difficult to see that George Eliot is not a poet in the fullest
sense, because hers is not thoroughly and always a poetic mind, because she
reasons about things too much. The poet is impressed, moved, thrilled and
exalted, and pours out his song from his feelings and transfused with
emotion. George Eliot was given to speculation, loved exactness of
expression, and kept too close to the real. She had not that lightness of
touch, that deftness and flexibility of expression, and that versatility of
imaging forth her ideas, which the real poet possesses. Her mind moved with
a ponderous tread, which needed a prose style large and stately as its true
medium of expression. While she had poetic ideas in abundance, and an
imaginative discernment of nature and life, she had not the full gift of
poetic speech. She lacked inspiration as well as flexibility of thought,
her imagination was not sufficiently rich, and she had not the full sense
of rhythmic harmony.

George Eliot first began to write in verse, as was to be expected of one
gifted with an imagination vigorous as hers. Her love of music, her keen
perception of the beauties of nature, her love of form and color, gave
added attraction and impetus in the same direction. That she did not
continue through many years to write poetry seems to have been partly the
result of her intense interest in severer studies. The speculative cast of
her mind predominated the poetical so nearly as to turn her away from the
poetic side of life to find a solution for its graver and more intricate
problems. Her return to the poetic form of expression may be accounted for
partly as the result of a greater confidence in her own powers which came
from success, and partly from a desire for a new and richer medium of
utterance.

So far as can be judged from the dates of her poems, as appended to many of
them, "How Lisa Loved the King" was the earliest written. This was written
in the year of the publication of _Romola_, and was followed the next year
by the first draft of _The Spanish Gypsy_. The poetical mottoes of _Felix
Holt_, however, were the first to be published; and not until these
appeared did the public know of her poetic gifts. _The Spanish Gypsy_ was
not published until 1868, and "How Lisa Loved the King" appeared the
following year.

The original mottoes in _Felix Holt_ gave good hint of George Eliot's
poetic gifts. They are solid with thought, pregnant with the ripe wisdom of
daily exp