fatal hopelessness of life broods over all the nobler
characters. All their early ideals are sacrificed, all their early joys
depart, all the pictures they formed are blotted out. They gain peace
through renunciation, after long failure; some happiness in yielding to the
inevitable, and harmonizing life with it; and some blessedness in doing all
they can for the progress of those who follow them, for the good of those
that are with them. Their self is conquered, not through ennoblement of
personality, but through annihilation of personality. And having
surrendered their separate personality, they then attain the fitting end,
silence forevermore. It is no wonder that no characters are so sad, that
none steep the reader in such hopelessness of joy, as the noble characters
of the later works of George Eliot. They want the mighty power, the
enkindling hopes, the resurrection of life, the joy and rapture which
deepens towards death and enables man to take up the ideals of youth
again."

If too severe in some directions, this criticism is substantially sound. It
does not matter what theory of personality we adopt, in a philosophical
sense, if that theory upholds personal confidence and force of will. If it
does not do this, the whole result is evil. This lack of faith in
personality saddened all the work done by George Eliot. In theory a
believer in an ever-brightening future, and no pessimist, yet the outcome
of her work is dark with despondency and grief.

Life is sad, hard and ascetic in her treatment of it. An ascetic tone runs
through all her work, the result of her theories of renunciation. The same
sternness and cheerlessness is to be seen in the poetry and painting of the
pre-Raphaelites. The joy, freshness and sunniness of Raphael is not to be
found in their work. Life is painful, puritanic and depressing to them. Old
age seems to be upon them, or the decadence of a people that has once been
great. Human nature does not need that this strain be put upon it. Life is
stronger when more assertive of itself. It has a right to assert itself in
defiance of mere rules, and only when it does so is it true and great. The
ascetic tone is one of the worst results of a scientific view of the world
as applied to literature; for it is thoroughly false both in fact and in
sentiment. The strong, hopeful, youthful look at life is the one which
literature demands, and because it is the nearest the heart and spirit of
life itself. The