childhood which gave us “Adam Bede” and “The Mill on the Floss";—­or once more, whether the crowded canvas injures the unity of the design, be these as they may, “Romola” strikes one as great in spots and as conveying a noble though somber truth, but does not carry us off our feet.  That is the blunt truth about it, major work as it is, with only half a dozen of its kind to equal it in all English literature.  It falls distinctly behind both “A Tale of Two Cities” and “Esmond.”  It is a book to admire, to praise in many particulars, to be impressed by:  but not quite to treasure as one treasures the story of the Tullivers.  It was written by George Eliot, famous novelist, who with that anxious, morbid conscience of hers, had to live up to her reputation, and who received $50,000 for the work, even to-day a large sum for a piece of fiction.  It was not written by a woman irresistibly impelled to self-expression, seized with the passionate desire to paint Life.  It is, in a sense, her first professional feat and performance.

Meanwhile, she was getting on in life:  we saw that she was seven and thirty when she wrote the “Clerical Scenes”:  it was almost a decade later when “Felix Holt, Radical” appeared, and she was nearing fifty.  I believe it to be helpful to draw a line between all her fiction before and after “Felix Holt,” placing that book somewhat uncertainly on the dividing line.  The four earlier novels stand for a period when there is a strong, or at least sufficient story interest, the proper amount of objectification:  to the second division belong “Middlemarch” and “Daniel Deronda,” where we feel that problem comes first and story second.  In the intermediate novel, “Felix Holt,” its excellent story places it with the first books, but its increased didactic tendency with the latest stories.  Why has “Felix Holt” been treated by the critics, as a rule, as of comparatively minor value?  It is very interesting, contains true characterization, much of picturesque and dramatic worth; it abounds in enjoyable first-hand observation of a period by-gone yet near enough to have been cognizant to the writer.  Her favorite types, too, are in it.  Holt, a study of the advanced workman of his day, is another Bede, mutatis mutandis, and quite as truly realized.  Both Mr. Lyon and his daughter are capitally drawn and the motive of the novel—­to teach Felix that he can be quite as true to his cause if he be less rough and eccentric in dress and deportment, is a good one handled with success.  To which may be added that the encircling theme of Mrs. Transome’s mystery, grips the attention from the start and there is pleasure when it is seen to involve Esther, leading her to make a choice which reveals that she has awakened to a truer valuation of life—­and of Felix.  With all these things in its favor, why has appreciation been so scant?