Yes, dearest, it is true.
Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken: even your loved words
Float in the larger meaning of your voice
As something dimmer."
I may say in general, that the author's admirers must have found in _The
Spanish Gypsy_ a presentment of her various special gifts stronger and
fuller, on the whole, than any to be found in her novels. Those who
valued her chiefly for her humour--the gentle humour which provokes a
smile, but deprecates a laugh--will recognise that delightful gift in
Blasco, and Lorenzo, and Roldan, and Juan,--slighter in quantity than in
her prose-writings, but quite equal, I think, in quality. Those who
prize most her descriptive powers will see them wondrously well embodied
in these pages. As for those who have felt compelled to declare that she
possesses the Shakespearian touch, they must consent, with what grace
they may, to be disappointed. I have never thought our author a great
dramatist, nor even a particularly dramatic writer. A real dramatist, I
imagine, could never have reconciled himself to the odd mixture of the
narrative and dramatic forms by which the present work is distinguished;
and that George Eliot's genius should have needed to work under these
conditions seems to me strong evidence of the partial and incomplete
character of her dramatic instincts. An English critic lately described
her, with much correctness, as a critic rather than a creator of
characters. She puts her figures into action very successfully, but on
the whole she thinks for them more than they think for themselves. She
thinks, however, to wonderfully good purpose. In none of her works are
there two more distinctly human representations than the characters of
Silva and Juan. The latter, indeed, if I am not mistaken, ranks with
Tito Melema and Hetty Sorrel, as one of her very best conceptions.
What is commonly called George Eliot's humour consists largely, I think,
in a certain tendency to epigram and compactness of utterance,--not the
short-clipped, biting, ironical epigram, but a form of statement in
which a liberal dose of truth is embraced in terms none the less
comprehensive for being very firm and vivid. Juan says of Zarca that
"He is one of those
Who steal the keys from snoring Destiny,
And make the prophets lie."
Zarca himself, speaking of "the steadfast mind, the undivided will to
seek the good," says most admirably,--
"'Tis that compels the elements, _and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air_."
When the Prior pronounces Fedalma's blood "unchristian as the
leopard's," Don Silva retorts with,--
"Unchristian as the Blessed Virgin's blood.
Before the angel spoke the word, 'All hail!'"
Zarca qualifies his daughter's wish to maintain her faith to her lover,
at the same time that she embraces her father's fortunes, as
"A woman's dream,--who thinks by smiling well
To ripen figs in frost."
This happy brevity of expression is frequently revealed in those rich
descriptive passages and touches in which the work abounds. Some of the
lines taken singly are excellent:--
"And bells make Catholic the trembling air";
and,
"Sad as the twilight, all his clothes ill-girt";
and again
"Mournful professor of high drollery."