... f, IIF Ar cd 0. —.4:;;;.4.0, A4.-. ou e tw:L, I,. 4 l-, 0* f, -..r - ri N- -A -kP.C - - - - - - - - - - THEFE (iXFT OIF Prof. ie-revvard T. Pri'ce ~T T7 . 6 '. -. f I i I I #i - - i I- I. I i.. 4'. WISE, WITTY, AND TENDER SAYINGS ' A wordfily spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." " Wise books For half the truths they hold are honoured tombs." yWISE, WITTY, AND TENDER SAYINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE SELECTED FROM THE WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT BY ALEXANDER MAIN j SECOND EDITION WITH SUPPLEMENTARY SAYINGS FROM 'MIDDLEMARCH' WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXV PI. I I TO GEORGE ELIOT IN RECOGNITION OF A GENIUS AS ORIGINAL AS IT IS PROFOUND AND A MORALITY AS PURE AS IT IS - IMPASSIONED j PRE F ACE. THIS is not the place in which to attempt to give an exposition of George Eliot's genius, or an analysis of any of her works. But it may be allowed me to say, that I think I only express the ripest fruit of sound critical inquiry when I affirm, that what Shakespeare did for the Drama, George Eliot has been, and still is, doing for the Novel. By those who know her works really well, this branch of literature can never again be regarded as mere story-telling, and the reading of it as only a pastime. George Eliot has magnified her office and made it honourable; she has for ever sanctified the Novel by making it the vehicle of the grandest and most uncompromising moral truth. In employing such language as this, I would not be supposed to x Pr-eface. undervalue the writings of other novelists, even as regards high moral teaching; yet I use it advisedly, as indicating my own decided preference and the reason of it. Nor is it only as a novelist that George Eliot has claims upon our closest attention and our deepest regard; it is not in this field alone that she has acquitted herself with such mastery. 'The Legend of Jubal,' 'Armgart,' and 'The Spanish Gypsy,' so massive in structure, so lofty in tone, so rich in thought, fairly entitle their author to a foremost place in the ranks of British poets. Viewed either as an artist or as a teacher, or as both, and whether speaking through poetry or through prose, it seems to be admitted on all hands that George Eliot's position among modern authors is equally distinguished and secure. But, in addition to those grand central truths which her 'works, taken as a whole, can alone be said to embody, I had long observed (in common, I trust, with thousands of others) that there is to be found, on almost every page of her writings, some wise thought finely expressed, some beautiful sentiment tenderly clothed, some pointed Preface. xi witticism exquisitely turned, or some little bit of humour genially exhibited. And the idea at last occurred to me, that it might be well to set about collecting as many as possible of these within the compass of a volume. The result is now before the reader. Although well aware that no one ever dreams of reading a book of extracts right through, be it big or little, and however good, I am not without hopes that the Character-Classification which has been here adopted may render it quite a pleasant thing to peruse large portions of the work at a sitting. At the same time, my chief endeavour has been to make the volume such, that open it wherever he may, the reader may light upon something which is either wise, or witty, or tender, or humorous. If this endeavour has been attended with any measure of success I have my reward. A classification of subjects was found to be out of the question; yet, in arranging the extracts, a sort of method has been pursued, which, although it is impossible to explain it here, may probably make itself felt as the book is being read. On the whole, however, my own xii Preface. labour in connection with the volume has been very trifling, and altogether pleasant. What of wealth it contains is drawn entirely from George Eliot's treasury; what of light there is in it streams from her alone as its source. > It is scarcely necessary to add, that this little work by no means professes to have drained George Eliot's writings of the riches with which they so abound. Of course, only a sample could be given here; for a full supply the reader is referred to the novels and poems themselves, with the assurance (on the part of one who has made them a close study for years) that that supply would seem to be actually without a limit. A. M. TABLE OF CONTENTS. |-art first. SA YINGS FROM 'SCENAES OF CLERICAL LIFE.' 'AMOS BARTON.' Speaker-s. Page George Eliot (in propria persona),... 3 Various Characters,.... 8 'MR. GILFIL'S LOVE-STORY.' George Eliot (in propria persona),... 9 Various Characters,.. 4 'JANET'S REPENTANCE.' George Eliot (in proria persona),. 15. I 5 Various Characters,... 3~ xiv Table of Contents, 9art cnca n, SA }'INGS FROMA 'ADAM k BEDE.' Speakers. Page George Eliot (in propria persona),... 35 Adam Bede,.... 63 Mrs. Poyser,... 71 Dinah Morris,.. So Bartle Massey,.. 85 Parson Irwine,... 90 Various Characters,... 92 vatt Thirb. SA YINGS FROM ' THE MILL OA THE FLOSS.' George Eliot (in propria persona),... 99 Bob Jakin,..... 134 Maggie Tulliver,... I38 Mr. Deane,..... 43 Mr. Tulliver,..... 145 Philip Wakern,.... 148 Various Characters,.... 150 Table of Contents. xv t art fourth. SA YILGS FR'OMl ' SILAS MIARA7ER.' Speakers. Page George Eliot (in propria persona),.. 55 Dolly Winthrop,.... 67 Priscilla Lammeter, 171. 17 Mr. Macey,.... 73 Various Characters,... 175 -0 --atrt iftfh. SA YINGS FROM i 'ROMOLA.' George Eliot (in opriop;a pers-ona),. 183 Nello,...... 205 Bratti,...... 208 Macchiavelli,.... 208 Romola,...... 210 Bardo,...... 212 Tito,..... 213 Bernardo,...... 214 Savonarola,..... 215 Caparra,...... 218 Cosimo,..... 219 Various Characters,.. 220 xvi Table of Contents. O art $ixth. SA YiVAGS FROM 'FELIX HOLT.? Speakeirs. Page George Eliot (in priopria persona),... 225 Felix Holt,... 250 Rufus Lyon,.,263 Mrs Holt,.. 270 Denner... 272 Various Characters,. 274 -0 -a rt cSeb ntIt. SA YIATGS FROM ' MIDDLEM rAR CH.' George Eliot (in propria persona),. 285 Mr Brooke,.... 325 Dorothea Brooke,....328 Dorothea and Ladislaw,... 332 Mr Farebrother, 336 Mary Garth,.... 338 Caleb Garth,... 341 Mrs Cadwallader,... 344 Mr Vincy,... 350 Mr Trumbull,.. 350 Dr Lydgate,. ~ ~ ~ 354 Various Characters, 356 Table of Contents. xvii * sart eighth. SAYINGS FROSM ' THE SPANISH GYPSY' AND O THER POEMS. 'THE SPANISH GYPSY.' Speakers. Page George Eliot (isn propria parsona),. 371 Fedalma,.... 380 Juan,. 388 Zarca,.. 391 Don Silva,.. 397 Sephardo,... 400 Various Characters,.... 404 'THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.' George Eliot (in p;ropiria persona),... 407 ' ARMGART.' Various Characters, 412 I I I PART FIRST. SAYINGS FROM 'SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.' I b I I I AMOS BARTON. George Eliot (in protria persona). IN every parting there is an image of death. -0 -0 the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know! -0 -Love is frightened. at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish. -0 -The Rev. Amos Barton was one of those men who have a decided will and opinion of their own; he held himself bolt upright, and had no self-distrust. He would march very determinedly along the road he 3 4 George Eliot (in propria persona). thought best; but then it was wonderfully easy to convince him which was the best road. And so a very little unwonted reading and unwonted discussion made him see that an Episcopalian Establishment was much more than unobjectionable, and on many bther points he began to feel that he held opinions a little too far-sighted and profound to be crudely and suddenly communicated to ordinary minds. He was like an onion that has been rubbed with spices; the strong original odour was blended with something new and foreign. The Low-Church onion still offended refined High-Church nostrils, and the new spice was unwelcome to the palate of the genuine onion-eater. -0 -What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. -0 --- Nothing in the world more suited to the simple understanding than instruction through familiar types and symbols! But there is always this danger attending it, that the interest or comprehension of your hearers may stop short precisely at the point where your spiritual interpretation begins. -0 -A tallow dip, of the long-eight description, is an excellent thing in the kitchen candlestick, and Betty's nose and eye are not sensitive to the difference between it and the finest wax; it is only when you stick George Eliot (iz propria persona). 5 it in the silver candlestick, and introduce it into the drawing-room, that it seems plebeian, dim, and ineffectual. Alas for the worthy man who, like that candle, gets himself into the wrong place! It is only the very largest souls who will be able to appreciate and pity him-who will discern and love sincerity of purpose amid all the bungling feebleness of achievement. -oNice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. o — At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people-many of them-bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; 6 George Eliot (in propria persona). they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance-in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share? Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. -0 -I have all my life had a sympathy for mongrel ungainly dogs, who are nobody's pets; and I would rather surprise one of them by a pat and a pleasant morsel, than meet the condescending advances of the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by my lady's chair. That, to be sure, is not the way of the world: if it happens to see a fellow of fine proportions and aristocratic mien, who makes no faux _has, and wins golden opinions from all sorts of men, it straightway picks out for him the loveliest of unmarried women, and says, zThere would be a proper match! Not at all, say I: let that successful, well-shapen, discreet and able gentleman put up with something less than the best in the matrimonial department; and let the sweet woman go to make sunshine and a soft pillow for the poor devil whose legs are not models, whose efforts are often blunders, and who in general gets more kicks than halfpence. George Eliot (in propria persona). 7 What mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence! The very capacity for good would go out of us. For, tell the most impassioned orator, suddenly, that his wig is awry, or his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tickling people by the oddity of his person, instead of thrilling them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be wrought without faith-without the worker's faith in himself, as well as the recipient's faith in him. And the greater part of the worker's faith in himself is made up of the faith that others believe in him. Let me be persuaded that my neighbour Jenkins considers me a blockhead, and I shall never shine in conversation with him any more. Let me discover that the lovely Phoebe thinks my squint intolerable, and I shall never be able to fix her blandly with my 'disengaged eye again. Thank heaven, then, that a little illusion is left to us, to enable us to be useful and agreeable-that we don't know exactly what our friends think of us-that the world is not made of looking-glass, to show us just the figure we are making, and just what is going on behind our backs! By the help of dear friendly illusion, we are able to dream that we are charmingand our faces wear a becoming air of self-possession; we are able to dream that other men admire our 0 0 Various Characters. talents-and our benignity is undisturbed; we are able to dream that we are doing much good-and we do a little. Mr. Hackit.-I never saw the like to parsons; they 're al'ys for - meddling with business, an' they know no more about it than my black filly. Mr. Bond.-Ah, they're too high learnt to have much common-sense. Mr. Hackif.-Well, I should say that's a bad sort of eddication as makes folks unreasonable. -0 -They say a green Yule makes a fat churchyard; but so does a white Yule too, for that matter. When the stool's rotten enough, no matter who sits on it.Mrs. Hackit. END OF 'AMOS BARTON.' MR. GILFIL'S LOVE-STORY. George Eliot (in propria persona). IT is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is withered. -oAlas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes-there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fulness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old. woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken rem9 Io George Eliot (in propria persona). nant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight. -0 -Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais. -0 -The inexorable ticking of the clock is like tle throb of pain to sensations made keen by a sickening fear. And so it is with the great clockwork of nature. Daisies and buttercups give way to the brown waving grasses, tinged with the warm red sorrel; the waving grasses are swept away, and the meadows lie like emeralds set in the bushy hedgerows; the tawnytipped corn begins to bow with the weight of the full ear; the reapers are bending amongst it, and it soon stands in sheaves; then, presently the patches of yellow stubble lie side by side with streaks of dark-red earth, which the plough is turning up in preparation for the new-thrashed seed. And this passage from beauty to beauty, which to the happy is like the flow George Eliot (in propria persona). II of a melody, measures for many a human heart the approach of foreseen anguish-seems hurrying on the moment when the shadow of dread will be followed up by the reality of despair. -oWhile this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening onward. The astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were labouring over the waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our little Tina and her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering life in the water-drop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty. -oAll earthly things have their lull: even on nights when the most unappeasable wind is raging, there will be a moment of stillness before it crashes among the boughs again, and storms against the windows, and howls like a thousand lost demons through the keyholes. 12 George Eliot (in propria persona). A mother, dreads no memories-those shadows have all melted away in the dawn of baby's smile. -0 -Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to jong affection, love is at its spring-tide. -0 -The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us. -0 -A passionate woman's love is always overshadowed by fear. -oIn the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee. -0 -The delicate-tendrilled plant must have something to cling to. -0 -Human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow. -oTo minds on the Shepperton level it is repetition, not novelty, that produces the strongest effect; and phrases, like tunes, are a long time making themselves at home in the brain. George Eliot (in propria persona). I3 'Ignorance,' says Ajax, 'is a painless evil;' so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it. -0 -Animals are such agreeable friends-they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. -0 -A proud woman who has learned to submit, carries all her pride to the reinforcement of her submission, and looks down with severe superiority on all feminine assumption as 'unbecoming.' -0 -With the poisoned garment upon him, the victim writhes under the torture-he has no thought of the coming death. -oThere are few of us that are not rather ashamed of our sins and follies as we look out on the blessed morning sunlight, which comes to us like a brightwinged angel beckoning us to quit the old path of vanity that stretches its dreary length behind us. -0 -It is a wonderful moment, the first time we stand by one who has fainted, and witness the fresh birth of consciousness spreading itself over the blank features, like the rising sunlight on the alpine summits that lay ghastly and dead under the leaden twilight. A slight shudder, anrd the frost-bound eyes recover their liquid light; for an instant they show the inward semi-consciousness of an infant's; then, with a little start, they open wider and begin to look; the present is visible, 14 Various Characters. but only as a strange writing, and the interpreter Memory is not yet there. We have all our secret sins; and if we knew ourselves, we should not judge each other harshly.-Mr. Gilfl. -0 -Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better than we are. And God sees us as we are altogether, not in separate feelings or actions, as our fellow-men see us. We are always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or worse of each other than we deserve, because we only hear and see separate words and actions. We don't see each other's whole nature.-Mr. Gilfil. -0 -Wrong makes wrong. When people use us ill, we can hardly help having ill feeling towards them. But that second wrong is more excusable.-Mr. Gilfil. -0 — We can hardly learn humility and tenderness enough except by suffering. —Mr. Gifil. -0 -Th` yoong men noo-a-deys, the're poor squashy things-the' looke well anoof, but the' woon't wear, the' woon't wear.-' Mester' Ford. END OF ' MR. GILFIL'S LOVE-STORY.' JANET'S REPENTANCE. George Eliot (in propria persona). THE golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. -0 ---Always there is seed being sown silently and unseen, and everywhere there come sweet flowers without our foresight or labour. We reap what we sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit that spring from no planting of ours. -0 -In the man whose childhood has known caresses there is always a fibre of memory that can be touched to gentle issues. -0 -There is a power in the direct glance of a sincere and loving human soul, which will do more to dissipate prejudice and kindle charity than the most elaborate arguments. t6 George Eliot (in propria persona). The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity. -oThere is an unspeakable blending of sadness and sweetness in the smile of a face sharpened and paled by slow consumption. -oWorldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night. -oThe wrong thlt rouses our angry passions finds only a medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have suffered. --- There are moments when by some strange impulse we contradict our past selves-fatal moments, when a fit of passion, like a lava stream, lays low the work of half our lives. -oThe seeds of things are very small: the hours that lie between sunrise and the gloom, of midnight are travelled through by tiniest markings of the clock. 0 — Our habitual life is like a wall hung with pictures, which has been shone on by the suns of many years: take one of the pictures away, and it leaves a definite George Eliot (in propria persona). 17 blank space, to which our eyes can never turn without a sensation of discomfort. Nay, the involuntary loss of any familiar object almost always brings a chill as from an evil omen; it seems to be the first fingershadow of advancing death. -0 -In those distant days, as in all other times and places where the mental atmosphere is changing, and men are inhaling the stimulus of new ideas, folly often mistook itself for wisdom, ignorance gave itself airs of knowledge, and selfishness, turning its eyes upward, called itself religion. -oReligious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them wofully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable. -0 -Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution: a self-obtrusive, overhasty reformer complacently disclaiming all merit, while his friends call him a martyr, has not in reality a career the most arduous to the fleshly mind. -0 -The strong emotions from which the life of a human being receives a new bias, win their victory as the sea wins his: though their advance may be sure, they will often, after a mightier wave than usual, seem to roll back so far as to lose all the ground they had made. B 18 George Eliot (in propria persona). Nemesis is lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch. ------ What scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when colour has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene is commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene gladness, and brightens all things with its own joy? -0 -When we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom; we think even the noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping up our change. -0 -It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man's death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too-as if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey. -0 -Mighty is the force of motherhood! says the great tragic poet to us across the ages, finding, as usual, the simplest words for the sublimest fact-SEw vo T rtKreLV George Eliot (in propria persona). I9 E'rlV. It transforms all things by its vital heat: it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love. -0 -The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence. -0 -It is because sympathy is but a living again through our own past in a new form, that confession often prompts a response of confession. -0 -The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good. -0 -Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another! Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden process by which the tiny seed is quickened, and 20 George Eliot (in propria personza). bursts forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower. Ideas are often poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us in thin vapour, and cannot make themselves felt. But sometimes they are made flesh; they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at us with sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame. -0 -Surely, surely the only true knowledge of our fellowman is that which enables us to feel with him-which gives us a fine ear for the heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion. Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must miss the essential truth, unless it be lit up by the love that sees in all forms of human thought and work, the lifeand-death struggles of separate human beings. 0 -Do not philosophic doctors tell us that we are unable to discern so much as a tree, except by an unconscious cunning which combines many past and separate sensations; that no one sense is independent of another, so that in the dark we can hardly taste a fricassee, or tell whether our pipe is alight or not, and the most intelligent boy, if accommodated with claws br hoofs instead of fingers, would be ikely to remain on the lowest form? If so, it is easy to understand George Eliot (in propria persona). 2 1 that our discernment of men's motives must depend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own susceptibility and our own experience. See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve filaments, which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the invisible world of human sensations. -0 -Those stirrings of the more kindly, healthy sap of human feeling, by which goodness tries to get the upper hand in us whenever it seems to have the slightest chance-on Sunday mornings, perhaps, when we are set free from the grinding hurry of the week, and take the little three-year-old on our knee at breakfast to share our egg and muffin; in moments of trouble, when death visits our roof, or illness makes us dependent on the tending hand of a slighted wife; in quiet talks with an aged mother, of the days when we stood at her knee with our first picture-book, or wrote her loving letters from school. -0 -o While we are coldly discussing a man's career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labelling his opinions-' Evangelical and narrow,' or 'Latitudinarian and Pantheistic,' or 'Anglican and supercilious'-that man, in his solitude, is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one, because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult word, and do the difficult deed. 22 George Eliot (in propria persona). The strongest heart will faint sometimes under the feeling that enemies are bitter, and that friends only know half its sorrows. The most resolute soul will now and then cast back a yearning look in treading the rough mountain-path, away from the greensward and laughing voices of the valley. -0 — When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst. -0 -Oh, it is piteous-that sorrow of aged women! In early youth, perhaps, they said to themselves, 'I shall be happy when I have a husband to love me best of all;' then, when the husband was too careless, ' My child will comfort me;' then, through the mother's watching and toil, 'My child will repay me all when it grows up.' And at last, after the long journey of years has been wearily travelled through, the mother's heart is weighed down by a heavier burthen, and no hope remains but the grave. -oThe daylight changes the aspect of misery to us, as of everything else. In the night it presses on our imagination-the forms it takes are false, fitful, ex George Eliot (in propria persona). 