Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/293

Rh she met, at Cologne, was Strauss. A miniature revolution had driven him from the career for which he was bred, and he was leading an indeterminate existence, without an occupation fitted for his powers, and without a home. Cologne irritated him by want of literature, and by the cathedral which a Protestant government was proceeding to complete, while those to whom it belonged had been content that it should stand for centuries a monument of profuse and miscalculating zeal. Theology made him sick, and fame did not console him, for he was tired of being called the author of his book, and was not yet reconciled to popularity among classes that could neither substitute precept for dogma nor ideas for facts. The meeting left no agreeable impression. In the life of George Eliot Strauss is an episode, not an epoch. She did not take him up to satisfy doubts or to complete an appointed course. These studies were carried no further, and she was not curious regarding the future of the famous school whose influence extended from Newman and Ritschl to Renan and Keim. But there is no writer on whom she bestowed so large a share of the incessant labour of her life. Two years spent in uncongenial contact with such a mind were an effectual lesson to a woman of twenty-six, unused to strict prosaic method, and averse from the material drudgery of research. She could learn from Strauss to distrust the royal road of cleverness and wit, to neglect no tedious detail, to write so that what is written shall withstand hostile scrutiny.

Five studious years followed, which strengthened the solid qualities of her mind. There had been much docility in complying with the nearest teaching and taking the line of least resistance. There was some risk of falling into worn channels, as men do who keep the colours of school and college, who read for agreement, and privately believe in some sage of Highgate or Westminster, Chelsea or Concord, as chance determines. George Eliot set herself earnestly to get out of the current, to be emancipated from the forces about her, and to secure the largest area of choice for guidance and instruction.