adventures; he turned himself into
copy with a frankness, a grace, a gusto, a persistency of egoism, which
are merely enchanting. Berlioz, therefore, had good warrant for his
work. It is more to the point, perhaps, that he would have taken it if
he had not had it. And I hold that he would have done well; for (in any
case) a great man's notion of himself is, _ipso facto_, better and more
agreeable and convincing, especially as he presents it, than the idea of
his inferiors and admirers, especially as presented by them. Berlioz, it
is true, was prodigal in these _Memoires_ of his of wit and fun and
devilry, of fine humanity and noble art, of good things said and great
things dreamed and done and suffered; but he was prodigal of invention
and suppression as well, and the result, while considerably less
veracious, is all the more fascinating, therefor. One feels that for one
thing he was too complete an artist to be merely literal and exact; that
for another he saw and felt things for himself, as Milton did before
him--Milton in the mind's eye of Milton the noblest of created things and
to Mr. Saintsbury almost as unpleasing a spectacle as the gifted but
abject Racine; and for a third that from his own point of view he was
right, and there is an end of it.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Ideal.

It was thought that with George Eliot the Novel-with-a-Purpose had really
come to be an adequate instrument for the regeneration of humanity. It
was understood that Passion only survived to point a moral or provide the
materials of an awful tale, while Duty, Kinship, Faith, were so far
paramount as to govern Destiny and mould the world. A vague, decided
flavour of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was felt to pervade the
moral universe, a chill but seemly halo of Golden Age was seen to play
soberly about things in general. And it was with confidence anticipated
that those perfect days were on the march when men and women would
propose--(from the austerest motives)--by the aid of scientific
terminology.

The Real.

To the Sceptic--(an apostate, and an undoubted male)--another view was
preferable. He held that George Eliot had carried what he called the
'Death's-Head Style' of art a trifle too far. He read her books in much
the same spirit and to much the same purpose that he went to the
gymnasium and diverted himself with parallel bars. He detested her
technology; her sententiousness revolted while it amused him;