23 aggerated: in broad day it sickens our sense with the dreary persistence of definite measurable reality. The man who looks with ghastly horror on all his property aflame in the dead of night, has not half the sense of destitution he will have in the morning, when he walks over the ruins lying blackened in the pitiless sunshine. -0 -It was probably a hard saying to the Pharisees, that 'there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.' And certain ingenious philosophers of our own day must surely take offence at a joy so entirely out of correspondence with arithmetical proportion. But a heart that has been taught by its own sore struggles to bleed for the woes of anotherthat has 'learned pity through suffering '-is likely to find very imperfect satisfaction in the 'balance of happiness,' ' doctrine of compensations,' and other short and easy methods of obtaining thorough complacency in the presence of pain; and for such a heart that saying will not be altogether dark. The emotions, I have observed, are but slightly influenced by arithmetical considerations: the mother, when her sweet lisping little ones have all been taken from her one after another, and she is -hanging over her last dead babe, finds small consolation in the fact that the tiny dimpled corpse is but one of a necessary average, and that a thousand other babes brought into the world at the same time are doing well, and are likely to live; and if you stood beside that mother-if you knew her pang and shared it-it is probable you would be equally unable to see a ground of complacency in statistics. 24 George Eliot (inl propria persona). Doubtless a complacency resting on that basis is highly rational; but emotion, I fear, is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve miserable lives, which leaves a clear balance on the side of satisfaction. This is the inherent imbecility of feeling, and one must be a great philosopher to have got quite clear of all that, and to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect, in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them-abstractions that may rise from heaps of ruined lives like the sweet savour of a sacrifice in the nostrils of philosophers, and of a philosophic Deity. And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying about the joy of angels over the repentant sinner outweighing their joy over the ninety-nine just, has a meaning which does not jar with the language of his own heart. It only tells him, that for angels too there is a transcendent value in human pain, which refuses to be settled by equations; that the eyes of angels too are turned away from the serene happiness of the righteous to bend with yearning pity on the poor erring soul wandering in the desert where no water is; ~ that for angels too the misery of one casts so tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine. 0 No wonder the sick-room and the lazaretto have so often been a refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt-a place of repose for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all creeds and all George Eliot (in propria persona). 25 philosophies are at one: here, at least, the conscience will not be dogged by doubt, the benign impulse will not be checked by adverse theory: here you may begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the long night-watches, to bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of the hand or beseeching glance of the eye-these are offices that demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls where the stir and glare of the world are shut out, and every voice is subdued-where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity: bigotry cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it. As we bend over the sick-bed, all the forces of our nature rush towards the channels of pity, of patience, and of love, and sweep down the miserable choking drift of our quarrels, our debates, our would-be -wisdom, and our clamorous selfish desires. This blessing of serene freedom from the importunities of opinion lies in all simple direct acts of mercy, and is one source of that sweet calm which is often felt by the watcher in the sick-room, even when the duties there are of a hard and terrible kind. -0 -The idea of duty, that recognition of something to be lived for beyond the mere satisfaction of self, is to the moral life what the addition of a great central ganglion is to animal life. No man can begin to 26 George Eliot (in propria persona), mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses. -o — The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is exalted, and does nothing but what is graceful. The real heroes, of God's making, are quite different: they have their natural heritage of love and conscience which they drew in with their mother's milk; they know one or two of those deep spiritual truths which are only to be won by long wrestling with their own sins and their own sorrows; they have earned faith and strength so far as they have done genuine work; but the rest is dry barren theory, blank prejudice, vague hearsay. Their insight is blended with mere opinion; their sympathy is perhaps confined in narrow conduits of doctrine, instead of flowing forth with the freedom of a stream that blesses every weed in its course; obstinacy or self-assertion will often interfuse itself with their grandest impulses; and their very deeds of self-sacrifice are sometimes only the rebound of a passionate egoism. 0 — Convenience, that admirable branch system from the main line of self-interest, makes us all fellow-helpers in spite of adverse resolutions. It is probable that no George Eliot (in propricapersona). 27 speculative or theological hatred would be ultimately strong enough to resist the persuasive power of convenience: that a latitudinarian baker, whose bread was honourably free from alum, would command the custom of any dyspeptic Puseyite; that an Arminian with the toothache would prefer a skilful Calvinistic dentist to a bungler stanch against the doctrines of Election and Final Perseverance, who would be likely to break the tooth in his head; and that a Plymouth Brother, who had a well-furnished grocery shop in a favourable vicinage, would occasionally have the pleasure of furnishing sugar or vinegar to orthodox families that found themselves unexpectedly 'out of' these indispensable commodities. -0 -The drowning man, urged by the supreme agony, lives in an instant through all his happy and unhappy past: when the dark flood has fallen like a curtain, memory, in a single moment, sees the drama acted over again. And even in those earlier crises, which are but types of death-when we are cut off abruptly from the life we have known, when we can no longer expect to-morrow to resemble yesterday, and find ourselves by some sudden shock on the confines of the unknown-there is often the same sort of lightningflash through the dark and unfrequented chambers of memory. -0 -In this artificial life of ours, it is not often we see a human face with all a heart's agony in it, uncontrolled by self-consciousness; when we do see it, it startles us as if we had suddenly waked into the real world of which this everyday one is but a puppet-show copy. 28 Geor e Eliot (in propria persona). Janet had that enduring beauty which belongs to pure majestic outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave their traces on such beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious Greek temple, which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous hands, has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because it is incomplete to the sense. -o — There are unseen elements which often frustrate our wisest calculations-which raise up the sufferer from the edge of the grave, contradicting the prophecies of the clear-sighted physician, and fulfilling the blind clinging hopes of affection; such unseen elements Mr. Tryan called the Divine Will, and filled up the margin of ignorance which surrounds all our knowledge with the feelings of trust and resignation. Perhaps the profoundest philosophy could hardly fill it up better. o-0 -History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume. From the time of Xerxes downwards, we have seen generals playing the braggadocio at the outset of their campaigns, and conquering the enemy with the greatest ease in after-dinner speeches. But events are apt to be in disgusting discrepancy with the anticipations of the most ingenious tacticians; the difficulties of the expedition are ridiculously at variance with able calculations; the enemy has the impudence not to fall into confusion as had been reasonably expected of him; the mind of the gallant general begins to be distracted by news of intrigues against him at George Eliot (in propria persona). 29 home, and notwithstanding the handsome compliments he paid to Providence as his undoubted patron before setting out, there seems every probability that the Te Deums will be all on the other side. -0 -Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited people we speak ill of: we should live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude. -0 -Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means -one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies. ' They've got the money for it,' as the girl said of her mistress who had made herself ill with pickled salmon. -0 -Colour-blindness, which may mistake drab for scarlet, is better than total blindness, which sees no distinction of colour at all. -0 -Hatred is like fire-it makes even light rubbish deadly. -0 -Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside itself-it only requires opportunity. You do not suppose Dempster had any motive for drinking beyond the craving for drink: the presence of brandy was the only necessary condition. And an unloving, tyrannous, brutal man needs no motive to prompt his cruelty: he needs only the perpetual presence of a 30 Various Characters. woman he can call his own. A whole park full of tame or timid-eyed animals to torment at his will would not serve him so well to glut his lust of torture: they could not feel as one woman does: they could not throw out the keen retort which whets the edge of hatred. I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victual. When a man comes in hungry an' tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin' up Mr. Tryan's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It's right enough to be speritial-I 'm no enemy to that; but I like my potatoes mealy. I don't see as anybody 'ull go to heaven the sooner for not digestin' their dinnerprovidin' they don't die sooner, as mayhap Mr. Tryan will, poor dear man.-Mrs. Linnet. -0 -I'd rether given ten shillin' an' help a man to stand on his own legs, nor pay half-a-crown to buy him a parish crutch; it's the ruination on him if he once goes to the parish. I 've see'd many a time, if you help a man wi' a present in a neeborly way, it sweetens his bloodhe thinks it kind on you; but the parish shillins turn it sour-he niver thinks 'em enough.-Mr. 7erome. -0 -Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he 's sure of losing.-Mr. Dempster. Various Characters. 3I Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches just saved from shipwreck: can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?-Mr. Tryan. -0 -As long as we set up our own will and our own wisdom against God's, we make that wall between us and his love which I have spoken of just now. But as soon as we lay ourselves entirely at his feet, we have enough light given us to guide our own steps; as the foot-soldier who hears nothing of the councils that determine the course of the great battle he is in, hears plainly enough the word of command which he must himself obey.-Mr. Tryan. -0 -My mind showed me it was just such as I-the helpless who feel themselves helpless-that God specially invites to come to him, and offers all the riches of his salvation: not forgiveness only; forgiveness would be worth little if it left us under the powers of our evil passions; but strength-that strength which enables us to conquer sin.-Mr. Tryan. -0 -It has always seemed to me before as if I could see behind people's words, as one sees behind a screen; but in Mr. Tryan it is his very soul that speaks.J/anet Demfnjster. END OF 'JANET'S REPENTANCE.! I I PART SECOND. SAYINGS FROM 'ADAM BEDE.' c N ADAM B E D E. George Eliot (in propria persona). WHAT greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life-to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting? -oThat adoration which a young man gives to a woman whom he feels to be greater and better than himself, is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling. What deep and worthy love is so? whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies, all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object, and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery. 35 36 George Eliot (in propria persona). Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite music?-to feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can penetrate, and binding together your whole being past and present in one unspeakable vibration: melting you in one moment with all the tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through the toilsome years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation all the hard-learnt lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your present joy with past sorrow, and your present sorrow with all your past joy? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek and neck and arms, by the liquid depths of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet childish pout of her lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music: what can one say more? Beauty has an expression beyond and far above the one woman's soul that it clothes, as the words of genius have a wider meaning than the thought that prompted them: it is more than a woman's love that moves us in a woman's eyes-it seems to be a far-off mighty love that has come near to us, and made speech for itself there; the rounded neck, the dimpled arm, move us by something more than their prettiness-by their close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace. The noblest nature sees the most of this impersonal expression in beauty (it is needless to say that there are gentlemen with whiskers dyed and undyed who see none of it whatever), and for this reason, the noblest nature is often the most blinded to the character of the one woman's soul that the beauty clothes. Whence, I fear, the tragedy of human life is likely to continue for a long time to come, in spite of mental philosophers George Eliot (in propria persona). 37 who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all mistakes of the kind. -o-0 The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself. -0 -Love is such a simple thing when we have only oneand-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. -0 -How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love?? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy's flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music. -o\ Our love is inwrought in our enthusiasm as electricity is inwrought in the air, exalting its power by a subtle presence. -oThe man who awakes the wondering tremulous passion of a young girl always thinks her affectionate. 38 George Eliot (in propria persona). We look at the one little woman's face we love, as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. -0 -Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves. -0 ---It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the 'dear deceit' of beauty. -0 -There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy clucks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief-a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. o-0 Men's muscles move better when their souls are making merry music. -0 -A melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear it sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister. George Eliot (in propria persona). 39 No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather, we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. -0 -Melodies die out like the pipe of Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them. -0 -So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood; doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of longpast mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot; but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood. But the first' glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour of happiness. It is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy, and adds the last keenness to the agony of despair. -0 -Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must still say that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us. -0 -There is a sort of fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence, which opens to one the inward drama of the speaker's emotions. 40 George Eliot (in proprie persoa) All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate it to the utmost in men, women, and children-in our gardens and in our houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy. Paint us an angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face upward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pothouse, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world-those homes with their tin pans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this world there are so many of these common coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things-men who see beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly the light of heaven falls on them. There are few prophets in the world; few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I can't afford to give all my love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of those feelings for my everyday fellow-men, especially for the few in the foreground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, George Eliot (in propria persona). 41 whose hands I touch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy. Neither are picturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as your common labourer, who gets his own bread, and eats it vulgarly but creditably with his own pocket-knife. It is more needful that I should have a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who weighs out my sugar in a vilely-assorted cravat and waistcoat, than with the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers;-more needful that my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentle goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent, and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimest abstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived by an able novelist. o — The existence of insignificant people has very important consequences in the world. It can be shown to affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many evil tempers from the selfish, and many heroisms from the sympathetic, and, in other ways, to play no small part in the tragedy of life. -0 -Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin -the longer the claws and the larger the wings, the better: but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a 42 George Eliot (in propria personza). real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings-much harder than to say something fine about them which is zot the exact truth. It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in many Dutch paintings, which loftyminded people despise. I find a source of delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonous homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic suffering or of worldstirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, from cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner, while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinningwheel, and her stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious necessaries of life to her; -or I turn to that village wedding, kept between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probably with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakeable contentment and good-will. -0 -I would not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder George Eliot (in propria persona). 43 eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields -on the real breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference, or injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice. -oHuman nature is lovable, and the way I have learnt something of its deep pathos, its sublime mysteries, has been by living a great deal among people more or less commonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps hear nothing very surprising if you were to inquire about them in the neighbourhoods where they dwelt. Ten to one most of the small shopkeepers in their vicinity saw nothing at all in them. For I have observed this remarkable coincidence, that the select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest. For example, I have often heard Mr. Gedge, the landlord of the Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye on his neighbours in the village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of the people in his own parish-and they were all the people he knew-in these emphatic words: 'Ay, sir, I've said it often, and I'll say it again, they're a poor lot i' this parish-a poor lot, sir, big and little.' I think he had a dim idea that if he could migrate to a distant parish, he might find neighbours worthy of him; and indeed he did subsequently transfer himself to the Saracen's Head, which was doing a thriving business in the back street of a neighbouring market-town. But, oddly enough, he has found the people up that back street of 44 George Eliot (in propria personza). precisely the same stamp as the inhabitants of Shepperton-'a poor lot, sir, big and little, and them as comes for a go o' gin are no better than them as comes for a pint o' twopenny-a poor lot.' -oIt is very pleasant to see some men turn round; pleasant as a sudden rush of warm air in winter, or the flash of firelight in the chill dusk. -oThe sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. -0 -All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the laSour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still, creative activity of our thought. -oA peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel. -0 -We are often startled by the severity of mild people on exceptional occasions; the reason is, that mild people are most liable to be under the yoke of traditionrial impressions. George Elict (in propria persona). 