, and nearly all of
them are individualities of an original type and of an action thoroughly
distinct and human.

As a work of art, the most serious defect in _The Spanish Gypsy_ is its
doctrinal tone. It is speculative in its purpose quite as much as poetical,
and the speculation is so large an element as to intrude upon the poetry.
Thought overtops imagination, the fervor and enthusiasm of the poet are
more than matched by the ethical aims of the teacher. This ethical purpose
of unfolding in a dramatic form the author's theories of life has filled
the book, as it has her novels, with epigrams which are original, splendid
and instructive. Into a few lines she condenses some piece of wisdom, and
in words full of meaning and purpose. Into the mouth of Sephardo, a
character distinctive and noteworthy, she puts some of her choicest wisdom.
He says,--

Thought
Has joys apart, even in blackest woe,
And seizing some fine thread of verity
Knows momentary godhead.

Again he utters the same idea, but in more expressive words.

Our growing thought
Makes growing revelation.

Don Silva is made to use this highly poetic imagery.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken.

Zarca, that truest and most original character in the poem, says of the
great work he purposes to accomplish,

To my inward vision
Things are achieved when they are well begun.

Again, he says,--

New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings.

Expressive and original as _The Spanish Gypsy_ is, yet it gives the
impression of lacking in some poetic quality which is necessary to the
highest results. Difficult as it may be to define precisely what it is that
is wanting, nearly every reader will feel that something which makes poetry
has been somehow left out. Is it imagination, or is it a flexible poetic
expression, which is absent? While George Eliot has imagination enough to
make a charming prose style, and to adorn her prose with great beauty and
an impressive manner, yet its finer quality of subtle expression is not to
be found in her poetry. Those original and striking shades of meaning which
the poet employs by using words in unique relations, she does not often
attain to. It is the thought, the ethical meaning, in her poetry as in her
prose, which is often of more importance than the manner of expression; and
she is too intent on what is said to give ful