Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/64

 to point out. Without going into the merits of the case, for which there are at present no trustworthy data, it is clear that to George Eliot the anti-social attitude which circumstances caused her to take up brought a complete revolution in her whole moral being, which was shaken to the depths. The modern novel is one of problem, not of action, and her own problematic position rendered her the more sensitive to the artistic side of this form of the novel.

These remarks may serve to illustrate a remarkable passage in the same essay from which the previous quotations were taken. George Eliot's theory of the function of the novel is there given, as well as her view of Dickens's art, which was developed by George Henry Lewes in the Fortnightly Review after Dickens's death. The whole passage deserves quotation:—

'The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies. Appeals founded on generalisations and statistics require a sympathy ready-made, a moral sentiment already in activity; but a picture of human life such as a great artist can give surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of