| | | | | | The readers of Blackwood's Magazine during the past | year were set speculating as to the authorship of the Scenes | of Clerical Life, which were obviously the production of a | peculiar and remarkable writer, whose style showed little or no | family resemblances with that of any living author. The | republication of these stories in two volumes, with the name of | George Eliot attached, has done little towards satisfying | curiosity, since the suspicion is pretty general that George Eliot | is an assumed name, screening that of some studious clergyman, | a Cantab, who lives, or has lived the greater part of his life in the | country, who is the father of a family, of High Church | tendencies, and exceedingly fond of children, Greek dramatists, | and dogs. Thus much internal evidence suggests. For ourselves, | we are indifferent as to the rest. It is enough for us that George | Eliot is a new novelist, who to rare culture adds rare faculty, | who can paint homely every-day life and ordinary characters | with great humour and pathos, and is content to rely on the | truth of his pictures for effect. Considering how unfamiliar | most of us are with life in its romantic and adventurous forms, | and with men and women of colossal proportions, it is strange | that writers rarely have the courage or the talent to depict the | characters and experiences which they and we know so well, but | fly off at a tangent of improbability as soon as their pens touch | paper. George Eliot has the courage and the talent to paint what | he knows, and only what he knows. As he says: ~~ | | | He has made us weep over this pathos, and laugh over this | comedy; and he has done so with a quiet truth which we find in | few of his contemporaries. We read the Clerical Scenes | as they appeared, month by month, and we have re-read | them in these volumes with ever fresh admiration. But instead | of forestalling the reader's enjoyment by sketching a meagre | outline of the stories, we shall offer a few remarks on their style | and treatment. | 'The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton' gives us the | picture of a curate who, on eighty pounds a year, has to support | a wife and six children in decency, and to minister to the | spiritual wants of a congregation. Here is a subject thoroughly | commonplace. The man himself is wholly commonplace. Yet the | story is not only interesting, but perfectly fresh and original ~~ | the character is not only a distinct individuality, but one which | appeals to and wins our deepest sympathy. We do not admire | Barton; indeed we rather laugh at him; yet the laughter is | tempered by sympathy, and we like him for the same reasons | that we like many other commonplace people ~~ because of his | charming wife, his charming children, his misfortunes, and his | position. He is not handsome, he is not wise, he is not even | nobly virtuous: ~~ | To make a hero out of such a curate required steadfast faith in | the power of truth, and disregard of conventions. The same | disregard of circulating-library principles is seen in the portrait | of the Rev. Mr Gilfil, whose love story forms the second of | these sketches. We are introduced to Mr Gilfil when he is old; | his romance has been lived; he has loved and suffered; but | instead of our being called upon to weep over a wasted life, | and to pity a noble ruin, we are forced to love and admire a | quite ordinary mortal, caustic, benevolent, active, somewhat | miserly, and given to the evening solace of a pipe and | gin-and-water. George Eliot knows that many refined | lady readers may be offended by this termination of | Mr Gilfil's romance: ~~ | Once more is the boldness of this writer shown in his choice of | 'Janet's Repentance' ~~ the third and finest of these Clerical | Scenes. He calls upon us | | to accept as a heroine a woman driven by ill-treatment and | misery to that unpoetical, but unhappily too real, refuge ~~ | wine! This tragic sin is dealt with at once delicately and boldly; | and the story of her repentance and victory is one of the most | pathetic scenes we know. A beautiful, impulsive, loving woman | is shown us in her sin and in her rescue; and the influence | exerted over her mind by the sympathetic earnestness of the | Rev. Mr Tryan ~~ whose persecutions and sorrows also form an | important element in the story ~~ is represented in a style so | truthful that we seem to be reading an actual biography. | While commending the truthfulness of the characters and | incidents, we must make one exception. The episode of Mr | Tryan's early love and sorrow is a great mistake. It is one of the | incidents hackneyed in fiction; and we are surprised to find it | among incidents so fresh as those of the Clerical Scenes. | Another objection we must urge, although it is purely | technical. In 'Mr Gilfil's Love Story' a great mistake in art is | made in the construction ~~ there are no less than three | retrospects in it. One is enough, in all conscience. When the | story fairly commences, it proceeds with due rapidity. | As might have been expected, a writer who selects topics so | unlike those of other novelists, and who disregards conventions | in conception, will not be likely to fall into the slipslop and | conventions of expression which make the generality of novels | difficult to read twice. In no page of these volumes have we | noticed writing for writing's sake, or phrases flung out at | hazard. The language always expresses distinct ideas, and the | epithets are chosen because they are fitting. Indeed, so far from | carelessness being the fault of the style, we should rather urge | the objection of a too-constant elaboration, especially in the | earlier pages, where almost every sentence seems finished into | an epigram or an aphorism. The pudding is often too profuse in | plums ~~ too scanty in connective dough. Instead of simply | referring to the village organist, he refers to the | curate's hat and Casual phrases like these | betray a mind of philosophic culture, but they mar the | simplicity of the style. When the author is describing scenery, | which he does with poetic felicity, or in his emotional and | reflective passages, the style has none of these literary | betrayals ... | We know not whether George Eliot has most power over tears | or laughter; but as humour is a rarer quality than pathos, we are | disposed to admire his humour most. It is very genuine, and not | only plays like lambent flame amid the descriptions, but | animates the dialogues with dramatic life. And this leads us to | notice another merit in these stories ~~ the characters are not | only true portraits, but they are living beings. Their feelings | and | | motives are seen to be part and parcel of their natures and | conditions, their talk is individual, belongs strictly to them, | and not to the author. Hence even the little scraps of village | gossip, or kitchen talk, introduced to carry on the story, have an | independent life-like value. Whether the dialect is correctly or | incorrectly given, we cannot say, but we are quite certain that | the language is that of peasants, farmers, and servants, not the | language of fiction ... | We have abstained from giving any hint of the conduct of the | stories, lest the reader's pleasure should be diminished; and we | have confined ourselves to a very few salient points. The extracts | have sufficed to show that George Eliot is a new writer ~~ or, if | a writer already known, one who has adopted a decidedly new | style. The work has satire, but the satire is loving; it has pathos, | but the tears make human nature more beautiful; it is homely in | its pictures, but they are connected with our most impassioned | sensibilities and our daily duties; it is religious, without cant or | intolerance; and as Ruskin says of a good book, |