As a work of art, the most serious defect in The Spanish Gypsy is its doctrinal tone.  It is speculative in its purpose quite as much as poetical, and the speculation is so large an element as to intrude upon the poetry.  Thought overtops imagination, the fervor and enthusiasm of the poet are more than matched by the ethical aims of the teacher.  This ethical purpose of unfolding in a dramatic form the author’s theories of life has filled the book, as it has her novels, with epigrams which are original, splendid and instructive.  Into a few lines she condenses some piece of wisdom, and in words full of meaning and purpose.  Into the mouth of Sephardo, a character distinctive and noteworthy, she puts some of her choicest wisdom.  He says,—­

                        Thought

Has joys apart, even in blackest woe,
And seizing some fine thread of verity
Knows momentary godhead.

Again he utters the same idea, but in more expressive words.

Our growing thought
Makes growing revelation.

Don Silva is made to use this highly poetic imagery.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken.

Zarca, that truest and most original character in the poem, says of the great work he purposes to accomplish,

                      To my inward vision
  Things are achieved when they are well begun.

Again, he says,—­

New thoughts are urgent as the growth of wings.

Expressive and original as The Spanish Gypsy is, yet it gives the impression of lacking in some poetic quality which is necessary to the highest results.  Difficult as it may be to define precisely what it is that is wanting, nearly every reader will feel that something which makes poetry has been somehow left out.  Is it imagination, or is it a flexible poetic expression, which is absent?  While George Eliot has imagination enough to make a charming prose style, and to adorn her prose with great beauty and an impressive manner, yet its finer quality of subtle expression is not to be found in her poetry.  Those original and striking shades of meaning which the poet employs by using words in unique relations, she does not often attain to.  It is the thought, the ethical meaning, in her poetry as in her prose, which is often of more importance than the manner of expression; and she is too intent on what is said to give full heed always to how it is said.  She has, however, employed that form of verse which is best suited to her style, and one which does not demand those lyrical or those imaginative qualities in which she is deficient.  The blank verse is well adapted to her realism, though it does not always answer well to the more dramatic and tragical and impassioned portions of the story.