George Eliot's poetry, and other studies (Essay index reprint series)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... OLD ROME AND NEW FRANCE. I. There is a notion of the Middle Ages which is common and which is false--a notion which looks upon them as ten centuries of starless midnight, wherein the world lay asleep--as good as dead. A tunnel of time, one thousand years long, through which humanity rumbled blindly in an emigrant train, the last sky-rockets of the Roman Empire flaring up at one end, the first sunbeams of the Renaissance shining in at the other--and no light between--the noaccount period of history. We are all liable to have notions until we get knowledge; but if any of us hold this one, it should be corrected before we enter upon medieval studies. It seems to me that this period is not suggestively named when called the Middle Ages, nor accurately named when called the Dark Ages, but that both suggestion and accuracy combine in that view which denominates it as a Twilight Age. That period which elapses before sunrise, that period which elapses after sunset, and all that interval between when moon and star ray forth their multitudinous lances of silver light, waging successful warfare with the cannonade of serried cloud--these periods we find indeed dim, but not wholly unlit; obscure, but not impenetrable. Such a night as this is that of the Middle Ages. The importance of acquaintance with this period is, by the ordinary student, greatly underestimated. Yet it is emphatically the seed-time of all that succeeds. The skilful florist, if he wishes to insure the germination of precious seed, casts it into pots of prepared earth, then sets these pots away in the brooding darkness of his hothouse, and there keeps them until the delicate sprout above the earth assures him that germination is well under way. Growth takes place in the night. He...