firstly, as the Editor's tribute to her genius on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of her birthday; and, secondly, as the answer of her devotees to a question sometimes put:
What is the position which George Eliot holds in the regard of the present generation of English readers? Does she continue to assert her sway as firmly and surely as do her two greatest companions in the hierarchy of Victorian fiction?
The reception given to the present volume will go some way towards determining this question. And as an anonymous critic recently said:
If George Eliot's spell has shown some signs of weakening in these latter days—as we regretfully believe to be the case—we must look for the cause to the fact that her genius, her method, and her habit of mind are undoubtedly, to some extent, antipathetic to the dominant spirit of the present time. Her strenuous earnestness of mind and purpose, her philosophical subtlety, and minutely elaborate analysis of character and motive are apt to make "hard reading" for a generation which is quickly bored with profundities of any sort, and in whose mental temperament there is little room for sympathetic understanding
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