lations into which Dorothea Brooke is
brought, there is not one more touchingly tender, or in which her whole
nature is drawn more beautifully out, than that to Rose Vincy. Between
these two, at least on the side of the hard unpenetrable incarnation of
self-inclusion and self-pleasing, any approach to harmony or sympathy is
impossible. There is not even any true ground of womanhood on which
Rosamond can meet Dorothea; for she is nearly as far removed from
womanhood as Tito Melema is from manliness or manhood. Yet even here the
tender pitifulness of Dorothea overpasses a barrier that to any other
would be impassable. In her sweet, instinctive, universal sympathy for
human sorrow and pain, she finds a common ground of union; and in no
fancied sense of superiority--solely from the sense of common human
need--she strives to console, to elevate, to lead back to hope and trust,
with a gentle yet steadfast simplicity all her own.

Such, as portrayed by unquestionably the greatest fictionist of the
time--is it too much to say, the greatest genius of our English
nineteenth century?--is the nineteenth century St Theresa.

The question may be raised by some of George Eliot's readers whether it
constitutes the best and completest ethical teaching that fiction can
attain, to bring before its readers such high ideals of the possibilities
of humanity--of the aim and purpose of life toward which it should ever
aspire. Were the author's canvas occupied with such portraitures
alone--with Romolas and Fedalmas, Dinah Morrises and Dorothea Brookes,
Daniel Derondas and Adam Bedes, even Mr Tryans and Mr Gilfils--the
question might call for full discussion, and a contrast might be
unfavourably drawn between the author and him whose emphatic praise it is
that he "holds the mirror up to nature." But the great artist for all
time brings before us not only an Iago and an Edmund, an Angelo and an
Iachimo, a Regan and a Goneril, but a Miranda and an Imogen, an Isabella
and a Viola, a Cordelia and a Desdemona, with every conceivable
intermediate shade of human character and life; and in George Eliot we
have the same clearly-defined contrasts and endless variety. That a
Becky Sharp and a Beatrix Castlewood are drawn with the consummate skill
and force of the most perfect artist in his own special sphere our age
has produced, few will be disposed to deny: and that they have momentous
lessons to teach us all,--that they may by sheer antagonism ro