Eliot I had known even before the time I had begun to read. No
well-brought-up child could escape "Adam Bede" and the drolleries of
Mrs. Poyser. As I grew older, however, "Romola" attracted me most. The
heroine is perhaps a little too good for human nature's daily food, but
she is a great figure in the picture. I suspect that the artificiality
of Kingsley's "Hypatia," which I read at almost the same time, made me
admire, if I did not love, Romola, by way of contrast. No youth could
ever love Romola as Walter Scott made him love Mary Stuart or Catherine
Seton. But as it happened that just at this time I was labouring with
Blackstone (Judge Sharswood's Notes), with a volume of scholastic
philosophy "on the side"--I think it was Jourdain's _consomm['e]_ of St.
Thomas Aquinas in French--Romola was a decided relief, and she seemed
truer and more interesting in every way than Hypatia, who was as
_papier-mach['e]_ as her whole environment is untrue to the history of the
time. An historical novel ought not necessarily to be true to history,
but it ought to be illuminating and interesting, as "Hypatia" is not and
as "Romola" is. So it makes no difference whether George Eliot's reading
of Savonarola is correct or not, though it ought to be correct, of
course. Then there is Tito, the delicious and treacherous Tito! and the
scene in the barber shop! And if you want a good, mouth-filling novel,
give me "Middlemarch." Few persons read it now, and probably fewer will
read it in the future. It is nevertheless a great monument to the genius
of a woman who had such an infinite quality for taking pains, that it
almost defeated the end for which she worked.

CHAPTER IV

LETTERS, BIOGRAPHIES, AND MEMOIRS

Some of us have acquired a state of mind which helps us to believe that
whenever a man mentions a book he either condemns or approves of it. In
a word, the mere naming a book means a criticism of the book at once. It
is true that books are criticisms of life, and that life, if it is not
very narrow and limited, is a good criticism of books; but one of the
most pleasant qualities of a reader who has lived among books all his
life is that he does not attempt always to recommend books to others, or
to preach about them. Besides, it is too dangerous to recommend
unreservedly or to condemn unreservedly. The teachers of literature have
undertaken the recommendation of books for the young; there are schools
of critics who spend their ti