f those problems with which George Eliot was so much
fascinated. Her earnest faith in altruism, realism, tradition, natural
retribution and the social value of morality, is as distinct here as in her
novels or poems. In the essay on "False Testimonials" she gives a good
realistic definition of imagination, which she says is "always based on a
keen vision, a keen consciousness of what is, and carries the store of
definite knowledge as material for the construction of its inward visions."
She is no realist, however, in the sense of confining poetry merely to a
photographic picture of outward nature. She accepts Dante as a genuine
realist, for "he is at once the most precise and homely in his reproduction
of actual objects, and the most soaringly at large in his imaginative
combinations." She would have faithfulness to facts, but no limitation of
vision; she would have the imagings exact and legitimate, but she would
give our moral and intellectual insights no narrow bounds. Her realism is
well defined when she criticises one of those persons who take mere fancy
for imagination, to whom all facts are unworthy of recognition.

In at least two of these essays, those on "Debasing the Moral Currency" and
"The Modern Hep, Hep, Hep!" she has newly expressed herself concerning
tradition. In the first she protests against the too-common custom of
satirizing what is noble and venerable. Our need of faith in the higher
things of life is very great, and that faith is to be established only
through our regard for what has been given us by those who have gone before
us. Whatever lowers our trust in the results of human efforts is
corrupting, for it breaks down our faith in the true sources of human
authority. "This is what I call debasing the moral currency," she says;
"lowering the value of every inspiring fact and tradition so that it will
command less and less of the spiritual products, the generous motives which
sustain the charm and elevation of our social existence--the something
besides bread by which man saves his soul alive." With her conception of
tradition, as the legitimate source of the moral and spiritual life in man,
and as the influence which builds up all which is truest and purest in our
civilization, she can endure to see no contempt put upon its products. This
essay, more perhaps than anything else she wrote, gives an insight into her
conception of the higher life and her total lack of faith in any idealistic
sources