45 Susceptible persons are more affected by a change of tone than by unexpected words. -0 -The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her own beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return., -0 -On the verge of a decision we all tremble: hope pauses with fluttering wings. -0 -If you feed your young setter on raw flesh, how can you wonder at its retaining a relish for uncooked partridge in after life? -0 -I believe there have been men who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own. -0 -Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which constitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not to think ourselves wise about his character. There is a terrible coercion in our deeds which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver, and then reconcile him to the change; for this reasonthat the second wrong presents itself to him in the 46 George Eliot (in propria persona). guise of the only practicable right. The action which before commission has been seen with that blended common-sense and fresh untarnished feeling which is the healthy eye of the soul, is looked at afterwards with the lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very much alike. Europe adjusts itself to afait acconmipli, and so does an individual character,-until the placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution. -0o We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us. Is it because the brutes are dumb? I J / -0 -To crown all, there was to be a donkey-race-that sublimest of all races, conducted on the grand socialistic idea of everybody encouraging everybody else's donkey, and the sorriest donkey winning. -0 The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence. -o We cannot reform our forefathers. -0 Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through the fields from 'afternoon church,' -as such walks used to be in those *old leisurely George Eliot (in propria persona). 47 times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal, was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them old brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always in one place. Leisure is gone-gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create leisure for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for eager thought to rush in.: Even idleness is eager now-eager for amusement: prone to excursion-trains, art-museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels: prone even to scientific theorizing, and cursory-peeps through rpicroscopes. Old Leisure was quite a different personage: he only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time. He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion,-of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis: happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves. He lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruittree wall, and scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or of sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears were falling. He knew nothing of week-day services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing-liking the afternoon service best, because the prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broadbacked like himself, and able to carry a great deal of 48 George Eliot (in Jropria persona). beer or port-wine,-not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure: he fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the irresponsible; for had he not kept up his charter by going to church on the Sunday afternoons? Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our modern standard: he never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus. -0 -Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences-out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon. I Our moral sense learns the manners of good society, and smiles when others smile; but when some rude person gives rough names to our actions, she is apt to take part against us. -0 -Between unarmed men the battle is to the strong, where the strong is no blunderer. -0 -Our mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones. George Eliot (in propria persona). 49 V Women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye-a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish. Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but in the happiness of the loved ones whom she contributed to make uncomfortable, putting by all the tid-bits for them, and spending nothing on herself. Such a woman as Lisbeth for example-at once patient and complaining, self-renouncing and exacting, brooding the livelong day over what happened yesterday, and what is likely to happen to-morrow, and crying very readily both at the good and the evil. -0 -One of the lessons a woman most rarely learns, is never to talk to an angry or a drunken man. -0 -It is our habit to say that while the lower nature can never understand the higher, the higher nature commands a complete view of the lower. But I think the higher nature has to learn this comprehension, as we learn the art of vision, by a good deal of hard experience, often with bruises and gashes incurred in taking things up by the wrong end, and fancying our space wider than it is. -0 -People who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it. D 50 George Eliot (in propria persona). An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth. One can say everything best over a meal. 0 -Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. -0 -It is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad experience has brought us is worth our own personal share of pain: surely it is not possible to feel otherwise, any more than it would be possible for a man with cataract to regret the painful process by which his dim blurred sight of men as trees walking had been exchanged for clear outline and effulgent day. The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength: we can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy, than a painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a philosopher to his less complete formula. -0 -Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity. -0 -Adam Bede had not outlived his sorrow-had not felt it slip from him as a temporary burthen, and leave him the same man again. Do any of us? God for George Eliot (in propria persona). 5 bid. It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling, if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it-if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy-the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love. — o In our eagerness to explain impressions, we often lose our hold of the sympathy that comprehends them. -oIf I have read religious history aright-faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords; and it is possible, thank Heaven! to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store, that she may carry it to her neighbour's child to 'stop the fits,' may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost. 0 — Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the long and changeful journey? And 52 George Eliot (in propria persona). there is but one way in which a strong determined soul can learn it-by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and erring, so that he must share not only the outward consequence of their error, but their in* ward suffering. That is a long and hard lesson. -0 -It is sublime-that sudden pause of a great multitude, which tells that one soul moves in them all. -0 -Energetic natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often rush away from a hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted. It is the overmastering sense of pain that drives them. They shrink by an ungovernable instinct, as they would shrink from laceration. -0 -If a country beauty in clumsy shoes be only shallowhearted enough, it is astonishing how closely her mental processes may resemble those of a lady in society and crinoline, who applies her refined intellect to the problem of committing indiscretions without compromising herself. — o-0 -Pray how many of your well-wishers would decline to make a little gain out of you? Your landlady is sincerely affected at parting with you, respects you highly, and will really rejoice if any one else is generous to you; but at the same time she hands you a bill by which she gains as high a percentage as possible. George Eliot (in prop ria pcrsona). 53 We don't inquire too closely into character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes -who, if he should unfortunately break a man's legs in his rash driving, will be able to pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive bon-bons, packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general, gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see at once that he is 'nice.' The chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing any one; a sea-worthy vessel that no one would refuse to insure. -0 -When Tityrus and Melibceus happen to be on the same farm, they are not sentimentally polite to each other. -oIt is well known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in their criticism of other men's scholarship, have yet been of a relenting and indulgent temper in private life; and I have heard of a learned man meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must be forgiven-alas! they are not alien to us-but the man who takes the wrong side on the 54 George Eliot (in propria persona). momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated as the enemy of his race. -0 -In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this blind trust in some unshapen chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them, as to believe that they will die. -0 -— oThe finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as 'light,' 'sound,' ' stars,' ' music,'-words really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves, any more than 'chips' or 'sawdust:' it is only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great and beautiful. -0 -That is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit, which rejoices and is thankful over the past evil that has blighted or crushed another, because it has been made a source of unforeseen good to ourselves. -0 -If Aristides the Just was ever in love and jealous, he was at that moment not perfectly magnanimous. -0 -We do not hear that Memnon's statue gave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest wind, or in response to any other influence, divine or human, than certain short-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly-fashioned instruments George Eliot (in propria persona). 5 5 called human souls have only a very limited range of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch X that fills others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony. -0 Yes, the actions of a little trivial soul like Hetty's, struggling amidst the serious, sad destinies of a human being, are strange. So are the motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a stormy sea. How pretty it looked with its parti-coloured sail in the sunlight, moored in the quiet bay! a 'Let that man bear the loss who loosed it from its moorings.' *But that will not save the vessel-the pretty thing that might have been a lasting joy. -0 Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face, and the hard unloving despairing soul looking out of it-with the narrow heart and narrow thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own, and tasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness! My heart bleeds for her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet, or seated in a cart, with her eyes fixed vacantly on the road before her, never thinking or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes her desire that a village may be near. What will be the end?-the end of her objectless wandering, apart from all love, caring for human beings only through her pride, clinging to life only as the hunted wounded brute clings to it? God preserve you and me from being the beginners of such misery! 56 George Eliot (in propria persona). See the difference between the impression a man makes on you when you walk by his side in familiar talk, or look at him in his home, and the figure he makes when seen from a lofty historical level, or even in the eyes of a critical neighbour, who thinks of him as an embodied system or opinion rather than as a man. Parson Irwine was one of those men, and they'are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the market-place, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric. -0 -It is better sometimes not to follow great reformers of abuses beyond the threshold of their homes. -0 -The secret of our emotions never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past: no wonder the secret escapes the unsympathizing observer, who might as well put on his spectacles to discern odours. That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from Socrates himself in the saddle. Gcorge Eliot (in propria pcrsozn). 57 The beginning of hardship is like the first taste of bitter food-it seems for a moment unbearable; yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another bite and find it possible to go on. -o — There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, lwhen we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope. -oLisbeth looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and confusion on which the bright afternoon's sun shone dismally; it was all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind-that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the growing or the dying day-not knowing why and whence came this illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in the midst of it. 0-o What man of us, in the first moments of a sharp agony, could ever feel that the fellow-man who has been the medium of inflicting it, did not mean to hurt us? In our instinctive rebellion against pain, we are children again, and demand an active will to wreak our vengeance on. — 0 -In our times of bitter suffering, there are almost always these pauses, when our consciousness is be 5 8 George Eliot (iz propria persona). numbed to everything but some trivial perception or sensation. It is as if semi-idiocy came to give us rest from the memory and the dread which refuse to leave us in our sleep. -o0 -Sleep comes to the perplexed-if the perplexed are only weary enough. -0 --- There is a strength of self-possession which is the sign that the last hope has departed. Despair no more leans on others than perfect contentment, and in despair pride ceases to be counteracted by the sense of dependence. -oWhen our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the meekness of death! -0 -When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. -0 -What we thought the oldest truth becomes the most startling to us in the week when we have looked on the dead face of one who has made a part of our own lives. For when men want to impress us with the effect of a nevw and wonderfully vivid light, do they not George Eliot (in propria persona) 59 let it fall on the most familiar objects, that we may measure its intensity by remembering the former dimness? -0 -Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. -0 -Why did they say she was so changed? In the corpse we love, it is the likeness we see-it is the likeness, which makes itself felt the more keenly because something else was and is not. -0 -The mother's yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the base, degraded man. -0 — If it be true that Nature at certain moments seems charged with a presentiment of one individual lot, must it not also be true that she seems unmindful, unconscious of another? For there is no hour that has not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different: what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with 60 George Eliot (in propria persona). the great crisis of our lives? We are children ofl a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of-to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more. -0 -Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning. -0 -There are faces which nature charges with a meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul that flutters beneath them, but speaking the joys and sorrows of foregone generations-eyes that tell of deep love which doubtless has been and is somewhere, but not paired with these eyes-perhaps paired with pale eyes that can say nothing; just as a national language may be instinct with poetry unfelt by the lips that use it. -0 -Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes-ah! so like our mother's-averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we George Eliot (in propria persona). 6I parted from in bitterness long years ago. The father to whom we owe our best heritage-the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modelling hand-galls us, and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence. -0 -A man about town might perhaps consider that these influences (of the country) were not to be felt out of a child's story-book; but when you are among the fields and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to simple natural pleasures. -0 -Perhaps there is no time in a summer's day more cheering, than when the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of the morning-when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth. -0 -I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue? I could never make you know what I meant by a bright spring day. 62 George Eliot (in prop ia persona). Bright February days have a stronger charm of hope about them than any other days in the year. One likes to pause in the mild rays of the sun, and look over the gates at the patient plough-horses turning at the end of the furrow, and think that the beautiful year is all before one. \ The birds seem to feel just the same: their notes are as clear as the clear air.. There are no leaves on the trees and hedgerows, but how green all the grassy fields are! and the dark purplish brown of the ploughed earth and of the bare branches is beautiful too. What a glad world this looks like, as one drives or rides along the valleys and over the hills! - I have often thought so when, in foreign countries, where the fields and woods have looked to me like our English Loamshire-the rich land tilled with just as much care, the woods rolling down the gentle slopes to the green meadows-I have come on something by the roadside which has reminded me that I am not in Loamshire: an image of a great agony-the agony of the Cross. It has stood perhaps by the clustering apple blossoms, or in the broad sunshine by the cornfield, or at a turning by the wood where a clear brook was gurgling below; and surely, if there came a traveller to this world who knew nothing of the story of man's life upon it, this image of agony would seem to him strangely out of place in the midst of this joyous nature. He would not know that hidden behind the apple-blossoms, or among the golden corn, or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish; perhaps a young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame; understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the. A dam Bcde. 63 lonely heath; yet tasting the bitterest of life's bitterness. Such things are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields and behind the blossoming orchards; and the sound of the gurgling brook, if you come close to one spot behind a small bush, would be mingled for your ear with a despairing human sob.. No wonder man's religion has much.sorrow in it: no wonder he needs a Suffering God. There's such a thing as being over-speritial; we must have something beside Gospel i' this world. Look at the canals, an' th' aqueducs, an' th' coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon. But t' hear some o' them preachers, you 'd think as a man must be doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's a-going on inside him. I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and the Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all timesweekday as well as Sunday-and i' the great works and inventions, and i' the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o' jobs out o' working hours-builds a oven for's wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o' 64 A dam Bede one, he's doing more good, and he 's just as near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning. \ -0 ---I 've seen pretty clear ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides doctrines and notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was like finding names for your feelings, so as you can talk of 'em when you've never known 'em, just as a man may talk o' tools when he knows their names, though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less handled 'em. -0 -'They that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak, and not to please themselves.' There's a text wants no candle to show't; it shines by its own light. It's plain enough you get into the wrong road i' this life if you run after this and that only for the sake o' making things easy and pleasant to yourself. A pig may poke his nose into the trough and think o' nothing outside it; but if you've got a man's heart and soul in you, you can't be easy a-making your own bed an' leaving the rest to lie on thle stones. Nay, nay, I '11 never slip my neck out o' the yoke, and leave the load to be drawn by the weak uns. -0 -There's nothing like settling with ourselves as there's a deal we must do without i' this life. It's no use looking on life as if it was Treddles'on fair, where folks only go to see shows and get fairings. If we do, we shall find it different. Adam Bede. I like to go to work by a road that']l take me up a bit of a hill, and see the fields for miles round me, and a bridge, or a town, or a bit of a steeple here and there. It makes you feel the world's a big place, and there's other men working in it with their heads and hands besides yourself. -0 -I like to read about Moses best, in th' Old Testament. He carried a hard business well through, and died when other folks were going to reap.the fruits: a man must have courage to look at his life so, and think what'11 come of it after he's dead and gone. A good solid bit o' work lasts: if it's only laying a floor down, somebody's the better for it being done well, besides the man as does it. -0 -I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work, and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much.... I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride anddelight in's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it. \ - -oA foreman, if he 's got a conscience, and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for it. E 66 A danz Bede. You can so seldom get hold of a man as can turn his brains to more nor one thing; it's just as if they wore blinkers like th' horses, and could see nothing o' one side of 'em. 0 -If a woman's young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks all the better for her being plain dressed.... It seems to me as a woman's face doesna want flowers; it's almost like a flower itself.... It's like when a man 's singing a good tune, you don't want t' hear bells tinkling and interfering wi' the sound. -0 -It's wonderful how that sound (of the ' Harvest Home') goes to one's heart almost like a funeral-bell, for all it tells. one o' the joyfullest time o' the year, and the time when men are mostly the thankfullest. I suppose it's a bit hard to us to think anything's over and \ gone in our lives; and there's a parting at the root of all our joys. -0 -It seems to me it's the same with love and happiness as with sorrow-the more we know of it the better we can feel what other people's lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to 'em, and wishful to help 'em. The more knowledge a man has, the better he'll do's work; and feeling's a sort o' knowledge. -0 -It 'ud be a poor look-out if folks didn't remember what they did and said when they were lads. We should think no more about old friends than we do about new uns, then. A dam Bede. 67 There's no rule so wise but what it's a pity for somebody or other. -0 -It's a feeling as gives you a sort o' liberty, as if you could walk more fearless, when you've more trust in another than y' have in yourself. -oIt's poor foolishness to run down your enemies. -0 I 've seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. It isn't notions sets people doing the right thing-it's feelings. It's the same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics,-a man may be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe; but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution, and love 'something else better than his own ease. -0 When people's feelings have got a deadly wound, they can't be cured with favours. -0o I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you 're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible. -0 The best fire doesna flare up the soonest. 