Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/48

 their artistic value as indicating a certain spiritual divergence of George Eliot from her readers. As a matter of fact, the intellectual or scientific element in the last two works did alienate her audience's sympathy, and thus frustrated the artist's function, to 'arrest, arouse, and excite.'

This scientific element comes to a head in Theophrastus Such. Instead of a new novel, George Eliot has given us some careful but unsympathetic analyses of certain phases of human character: admirable dissections, no doubt; but life has fled under the scalpel. Our emotions refuse to be moved by a description of Aliquis or Quispiam; and, what is more, the author herself fails to feel the artist's sympathy with her creations. The pathos of Merman's struggle against the errors of Grampus, in the section entitled 'How we encourage Research,' is nullified by a certain kindly contempt which finds expression in some rather Teutonic or 'cetacean' witticisms. And throughout there is a tendency to harshness in censure which is not to be found in the writer's more extended works. The whole book is devoted to the foibles and failings of man, and thus leaves an unpleasant feeling. The head, not the heart, has produced this book, the reader feels, and his heart fails to respond to pure intellect. It is worthy of note that most of the sketches