Such, as portrayed by unquestionably the greatest fictionist of the
time--is it too much to say, the greatest genius of our English
nineteenth century?--is the nineteenth century St Theresa.
The question may be raised by some of George Eliot's readers whether it
constitutes the best and completest ethical teaching that fiction can
attain, to bring before its readers such high ideals of the possibilities
of humanity--of the aim and purpose of life toward which it should ever
aspire. Were the author's canvas occupied with such portraitures
alone--with Romolas and Fedalmas, Dinah Morrises and Dorothea Brookes,
Daniel Derondas and Adam Bedes, even Mr Tryans and Mr Gilfils--the
question might call for full discussion, and a contrast might be
unfavourably drawn between the author and him whose emphatic praise it is
that he "holds the mirror up to nature." But the great artist for all
time brings before us not only an Iago and an Edmund, an Angelo and an
Iachimo, a Regan and a Goneril, but a Miranda and an Imogen, an Isabella
and a Viola, a Cordelia and a Desdemona, with every conceivable
intermediate shade of human character and life; and in George Eliot we
have the same clearly-defined contrasts and endless variety.
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