68 Adam Bede. It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth, and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at only a look from one woman out of all the rest i' the world. It's a mystery we can give no account of; but no more we can of the sprouting o' the seed, for that matter. — o I won't open the door again. It's no use staring about to catch sight of a sound. Maybe there's a world about us as we can't see, but th' ear's quicker than the eye, and catches a sound from't now and then. Some people think they get a sight on't too, but they're mostly folks whose eyes are not much use to 'em at anything else. For my part, I think it's better to see when your perpendicular's true, than to see a ghost. -oI began to see as all this weighing and sifting what this text means and that text means, and whether folks are saved all by God's grace, or whether there goes an ounce o' their own will to't, was no part o' real religion at all. You may talk o' these things for hours on end, and you'll only be all the more coxy and conceited for't. -0 -There's a deal in a man's inward life as you can't measure by the square, and say,' Do this and that '11 follow,' and, 'Do that and this'1l follow.' There's things go on in the soul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty wind, as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a'most, so as you look back on yourself as if you was somebody else. Adam Bede. 69 Those are things as you can't bottle up in a 'do this' and 'do that;' and I'll go so far with the strongest Methodist ever you '11 find. That shows me there's deep speritial things in religion. You can't make much out wi' talking about it, but you feel it. -0 -— o — The figures tell us a fine deal, and we couldn't go far without 'em, but they don't tell us about folks' feelings. It's a nicer job to calculate them. — 0 — I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand. -0 -o It takes something else besides 'cuteness to make folks see what'11 be their interest in the long run. It takes some conscience and belief in right and wrong, I see that pretty clear. -0 -If you get hold of a chap that's got no shame nor conscience to stop him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up. -oI don't remember ever being see-saw, when I'd made my mind up that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I 've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' 7o A dam Bede. bad workmanship-you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o' better. -0 -We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves. % oI hate that talk o' people, as if there was a way o' making amends for everything. They'd more need be brought to see as the wrong they do can never be altered. When a man's spoiled his fellow-creatur's life, he's no right to comfort himself with thinking good may come out of it: somebody else's good doesn't alter her shame and misery. -0 -There's no' slipping up-hill again, and no standing still when once you've begun to slip down. -0 -It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right. -0 — It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off; and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree. Mrs. Poyser. 7i There's nothing but what 's bearable as long as a man can work: the natur o' things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square o' four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy; and the best o' working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside your own lot. When a man's got his limbs whole, he can bear a smart cut or two. -0 -Trouble's made us kin. -0 -If we 're men, and have men's feelings, I reckon we must have men's troubles. We can't be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they've got their wings, and never know their kin when they see 'em, and get a fresh lot every year. -0 -There's many a good bit o' work done with a sad heart. Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babbies; they 're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they 're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep. 72 Mrs. Poyser. You must keep up your heart; husbands and wives must be content when they 've lived to rear their children and see one another's hair grey. -0 -It's poor work allays settin' the dead above the livin'. We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon -it 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much on us beforehand, istid o' beginnin' when we're gone. It's but little good you '11 do a-watering the last year's crop. -0 -I love Dinah next to my own children. An' she makes one feel safer when she's i' the house; for she's like the driven snow: anybody might sin for two as had her at their elbow. -0 --- You make but a poor trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi' wickedness. The money as is got so 's like to burn holes i' your pocket. -oWhat care I what the men 'ud run after? It's well seen what choice the most of 'em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o' wives you see, like bits o' gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the colour's gone. -0 -It's poor eating where the flavour o' the meat lies i' the cruets. There's folks as make bad butter, and trusten to the salt t' hide it. Mrs. Poyser. 73 If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. -0 -You're mighty fond o' Craig; but for my part, I think he's welly like a cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow. -0 -Scarceness o' victual 'ull keep: there's no need to be hasty wi' the cooking. -0 -Wooden folks had need ha' wooden things f' handle. -0 -There's times when the crockery seems alive, an' flies out o' your hand like a bird. It's like the glass, sometimes, 'ull crack as it stands. What is to be broke will be broke. -0 — It's ill guessing what the bats are flying after. ---- There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots. o — For my part, I was never over-fond o' gentlefolks' servants-they 're mostly like the fine ladies' fat dogs, nayther good for barking nor butcher's meat, but on'y for show. 74 Mrs. Poyser. The men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready; an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'. -oI know the dancin 's nonsense; but if you stick at everything because it's nonsense, you wonna go far i' this life. When your broth's ready-made for you, you mun swallow the thickenin', or else let the broth alone. -0 -Most folks is (fond o' whey) when they hanna got to crush it out. -0 -There's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water. -0 -If you go past your dinner-time, there'll be little relish o' your meat. You turn it o'er an' o'er wi' your fork, an' don't eat it after all. You find faut wi' your meat, an' the faut 's all i' your own stomach. -0oSome folks' tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside. Mrs. Poyser. 75 It 's the flesh and blood folks are made on as makes the difference. Some cheeses are made o' skimmed milk and some o' new milk, and it's no matter what you call 'em, you may tell which is which by the look and the smell. -o — Folks as have no mind to be o' use have allays the luck to be out o' the road when there 's anything to be done. -0 -It's them as take advantage that get advantage i' this world, I think: folks have to wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em. -oIt's all very fine having a ready-made rich man, but may-happen he '11 be a ready-made fool; and it's no use filling your -pocket full o' money if you 'e got a hole in the corner. It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own, if you've' got a soft to drive you; he '11 soon turn you over into the ditch. I allays said I 'd never marry a man as had got no brains; for where's the use of a woman having brains of her.own if she's tackled to a geck as everybody's a-laughing at? She might as well dress herself fine to sit back'ards on a donkey. -0 -There's folks as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an' look on while the men sign her soul away. -0 -— oI know what the men like-a poor soft as 'ud simper at 'em like the pictur o' the sun, whether they did 76 6Mrs. Poyser. right or wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him he's wise. But there's some men can do wi'out that-they think so much o' themselves already; an' that's how it is there's old bachelors. -0 -I 've had my say out, and I shall be th' easier for 't all my life. There's no pleasure i' living, if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. -oThe men are mostly so tongue-tied-you 're forced partly to guess what they mean, as you do wi' the dumb creaturs. -0 -Old Harry doesna wag his tail so for nothin'. -- - I aren't like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there's no good i' speaking. -oIt's a small joke sets men laughing when they sit a-staring at one another with a pipe i' their mouths. -0 -It seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th' other world. Mrs. Poyser. 77 One 'ud think, an hear some folks talk, as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can see through a barndoor, they can. Perhaps that's the reason they can see so little o' this side on't. -o0 -Them as ha' never had a cushion don't miss it. -oIf Old Harry wants any work done, you may be sure he '11 find the means. -0 —o There's no knowing what people wonzna like-such ways as I 've heard of! -oI'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men. o —. Things allays happen so contrairy, if they've a chance. -oA maggot must be born i' the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon. -0 -If the chaff-cutter had the making of us, we should all be straw, I reckon. -oIt's ill livin' in 'a hen-roost for them as doesn't like fleas. 78 Mrs. Poyser. Hetty's no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about' on the wall, and spread its tail when the sun shone if all the folks i' the parish was dying. -o — I 'm not one o' those as can see the cat i' the dairy, an' wonder what she's come after. -oIt's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on. 0 — As for farming, it's putting money into your pocket -i' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks, and just getting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along.... It's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf-and after all, at th' end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your pains. --- What's it sinnify what Chowne's wife likes?-a poor soft thing, wi' no more head-piece nor a sparrow. She'd take a big cullender to strain her lard wi', and then wonder as the scratchins run through. 7Mrs. Poyscr. 79 It's allays the way wi' them meek-faced people; you may's well pelt a bag o' feathers as talk to 'em. -0 -Wi' them three gells in the house I'd need have twice the strength, to keep 'em up to their work. It's like having roast-meat at three fires; as soon as you've basted one, another's burnin'. -0 -There's nothing you can't believe o' them wenches: they'll set the empty kettle o' the fire, and then come an hour after to see if the water boils.... 'Told her?' yes, I might spend all the wind i' my body, an' take the bellows too, if I was to tell them gells everything as their own sharpness wonna tell 'em. -0 -I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different.: -0 -If you get your head stuck in a bog your legs may's well go after it. — o — I'd sooner ha' brewin' day an washin' day together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin' an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough. An' you've nothing to show for't when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree. 80 Dinah iMorris. 0 your honour, it's all right and proper for gentlefolks to stay up by candle-light-they 've got no cheese on their minds. We 're late enough as it is, an' there's no lettin' the cows know as they mustn't want to be milked so early to-morrow mornin'. So, if you'11 please t' excuse us, we '11 take our leave. Thoughts are so great-aren't they, sir? They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood. -0 -It isn't for men to make channels for God's Spirit, as they make channels for the water-courses, and say, 'Flow here, but flow not there.' -0 -We mustn't be in a hurry to fix and choose our own lot; we must wait to be guided. -0-o We are led on, like the little children, by a way that we know not. -0 — It's good to live only a moment at a time, as I 've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books. It isn't for you and me to lay plans; we 've nothing to do but to obey and to trust. -OIt is a vain thought to flee from the work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing' to our own souls, as if we could choose for ourselves Dinah Morris. 8i where we shall find the fulness of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where alone it is to be found, in loving obedience. It makes no difference-whether we live or die, we are in the presence of God. -0 -I think, sir, when God makes his presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was-he only saw the brightness of the Lord. It's a strange thing-sometimes when I'm quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I 've seen and known, if it's only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and resting in his love, on their behalf as well as my own. -0 -The heart of man is the same everywhere. -0 -I cannot but think that the brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner's knowledge:" 82 Dinah fMorris. Trouble comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it isn't God's will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into trouble with our fellowmen. There is no man or woman born into this world to whom some of these trials do not fall. -0 -— oWe are sometimes required to lay our natural, lawful affections on the altar. -0 -I've noticed, that in these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green pastures and the still waters, tilling the ground and tending the cattle, there's a strange deadness to the Word, as different as can be from the great towns, like Leeds, where I once went to visit a holy woman who preaches there. It's wonderful how rich is the harvest of souls up those highwalled streets, where you seemed to walk as in a prisonyard, and the ear is deafened with the sounds of worldly toil. I think maybe it is because the promise is sweeter when this life is so dark and weary, and the soul gets more hungry when the body is ill at ease. -0 -That meeting between the. brothers, where Esau is so loving and generous, and Jacob so timid and distrustful, notwithstanding his sense of the Divine favour, has always touched me greatly. Truly, I have been Dinah Morris. 83 tempted sometimes to say that Jacob was of a mean spirit. But that is our trial:-we must learn to see the good in the midst of much that is unlovely. -0 -I remember when my dear aunt died, I longed for the sound of her bad cough in the nights, instead of the silence that came when she was gone.% -0 -I 've noticed it often among my own people around Snowfield, that the strong, skilful men are often the gentlest to the women and children; and it 's pretty to see 'em carrying the little babies as if they were no heavier than little birds. \ And the babies always seem to like the strong arm best. \ -0 -Poor dog! I 've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to 'em because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there 's no need. But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel, with all our words. \ -0 -There 's a sort of wrong that can never be made up for. -0 -We are over-hasty to speak-as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours\ 84 Di84Dnah Morris. God can't bless you while you have one falsehood in your soul; his pardoning mercy can't reach you until you open your heart to him, and say, 'I have done this great wickedness; 0 God, save me, make me pure from sin.' While you cling to one sin and will not part with it, it must drag you down to misery after death, as it has dragged you to misery here in this world, my poor, poor Hetty. It is sin that brings dread, and darkness, and despair: there is light and blessedness for us as soon as we cast it off: God enters our souls then, and teaches us, and brings us strength and peace. -0 -The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world-that was what lay heavy on his heart-and that is the cross we shall share with him, that is the cup we must drink of with him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love which is one with his sorrow. -0 -Ah, that is a blessed time, isn't it, Seth, when the outward light is fading, and the body is a little wearied with its work and its labour. Then the inward light shines the brighter, and we have a deeper sense of resting on the Divine strength. I sit on my chair in the dark room and close my eyes, and it is as if I was out of the body and could feel no want for evermore. For then, the very hardship, and the sorrow, and the blindness, and the sin, I have beheld and been ready to weep over,-yea, all the anguish of the children of men, which sometimes wraps me round like sudden Bartle Massey. 85 darkness-I can bear with a willing pain, as if I was sharing the Redeemer's cross. For I feel it, I feel itinfinite love is suffering too-yea, in the fulness of knowledge it suffers, it yearns, it mourns; and that is a blind self-seeking which wants to be freed from the sorrow wherewith the whole creation groaneth and travaileth. Surely it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there is sorrow and sin in the world; sorrow is then a part of love, and love does not seek to throw it off. It is not the spirit only that tells me this-I see it in the whole work and word of the gospel. Is there not pleading in heaven? Is not the Man of Sorrows there in that crucified body wherewith he ascended? And is He not one with the Infinitc Love itself-as our love is one with our sorrow? Now you see, you don't do this thing a bit better than you did a fortnight ago; and I '11 tell you what 's the reason. You want to learn accounts; that 's well and good. But you think all you need do to learn accounts is to come to me and do sums for an hour or so, two or three times a week; and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of doors again, than you sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind. You go whistling about, and take no more care what you 're thinking of than if your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill through that happened to be in the way; and if you get a good notion in 'em, it 's pretty soon washed out again You think knowledge is to be got cheap-you 'll come and pay Bartle Massey sixpence a week, and he '11 make you clever at figures without your taking any trouble. But knowledge isn't 86 Bartle Hazsscy. to be got with paying sixpence, let me tell you: if you're to know figures, you must turn 'em over in your own heads, and keep your thoughts fixed on 'em. There's nothing you can't turn into a sum, for there's nothing but what's got number in it-even a fool. You may say to yourselves, ' I'm one fool, and Jack's another; if my fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's three pound three ounces and three quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would my head be than Jack's?' A man that had got his heart in learning figures would make sums for himself, and work 'em in his head: when he sat at his shoemaking, he'd count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his stitches, say half a farthing, and then see how much money he could get in an hour; and then ask himself how much money he'd get in a day at that rate; and then how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or a hundred years at that rate-and all. the while his needle would be going just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in. But the long and the short of it is-I '11 have nobody in my nightschool that doesn't strive to learn what he comes to learn, as hard as if he was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad daylight. I'11 send no man away because he's stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach him. But I '11 not throw away good knowledge on people who think they can get it by the sixpenn'orth, and carry it away with 'em as they would an ounce of snuff. So never come to me again, if you can't show that you 've been working with your own heads, instead of thinking you can pay for mine to work for you. That's the last word I 're got to say to you. Bartle Massey. 87 Simple addition enough! Add one fool to another fool, and in six years' time six fools more-they 're all of the same denomination, big and little's nothing to do with the sum! -0 -Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding, nagging woman. They go on with the same thing over and over again, and never come to a reasonable end. Anybody 'uid think the Scotch tunes had always been asking a question of somebody as deaf as old Taft, and had never got an answer yet. -0 -Well, well, my boy, if good luck knocks at your door, don't you put your head out at window and tell it to be gone about its business, that's all. -o0 -You must learn to deal with odd and even in life, as well as in figures. -0 -No man can be wise on an empty stomach. < -0 -As for age, what that's worth depends on the quality o' the liquor. -0 -The strongest calf must have something to suck at..-oIt's easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient. \ 88 Bartle Massey. College mostly makes people like bladders-just good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured into 'em. If a man had got no feelings, it 'ud be as good as a demonstration to listen to what goes on in court; but a tender heart makes one stupid. -0 —0 --- If you trust a man, let him be a bachelor-let him be a bachelor. o — I daresay she's like the rest o' the women-thinks two and two '11 come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it. 0 ---These poor silly women-things-they 've not the sense to know it's no use denying what's proved. -0 -To Ah! the women are quick enough-they're quick enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows 'em himself. -oMrs. Poyser's a terrible woman!-made of needles -made of needles. But I stick to Martin-I shall always stick to Martin. And he likes the needles, God help him! He's a cushion made on purpose for 'em.... I don't say th' apple isn't sound at the core; bu t it sets my teeth on edge-it sets my teeth on edge. Bartle Massey. 89 Nonsense! It's the silliest lie a sensible man like you ever believed, to say a woman makes a house comfortable. It's a story got up, because the women are there, and something must be found for 'em to do. I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha' been left to the men-it had better ha' been left to the men. I tell you, a woman 'ull bake you a pie every week of her life, and never come to see that the hotter th' oven the shorter the time. I tell you, a woman 'ull make your porridge every day for twenty years, and never think of measuring the proportion between the meal and the milk-a little more or less, she '11 think, doesn't signify: the porridge will be awk'ard now and then: if it's wrong, it's summat in the meal, or it's summat in the milk, or it's summat in the water.... Don't tell me about God having made such creatures to be companions for us! I don't say but He might make Eve to be a companion to Adam in Paradise-there was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no other woman to cackle with and make mischief; though you see what mischief she did as soon as she'd an opportunity. But it's an impious, unscriptural opinion to say a woman's a blessing to a man now; you might as well say adders and wasps, and foxes and wild beasts, are a blessing, when they're only the evils that belong to this state o' probation, which it's lawful for a man to keep as clear of as he can in this life, hoping to get quit of 'em for ever in another-hoping to get quit of 'em for ever in another. go Parson Irwine. But where's the use of talking to a woman with babbies? She's got no conscience-no conscienceit's all run to milk. Let evil words die as soon as they 're spoken. -0 -As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old churchsteeple minds the rooks cawing about it. -0 — I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day. No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things. -0 -The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman, and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in their presence. The man may be no better able than the dog to explain the influence the more refined beauty has on him, but he feels it. -0 -When what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing. -0 -Ah, my boy, it is not only woman's love that is adrepwros E'pog, as old AEschylus calls it. There's plenty of' unloving love ' in the world of a masculine kind. Parson Irwine. 