PROFESSOR GIL&AI Cfl «£ORBE mOT."

Otago Witness, Issue 2311, 16 June 1898, Page 43

PROFESSOR GIL&AI Cfl «£ORBE mOT."

■ Professor Gilray delivered a lecture on " George Eliot " in- connection with the University Debating Society in the chemistry lecture room of the university on Friday before a good audience, Mr A. R. Barclay being in the chair. George Eliot, the lecturer said, was the most cultured, the most philosophical, and, in some departments, the most lp&rned of English novelists^ In substance and method hsr bocks were realistic, critical, and analytical. What gave her her peculiar position among English writers was that in two respects she was supreme. As a delineator of the life of the English Midlands she was absolutely unapproached. And in the region of the modern psychological novel, which aims at an elaborate study of character in a ruthlessly analytical fashion, she had bo rival. She had had, for a writer of fiction, an altogether unique influence on the thought of the Victorian era. It was no exaggeration to say that, in this respect, her only superiors were Carlyle and Darwin. She was deeply influenced by the scientific spirit of the age ; and no novelist was more thoroughly in sympathy with the most advanced of contemporary ideas. She was profoundly interested in tbe problems of our time, and was as much a moralist as a novelist. The greatest monument of her power was not so much any one book as the general intellectual strength characterising all her books. George Eliot, by her learning, genius, and philosophical ability, had proved, once for all, that no limits could be assigned to tbe capacities of women that did not also apply to men. Of all fcec works "Adamßede" was the most popular, "Silas Marner" was the most perfect and artistic, "Felix Holt," was the poorest, "Romola" was the most learned and impressive, and " Middlemarch" was the greatest, alike in itß epic breadth of treatment, its marvellous power and variety of characterisation, and its wonderful literary grace and perfection of execution. The real sphere of George Eliot was the English Midlands, and, as a picture of provincial England, " Middlemarch " was Nature herself. One of the first things that struck us in George Eliot's works was that she was a moralist quite as much aa, if not more than, she was an artist. All her worlrs had a strong didactic tendency, and her readers felt that she was burdened wilh a message, and that to please and amuse were quite secondary aims with her. No English novels had sach great psychological value as George Eliot's, none showed such keen scientific insight into the springs of human life and character. In oae respect she strongly resembled Wordsworth ; she was an interpreter of tbe homelier aspects of life and character, ! and revealed the poetry latent in ordinary incidents and everyday characters. George Eliot was realistic, and had a horror of sensationalism. The great triumph of George | Eliot was that she had invested homely eharac- ! ters and ordinary incidents with such a vivid j interest. The majority of her characters were presented with great vividness, and struck us by their lifelike reality. They were real individuals ; and George Eliot was not conteni | with giving us an account of their exteriors, and emphasising any peculiarities or eccentricities that might distinguish them. She made an elaborate study of their minds and motives, and presented them to us as distinct moral types. George Eliot showed extraordinary skill in creating appropriate surroundings for her characters, and she showed unusual genius in their grouping and in portraying their action and reaction on each other. Her characters were thoroughly human, and I she forced us to recognise, by the vividness of her portraiture, that they were complex moral organisms, not cleverly constructed puppets. We saw her characters in the actual process of growth. They were presented to us' as the products of heredity and early association, modified by the ceaseless play of the events that occurred' in later life. Her stories were deeply rooted in human experience. Ifc was the moral aspect of life that chiefly interested her. Life was viewed by George Eliot as essentially a moral struggle between good and evil. More than any other English novelist, she pierced below the surface and brought to view the deeplying roots of human joy and sorrow. She herself had said that her aim was "to disclose the tragedy which lies below the surface of commonplace lives." It wbb the remarkable keenness of her sympathy that made her such an admirable interpreter of the changes in human experience. She made us realise what philosophers called " the solidarity of the race," the destiny common to all human beings. No philosopher taught more clearly than George Eliot I that moral laws were as rigorous as physical i laws and that happiness and misery were intimately connected with the thoughts and emotions we habitually fostered. On the other hand, shs made every allowance for the influence of external circumstances { but she was careful to point out that external circumstances affected us only in so far as they related themselves to our actual moral state, and that the most powerful external forces with which we had to deal were blood relations and intimate friends. Jfc therefore followed that fa her. novel* the story

