ure. They have failed to see, what she did see, though not so clearly as
could have been desired, that art must do much more than imitate some scene
or fact out of nature. It must give beauty, meaning and expression to what
it copies. And it must do more than imitate: it must go beyond mere
description, and introduce unity, purpose and thought into its work. True
art has a soul as well as a body, says something to the mind as well as to
the eye, appeals to the soul as well as to sense. Had George Eliot done
nothing more than to describe common English life there would have been
small excuse for her work. She did more, touched that life with genius,
made it blossom into beauty, and gave to it deep moral meanings. The
defects of her method are to be seen in the fact that her imitators cannot
get above life's surface, and deal mainly with shallow or degraded natures.
Her methods do not inspire great work, while her own genius redeemed the
false ways into which she was led by her philosophic theories.

Science can dissect the human body, but it can do little towards an
explanation of the subtler meanings of life and mind. Its methods are
analytical; it has reached no truly synthetic results in the regions where
knowledge is most to be desired. Its effects on literature are destructive.
Science destroys poetry, dries up the poetic sense, closes the doors of
imagination. The attempt to make science co-operate with poetry is in
itself the promise of failure. The limitations of George Eliot's work are
the limitations of poetry subdued by science. Could she have rid herself of
that burden, been impelled by a faith and an ideal purpose commensurate
with her genius, the result would have been much greater. This limitation
suggests the fact that literature is synthetic and constructive in its
purpose and spirit. It is this fact which has made the classic literatures
so powerful in their effect on modern Europe. They have given unity,
spiritual purpose and ideal aims to the whole modern world. The freshness
as of an eternal spring was in the literature of Greece, the naturalness of
a healthy manhood. That literature is organic, it is one with life, it is
refreshing as nature itself. That literature lives and flames with power
because it is synthetic, buoyant, touched with an eternal spiritual beauty,
great with promise of a growing earth. Its poets do not dissect, but build;
they do not analyze, but create. And this is the literary nee