91 ' harp!' yes, Mrs. Poyser's tongue is like a new-set razor. She's quite original in her talk, too; one of those untaught wits that help to stock a country with proverbs. I told you that capital thing I heard her say about Craig-that he was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow. Now that's an:Esop's fable in a sentence. -0 A man can't very well steal a bank-note unless the bank-note lies within convenient reach: but he won't make us think him an honest man because he begins to howl at the bank-note for falling in his way. -oA man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom. -oWhen I 've made up my mind that I can't afford to buy a tempting dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me, and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and inclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my wisdom there. -0 -Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before-consequences that are hardly ever 92 2Variiozs Chuaracters confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us. -0 -There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone: you can't isolate yourself, and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread. Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease. -0 -It is not for us men to apportion the shares of moral guilt and retribution. We find it impossible to avoid mistakes even in determining who has committed a single criminal act, and the problem how far a man is to be held responsible for the unforeseen consequences of his own deed, is one that might well make us tremble to look into it. The evil consequences that may lie folded in a single act of selfish indulgence, is a thought so awful that it ought surely to awaken some feeling less presumptuous than a rash desire to punish. It's a deep mystery-the way the heart of man turns to one woman out of all the rest he 's seen i' the world, and makes it easier for him to work seven year for /her, like Jacob did for Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for th' asking. I often think of them words, 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had to her.' -Seth Bede. Various Characters. 93 There's nobody but God can control the heart of man.-Seth Bede. -0oThee mustna undervally prayer. Prayer mayna bring money, but it brings us what no money can buy -a power to keep from sin, and be content with God's will, whatever He may please to send.-Seth Bede. -oDinah doesn't hold wi' them as are for keeping the Society so strict to themselves. She doesn't mind about maki.ng folks enter the Society, so as they're fit t' enter the kingdom o' God.-Seth Bede. -0 -I like th' hills best when the clouds are over your head, and you see the sun shining ever so far off, over the Loamford way, as I've often done o' late, on the stormy days: it seems to me as if that was heaven where there's always joy and sunshine, though this life's dark and cloudy.-Seth Bede. -o - O-0 -Eh! well, if the Methodies are fond o' trouble, they're like to thrive: it's a pity they canna ha't all, an' take it away from them as donna like it.-Lisbeth Bede. o-0 -Ye canna make the smart less wi' talkin'.-Lisbeth Bede. -0 -One morsel's as good as another when your mouth's out o' taste.-Lisbeth Bede. 94 Various Characters. I 'n got no taste i' my mouth this day-it's all one what I swaller-it's all got the taste o' sorrow wi 't.Lisbeth Bede. -0 -Eh, it's poor luck for the platter to wear well when it's broke i' two.-Lisbeth Bede. -0 -Th' hungry foulks had better leave th' hungry country. It makes less mouths for the scant cake.-Lisbeth Bede. -oIt's ill bringin' up a cade lamb.-Lisetht Bede. -o Thee dostna know?-nay; how's thee to know? Th' men ne'er kn-ow whether the floor's cleaned or cat-licked.-Lisbeth Bede. -0 -' Said?' nay, she '11 say nothin'. It's on'y the men as have to wait till folks say things afore they find 'em out.-Lisbeth Bede. -0 -I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character, that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman.-A rtlzur Donzithorne. Various Characters. 95 However strong a man's resolution may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and then. We may determine not to gather any cherries, and keep our hands sturdily in our pockets, but we can't prevent our mouths from watering.-Arthur Donnithorne. -0 -Nonsense, child! Nature never makes a ferret in the shape of a mastiff. You '11 never persuade me that I can't tell what men are by their outsides. If I don't like a man's looks, depend upon it I shall never like him. I don't want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look disagreeable. If they make me shudder at the first glance, I say, take them away. An ugly, piggish, or fishy eye, now, makes me feel quite ill; it's like a bad smell.-Mrs. Irwine. -o — Eh, it's a poor look-out when th' ould foulks doesna like the young uns.-Old Martin Poyser. -0 -It isn't right for old nor young nayther to make a bargain all o' their own side. What's good for one's good all round i' the long run.-Martin Poyser. -0 -I'm no friend to young fellows a-marrying afore they know the difference atween a crab an' a apple; but they may wait o'er long.-Martin Poyser. 96 Various Characters. It's poor foolishness to think o' saving by going against your conscience. There's that Jim Wakefield, as they used to call 'Gentleman Wakefield,' used to do the same of a Sunday as o' week-days, and took no heed to right or wrong, as if there was nayther God nor devil. An' what's he come to? Why, I saw him myself last market-day a-carrying a basket wi' oranges in't.-Martin Poyser. -0 -To I should be loath to leave th' old place, and the parish where I was bred and born, and father afore me. We should leave our roots behind us, I doubt, and niver thrive again.-Martin Poyser. -0 -The weather, you see, 's a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them chancy things as fools thrive on.-Mr. Crazg. END OF 'ADAM BEDE. PART THIRD. SAYINGS FROM 'THE fMILL, OXN THE FLOSS.' G I THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. George Eliot (i'n propria persona). JOURNEYING down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era; and the effect produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps, that they seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine: nay, even in the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of romance! If those robberbarons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them99 I 00 George Eliot (in propria persozna). they were forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces for ever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of colour, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle-nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry: they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for me the vision of an epoch. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling that human life-very much of it-is a narrow, ugly, grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of, were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers. -OIt is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable-when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us-that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any, sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory George Eliot (in propria persona). o That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism-the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn. -0 -Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. -0 -We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger. -0 -Retribution may come from any voice: the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it: surely help and pity are rarer things-more needful for the righteous to bestow. -0 -What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs? -0 -— o — We judge others according to results; how else?not knowing the process by which results are arrived at. — oAt the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn with unworn courage from the warm light; but how, 102 George Eliot (iz propria persona). when we have trodden far in the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary-how, if there is a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again to the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from under the pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are likely to be forgotten-till the pain has been escaped from. -0 -Watch your own speech, and notice how it is guided by your less conscious purposes. -0 -The conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice, that the distinction escapes all outward judgments, founded on a mere comparison of actions. -o0 -Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. -oMilk and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity undisturbed when their stronglimbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual. George Eliot (in propria persona). 103 Poor relations are undeniably irritating-their existence is so entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very faulty people. -0 -In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings. -0 -These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless. -0 -'Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by-and-by,' is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our-mother or nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not merely with a memory of what he did and what happened to o14 George Eliot (in propria persona). him, of what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then-when it was so long from one Midsummer to another? what he felt when his schoolfellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have a tailed coat that 'half,' although every other boy of his age had gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children. -0 -Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow. -oThere is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth, when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no superadded life in the life of others; though we who look on think lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the future lightened the blind sufferer's present. Maggie in her brown frock, with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair pushed back, looking from the bed where her father lay, to the dull walls of this sad chamber which was the centre of her world, was a creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that Geooge Eliot (in propria persona). 105 was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a blind unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of home in it. No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the inward, that painful collisions come of it. -0 -Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant-is lost, like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish. -0 -Maggie had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from watching in a sick-room through the chill hours of early twilight and breaking day-in which the outside daylight life seems to have no importance, and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened chamber. -0 -Poor child! as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only girl in the civilized world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable o6 George Eliot (ilt propria persona). struggles-with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought, which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history-with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of doubtful example-but unhappily quite without that knowledge of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, becomes morality, and, developing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes religion:-as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. -0 -Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St. Ogg's, he saw the distant future before him, as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty shingles; he was on the grassy bank then, and thought the shingles might soon be passed. But now his feet were on the sharp stones; the belt of shingles had widened, and the stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness. -0oOf those two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed pain, for Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave breathing-space to her passionate nature. No true boy feels that: he would rather go and slay the Nemean lion, or perform any round of heroic labours, than endure perpetual appeals to his pity, for evils over which he can make no conquest. Gcolge Eliot (in propria persona). I07 While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows for ever rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests. So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses: inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling their long empty days with memories and fears: outside, the men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of wounds in the hurrying ardour of action. -0 -It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilisation-the sight of a fashionably drest female in grief. From the sorrow of a Hottentot to that of a woman in large buckram sleeves, with several bracelets on each arm, an architectural bonnet, and delicate ribbon-strings-what a long series of gradations! In the enlightened child of civilisation the abandonment characteristic of grief is checked and varied in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half-blinded by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too devious step through a door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deep consciousness of this possibility produces a composition of forces by which she takes a line that just clears the door-post. Perceiving that the tears are hurrying fast, she unpins her strings and throws them f o8 George Eliot (izn propria personza). languidly backward-a touching gesture, indicative, even in the deepest gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when cap-strings will once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with her head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet, she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things else a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in a calm and healthy state. -0 -Among the various excesses to which human nature is subject, moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who openly revile us. -0 -People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why Homer calls them 'blameless.' -0 -Mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side. -0 -If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can be George Eliot (in propria persona). Io9 justified: by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in the present moment. -0 -Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart. -0 -You inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. -0 -The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history. -o0 We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,-if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass-the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows-the same redbreasts that we used to call ' God's birds,' because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known? The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers and the blueeyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my feet-what IIo George Eliot (in propria persona). grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home-scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered birdnotes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows-such things as these are the mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deepbladed grass to-day, might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love. -0 -There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labour of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of our own personality: we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after something better and better in our surroundings, the grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute-or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining round those old inferior things-if the loves and sanctities of our life had George Eliot (in propria persona). I I no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory-that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid. -0 -Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans,which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi,-can hardly get a dim notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this spot, where all his memories centred, and where life seemed like a familiar smoothhandled tool that the fingers clutch with loving ease. And just now he was living in that freshened memory of the far-off time which comes to us in the passive hours of recovery from sickness. -oNature repairs her ravages-repairs them with her sunshine, and with human labour.... Nature repairs her ravages-but not all. The uptorn trees are not I 12 George Eliot (in propria persoza). rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred: if there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair. --- We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us. -0 — — oThere are possibilities which our minds shrink from too completely for us to fear them. -oA suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes. -0 -To minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity-strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others-prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye-however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation: it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose cn others with the authority of conscious right: it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will answer these purposes is self-evident. George Eliot (iz propria persona). I Y 3 A character at unity with itself-that performs what it intends, subdues every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly possible-is strong by its very negations. -OA boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation I can suggest to you is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy juniors feel you to be a truly admirable and enviable character. -0 -Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most unmodifiable characters. -0 -The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it: the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and H [ 14 George Eliot (in propria persona). must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed-the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality-without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardlyzearned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. -0 -The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's grand dirge over them: they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). I 5 Bob, with the pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in armour calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. -0 -Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress. -0 -If people are to quarrel often, it follows as a corollary that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certain limits. -0 -The feeblest member of a family-the one who has the least character-is often the merest epitome of the family habits and traditions. -0 -We perhaps never detect how much of our social demeanour is made up of artificial airs, until we see a person who is at once beautiful and simple: without the beauty, we are apt to call simplicity awkwardness. -0 -There is nothing more widely misleading than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies on imaginary game. Plotting covetousness, and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist: they demand too intense a mental action for many of out I I6 George Eliot (in propria persona). fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil the lives of our neighbours without taking so much trouble: we can do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized by small extravagancies, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small family of immediate desires-we do little else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thikiking of seed-corn or the next year's crop. -oHow lovely the little river is, with its dark, changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. 0 ---The tragedy of our lives is not created entirely from within. ' Character,' says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphbrisms —'character is destiny.' But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive Hamlet's having married' Ophelia, and got through life with a reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility to his fatherin-law. Maggie's destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it to reveal itself like the course of an Gcorec Eliot (in prlopria persona). I 17 unmapped river: we only know that the river is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the same final home. -0 -The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. -0 --o — All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a particular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognised voice to us-a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has been used to touch deep-lying fibres. -0o Does not a supreme poet blend light and sound into Qne, calling darkness mute, and light eloquent? -0 --- So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain. -0 -It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive-when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again. -0 -Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme our fear has sketched out. Fear is 18 Gcorge Eliot (inz propria persona). almost always haunted by terrible dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities against them..... Those slight indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favourite machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which imagination is apt to work. -0 -There is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room. --- The sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists. -0 -Confidences are sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere. -0 -There is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music-that does not make a man sing or play the better. o-0 -Fine old. Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and colour with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow. Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of infancy; it lay with the neatliest finished border on every sloping roof, making the Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). I 9 dark-red gables stand out with a new depth of colour; it weighed heavily on the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell from them with a shuddering sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches; the gates were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there a disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified 'in unrecumbent sadness;' there was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud-no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. But old Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the out-door world, for he meant to light up home with new brightness, to deepen all the richness of in-door colour, and give a keener edge of delight to the wvarm fragrance of food: he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment that would strengthen the primitive fellowship of kindred, and make the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome as the hidden daystar. His kindness fell but hardly on the homelessfell but hardly on the homes where the hearth was not very warm, -and where the food had little fragrance; where the human faces had no sunshine in them, but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want. But the fine old season meant well; and if he has not learnt the secret how to bless men impartially, it is because his father Time, with ever-unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in his own mighty, slowbeating heart. -0 -The middle-aged, who have lived through their strongest emotions, but are yet in the time when memory is still half passionate and not merely con 120 George Eliot (iz propria persona). templative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at some moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to scramble upwards into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely without such aid. -0 -It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite transiently-on a mile's journey, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood. -0 -There may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank a means towards a fateful result. o-0 -Great sorrows bring lines in well-rounded faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the hairs that once looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine. -0 -It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love-this hunger of the heart-as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world. -0 -Maggie's heart went out towards this woman whom she had never liked, and she kissed her silently. It Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). 121 was the first sign within the poor child of that new sense which is the gift of sorrow-that susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the icebergs the mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains of affection. -0 -Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the time-worn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that-and it had the warm tints of life. -0 -Until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid: too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority. -oAll yielding is attended with a less vivid consciousness than resistance; it is the partial sleep of thought; it is the submergence of our own personality by another. -0 -To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the highly 122 George Eliot (in propria persona). blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue.... Such things give a completeness to prosperity, and contribute elements of agreeable consciousness that are not dreamed of by that short-sighted, overheated vindictiveness, which goes out of its way to wreak itself in direct injury. -0 -Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse. -0 -There are two expensive forms of education, either of which a parent may procure for his son by sending him as solitary pupil to a clergyman: one is, the enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's undivided neglect; the other is, the endurance of the reverend gentleman's undivided attention. -0 -Education was almost entirely a matter of luckusually of ill-luck-in those distant days. The state of mind in which you take a billiard-cue or a dice-box in your hand is one of sober certainty compared with that of old-fashioned fathers, like Mr. Tulliver, when they selected a school or a tutor for their sons. Excellent men, who had been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of this disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their Gcorec Eliot (in propria persona). 123 sons a better start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take their chance as to the conscience and the competence of the schoolmaster whose circular fell in their way, and appeared to promise so much more than they would ever have thought of asking for, including the return of linen, fork, and spoon. It was happy for them if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought up his son to the Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of four-and-twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an imprudent marriage: otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son by happening to be on the foundation of a grammarschool as yet unvisited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have, all to themselves, the advantages of a large and lofty building, together with a head master, toothless, dim-eyed, and deaf, whose erudite indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of three hundred pounds a head-a ripe scholar, doubtless, when first appointed; but all ripeness beneath the sun has a further stage less esteemed in the market. -0 -It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to shift thjeir position and contradict themselves: everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin life anew. -oIt is a fact capable of an amiable interpretation, that ladies are not the worst disposed towards a new 124 George Eliot (iin propria persona). acquaintance of their own sex because she has points of inferiority. -0 -The roach necessarily abhors the mode in which the pike gets his living, and the pike is likely to think nothing further even of the most indignant roach than that he is excellent good eating; it could only be when the roach choked him that the pike could entertain a strong personal animosity. -0 -Simple people, like our friend Mr. Tulliver, are apt to clothe unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas. -0 -Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her hus'band, yet she retained in all the freshness of her early married life a facility of saying things which drove him in the opposite direction to the one she desired. Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal gold-fish apparently retains to the last its youthful illusion that it can swim in a straight line beyond the encircling glass. Mrs.'Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and, after running her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years, would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity. -oMrs. Tulliver's monotonous pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be comparable to that proverbial feather which has the credit or discredit of breaking the camel's back; though, on a strictly impartial view, the blame ought rather to lie with the George Eliot (in propria persozna). 125 previous weight of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent peril, that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without mischief. -0 -Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but he considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved by employing a stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of cockfight, in which it was the business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best pluck and the strongest spurs. Mr. Tulliver regarded his parson with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell him what common-sense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavourable circumstances, have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of hooks. -0 -Feeble limbs easily resign themselves to be tethered, and when we are subdued by sickness it seems possible to us to fulfil pledges which the old vigour comes back and breaks. -0 -There is something strangely w inning to most women in that offer of the firm arm: the help is not wanted I26 George Eliot (in propria persona). physically at that moment, but the sense of help-the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs -meets a continual want of the imagination. -0 -One cannot be good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal towards whom she has otherwise no ill-will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. -0 -It was Mr. Stelling's favourite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted that culture of the mind which prepared it for the reception of any subsequent crop. I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory: if we are to have one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as any other. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver as if he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric weakness which prevented him from digesting it. It is astonishing what a different result one gets by changing the metaphor! Once call the brain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious conception of the classics and geometry as ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing. But then it is open to some one else to follow great authorities, and call the mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case one's knowledge of the digestive process becomes quite irrelevant. It was doubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel the ship of the desert, but it would hardly lead one far in training that useful beast. 0 Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being 'the freshest modern' instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). 127 with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor,-that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else? -0 -A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. -o0 -The pride and obstinacy of millers (like Mr. Tulliver), and other insignificant people, whom you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too; but it is of that unwept, hidden sort, that goes on from generation to generation, and leaves no recordsuch tragedy, perhaps, as lies in the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where the morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectant discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children like a damp, thick air, in which all the functions of life are depressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of position is a law of life-they can never flourish again, after a single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance is a law of life-they can only sustain humiliation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate still. 128 George Eliot (in propria persona). If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out. -o0 the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. -0 -The small old-fashioned book (Thomas a Ke'mpis), for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness: while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph-not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations: the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced-in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours-but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. o — The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in every town, and by hundreds of obscure George Eliot (in propria persona). 129 hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life. -0 -There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows-in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts its pain-in the time when day follows day in dull unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine;-it is then that despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction. -0 -This inalienable habit of saving, as an end in itself, belonged to the industrious men of business of a former generation, who made their fortunes slowly, almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to the harrier-it constituted them a 'race,' which is nearly lost in these days of rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the back of want. In old-fashioned times, an 'independence' was hardly ever made without a little 1 30 George Eliot (in proypria personaz). miserliness as a condition, and you would have found that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract acid. The true Harpagons were always marked and exceptional characters not so the worthy taxpayers, who, having once pinched from real necessity, retained even in the midst of their comfortable retirement, with their wall-fruit and wine-bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingenious process of nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving any perceptible deficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted to give up a newly-taxed luxury when they had their clear five hundred a year, as when they had only five hundred pounds of capital. Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. -0 -If people happen to be lovers, what can be so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? English sunshine is dubious; bonnets are never quite secure; Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). 13I and if you sit down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to be depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and presently find yourself in the seat you like best-a little above or a little below the one on which your goddess sits (it is the same thing to the metaphysical mind, and that is the reason why women are at once worshipped and looked down upon), with a satisfactory confidence that there will be no lady-callers. -0 -Maggie and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of passion-when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal declaration has been made, and all its mutual divination, exalting the most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The' explicitness of an engagement wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered and presented in a large bouquet. -oWhen one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalkstones at one's finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent. -0 -It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a ' public.' 132 George Eliot (in propriaz personza). What was it, Philip wondered, that made Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being turned into animals?... I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied, beseeching affection. The promise was -void, like so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the starry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach-impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed. -0 -The last act of baseness-the tasting of joys that were wrung from crushed hearts. -0 -Mrs. Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman: she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a great s~cial power, but it is not the power of love. -O-0 Gentlemen with broad chests and ambitious intentions do sometimes disappoint their friends by failing to carry the world before them. Perhaps it is, that high achievements demand some other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes; perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather George Eliot (in propria persona). 1 33 indolent, their diviyze pjarticulzTm aurZ being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty appetite. -OIt is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high appreciation and full-blown eulogy: in many respectable families throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, which, in its fine freedom from the coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium, with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions. O-0 --- — It is always chilling in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. 0 — It was the practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit non-existent facts: they had a fixed opinion to begin with, that the facts were existent, and what had they to do but to tighten the thumb-screw? -0 -Perhaps there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any way unfavourably excepted 134 Bob Y7akinz. from ordinary conditions, until the good force has had time to triumph. Ugly and deformed people have great need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely uncomfortable without them: but the theory that unusual virtues spring by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost trial to what is human in us? Lors, it's a fine thing to hev a dumb brute fond on you; it '11 stick to you, an' make no jaw. -0 -Hev a dog, Miss!-they're better friends nor any Christian. I can't give you Mumps, 'cause he 'd break his heart to go away from me-eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff?... There's a pup-if you didn't mind about it not being thoroughbred: its mother acts in the Punch show-an uncommon sensable bitch-she means more sense wi' her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There's one chap carries pots,-a poor low trade as any on the road,-he says, ' Why, Toby's nought but a mongrel-there's nought to look at in Bob Yakin. 135 her.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn't much pickin' o' your feyther an' mother, to look at you.' Not but what I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see one cur grinnin' at another. -oHe knows his company, Mumps does. He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread: he'd smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread-he would. Lors, I talk to him by th' hour together, when I 'm walking i' lone places, and if I 'n done a bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I 'n got no secrets, but what Mumps knows 'em. -0 -I think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full o' plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says-' an' then I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an' empty.' -0 -I think the more on't when Mr. Tom says a thing, because his tongue doesn't overshoot him as mine does. Lors! I 'm no better nor a tilted bottle, I arn't -I can't stop mysen when once I begin. -0 -Dr. Kenn was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was 136 Bob Yakin. upo' the travel three parts o' the Sundays-an' then I'm so used to bein' on my legs, I can't sit so long on end-' an' lors, sir,' says I,' a packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church: it tastes strong,' says I; 'there 's no call to lay it on thick.' -0 -When I begun to carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig-net or calico was all the same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest. I was took in dreadful-for I 'm a straightforrard chap -up to no tricks, mum. I can on'y say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I should lose myself pretty quick. -0 -Lors! it's a thousand pities such a lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i'stead o' goin' into these new-fangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi' their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi' ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o' calico: it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods-an' pays no rent, an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better nor I doyouz can see through them shopmen, I '11 be bound. -0 -See here, now, here 's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two shillin'-an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole i' this plain end. Lors, I Bob Yakin. I37 think the moths an' the mildew was sent by Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin' women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now, every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin' apiece-not a farthin' less; but what does the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no time, an' then a packman like me can carry't to the poor lasses as live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors, it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher. -0 -Mr. Tom's as close as a iron biler, he is; but I 'm a 'cutish chap, an' when I 've left off carrying my pack, an' am at a loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an' I 'm forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides. -o0 -If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me: I shan't ax him for another afore I sarve him out. -0 -I am a bit of a Do, you know; but it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue, or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all. -0 -Mumps doesn't mind a bit o' cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an' 'ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on't. I niver cheat anybody as doesn't want to cheat me, Miss .i38 Maggie Tzlliver. lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o' sport, an' now I don't go wi' the ferrets, I 'n got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. -0 -T. Tulliver.-Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob, else you '11 get transported some day. Bob Jakin.-No, no; not me, Mr. Tom. There's no law again' flea-bites. If I wasn't to take a fool in now and then, he'd niver get any wiser. Oh, it is difficult-life is very difficult! It seems right to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling;-but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for us-the ties that have made others dependent on us-and would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in paradise, and we could always see that. one being first towards whom.... I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other. But I see-I feel it is not so now: there are things we must renounce in life; some of us must resign love. I Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly-that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. LLove is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be poisoned. Don't urge me; help me-help me, because I love you. Maggie Tulliver. I39 I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. -2 -You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness. o — I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. o-0 -Faithfulness and constancy mean something else besides doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean renouncing whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in us-whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made dependent on us.: -o — If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment. -oI don't think I could ever bear to make any one unhappy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight of happy people. -0 -1 I was never satisfied with a little of anything. IThat is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.... I never felt that I had enough 140 Mag-gie Tulliver. music-I wanted more instruments playing togetherI wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. To I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music. At other times one is conscious of carrying a weight. -0 -I think I am quite wicked with roses-I like to gather them and smell them till they have no scent left. -o — If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place. -0 -I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them. -0 -It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent-almost like a carrierpigeon. -0-o 'The Pirate '-0, I began that once; I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland, and I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head, and I made several endings; but they were all Maggie TulZivcr. I4I unhappy. I could never make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the Shetland Isles-I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough sea. -0 -It is with me as I used to think it would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have got so stupid with the habit of turning backwards and forwards in that narrow space, that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad habit of being unhappy. -0 -(To her brother iom).