manner of Wordsworth and Goethe, who have a theory of life to give us, and
whose personality appears on every page they wrote. She has a philosophy, a
morality and a religion to inculcate. She had a vast subjective intensity
of conviction, and a strong individualism of purpose, which would not hide
itself behind the scenes. Her philosophy impregnates with a strong
personality all her classic utterances; her ethics present a marked purpose
in the development of her plots and in her presentation of the outcome of
human experience; and her religion glows in the personal ardor and sympathy
of her noblest characters, and in their passion for renunciation and
altruism.

Her ethical passion adds to the strength and purpose of George Eliot's
genius. No supreme literary creator has been devoid of