Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/94

 single man, or woman, who has not more or less need of that stoical resignation which is often a hidden heroism, or who, in considering his or her past history, is not aware that it has been cruelly affected by the ignorant or selfish action of some fellow-being in a more or less close relation of life. And to my mind, there can be no stronger motive, than this perception, to an energetic effort that the lives nearest to us shall not suffer in a like manner from us.'

It is impossible to say with what success she would have handled these views in the connected exposition of a philosophical work. As all the world now knows, she chose to expound them in the form of fiction, and determined to make the novel what history is said to be—philosophy teaching by example. At first she was not conscious of any such aim. When the Scenes were completed she felt only 'a deep satisfaction in having done a piece of faithful work that will perhaps remain like a primrose root in the hedgerow and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to come.' Nor is there any hint of conscious motive in Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, her two greatest works. But immediately after the great success of Adam Bede the sense of her responsibilities settled upon her with only too heavy pressure. She feels it her 'vocation to