-I know I've been wrongoften, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If you were in fault ever-if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed punishing me-you have always been hard and cruel to me: even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity: you have no sense of your own imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard: it is not fitting for a mortal-for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues-you think they are great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness! I42 Maggie Tulliver. We can't choose happiness either for ourselves or for another: we can't tell where that will lie. We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us-for the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this belief is hard: it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt that if I let it go for ever, I should have no light through the darkness of this life. /-0 / Our life is determined for us-and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us to do. oMaggie.-I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I think we are only like children, that some one who is wiser is taking care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three years-even joy in subduing my own will. Phliip5 Wakezm. —Yes, Maggie, and you are shutting yourself up in a narrow self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not resignation: resignation is the willing endurance of a pain that is not allayed-that you don't expect to be allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation: Mr. Deane. 143 and it is stupefaction to remain in ignorance-to shut up all the avenues by which the life of your fellow-men might become known to you. The worst of all hobbies are those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn out of a sack then. o-0 -You see, Tom, the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it did when I was a young fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago, when I was much such a strapping / youngster as you, a man expected to pull between the shafts the best part of his life, before he got the whip in his hand. The looms went slowish, and fashions didn't alter quite so fast: I 'd a best suit that lasted me six years. Everything was on a lower scale, sir —n in point of expenditure, I mean. JIt's this steam, you see, that has made the difference: it drives on every wheel double pace, and the wheel of fortune along with 'em, as our Mr. Stephen Guest said at the anniversary dinner (he hits these things off wonderfully, considering he's seen nothing of business). I don't find fault with the change, as some people do. Trade, sir, opens a man's eyes; and if the population is to get thicker upon the ground, as it's doing, the world must use its wits at inventions of one sort or other. I know I 've done my share as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said it's a fine thing to make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before; but, sir, it's a fine thing, too, to further the exchange of commodities, and bring the grains of corn to the mouths that are hungry. 144 Mzr. Deanc. - And that's our line of business; and I consider it as honourable a position as a man can hold, to be connected with it. -0 -The world isn't made of pen, ink, and paper, and if you're to get on in the world, young man, you must know what the world's made of. — 0 -I'll tell you how I got on. It wasn't by getting astride a stick, and thinking it would turn into a horse, if I sat on it long enough. I kept mny eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasn't too fond of my own back, and I made my master's interest my own. -oIf I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself-that's where it is. -0 — You '11 have to begin at a low round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you mean to get on in life. -0 -You youngsters now-a-days think you're to begin with living well and working easy: you 've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback. -0 -You must remember it isn't only laying hold of a rope-you must go on pulling. It's the mistake you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains - Mr. Tulliver. I45 or your pocket, to think you've got a better start in the world if you stick yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean, and have the shop-wenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn't the way I started, young man: when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt of tar, and I wasn't afraid of handling cheeses. That's the reason I can wear good broadcloth now, and have my legs under the same table with the heads of the best firms in St. Ogg's. I '11 never pull my coat off before I go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put him to a business, as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I 'm dead an' gone. I shan't be put off wvi' spoon-meat afore I 've lost my teeth. -0 -All the learnin' my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. -0 -Not but what, if the world had been left as God made it, I could ha' seen my way, and held my own wi' the best of 'em; but things have got so twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as aren't a bit like 'em, as I 'm clean at fault, often an' often. Everything winds about so-the more straightforrard you are, the more you 're puzzled. K 146 AMr. Tzdiver. The law's made to take care o' raskills. -0 — I want Tom to know figures, and write like print, and see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap-things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon fine thing, that is, when you can let a man know what you think of him without paying for it. -o --- It's a pity but what Maggie 'd been the lad-she 'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, size would. It's the wonderful'st thing as'I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er 'cute-bein' a good-looking woman too, an' come of a rare family for managing; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she was a bit weak, like; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains himself, there's no knowing where they 'll run to; an' a pleasant sort o' soft woman may go on breeding you stupid lads and 'cute wenches, till it's like as if the world was turned topsy-turvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin' thing. -0 -That's the worst on't wi' the crossing o' breeds: you can never justly calkilate what '11 come on't. -0 -That's the fault I have to find wi' you, Bessy; if you see a stick i' the road, you're allays thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me not to hire a good waggoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face. Mir. Tulliver. I47 An over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep-she 'll fetch none the bigger price for that. -0 -Fine feathers make fine birds. I see nothing to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the side o' the men-out o' proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her the right sizeneither too little nor too big. -0 -Mr. Tulliver.-The old mill 'ud miss me, I think, Luke. There's a story as when the mill changes hands, the river 's angry-I 've heard my father say it many a time. There's no telling whether there mayn't be summat in the story, for this is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it-it's been too many for me, I know. Lzke.-Ay, sir, what wi' the rust on the wheat, an' the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as I've seen i' my timethings often looks comical: there's the bacon fat wi' our last pig runs away like butter-it leaves nought but a scratchin'. Mr. Tulliver.-I should go off my head in a new place. I should be like as if I 'd lost my way. It's all hard, whichever way I look at it-the harness 'ull gall me-but it 'ud be summat to draw along the old road, instead of a new un. Luke.-Ay, sir, you 'd be a deal better here nor in some new place. I can't abide new places mysen: things is allays awk'ard-narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles all another sort, an' oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th' head o' the Floss, there. It 's poor work, changing your country-side. 148. Philip VWakez..Mr. Tulliver.-But I doubt, Luke, they'll be for getting rid o' Ben, and making you do with a lad-and I must help a bit wi' the mill. You '11 have a worse place. Luke.-Ne'er mind, sir, I shan't plague mysen. I'n been wi' you twenty year, an' you can't get twenty year wi' whistlin' for'em, no more nor you can make the trees grow: you mun wait till God A'mighty sends 'em. I can't abide new victual nor new faces, I can't -you niver know but what they '11 gripe you. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No character becomes strong in that way. -oA feeling of revenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. -0 -— oI don't think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible of can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he couldn't have told how he did it, and wve can't tell why we feel it to be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete inventory of. Certain strains of music affect me so strangely-I can never hear them without their changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would last, I might be capable of heroisms. Philip Wakem. 149 Giants have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. -o'- Love gives insight, and insight often gives foreboding. -0 --- I think of too many things-sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one of them. I 'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for classic literature, and mediaeval literature, and modern literature; I flutter all ways, and fly in none. -oIt seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures-I long to be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I want. That is pain to me, and always will be pain, until my faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. -0 -Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love: he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. ISO Various Characters. You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be an escape from pain.] I tell you again, there is no such escape possible except by perverting or mutilating one's nature. -0 -It is a way of eking out one's imperfect life and being three people at once-to sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the while-or else to sing and paint. -0 -'The Creation' has a sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if it were written for the birthday fete of a German Grand-Duke., Miss Maggie.-I think you never read any book but the Bible-did you, Luke? Lzke (the miller).- Nay, Miss-an' not much o' that. I 'm no reader, I aren't. Maggie.-But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I 've not got any very pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there 's Pug's Tour of Europe' -that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would help you-they show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know-and one sitting on a barrel. Luke.-Nay, Miss, I'n. no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' knowin' about them. Maggie.-But they 're our fellow-creatures, Lukewe ought to know about our fellow-creatures. Luke.-Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; Various Characters. 15I all I know-my old master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo-an' rogues enoowi'out lookin' i' books for 'em. Maggie.-O, well, perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature' better-that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sun-fish, and a bird sitting on its tail-I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke? Luke.-Nay, Miss, I 'n got to keep count o' the flour rn' corn-I can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks to the gallows-knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets. -0 -I can't think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that makes you look best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now. But do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome fashionable dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would come back as the only right thing for you. I wonder if Marie Antoinette looked all the grander when her gown was darned at the elbows. Now, if I were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite unnoticeable-I should be a mere rag.-Lucy Deane. 152 Various Characters. I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true. A man is occasionally grateful when' he says 'thank you.' It's rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world declines a disagreeable invitation-don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?-Stephen Guest. -0 -Lucy Deane.-Well, it will not go on much longer, for the bazaar is to take place on Monday week. Ste5phen Guest.-Thank heaven! Kenn himself said the other day, that he didn't like this plan of making vanity do the work of charity; but just as ihe British public is not reasonable enough to bear direct taxation, so St. Ogg's has not got force of motive enough to build and endow schools without calling ir. the force of folly. -0 -Them fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it with a bib. —Mrs. Tulliver. -0 -It's dreadful to think on, people playing with their own insides in that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in?-Mrs. Pullet. o — Mrs. Tulliver.-There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy-never two summers alike. Mrs. Pullet.-Ah, it's the way i' this world. END OF 'THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.' PART FOURTH. SAYINGS FROM 'SILAS MARNER.' SILAS MARN ER. George Eliot (in propria persona). IN old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. N We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's. -0 -The gods of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots. -0 -Joy is the best of wine. -0 — That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and followed desire-I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to the quick 155 I5 6 George Eliot (in propria persona). when the chase had long been ended, and hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became regret? -oIf there is an angel who records the sorrows of men as well as their sins, he knows how many and deep are the sorrows that spring from false ideas for which no man is culpable. -oOur consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud. -o0 -Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position.' Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance, that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never George Eliot (iii propria persona). 157 know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind. -0 -To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folks, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not overwise or clever-at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring. -oThe yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; and the goodhumoured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast 15 8 George Eliot (in propria persona). becoming a bitter man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart, and enter again, like demons who had found in him a ready-garnished home. -0 -No disposition is a security from evil wishes to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity. -0 -The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere trimmings when once the actions have become a lie. -0 -It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable. -oJust and self-reproving thoughts do not come to us too thickly, even in the purest air, and with the best lessons of heaven and earth.; how should those whitewinged delicate messengers make their way to Molly's poisoned chamber, inhabited by no higher memories than those of a bar-maid's paradise of pink ribbons and gentlemen's jokes? -0 -The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of George Eliot (in propria persona). 159 time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death. -o - Instead of trying to still his fears, Godfrey encouraged them, with that superstitious impression which clings to us all, that if we expect evil very strongly it is the less likely to come. -0o A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones. -oEvery man's work, pursued steadily, tends to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. -oIn the early ages of the world, we know, it was believed that each territory was inhabited and ruled by its own divinities, so that a man could cross the bordering heights and be out of the reach of his native gods, whose presence was confined to the streams and the groves and the hills among which he had lived from his birth. I60 George Eliot (iln propria persona). Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master? -oThe vindication of the loved object is the best balm affection can find for its wounds:-' A man must have so much on his mind,' is the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers and unfeeling words.' -0 Excessive rumination and self-questioning is perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensibility when shut out from its due share of outward activity and of practical claims on its affections-inevitable to a noble-hearted, childless woman, when her lot is narrow. 'I can do so little-have I done it all well?' is the perpetually recurring thought; and there are no voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory demands to divert energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple. -o0 I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dulness of the grey hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good. Dissatisfaction, seated musingly on a childless hearth, thinks with envy of the father whose return is greeted by young voices-seated at the meal where the little heads rise one above another like nursery plants, it sees a black care hovering behind George Eliot (in propria persona). i 61 every one of them, and thinks the impulses by Which men abandon freedom, and seek for ties, are surely nothing but a brief madness. -0 -That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger-not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose. -0 -Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile. -0 -Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings. -0 -That hidden life which lies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly ornamented facade that meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable admirers. -oThe subtle and varied pains springing from the higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, are perhaps less pitiable than that dreary absence of impersonal enjoyment and consolation which leaves ruder minds to the perpetual urgent companionship of their own griefs and discontents. The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we are apt to think very prosaic figoures-men whose only work was to ride round their land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, and 162 George Eliot (int propria persona). who passed the rest of their days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony-had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamities came to them too, and their early errors carried hard consequences: perhaps the love of some sweet maiden, the image of purity, order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a life in which the days would not seem too long, even without rioting; but the maiden was lost, and the vision passed away, and then what was left to them, especially when they had become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety, and say over again with cager emphasis the things they had said already any time that twelvemonth? Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed men there were some whom-thanks to their native humankindness-even riot could never drive into brutality; men who, when their cheeks were fresh, had felt the keen point of sorrow or remorse, had been pierced by the reeds they leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fetters from which no struggle could loose them and under these sad circumstances, common to us all, their thoughts could find no resting-place outside the ever-trodden round of their own petty history. -0 -Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit. -0-. A plain man, speaking under some embarrassment, necessarily blunders on words that are coarser than George Eliot (in propria persona). 163 his intentions, and that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings. -0 -I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours with our words is, that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure.to smack of a mingled soil.. — Our old-fashioned country life had many different aspects, as all life must have when it is spread over a various surface, and breathed on variously by multitudinous currents, from the winds of heaven to the thoughts of men, which are for ever moving and crossing each other with incalculable results. -oEven people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible-nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas-where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all 164 George Eliot (in propria persona). vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories. -0 -Have not men, shut. up in solitary imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of. the sum of straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become a mastering purpose? Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit? That will help us to understand how the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men whose imaginations, even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond it. -0 -Marner's life had reduced itself to the mere functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off from faith and love-only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some well-knit theory., — 0 -A weaver who finds hard words in his hymn-book knows nothing of abstractions; as the little child knows nothing of parental love, but only knows one face and one lap towards which it stretches its arms for refuge and nurture. George Eliot (in p-opria persona). 