to pieces so that the inside of it shall be seen, and be seen if
possible by her readers as clearly as by herself. This searching
analysis is carried so far that, in studying her latter writings,
one feels oneself to be in company with some philosopher rather
than with a novelist. I doubt whether any young person can read
with pleasure either Felix Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda.
I know that they are very difficult to many that are not young.
Her personifications of character have been singularly terse and
graphic, and from them has come her great hold on the public,--though
by no means the greatest effect which she has produced. The lessons
which she teaches remain, though it is not for the sake of the
lessons that her pages are read. Seth Bede, Adam Bede, Maggie and
Tom Tulliver, old Silas Marner, and, much above all, Tito, in Romola,
are characters which, when once known, can never be forgotten. I
cannot say quite so much for any of those in her later works, because
in them the philosopher so greatly overtops the portrait-painter,
that, in the dissection of the mind, the outward signs seem to
have been forgotten. In her, as yet, there is no symptom whatever
of that weariness of mind which, when felt by the reader, induces
him to declare that the author has written himself out. It is not
from decadence that we do not have another Mrs. Poyser, but because
the author soars to things which seem to her to be higher than Mrs.
Poyser.
It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she struggles too
hard to do work that shall be excellent. She lacks ease. Latterly
the signs of this have been conspicuous in her style, which has always
been and is singularly correct, but which has become occasionally
obscure from her too great desire to be pungent. It is impossible
not to feel the struggle, and that feeling begets a flavour
of affectation. In Daniel Deronda, of which at this moment only a
portion has been published, there are sentences which I have found
myself compelled to read three times before I have been able to
take home to myself all that the writer has intended. Perhaps I
may be permitted here to say, that this gifted woman was among my
dearest and most intimate friends. As I am speaking here of novelists,
I will not attempt to speak of George Eliot's merit as a poet.
There can be no doubt that the most popular novelist of my
time--probably the most popular English novelist of any time--has
been Charles Dickens. He has now been dead nearly six years, and the
sale of his books goes on as it did during his life. The certainty
with which his novels are found in every house--the familiarity of
his name in all English-speaking countries--the popularity of such
characters as Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, and Pecksniff, and many others
whose names have entered into the English language and become
well-known words--the grief of the country at his death, and the
honours paid to him at his funeral,--all testify to his popularity.
Since the last book he wrote himself, I doubt whether any book
has been so popular as his biography by John Forster. There is
no withstanding such testimony as this. Such evidence of popular
appreciation should go for very much, almost for everything,
in criticism on the work of a novelist. The primary object of a
novelist is to please; and this man's novels have been found more
pleasant than those of any other writer. It might of course be
objected to this, that though the books have pleased they have been
injurious, that their tendency has been immoral and their teaching
vicious; but it is almost needless to say that no such charge has
ever been made against Dickens. His teaching has ever been good.
From all which, there arises to the critic a question whether, with
such evidence against him as to the excellence of this writer, he
should not subordinate his own opinion to the collected opinion of
the world of readers. To me it almost seems that I must be wrong
to place Dickens after Thackeray and George Eliot, knowing as I do
that so great a majority put him above those authors.
My own peculiar idiosyncrasy in the matter forbids me to do so. I
do acknowledge that Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, and others have
become household words in every house, as though they were human
beings; but to my judgment they are not human beings, nor are any
of the characters human which Dickens has portrayed. It has been
the peculiarity and the marvel of this man's power, that he has
invested, his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense
with human nature. There is a drollery about them, in my estimation,
very much below the humour of Thackeray, but which has reached the
intellect of all; while Thackeray's humour has escaped the intellect
of many. Nor is the pathos of Dickens human. It is stagey and
melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart
a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery, his idiotcy,
his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone and
incompatible with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear.
Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens's novels are like
Boucicault's plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so
that all should see the colour.
He, too, in his best days, always lived with his characters;--and
he, too, as he gradually ceased to have the power of doing so,
ceased to charm. Though they are not human beings, we all remember
Mrs. Gamp and Pickwick. The Boffins and Veneerings do not, I think,
dwell in the minds of so many.
Of Dickens's style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky,
ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules--almost
as completely as that created by Carlyle. To readers who have taught
themselves to regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant. But
the critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticism, when
he acknowledges to himself--as he is compelled in all honesty to
do--that with the language, such as it is, the writer has satisfied
the great mass of the readers of his country. Both these great
writers have satisfied the readers of their own pages; but both
have done infinite harm by creating a school of imitators. No young
novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens. If such
a one wants a model for his language, let him take Thackeray.
Bulwer, or Lord Lytton,--but I think that he is still better known
by his earlier name,--was a man of very great parts. Better educated
than either of those I have named before him, he was always able to
use his erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very much
not only may be but must be learned by his readers. He thoroughly
understood the political status of his own country, a subject
on which, I think, Dickens was marvellously ignorant, and which
Thackeray had never studied. He had read extensively, and was always
apt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew. The result
has been that very much more than amusement may be obtained from
Bulwer's novels. There is also a brightness about them--the result
rather of thought than of imagination, of study and of care, than
of mere intellect--which has made many of them excellent in their
way. It is perhaps improper to class all his novels together, as