O my God! I, standing here between the glory and dark,-- The glory of thy wrath projected forth From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress Which settles a step off in that drear world,-- Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen Only creation's sceptre,--thanking Thee That rather Thou hast cast me out with _her_ Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, With angel looks and angel songs around To show the absence of her eyes and voice, And make society full desertness Without her use in comfort! Because with _her_, I stand Upright, as far as can be in this fall, And look away from earth which doth convict, Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow Out of her love, and put the thought of her Around me, for an Eden full of birds, And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,-- Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides But overtops this grief!" XI. The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen had been appearing regularly each year. The _Scenes from Clerical Life_ had appeared in book form in 1858, _Adam Bede_ was printed in 1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, followed _Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. It is with the greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book without comment. In some particulars _Silas Marner_ is the most remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me straight to that pitiless _Pardoner's Tale_ of Chaucer in which gold is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's _Pardoner's Tale_ three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a dead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. They learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. "Because," says he,