Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/82

 probably as acute as Carlyle's. Before she is nineteen we hear of sick-headaches, and these follow any unusual exertion throughout life. Her gentle heroism under this infliction contrasts favourably with Carlyle's apostrophes to gods and men on the ills of dyspepsia.

Of equal interest is it in this first volume to follow the rapid growth of George Eliot's intellectual power. Very few details are given here of the actual character of her studies in early days. But here and there her thirst for knowledge makes itself seen even in the days of Calvinistic strictness. At times we catch glimpses of the artistic preparation. A world of her own creation is referred to opprobriously, and her imagination is her enemy in the days when all fiction was pernicious, as is stated in one of the first letters to Miss Lewis—an amusing bit of irony, in the old Greek sense. Very soon the tendency to scientific illustration comes, and the following passage shows the power of description as early as 1841:—

'The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit.'