and incidents were quite secondary to the development of tbe moral characters of the actors ; and. ag a means of this development, she gave an altogether uausual prominence to dialogue. George Eliot looked at life as a moral conflict, aud r. eteuggle between selfish ple»sure-loving instincts, and. the instincts of duty and selfsaririfice. Hence the moral aspect of life was always • the most prominent one with her. In all her character studies she showed that new moral experience invariably modified character, and necessitated a readjustment of the character to its surroundings. A favourite theme with her was the necessity of adjustiug youthful ideals and aspirations to the stern realities of life. This sense of baffled aims and shattered idfials was the chief reason for the deep sadness of tone that characterised her books. George Eliot's arb then brought into protniaenoe th» tragic interest of the humblest lives, the far-reaching effects of seemingly insignificant actions ; and she was able to do this because she had herself and gave to her readers what she called "a large vision of relations." George Eliot w»«, above everything, an adept in psychological analysis. Ker, books, especially nor later ones, were full of scientific reflections on life and character. ' inasmuch as it was her capital artistic tenet thathum&n action was complex in its crigin3 as in its issues, it followed that she musfe, ia order to exhibit this complexity, lay <»;tch stress on subtle internal procusses ai preparation and rehearsal. •• Men, Uke p'anets," »he said in. " Daniel Detcuda," have both * visible and an invisible history." It was characteristic of George Eliot that she gave great prominence to the invisible history of her characters. . She did bo partly because without it the visible history was unintelligible, and partly on account of the deep interest,' begotten of sympathy, thai? human beings took in the thoughts and feelings of others. Her belief In the complexity of

j human action and in the powerful influence of i early associations was one reason for the [amount of_ scientific reflection on life »pd character found in her writings. Her studies of character "in her later books were dis-

tinguished by subtlety, penetration, precision, and some ot them,- it must be added, by great bitterness and relentless severity. As was proper in works of fiction, her teaching was indirect and implicit," so much so that moralises confessed that they could derive no theory of morals from her writings. She gave no definite moral rules for action, becauae she believed that the moral problem presented itself differently to every individual. According to George Eliot, one of the sources o!! fehe tragedy of life was that the moral problem presented a distinct puzzle to everyone, and must be solved individually or not at all. Works of art aimed at beauty ; works of instruction aimed at truth. George Eliot had managed to combine the two without ceasing to be artistic. So far as George Eliot was a subject of controversy among critics, it was mainly on account of her later works. All were agreed that the works of her first period were full ot freshness and charm, and were distinguished by literary genius of the highest order. While her earlier books owed their charm

to the exquisite pictures of English country life they contained, they owed their power and greatness, as tbe later ones did, to tbe author's knowledge of the human heart and deep insight into the workings of human passions. One secret of George Eliot's greatness was that she hr.d all the intellectual strength of a man of high genius united to the subtle insight of a singularly gifted woman. It was very rare to find iv one and the same person such a union

of speculative grasp and psychological insight with such remarkable power of creating real characters. In George Eliot, if in anyone, the abstract and the concrete, the objective and the subjective met and united. Her culture was unusually complete and solid, and embraced art, science, and philosophy, as well as literature proper. All the results of her untiring application were harmonised by her artistic instinot, and'fußed into a unity by her moral fervour. She was not the greatest of British

novelists but she ,waa ths greatest thinker, the most penetrating philosopher among English novelists. The leading thinkers of the time — such as Herbert Spencer — recog-

nised her as their intellectual equal. It was this peculiarity that made her novels unique 'and difficult to compare with other English novels. In their meditative, cultured, and Shakespearean way of looking at tho world, they had more affinity with Goethe's " Wilhelua Meister" than with any English novel. Her incisiveness as a thinker had attracted the attention of the best judges. It might even be maintained th&t the extent of her knowledge, the profundity of her culture, 'her moral earnestnef s, and sense of responsibility, to some extent, over-weighted her art. She was inferior as an artist to not a few authors whom she far surpassed as a thinker, teacher, and infcpirer of thought and moral ideals. The very width of her range, the very extent of her ambition, made it difficult for her to give artistic expression to all she wished to say, ' At the conclusion of the lecture, which was frequently applauded very warmly, Professor Gilcay was, on the motion of Mr J. Coliis, seconded by Mr W. Newxands, accorded a iieaity vote of thanks. During the evening Miss Bar.chop played a piano solo, and Mr P. B. H&ggitt contributed a song, both items being much appreciated. ,