"I will sing you a new ballad" (he cries), "and I'll warrant it first-rate, Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate,
The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips and chains, With fine old English penalties and fine old English pains; With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins: For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains Of the fine old English Tory times; Soon may they come again!
The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, The good old times for hunting men who held their father's creed, The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed; Oh, the fine old English Tory times, When will they come again!
In those rare days the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark; Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. Oh, the fine old English Tory times, Soon may they come again!"
In a word, the difference between Dickens' and George Eliot's powers is here typified: Dickens tends toward the satiric or destructive view of the old times; George Eliot, with an even more burning intolerance of the essential evil, takes, on the other hand, the loving or constructive view. It is for this reason that George Eliot's work, as a whole, is so much finer than some of Dickens'. The great artist never can work in haste, never in malice, never in even the sub-acid satiric mood of Thackeray; in love, and love only, can great work, work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done; it is love, and love only, that is truly constructive in art.