Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/76

 effects of that unhappy inheritance continue to spread beyond our calculation. This is only one example of the law by which human lives are linked together: another example of what we complain of when we point to our pauperism, to the brutal ignorance of multitudes among our fellow-countrymen, to the weight of taxation laid on us by blameable wars, to the wasteful channels made for the public money, to the expense and trouble of getting justice, and call these the effects of bad rule. This is the law that we all bear the yoke of, the law of no man's making, and which no man can undo.'

But such passages are few and far between, and the general impression is left, how much the hack-work of genius resembles that of ordinary mortals. And though not all signs of genius are wanting, these articles are essentially unfinished studies and give no foreshadowing of the finished product. Their interest is purely relative to the light they throw on George Eliot's mental development.