| | | | | | The highest tribute that can be paid to this book may be paid it | very readily. It is as good as Adam Bede, except that | it is shorter. And that an author should be able to produce a | series of works so good in so very peculiar a style, is as | remarkable as anything that has occurred in the history of | English literature in this century. The plot of Silas Marner | is good, and the delineation of character is excellent. But | other writers who have the power of story-telling compose plots | as interesting, and perhaps sketch characters as well. It is in the | portraiture of the poor, and of what it is now fashionable to call |

'the low middle class,'

that this writer is without a rival, | and no phase of life could be harder to draw. A person with | observation and humour might give a sketch of one or two sets of | poor people, and of village farmers and carpenters, but the | sketches he could give would be limited by his personal | observation. George Eliot alone moves among this unknown, | and to most people unknowable, section of society as if quite at | home there, and can let imagination run loose and disport itself | in a field that, we think, has been only very partially opened | even to the best writers. Sir Walter Scott drew a few pictures of | humble Scotch life, and none of his creations won him more | deserved reputation than the characters of Andrew Fairservice | and Caleb Balderstone, and the scenes among the poor fishing | population in the Antiquary. But, good as these | sketches were, they were very limited. We soon got to an end of | them; but in Silas Marner, the whole book, or nearly | the whole book, is made up of such scenes. The writer can | picture what uneducated villagers think and say, and can | reproduce on paper the picture which imagination has suggested. | The gift is so special, the difficulty is so great, the success is so | complete, that the works of George Eliot come on us as a new | revelation of what society in quiet English parishes really is and | has been. How hard it is to draw the poor may easily be seen if | we turn to the ordinary tales of country life that are written in | such abundance by ladies. There the poor are always looked at | from the point of view of the | | rich. They are so many subjects for experimenting on, for | reclaiming, improving, being anxious about, and relieving. | They have no existence apart from the present of a curate and | a district visitor. They live in order to take tracts and broth. | This is a very natural, and in some degree a very proper view | for the well-intentioned rich to take of the poor. It is right that | those who have spiritual and temporal blessings should care | for the souls and bodies of those around them. But the poor | remain, during the process and in its description, as a distinct | race. What they think of and do when they are not being | improved and helped, remains a blank. Those, too, who are | above the reach of occasional destitution are entirely omitted | from these portraitures of village life. | Everyone is agreed that it would be impertinent to | improve a man who gets anything like a pound a week. When, | therefore, George Eliot describes the whole of a village, from | the simple squire down to the wheelwright and his wife, the | ground thus occupied is virgin soil. | There are two chapters in Silas Marner describing | the conversation of a coterie at a public-house, and what they | did and said on a man appearing before them to announce a | robbery, which are perfectly wonderful. It is not, perhaps, | saying much to say that an intelligent reader who knew | beforehand that such a scene was to be described would be | utterly puzzled to think of any one thing that such people could | satisfactorily be represented as remarking or doing. But some | notion of what George Eliot can do may be obtained by | comparing what the best writers of the day are in the habit of | doing when they attempt scenes of this sort. Sir Edward Lytton | and Mr Dickens would venture to try such a scene if it came in | their way. Sir Edward Lytton would only go so far as to put | some very marked character or some very important personage | of the story in the centre of the group, and put everything into | relation and connexion with him. This is really the good ladies' | novel view of the poor in another shape. The poor cluster round | someone superior to them, and | the only reason of the superiority which Sir Edward Lytton can | claim, so far as he can claim any at all, arises from the poor | being supposed to be in a position of greater naturalness and | simplicity. They are represented as taking their ease in their | inn, and not as being talked to by their anxious-minded betters. | Mr Dickens sets himself to draw the poor and the uneducated | much more thoroughly, but his mode is to invest each person | with one distinguishing peculiarity. This gives a distinctness to | each picture, but it makes the whole group artificial and | mechanical. He always, or almost always, keeps us in the region | of external peculiarities. We are made to notice the teeth, the | hair, the noses, the buttons of the people described, or some | oddity of manner that marks them. The sentiment of the poor is | often caught in Mr Dickens's works with great happiness, and | the chance observations that they might make under particular | circumstance are well conceived; but George Eliot goes far | beyond this. The people in the public-house in Silas | Marner | | proclaim in a few words each a distinct and probable character, | and sustain it. The things they say are perfectly natural, and yet | show at once what the sayers are like. We know that these poor | are like real poor people, just as we know that the characters in | Shakespeare are like real men and women. The humour of the | author, of course, pervades the representation, just as it does in | the comic parts of Shakespeare. Our enjoyment in a large | measure depends on the enjoyment of the writer; nor is it | probable that any group at a pothouse would really say so | many things on any one evening that, if recorded, would amuse | us so much. But this is one of the exigencies of art. In order not | to waste space, that which is characteristic must be placed | closely together. Were it not for this absence of dilution, the | history of the village group of Raveloe, the village in which | the scenes of Silas Marner are laid, might be a | mere record of an actual evening passed at a country public. It | is a kind of unpermissible audacity in England to say that | anything is a good as Shakespeare, and we will not therefore | say that this public-house scene is worthy of the hand that drew | Falstaff and Poins; but we may safely say that, however much | less in degree, the humour of George Eliot in such passages is of | the same kind as that displayed in the comic passages of | Shakespeare's historical plays. | There are two points especially with regard to the poor which | George Eliot has mastered, and the mastery of which lends a | lifelike reality to Silas Marner. These are the | frankness of the poor and their religion. The villagers in | Silas Marner speak out. They say what they have to say, | and do not mince matters. This is the rudeness of persons who | do not mean to be rude; for they do not dream of the rules | which a consideration for the feelings of others teaches those | who are more refined. When Silas Marner, the hero of the story, | a poor weaver, loses his money, he is visited by a Job's | comforter in the person of the parish clerk. This comforter | comes in the dignity of a parish official and a parish wit, and | with really kind intentions, to say a kind thing to a man whom he | dislikes and despises, but yet respects a little, and pities a great | deal... | | This is only one specimen of the direct, and, as rich people | would think, insulting language which George Eliot, with the | happiest effect, puts into the mouth of the poor. But the author | knows the class described too well to show them long together | without the intervention of deep feeling of some sort. The | Job's comforter is succeeded by a real comforter ~~ by a | motherly, patient, humble-minded woman. Dolly Winthrop, | with her quaint kindness, her simple piety, and her good sense, | is as touching and at the same time as amusing a character as | George Eliot has drawn.... | | The difference, so far as truthfulness of description and insight | into the | | poor go, between George Eliot and the usual lady-novelist, | cannot be better estimated than by contrasting Dolly and her | I.H.S. cakes, her reverent belief in

