How similar these two novelists must have been! Yet one of them was George Eliot and the other Dostoevsky.
It will be said that Dostoevsky had vision. Still, so had George Eliot. To classify them apart—and they must be parted—is not so easy. But the difference between them will define itself at once exactly if I read two passages from their works. To the classifier the passages will seem similar: to anyone who has an ear for song they come out of different worlds.
I will begin with a passage—fifty years ago it was a very famous passage—out of Adam Bede . Hetty is in prison, condemned to die for the murder of her illegitimate child. She will not confess, she is hard and impenitent. Dinah, the Methodist, comes to visit her and tries to touch her heart.
Dinah began to doubt whether Hetty was conscious who it was that sat beside her. But she felt the Divine presence more and more—nay, as if she herself were a part of it, and it was the Divine pity that was beating in her heart, and was willing the rescue of this helpless one. At last she was prompted to speak, and find out how far Hetty was conscious of the present. “Hetty,” she said gently, “do you know who it is that sits by your side?” “Yes,” Hetty answered slowly, “it’s Dinah.” Then, after a pause, she added, “But you can do nothing for me. You can’t make ’em do anything. They’ll hang me o’ Monday—it’s Friday now.” “But, Hetty, there is someone else in this cell besides me, someone close to you.” Hetty said, in a frightened whisper, “Who?”