Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/100

women with whom George Eliot came in contact. Even the personal details of her own life had, for the most part, been discounted in the articles that appeared after her death. What we chiefly notice are some of her literary opinions and prejudices. Byron was the most vulgar-minded genius that ever lived, the Iliad is a semi-savage poem, Père Goriot a hateful book (i.e. has no Tendenz), the Origin of Species will not produce much effect because ill arranged, but expresses the adhesion of a well-known naturalist (this on the appearance of the book). Before the Vie de Jésus she felt more kinship with Renan than with any other contemporary writer, but afterwards she gives up her high estimate of Renan. At times we may see bits of the novels in the making. Overbeck at Rome clearly suggested Neumann in Middlemarch, Mr. Frederic Harrison seems to have suggested the Legend of Jubal and supplied the legal technicalities of Felix Holt. We may catch the origin of the opening scene of Deronda in the girl gambler described here (iii. 171). A sensible letter to Mrs. Beecher Stowe on spiritualism may be recommended to the notice of the Society for Psychical Research. Mr. Cross has given with admirable taste a few Boswellisms. His wife told him that Romola found her young and left her old. The interview between Dorothea and Rosamund was