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George Eliot: Romola

It has been claimed that George Eliot's highly trained mind suppressed the impulsive heart. She suffered from bodily ills most all her life, and but for her extraordinary mental health she could not have accomplished the amount of work that came from her brain and pen. Among the many books which she published were "Middlemarch," "Daniel Deronda," "The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and "Romola," which may be called a historical novel, a story which owes its power of attraction and its vitality to its superb presentation of the character of Tito Melema, who belongs, not to any one period, but to every generation. "Daniel Deronda," in spite of its distinction and its being so ably written, has never been a great favorite.

Some one has said that "Jane Austen despised the greater number of her characters, but George Eliot suffered with each of hers." She had a great accumulation of book knowledge, but this was opposed in many ways to the practical life led among all sorts and conditions of persons, so that at times some of the spontaneity of joy was lacking in her writings. But there were those full of pathos, as when she wrote of Maggie Tulliver in "The Mill on the Floss."

The death of Mr. Lewes, which occurred in 1878, was also the death-blow to her artistic vitality. She later married Mr. J. W. Cross, but she never really recovered from the shock of the loss of Mr. Lewes.

ROMOLA By GEORGE ELIOT Condensation by PROF. WILLIAM FENWICK HARRIS "ROMOLA mia," said the blind scholar, "thou wilt reach the needful volumes--thou knowest them--on the fifth shelf of the cabinet." Tito rose at the same moment with Romola, saying, "I will reach the, if you will point them out," and followed her hastily into the adjoining small room, where the walls were also covered with ranges of books in perfect order. "There they are," said Romola, pointing upward; "every book is just where it was when my father ceased to see them."

Tito stood by her without hastening to reach the books. They had never been in this room together before. "I hope," she continued, turning her eyes full on Tito with a look of grave confidence--"I hope he will not weary you; this work makes him so happy." "And me, too, Romola-if you will only let me say, I love you--if you will only think me worth loving a little."

His speech was the softest murmur, and the dark, beautiful face, nearer to hers than it had ever been before, was looking at her with beseeching tenderness. "I do love you," murmured Romola; she looked at him with the same simple majesty as ever, but her voice had never in her life before sunk to that murmur. It seemed to them both that they were looking at each other a long while before her lips moved again; yet it was but a moment till she said, "I know now what it is to be happy."

The faces just met, and the dark curls mingled for an instant with the rippling gold. Quick as lightning after that Tito set his foot on a projecting ledge of the bookshelves and reached down the needful volumes. They were both contented to be silent and separate, for that first blissful experience of mutual consciousness was all the more exquisite for being unperturbed by immediate sensation.

It had all been as rapid as the irreversible mingling of waters, for even the eager and jealous Bardo had not become impatient.

When they told her father, he wanted time for reflection. "Be patient, my children; you are very young." "No more could be said, and Romola's heart was perfectly satisfied. Not so Tito's. If the subtle mixture of good and evil prepares suffering for human truth and purity, there is also suffering prepared for the wrongdoer by the same mingled conditions. As Tito kissed Romola on their parting that evening the very strength of the thrill that moved his whole being at the sense that this woman, whose beauty it was hardly possible to think of as anything but the necessary consequence of her noble nature, loved him with all the tenderness that spoke in her clear eyes, brought a strong reaction of regret that he had not kept himself free from that first deceit which had dragged him into the danger of being disgraced before her. There was a sprig of bitterness mingled with that fountain of sweets."