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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
so she had exhausted her strength and was not sure of her conclusions. Like Amos Barton she could think herself strong but not feel herself so.
Thus George Eliot, living in a period of change and upheaval, represents the conflict. By her antecedents and early surroundings she is joined by the bonds of love to her countrymen, by her intellectual development she is linked to the democratic, active spirit of her mature age. Her innate love of truth, her fearless avowal of it, and her contempt for dogmatism, are common attributes of her contemporaries. By her capability for deep emotion, and by her lingering affection for the old, she more truly represents her countrymen than more skeptical thinkers do. Like the mass of the people through all the conflict she held latent in her the capability of evolving a new religion. In her faith in the truth of feeling she foreshadows the present era, which would guide, not repress emotion by reason. If she had lived after the struggle of opinions were over, and a new 7 peace and joy were lighting the world with promise, we know not how much more perfect her life and philosophy w'ould have been.