d at by George Eliot in obedience to
her philosophy. The reasons why these two should not wed grew entirely out
of the social circumstances of the time. An English nobleman of to-day
could marry such a woman as Fedalma without social or other loss. The
capacities of soul are superior to conditions of race. Virtue and genius do
not depend on social circumstances. Yet _The Spanish Gypsy_ has for its
motive the attempt to prove that the life of tradition and inheritance is
the one which provides all our moral and social and religious obligations.
In conformity with this theory the conflict of the poem arises, because Don
Silva is not in intellectual harmony with his own character. A thoughtful,
fastidious, sensitive soul was his, not resolute and concentrated in
purpose, He was no bigot, could not be content with any narrow aim, saw
good on many sides.

A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious
In his acceptance, dreading all delight
That speedy dies and turns to carrion:
His senses much exacting, deep instilled
With keen imagination's airy needs;--
Like strong-limbed monsters studded o'er with eyes,
Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision,
Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream
Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed
With a man's thought-propelled relenting heart.
Silva was both the lion and the man;
First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang,
Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed
And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught.
A nature half-transformed, with qualities
That oft betrayed each other, elements
Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects,
Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.
Haughty and generous, grave and passionate;
With tidal moments of devoutest awe,
Sinking anon to furthest ebb of doubt;
Deliberating ever, till the sting
Of a recurrent ardor made him rush
Right against reasons that himself had drilled
And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed
Too proudly special for obedience,
Too subtly pondering for mastery:
Born of a goddess with a mortal sire,
Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity,
Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness
And perilous heightening of the sentient soul.

Too noble and generous to accept the narrow views of his uncle, Don Silva
insisted on marrying Fedalma, because he loved her and because she was a
pure and true woman. He had a poet's nature, was sensitive to all beauty,