It was perfectly natural that George Eliot’s Teresa should fail; but the mistake of the author consists in making the failure come from without rather than from within—a mistake easily understood when it is borne in mind that the author has no firm faith, possibly none at all, in Christianity. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, all failed to make the world better, not because they may not have wished it, but because they had not the power. They were themselves uncertain of their schemes. Their highest flights, like those of the best of modern philosophers who possess no faith, never pass beyond intellectual excellence devoid of soul. They may daze the intellect, but they do not touch the soul; and the life of a man is never regulated by pure intellect. So they fail, whilst the ignorant fishermen, who lose their personality in God, move and convert the world.
In taking issue on these fundamental points with the author of Middlemarch, many of the subjects touched upon would require elaborate elucidation when read by those who are not of the Catholic faith. But space does not allow of this, and, therefore, it is to be understood that this article is supposed only to meet the eyes of persons fully acquainted at least with the Catholic manner of looking at things.
Dorothea Brooke fails in becoming a S. Teresa, as the author seems to consider she should have become, not because she has lighted on evil days and on a less congenial set than S. Teresa did, but because, in Catholic phrase, she had no vocation.
To find out what is meant by a vocation, let us anticipate, and turn a moment to Fleurange at that point in the heroine’s history where, having “tasted beforehand the bitter pleasures of sacrifice,” she retires heart-broken to the convent where she spent her youth, to find the rest and peace which seemed banished from the world after the voluntary sacrifice she had made of her affections.
“Mother Maddalena stood with her arms folded, and listened without interrupting her. Standing thus motionless in this place, at this evening hour, the noble outlines of her countenance and the long folds of her robe clearly defined against the blue mountains in the distance and the violet heavens above, she might easily have been mistaken for one of the visions of that country which have been depicted for us and all generations. The illusion would not have been dispelled by the aspect of her who, seated on the low wall of the terrace, was talking with her eyes raised, and with an expression and attitude perfectly adapted to one of those young saints often represented by the inspired artist before the divine and majestic form of the Mother of God.
“‘Well, my dear mother, what do you say?’ asked Fleurange, after waiting a long time, and seeing the Madre looking at her and gently shaking her head without any other reply.
“‘Before answering you,’ replied she at last, ‘let me ask this question: Do you think it allowable to consecrate one’s self to God in the religious life without a vocation?’
“‘Assuredly not.’
“‘And do you know what a vocation is?’ said she very slowly.
“Fleurange hesitated. ‘I thought I knew, but you ask in such a way as to make me feel now I do not.’