Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/27

 view we take of her art, we must recognise that she has added as many living personalities to the common acquaintance of English-speaking people as almost any other English novelist, and this after all is the final criterion. And in the difficult sphere of the aphorism, her works are more copiously studded with subtle truths aptly expressed than those of any novelist who has ever written in English. The enemy will say this has nothing to do with the novel: but the enemy can always complain of any form of art that it is not another, so we may let him sneer.

It has seemed worth while devoting some attention to the after-history of George Eliot's reputation, as so much of this volume happens already to be taken up by a consideration of George Eliot's art from various points of view, and I have here attempted to complete the survey. With the other authors considered, there is no occasion to deal in such detail, as their loss is so recent that any attempt to distinguish the permanent elements of their art would be impracticable.

I may add that I have found a difficulty in giving an appropriate name to these studies, so far as they are not reviews. 'Obituaries' of the authors they are not, for I do not profess to give any details of their lives, or even of their works. 'Necrologe' does not sound English, and besides savours of Woking. Éloge comes nearest, but that on the