acious. All that can be said to make
altruism lovely and winning, to inspire men with its spirit and motive, is
here said. The thought presented in these two poems is repeated in "The
Death of Moses." Here we have Moses living forever in the human influence
he created.

He dwells not with you dead, but lives as Law.

For her ideas about resignation we must turn to the pages of _The Mill on
the Floss and Romola_, for those about heredity and the past to _The
Spanish Gypsy_ and _Daniel Deronda_; but in these shorter poems she has
completely unfolded the positivist conception, as she accepted it, of death
and immortality. The degree to which she was moved and inspired by this
belief in an immortality in humanity is seen in the greater ardor and
poetic merit of these poems than any others she wrote.

It is interesting to note that she introduces music into "The Legend of
Jubal" and "Armgart". It was the art she most loved. She even said that if
she could possess the power most satisfactory to her heart, it would be
that of making music the instrument of the homage which the great
performers secure. Yet she teaches in "Armgart" that there is a power
higher than this, the power of affectionate service. Her books are full of
the praise of music. She makes Maggie Tulliver express her own delight in
it.

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have
plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas
into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled
with music."

In _Adam Bede_ she becomes most poetic when extolling the power of
exquisite music to work on the soul.

To feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your
soul, the delicate fibres of life wherein memory can penetrate, and
binding together your whole being, past and present, in one unspeakable
vibration, melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the
love, that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating
in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt
lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with
past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past joy.

In the "Minor Prophet" is to be found George Eliot's theory of progress.
That poem also repeats her faith in common humanity, and gives new emphasis
to her joy in the common toils and affections of men. In the "C