THE

Central Literary Magazine.

It must be borne in mind that this Magazine is neutral in Politics and Religion; its pages are open to a free expression of all shades of opinion without leaning to any.

No. 2.

APRIL, 1881.

GEORGE ELIOT AND HER TEACHING.

VOL. V.

WITHIN the brief space of two months not only England, but the world, has lost the two foremost minds in the two foremost branches of modern thought. It is long since poetry has aspired to be the natural speech of the national heart, and year by year as its melody has sweetened, its meaning has lessened. The Pulpit and the Press, as literature, aspire to no more than a passing power-and the mention of the drama suffices without comment. Two vehicles of thought-philosophy and fiction-bear alone now the power, if not the beauty, which have deserted the old channels-and the leaders in both are gone. Gone, we may well be thankful to say, under circumstances which evoke rather gratitude for the gift than bitterness in the grief. Gone, with neither time or opportunity mis-spent, or work-so far as we can know -unfinished; but in the possession of all honour and all reverence, and in the calm assurance of a fame neither ephemeral nor meanly won.

To attempt to repeat here the biographical details which have already appeared with more or less minuteness in almost every newspaper and periodical known to civilised humanity, would be to ensure that no more than the opening sentences of this paper would ever be read. It is difficult to formulate a specific ground of complaint, and more difficult

still to suggest a remedy, but the spectacle which the modern world of letters presents immediately after the demise of a recognised leader of thought is not an edifying one. The first symptoms of serious sickness, even the mere fact of advancing age, are signals for the preparation of innumerable biographical notices of the "great departed" in posse. No sooner does the catastrophe appear imminent than the funeral panegyrics are arranged in type in readiness for the expected special edition, and little is left for even Fate herself to do in the matter beyond deciding upon the date and the complaint. So very anxious is that intelligent noun of multitude "the general public," not to miss being posted up today in what it cared little about yesterday, and will remember as little of to-morrow. Less unpleasing-because it owes its rise to a sentiment of generosity-but scarcely more profitable, is the universal strain of laudation in which all comments upon the great dead are, for a time, made. The absence of censure may readily indeed be understood, for who would hastily judge the soul which stands before the last awful and supreme tribunal. But to refrain from the expression even of the slightest difference of opinion, is surely a strange testimony of respect to the memory of those whose life-work it has been to elicit and awaken thought, and whose very greatness was actually founded upon that right to individual and independent judgment which we offer up an unwelcome sacrifice to their manes. Far more dignified, more rational, and more truly honourable to all is it, to choose the moment when prejudice and passion are dormant, and partisanship for the time has lost its power, as an opportunity for the calm consideration of the work that is over-for the recollection of its strength-and for the temperate assertion of what seem to us its errors.

That the intellectual power we are able to command for the accomplishment of such a task, will appear very insignificant in comparison with the force and magnitude of that which we essay to analyse, is obvious enough. Equally obvious is it that we can never be excused from this manifest duty by the weakness of powers which were nevertheless confided to us for such purposes, and which can only acquire greater strength by diligent and honest exercise. The greatness of the subject is the precise reason why it should be studied, and the smallness of our ability is a self-evident proof of the obligations under which we lie to study it. The foolish dogmatism which accepts this, rejects that, and cares for neither, is one thing-the reverent search which strives to separate the true from the false in work which, being human, must necessarily be mixed, is quite another. Wide as the poles asunder, the one effort can never be other than dishonorable to those who make it, and misleading to those who trust it; the other is consistent with the sincerest humility, and wholesome even in its mistakes. Nay, the more truly humble we are, the more clearly shall we see our need to make it, for it is after all Truth, and not George Eliot, or Carlyle, or another, that we may rightly look to as our mistress and our guide. We are dwarfs and they are giants, but neither would they demand to tyrannise over us, nor can we expect their strength to bear our burden. The help

which they can render us is contingent upon our own efforts; they stretch out their hands to help us, but it is upon our own feet that we must stand.

