Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/20

 to utter this, our pleasure would have been perfect; but, as it is, what is before us is almost too good, and yet it is not good enough; it does not compel us to think, le poëte a le frisson, either while we read or afterwards. There is too much aggregation and accumulation about it; we are set thinking, and set feeling; we are agitated; but we are not thrilled by any single sudden notes. Lastly, or all but lastly, some of the frequent touches of humorous detail are fatal:—

This, and all this kind of thing, is gravely wrong in a poem. In some cases the phraseology has this species of modern familiarity and curtness; in others, the equally distinguishable largo of the modern philosophic manner, while what is supremely needed, namely, finish, is what we in vain go longing for.

Finally, the intellectual groundwork, or outline, of the poem shows far too plainly under the coloring of passion and the movement of the story. Since "Silas Marner" we have had no book from George Eliot to which this criticism would not, in some degree, be applicable. There is not room here for any exhibition of all the recurring ideas of George Eliot's writings, but one in particular has been growing more and more prominent since "Silas Marner," and of which the first hint is in "The Mill on the Floss." "If the past is not to bind us," said Maggie Tulliver, in answer to the importunities of Stephen Guest, "what is?" In a noticeable and well-remembered review of Mr. Lecky's "History of Rationalism," George Eliot told us that the best part of our lives was made up of organized traditions (I quote from memory, but the meaning was plain). Putting these two things together, we get the intellectual ground-plan of "The Spanish Gypsy." Perhaps the illustrious author of the poem would resent the idea that any moral was intended to be conveyed