Essays from 'The Guardian'

hink (after a conscientious perusal on our own part) to bestow careful reading on Robert Elsmere. A chef d'oeuvre of that kind of quiet evolution of character throu

eloped a remarkable natural aptitude for literature by liberal reading and most patient care [56] in composition-composition in that narrower sense which is concerned with the building of a good sentence; as also in that wider sense, which ensures, in a work like this, with so many joi

ions of country life, or all quiet fun and genial caricature. Actually she has chosen to combine something of each of these with a very sincerely felt religious interest; and who will deny that to trace the influence of religion upon human character is one of the [57] legitimate functions of the novel? In truth, the modern "novel of character" needs some such interest, to lift it sufficiently above the humdrum of life; as men's horizons

oinings. They are composite of many different men we seem to have [58] known, and fancy we could detach again from the ensemble and from each other. And their goodness, when they are good, is-well! a little conventional; the kind of goodness that men themselves discount rather largely in their estimates of each other. Robert himself is certainly worth knowing-a really attractive union of manliness and saintliness, of shrewd sense and unworldly aims, and withal with that kindness and pity the absence o

burn! Yet where h

life?' Robert asked gently.

so good who thought himself of so little account. He always believed that he had missed everything, wasted everything, and that anybody else woul

gh her memory of her father had in it elements of almost intolerable pathos, as though the child's brooding love and loyalty were in perpetual protest even now after this lapse of years aga

gives the record

the piteous long-drawn breath by which the voice was broken-'in much-much perplexity about many thing

ough of, rejoiced to catch sight of her capital letter on the page, as we read on. In truth, if a high and ideal purpose, really learned in the school of Wordsworth and among the Westmorland hills which Mrs. Ward describes so sympathetically, with

short, [61] scudding steps, to implore them all to come to tea with her as soon as

m-oh, you will all write in my album, won't you? When I was young-when I was Maid of Honour'-and she drew herself up slightly-'everybody had albums. Even the dear Queen herself! I remember how she made M. Guizot write in it; something q

es on, from the happy resignation of the first volume (in which solemn, beautiful, and entire, and so very real, she is like a poem of Wordsworth) down to the mere passivity of the third volume, and the closing scene of Robert Elsmere's days, very exquisitely as this episode of unbelieving yet saintly biography has been conceived and executed. Catherine certainly, for one, has no profit in the development of Robe

culture have an unmistakable virility and grasp and scientific firmness. This indispensable intellectual process, which will be relished by admirers of George Eliot, is relieved constantly by the sense of a charming landscape background, for the most part English. Mrs. Ward has been a true disciple in the schoo

ht lay across its upper end, and he caught a marvellous apparition of a sunlit valley hung in air, a pale strip of blu

s the development of the proper ethical interests of the book. The Oxford episodes strike us as being not the author's strongest work, as being comparatively conventional, coming, as they do, in a book whose predominant note is reality. Yet her sympathetic command over, her power of evoking, the genius of places, is clearly shown in the touches by which she brings out the so well-known grey and green of college and garden-touches which bring the real Oxford to the mind's eye better than any elaborate description [65] -for the beauty of the place itself reside

istoric Christianity"; he gives up his orders; carries his learning, his fine intellect, his goodness, nay, his saintliness, into a kind of Unitarianism; the wife becomes more intolerant than ever; there is a long and faithful effort on both sides, eventually succ

se influences which make for faith. It is his triumph to achieve as much faith as possible in an age of negation. Doubtless, it is part of the ideal of the Anglican Church that, under certain safeguards, it should find room for latitudinarians even among its clergy. Still, with these, as [67] with all other genuine priests, it is the positive not the negative result that justifies the position. We have little patience with those liberal clergy who dwell on nothing else than the difficulties of faith and the propriety of concession to the opposite force. Yes! Robert Elsmere was certainly right in ceasing to be a clergyman.

also a moral duty to do this. But then there is also a large class of minds which cannot be sure it is false-minds of very various degrees of conscientiousness and intellectual power, up to the highest. They will think those who are quite sure it is false unp

od Christians, multitudes of worthy priests. They knit themselves to believers, in various degrees, of all ages. As against the purely negative action of the scientific spirit, the high-pitched Grey, the theistic Elsmere, the "ritualistic priest," th

ntific spirit, and which is for ever making the visible world fairer a

rship, where he preaches an admirable sermon on the purely human aspect of the life of Christ. But we think there would be very few such sermons in the new church or chapel, for the interest of that life could hardly be very varied, when al

in her third volume-in which she describes the final spiritual reunion, on a basis of honestly diverse opinion, of the husband and wife. Her view, we think, could hardly have been presented more attractiv

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