EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES. 87 



intellectual product. He was sometimes pathetic when 

 he did not know it ; when he wished to be pathetic and 

 passionate he was theatrical and affected. He was 

 unceasingly active, often indeed actually fussy, 

 given to detail, fitful and self-willed. At Gad's Hill 

 he ran a tunnel under the highway to a plot of land on 

 which he erected a Swiss chalet. His incessant 

 changes there, his additions and demolitions, his con- 

 structions and reconstructions were a standing joke 

 among his friends. When completely worn out his 

 method of resting was to take up private theatricals 

 and be at once stage-manager, carpenter, property- 

 man, prompter, and chief actor. Costumes, too, and 

 scenes nay, even the band and the play-bills were 

 under his direct control. 



Few poets, and fewer historians have come near our 

 leading novelists in the recognition and delineation of 

 character: among these George Eliot stands perhaps 

 without a rival. Her writings are a rich mine of material 

 for the student of the psychology and physiology of 

 character : this, I believe, is the opinion of no less an 

 authority than Mr. Herbert Spencer. It is well known 

 that the two families and the two groups of characters in 

 "The Mill on the Floss" were drawn from life with which 

 the author was in familiar contact. The individuals of 

 the Dodson family, though not by any means alike, have 

 a character which is vital, homogeneous, and consistent. 

 It is so also with the entirely different Tulliver family. 

 Ruskin tells us that George Eliot's men and women are 

 the scourings of a Whitechapel omnibus. They are not 

 that, although in the work under discussion, they 

 are not possessed of the gentlest manners or 

 the most cultivated tastes. They are not even, 

 with perhaps one exception, pleasing examples 



