e hope in lies is forever swept away, _and the soul recovers the
noble altitude of simplicity_." And again: "Tito was experiencing that
inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden
deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines
character." Somewhere else I think she says, in purport, that our deeds
are like our children; we beget them, and rear them and cherish them,
and they grow up and turn against us and misuse us. The fact that has
led me to a belief in the fundamental equality between the worth of
"Romola" as a moral argument and its value as a work of art, is the fact
that in each character it seems to me essentially prosaic. The
excellence both of the spirit and of the execution of the book is
emphatically an obvious excellence. They make no demand upon the
imagination of the reader. It is true of both of them that he who runs
may read them. It may excite surprise that I should intimate that George
Eliot is deficient in imagination; but I believe that I am right in so
doing. Very readable novels have been written without imagination; and
as compared with writers who, like Mr. Trollope, are totally destitute
of the faculty, George Eliot may be said to be richly endowed with it.
But as compared with writers whom we are tempted to call decidedly
imaginative, she must, in my opinion, content herself with the very
solid distinction of being exclusively an observer. In confirmation of
this I would suggest a comparison of those chapters in "Adam Bede" which
treat of Hetty's flight and wanderings, and those of Miss Bronte's "Jane
Eyre" which describe the heroine's escape from Rochester's house and
subsequent perambulations. The former are throughout admirable prose;
the latter are in portions very good poetry.

One word more. Of all the impressions--and they are numerous--which a
reperusal of George Eliot's writings has given me, I find the strongest
to be this: that (with all deference to "Felix Holt, the Radical") the
author is in morals and aesthetics essentially a conservative. In morals
her problems are still the old, passive problems. I use the word "old"
with all respect. What moves her most is the idea of a conscience
harassed by the memory of slighted obligations. Unless in the case of
Savonarola, she has made no attempt to depict a conscience taking upon
itself great and novel responsibilities. In her last work, assuredly
such an attempt was--considering the title