'Them,'

and her | views of this world and the next, with the model cottager's wife | of domestic fiction. The one is a living woman, the other is an | improveable puppet. | We wish to avoid telling the story of Silas Marner to those who | have not read the book, and it fortunately happens that there is | nothing in the story that calls for observation. There does not | appear to us to be a fault in the plot or in the working of it out. | The errors that marred The Mill on the Floss have | been entirely avoided. The classes which the author can draw, | and those alone, have been drawn. There is nothing like the | inanity of Stephen Guest or the spiritual conflicts of Maggie. | On the other hand, the plot secures the writer from the danger | of trespassing on unknown ground which was the origin of | some weaknesses in Adam Bede. The trial and the | reprieve of Hetty were incomparably the worst parts of the | story, for the simple reason that the writer evidently knew | nothing about trials and reprieves. There is, again, nothing | painful in Silas Marner. The secret is one that it is not | distressing either to have concealed or to find out, and the | misery of those who are miserable is not of a very intense kind. | We are left unembarrassed to enjoy those pictures of humble | life which have constituted the great merit of George Eliot's | works, and which appear in this new volume with as much | freshness, novelty, and humour as ever. All that can be said | against Silas Marner, as compared with its | predecessors, is that it is shorter, and therefore slighter. The | author has less ground to cover, and has not been obliged to fill | up space with improbable incidents or painful scenes. The | work has therefore been easier. The characters have had to be | sustained for a shorter time, and the delineation of mental | conflicts and emotions has been more in outline. If we take | into consideration all the difficulties encountered and | surmounted, Adam Bede still remains perhaps the | author's greatest production. But, within its limits, Silas | Marner is quite equal to either of its predecessors, and, in | combining the display of the author's characteristic excellences | with freedom from blemishes and defects, is perhaps superior.