regard her books afford a most interesting contrast to those of the two other great women who have adorned English literature with their genius.  The lot of Mrs. Browning and Charlotte Bronte was much sadder and more depressing than that of George Eliot; more of darkness and pain affected their lives.  A subtle tone of sadness runs through their books, but it is not burdensome and depressing as is the case of George Eliot.  There is hope with it, and a buoyant faith in the good, which lies above and beyond all pain and sorrow.  With neither of them was this faith conventional, a mere reflection of the religion taught them in childhood.  It was a thoughtful result of a large experience, and of hard contact with many of the severest facts of human experience.  That wide horizon of spiritual reality which shone for them on every hand, lights all their work with a brilliance which almost puts out of sight the pain and sorrow of the world.  The reader of their books is made to believe that life is an endless good; he is cheered and made stronger for what life offers him.

Agnosticism may have its great and heroic incentives, it may impel men to a nobler activity, but its literary effect, as a motive towards a more inspiring life, has not been satisfactory in the hands of George Eliot.  Shakspere is not a teacher of philosophy or ethics, he has no doctrines to preach, no theories to advocate.  What he believed, it would be difficult to ascertain from his writings; yet he is an effective teacher of morals, he stimulates into activity all that is best in man, life widens and deepens under the touch of his genius.  So is it with Milton, Schiller, Moliere, Calderon, Montaigne and Wordsworth.  So is it with George Eliot in all that concerns our duties, and even with our human sympathies.  In the one direction of trust she is wanting, and her books are devoid of it.  Shakspere makes us realize that God rules over the world; George Eliot leaves us with the feeling that we know nothing, and can hope for but little.  That her theories really cast a shadow over the world, may be seen in all her dealings with love.  Love is with her a human passion, deep, pure, blessed.  It crowns some of her characters with joy and peace and strength; it is never impure and base in her pages.  Yet it is human, it is a social force, it is to be made altruistic.  It never gains that high poetic influence and charm which glorifies it in the writings of Mrs. Browning, Browning and Tennyson.  Browning conceives of it as an eternal passion, as one with all that is divinest in man, as a medium of his spiritual development.  In his pages it glows with moral promise, it inspires and regenerates.  The poet should deal with love, not as a thing base and susceptible of abuse, but as an influence capable of the most beneficent results in the uplifting of man’s nature.  If it degrades, it also sweetens; and only that is love which makes life richer and more worthy.  The true artist can afford to deal with that which pleases, not with that which saddens and disgusts.  The real love is the pure love, not the depraved.  The natural is the noble, not the debased life.