Of the two, the first to be taken from us, best known by her assumed name of George Eliot, possessed powers for which she wisely sought a channel in the form of fiction. The form, except in relation to its adaptability to the especial bent of the author, is but of little moment. The novels of George Eliot, although of supremely high rank as novels, are as much more than mere tales as their authoress was more than a mere novelist. All the old superb truthfulness of definition of human life and character which gave life to the drama when the world possessed one, is to be found in them. The artist has chosen another vehicle, but the truth of the picture has not lessened; the means have varied, but the self-same end has been obtained. This exact and perfect truthfulness is, indeed, the one grand characteristic of all George Eliot's novels. You may like or dislike the characters, you may agree with or differ from the manner in which their author handles them, but dispute them you cannot. It is unnecessary to multiply instances, they will occur in plenty to all who have read the books; and while here and there, in the case of an analysis of more than usual subtlety, our consent may be hesitating, still we must consent; so great a claim to our faith has been established by the manifest accuracy of all the parts of which we are more competent to judge. Truly this, itself, is no small praise; and to conceive that there will ever come a time when this marvellous string of novels shall cease to be regarded with admiration and with interest, is to anticipate a time when man shall have ceased to care for the study of man.

But supposing this principle of uncompromising truthfulness to be carried out consistently, as it is, how can it be doubted that certain necessary drawbacks must attend the result, if regarded as a work of art? No painting could for a moment pretend to vie with a photograph in perfect reproduction of detail; yet as a work of art the exact photograph ranks much lower than the inexact painting. Mystery may often evoke a higher feeling than perfect revelation; doubt may sometimes be nobler than conviction; and it is certainly not that of which we are absolutely sure, from which we gather our loftiest inspiration. Why should we hesitate to confess, if it seems to us so, that in George Eliot's most perfect workmanship, we sometimes feel a qualm of suspicion that we may have fallen upon the Dutch school of fiction painting, and that what is delighting us is really but the most masterly ability devoting itself to the immortalising of the very pots and kettles of humanity. The verity seems indeed now and then what the French call "une verité brutale," not with the harsh meaning of the English word, but as the emphatic expression of a truth from which all gentleness and all idealism have been divorced. No one would suppose that it is generally so, no one would believe it to be ever intentionally so ;-but it is so. The veil is sometimes torn too roughly from poor human nature; the little blemishes

and frailties and uglinesses which we hold it rather a virtue to keep to ourselves, are disclosed with a completeness which savours more of the indifference of the surgeon than of the sympathy of the philanthropist. We often speak of a scrupulous exactitude, may we not sometimes speak with equal justice of an exactitude which has in it something of the unscrupulous?

This acceptance of the realistic, rather than of the artistic side of truth, would seem to present itself under two phases in the works of George Eliot, and to lead to two noteworthy results. First, there is the complete willingness to take life just at its average level; to remove nothing, to evade nothing, to select nothing; but to place the most unpicturesque and prosaic characters in a position neither more nor less prominent in the picture, than they would, as a rule, occupy in the reality. Very ungracious would it be to complain of the full and free exercise of a peculiar power vouchsafed in such perfection to few, and perhaps never elsewhere quite equalled. On the contrary, the world owes the author a debt of very real gratitude, and the immaculate truthfulness of her work must be regarded as its principal claim to our esteem. But surely it will not be denied that this one side of Art is, after all, but one side of Art, and that very much, (whether better or worse), must, by its system be left altogether unattempted. Sometimes this uncompromising fidelity grates upon the nerves, and tends to hinder ourenjoyment, without, so far as we can see, much compensating advantage. Some of the minor people who hang to the skirts of the plot, are so irredeemably commonplace, that their very abundance in real life suggests the wonder why they should ever have been lifted out of it. We do not, after all, carefully collect specimens of common road-side pebbles, or mount samples of the dust of the streets wherever we go, for microscopic examination. There would, of course, be much to be learned from them, but there seems also much which it is more important to learn, and life is not long enough for all. The life-likeness of the portrait, and the meanness of the original, produce an effect which is incongruous and startling. The picture is magnificently framed, and painted by an artist of consummate skill; how, without a shock, can you recognise the portrait as that of your butcher, or of your milkman, in their work-a-day clothes, and with their work-a-day expression? Sometimes the calm equanimity with which the great artist has been content to accept her models, just as the general average of life brought them to her, leads the reader to an unwilling and protracted intimacy with people who are, alas, only too faithfully set forth as types of common classes, but whom in real life one could at least escape from. Who does not recognise that miserable Grandcourt? Who has not had the ill luck to meet again and again this deplorable solidification of social starch in a mental vacuum? Providence perchance has barred against our access that aristocratic wilderness in which the genus flourishes as a rampant weed, but have we not in our little circle known Grandcourt, M.D., and Grandcourt, M.P., and many another pompously stiffened wind-envelope, tossed by Fate into a place of honor as if to show how