165 The child was perfectly quiet now, but not asleeponly soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky-before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway. -O Before such calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear is more distinctly felt-like a raven flapping its slow wing across the sunny air. -0 One's thoughts may be much occupied with lovestruggles, but hardly so as to be insensible to a disorder in the general framework of things. -OWhen events turn out so much better for a man than he has had reason to dread, is it not a proof that his conduct has been less foolish and blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared? When we are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not altogether unmeritorious, and that it is only just we should treat ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune. -OA dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic. I66 George Eliot (in propria persona). The excitement had not passed away: it had only reached that stage when the keenness of the susceptibility makes the external stimulus intolerable-when there is no sense of weariness, but rather an intensity of inward life, under which sleep is an impossibility. Any one who has watched such moments in other men.remembers the brightness of the eyes and the strange definiteness that comes over coarse features from that transient influence. It is as if a new fineness of ear for all spiritual voices had sent wonder-working vibrations through the heavy mortal frame-as if 'beauty born of murmuring sound' had passed into the face of the listener. — 0 --- To people accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious feeling has incorporated itself, it is difficult to enter into that simple, untaught state of mind in which the form and the feeling have never been severed by an act of reflection., -0 -Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system. -oStrange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a Doll! Wlint/rop. 167 life of hard toil has never been illuminated by any enthusiastic religious faith. To them pain and mishap present a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment: their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear. ' Is there anything you can fancy that you would like to eat?' I once said to an old labouring man, who was in his last illness, and who had refused all the food his wife had offered him. ' No,' he answered, 'I 've never been used to nothing but common victual, and I can't eat that.' Experience had bred no fancies in him that could raise the phantasm of appetite. Well, Master Marner, it's niver too late to turn over a new leaf, and if you've niver had no church, there's no telling the good it 'ull do you. For I feel so set up and comfortable as niver was, when I've been and heard the prayers, and the singing to the praise and glory o' God, as Mr. Macey gives cut-and Mr. Crackenthorp saying good words, and more partic'lar on Sacramen' Day; and if a bit o' trouble comes, I feel as I can put up wi' it, for I 've looked for help i' the right quarter, and gev myself up to Them as we must all give ourselves up to at the last; and if we 'n done our part, it isn't to be believed as Them as are above us 'ull be worse nor we are, and come short o' Theirn. -oI can never rightly know the meaning o' what I hear at church, only a bit here and there, but I know it's good words-I do. i68 Dolly Winthrop. It allays comes into my head when I 'm sorry for folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help 'em, not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the night-it comes into my head as Them above has got a deal tenderer heart nor what I've got-for I can't be anyways better nor Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to me, it's because there's things I don't know on; and for the matter o' that, there may be plenty o' things I don't know on, for it's little as I knovw-that it is. -0 -Sometimes things come into my head when I'm leeching or poulticing, or such, as I could never think on when I was sitting still. -0 -Eh, there's trouble i' this world, and there's things as we can niver make out the rights on. And all as we've got to do is to trusten, Master Marner-to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know-I feel it i' my own inside as it must be so. -OIt's the will o' Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but there's some things as I 've never felt i' the dark about, and they 're mostly what comes i' the day's work. You were hard done by that once, Master Marner, and it seems as you '11 never know the rights of it; but that doesn't hinder there being a rights, Master Marner, for all it's dark to you and me. Dolly Winthrop. 169 Ah, it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest -one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all-the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n-they do, that they do. -0 -There's no other music equil to the Christmas music -' Hark the erol angils sing.' And you may judge what it is at church, Master Marner, with the bassoon and the voices, as you can't help thinking you've got to a better place a'ready-for I wouldn't speak ill o' this world, seeing as Them put us in it as knows best; but what wi' the drink, and the quarrelling, and the bad illnesses, and the hard dying, as I've seen times and times, one's thankful to hear of a better. -oI beg and pray of you to leave off weaving of a Sunday, for it's bad for soul and body-and the money as comes i' that way 'ull be a bad bed to lie down on at the last, if it doesn't fly away, nobody knows where, like the white frost. And you '11 excuse me being that free with you, Master Marner, for I wish you well-I do. -0 -I'd a baking yesterday, Master Marner, and the lard-cakes turned out better nor common, and I'd ha' asked you to accept some, if you'd thought well. I don't eat such things myself, for a bit o' bread's what I like from one year's end to the other; but men's stomichs are made so comical, they want a changethey do, I know, God help 'em. I70 Dolly Winthrop. I've seen men as are wonderful handy vi' children. The men are awk'ard and contrairy mostly, God help 'em-but when the drink's out of 'em, they aren't unsensible, though they're bad for leeching and bandaging-so fiery and unpatient. -0 -If you can't bring your mind to frighten the child off touching things, you must do what you can to keep 'em out of her way. That's what I do wi' the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw-worry and gnaw they will, if it was one's Sunday cap as hung anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no difference, God help 'em: it's the pushing o' the teeth as sets 'em on, that's what it is. Dolly.-You must fix on a name for it, because it must have a name giv' it when it's christened.. Silas.-My mother's name was Hephzibah, and my little sister was named after her. Dolly.-Eh, that's a hard name. I partly think it isn't a christened name. Silas.-It's a Bible name. Dolly.-Then I've no call to speak again' it; but you see I'm no scholard, and I'm slow at catching the words. My husband says I'm allays like as if I was putting the haft for the handle-that's what he saysfor he's very sharp, God help him. But it was awk'ard calling your little sister by such a hard name, when you'd got nothing big to say, like-wasn't it, Master Marner? Silas.-We called her Eppie. Priscilla L ammeter. 7 I Dolly.-Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the name, it 'ud be a deal handier. I 'm obliged to have the same (gowns) as Nancy, you know, for all I 'm five years.older, and it makes me look yallow-, for she never will have anything without I have mine just like it, because she wants us to look like sisters. And I tell her, folks 'ull think it's my weakness makes me fancy as I shall look pretty in what she looks pretty in. For I am ugly-there's no denying that: I feature my father's family. But, law! I don't mind. The pretty uns do four fly-catchers --- they keep the men off us. I 've no opinion o' the men, Miss Gunn-I don't know what you have. And as for fretting and stewing about what they'll think of you from morning till night, and making your life uneasy about what they're doing when they're out o' your sight-as I tell Nancy, it's a folly no woman need be guilty of, if she's got a good father and a good home: let her leave it to them as have got no fortin, and can't help themselves. As I say, Mr. Have-your-own-way is the best husband, and the only one I 'd ever promise to obey. -0 -I 'm a bad un to live with folks when they don't like the truth. -o It drives me past patience, that way o' the menalways wanting and wanting, and never easy with what they 've got: they can't sit comfortable in their chairs when they've neither ache nor pain, but either they I72 Priscilla L amhzcter. must stick a pipe in their mouths, to make 'em better than well, or else they must be swallowing something strong, though they 're forced to make haste before the next meal comes in. -0 -0, I know the way o' wives; they set one on to abuse their husbands, and then they turn round on one and praise 'em as if they wanted to sell 'em. -oThere's this dairymaid, now she knows she's to be married, turned Michaelmas, she'd as lief pour the new milk into the pig-trough as into the pans. That's the way with 'em all: it's as if they thought the world 'ud be new-made because they 're to be married. -0 -There's nothing like a dairy if folks want a bit o' worrit to make the days pass. For as for rubbing furniture, when you can once see your face in a table there's nothing else to look for; but there's always something fresh with the dairy: for even in the depths o' winter there's some pleasure in conquering the butter, and making it come whether or no. -0 -There's nothing kills a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself. It's a deal the best way o' being master, to let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the blaming in your own hands. It 'ud save many a man a stroke, I believe. ?Mr. Maccy. I73 You 're right there, Tookey: there's allays two 'piniofis; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself. -0 -Our family's been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round; there's no voices like what there used to be, and there's nobody remembers what we remember, if it isn't the old crows. -OIt isn't every queer-looksed thing as Old Harry's had the making of-I mean, speaking o' toads and such; for they're often harmless, and useful against varmin. o — Meanin' goes but a little way i' most things, for you may mean to stick things together and your glue may be bad, and then where are you? -oJaniwary, to be sure, 's a unreasonable time to be married in, for it isn't like a christening or a burying, as you can't help. That's what you're allays at; if I throw a stone and hit, you think there's summat better than hitting, and you try to throw a stone beyond. -0 -There's reasons in things as nobody knows onthat's pretty much what I 've made out; though some I74 Jr. Macey. folks are so wise, they 'll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all fhe while the real reason's winking at 'em in the corner, and they niver see't..-oThere's windings i' things as they may carry you to the fur end o' the prayer-book afore you get back to 'en. -0 -Where's the use o' talking?-you can't think what goes on in a 'cute man's inside. -0 -If Old Harry's a mind to do a bit o' kindness for a holiday, like, who's got anything against it? -0 -Mr. Macey.-I doubt Godfrey's got a soft place in his head, else why should he be turned round the finger by that offal Dunsey as nobody's seen o' late, and let him kill that fine hunting hoss as was the talk o' the country? And one while he was allays after Miss Nancy, and then it all went off again, like a smell o' hot porridge, as I may say. That wasn't my way when I went a-coorting. Ben Wiznthrop.-Ah, but mayhap, Miss Nancy hung off, like, and your lass didn't. Mr. Macey.-I should say she didn't. Before I said 'sniff,' I took care to know as she'd say 'snaff,' and pretty quick too. I wasn't a-going to open my mouth, like a dog at a fly, and snap it to again, wi' nothing to swaller. TV'lrious Characters. I75 There's things folks 'ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin.-Ben Winfthrop. -0 -When I 've got a pot of good ale, I like to swaller it, and do my inside good, i'stead o' smelling and staring at it to see if I can't find faut wi' the brewing.-Benc Winthzronp. -0 -Breed is stronger than pasture.-i '. LZIamniwtr. -0 -Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye. That's 'Over the hills and far away,' that is. My father used to say to me, whenever we heard that tune, 'Ah, lad, I come from over the hills and far away.' There's a many tunes I don't make head or tail of; but that speaks to me like the blackbird's whistle. I suppose it's the name: there's a deal in the name of a tune.-M-r. Lammeter. -0 -Things look dim to old folks: they'd need have some young eyes about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the same as it used to be.-Mr. Lamnzmtel.; -— oAh, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla has. She saves a little pepper to sprinkle over her talkthat 's the reason why she never puts too much into her pies. There's my wife, now, she never has an answer at her tongue's end; but if I offend her, she's sure to scarify my throat with black pepper the next day, or else give me the colic with watery greens. That's an awful tit-for-tat.-Doctor Kimblc. I76 Various Characters. When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in.-Silas Marner. -o --- There's never a garden in all the parish but what there's endless waste in it for want o' somebody as could use everything up. It's what I think to myself sometimes, as there need nobody run. short o' victuals if the land was made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what could find its way to a mouth. It sets one thinking o' that-gardening does.-Aaron l/iZ th/ ropb. -0 -There's debts we can't pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by. While I've been putting off and putting off, the trees have been growing-it's too late now.-Godfrey Cass. -o I always think the flowers can see us and know what we 're talking about.-Efihie. -0 -to-o —~ Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.-Nancy Lammeter. -0 -Alasfer Win-thzrop.-Fayder, how does that big cock's-feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp's yead? Is there a little hole for it, like in my shuttle-cock? Air. WinthroA.-Hush, lad, hush; that's the way the ladies dress theirselves, that is. It does make her look funny, though-partly like a short-necked bottle vi' a long quill in it. Various Characters. 177 Mr. Snell.-Ay, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey? Mr. Macey.-Ay, ay; go that way of a dark night, that's all, and then make believe, if you like, as you didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o' the hosses, nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt daybreak. 'Cliff's Holiday' has been the name of it ever sin' I were a boy; that's to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That's what my father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there's folks nowadays know what happened afore they were born better nor they know their own business. Mr. Snell.-What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas? There's a nut for you to crack. Mr. Dowlas.-Say? I say what a man should say as doesn't shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say, as I'm ready to wager any man ten pound, if he'll stand out wi' me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and I 've said it many a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es as they make so sure of. Ben WIizthro o.-Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is. You might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if he stood up to's neck in the pool of a frosty night. It 'ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as he'd catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff's Holiday aren't agoing to ventur near it for a matter o' ten pound. Mr. Macey.-If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it, he's no call to lay any bet-let him go and M I78 178 Various Charactewrs. stan' by himself-there 's nobody 'ull hinder him; and then he can let the parish'ners know if they 're wrong..M1r. Dowlas.-Thank you! I 'm obliged to you. If folks are fools, it's no business o' mine. I don't want to make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it a'ready. But I 'm not against a bet-everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff's Holiday, and I'll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I'd as lief do it as I 'd fill this pipe..ir. Lundy.-Ah, but who 's to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That's no fair bet. Air. Dowlas.-No fair bet? I should like to hear any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy, I should like to hear you say it. Mr. Lundy.-Very like you would. But it's no business o' mine. You 're none o' my bargains, and I aren't agoing to try and 'bate your price. If anybody '11 bid for you at your own vallying, let him. I 'm for peace and quietness, I am. VMr. Dowlas.-Yes, that's what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at him. But I 'm afraid o' neither man nor ghost, and I 'm ready to lay a fair bet-f aren't a turn-tail cur. Jfr. Snell.-Ay, but there's this. in it, Dowlas. There's folks, i' my' opinion, they can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as a pike-staff before 'em. And there 's reason i' that. For there's my wife, now, can't smell, not if she 'd the strongest o' cheese under her nose. I never see'd a ghost myself; but then I says to myself, 'Very like I haven't got the smell for 'em.' I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrairiways. And so, I 'm for holding with both sides; 'for, as I say, the truth lies between 'em. And if Various Characters. 179 Dowlas was to go and stand, and say he'd never seen a wink o' Cliff's Holiday all the night through, I'd back him; and if anybody said as Cliff's Holiday was certain sure for all that, I 'd back hlim too. For the smell's what I go by. lir. Dowlas.-Tut, tut, what's the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye? That's what I should like to know. If ghos'es want me to believe in 'em, let 'em leave off skulking i' the dark and i' lone places-let 'em come where there's company and candles.,IZr. Macey.-As if ghos'es 'ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignirant! END OF SILAS MARNER.' PART FIFTH. SAYINGS FROI ' R OMOLA.' RO M-O LA. Geowre Eliol (in p5ropria persona). WHO shall put his finger on the work of justice, and say, ' It is there'? Justice is like the kingdom of God -it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning. -0 -The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the slow wake of the dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main headings of its history-hunger and labour, seedtime and harvest, love and death. Even if, instead of following the dim daybreak, our imagination pauses on a certain historical spot, and awaits the fuller morning, we may see a world-famous city, which has hardly changed its outline since the days of Columbus, seeming to stand as an almost unviolated symbol, amidst the flux of human things, to remind us that we still resemble the men of the past 183 184 George Eliot (in propria persona). more than we differ from them, as the great mechanical principles on which those domes and towers were raised must make a likeness in human building that will be broader and deeper than all possible change. -oOur deeds are like' children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness; and that dreadful vitality of deeds was pressing hard on Tito for the first time. -oUnder every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires-the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is for ever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity. -0 If the subtle mixture of good and evil prepares suffering for human truth and purity, there is also suffering prepared for the wrong-doer by the same mingled conditions. -0-o Necessity does the work of courage. George Eliot (in propria persona). 185 Tito's mind was destitute of that dread which has been erroneously decried as if it were nothing higher than a man's animal care for his own skin: that awe of the Divine Nemesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it took a more positive form under Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind simply as a vague fear at anything which is called wrongdoing. Such terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it will annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations which can never be proved to have any sanctity in the absence of feeling. ' It is good,' sing the old Eumenides, in AEschylus, 'that fear should sit as the guardian of the soul, forcing it into wisdom-good that men should carry a threatening shadow in their hearts under the full sunshine; else, how should they learn to revere the right?' That guardianship may become needless; but only when all outward law has become needlessonly when duty and love have united in one stream and made a common force. -0 -The exhaustion consequent on violent emotion is apt to bring a dreamy disbelief in the reality of its cause. -0 -It is easy to believe in the damnable state of a man who stands stripped and degraded. -0 -The readiness with which men will consent to touch red-hot iron with a wet finger is not to be measured by 186 George Eliot (iZ propria persolna). their theoretic acceptance of the impossibility that the iron will burn them: practical belief depends on what is most strongly represented in the mind at a given moment. -0 -We are so made, almost all of us, that the false seeming which we have thought of with painful shrink-.ing when beforehand in our solitude it has urged itself on us as a necessity, will possess our muscles and move our lips as if nothing but that were easy when once we have come under the stimulus of expectant eyes and ears. -0 -All things except reason and order are possible with a mob. oIt belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate power of some stronig unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities beyond its own horizon. -0 -Every strong feeling makes to itself a conscience of its own-has its own piety; just as much as the feeling of the son towards the mother, which will sometimes survive amid the worst fumes of depravation. -0 -While we are still in our youth there can always come, in our early waking, moments when mere passive existence is itself a Lethe, when the exquisiteness of subtle indefinite sensation creates a bliss which is without memory and without desire. George Eliot (in propria personza). 187 Even to the man who presents the most elastic resistance to whatever is unpleasant, there will come moments when the pressure from without is too strong for him, and he must feel the smart and the bruise in spite of himself. -0 -It is agreeable to keep a whole skin; but the skin still remains an organ sensitive to the atmosphere. -- A man's own safety is a god that sometimes makes very grim demands. -0 -Tito showed no other change from the two months and more that had passed since his first appearance in the weather-stained tunic and hose, than that added radiance of good fortune, which is like the just perceptible perfecting of a. flower after it has drunk a morning's sunbeams. -OThe feelings that gather tervpur from novelty will be. of little help towards making the world a home for dimmed and faded human beings; and if there is any love of which they are not widowed, it must be the love that is rooted in memories and distils perpetually the sweet balms of fidelity and forbearing tenderness. -OThe human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality. -0 -A girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth, i88 George Eliot (in propria persona). as easily as primitive people imagined the humours of the gods in fair weather: what is she to believe in, if not in this vision woven from within? -0 -It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, where it will find its world and paradise all in one, and never have a presentiment of the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, and the gentle breathing of some loved life near-it would be paradise to us all, if eager thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had not long since closed the gates. -oIt was no longer a hope; it was only that possibility which clings to every idea that has taken complete possession of the mind: the sort of' possibility that makes a woman watch on a headland for the ship which held something dear, though all her neighbours are certain that the ship was a wreck long years ago. -0 -No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled. -0 -All who remember their childhood remember the strange vague sense, when some new experience came, George Eliot (in propria persona). 189 that everything else was going to be changed, and that there would be no lapse into the old monotony. -0-;T Our relations with our fellow-men are most often determined by coincident currents; the inexcusable word or deed seldom comes until after affection or reverence has been already enfeebled by the strain of repeated excuses. --- There is no compensation for the woman who feels that the chief relation of her life has been no more than a mistake. A She has lost her crown. The deepest secret of human blessedness has half whispered itself to her, and then for ever passed her by. -o0 All minds, except such as are delivered from doubt by dulness of sensibility, must be subject to a recurring conflict where the many-twisted conditions of life have forbidden the fulfilment of a bond. For in strictness there is no replacing of relations: the presence of the new does not nullify the failure and breach of the old. Life has lost its perfection; it has been maimed; and until the wounds are quite scarred, conscience continually casts backward, doubting glances. -o/ She who willingly lifts up the veil of her married life -has profaned it from a sanctuary into a vulgar place. -o0 - Very slight things make epcchs in married life. I90 George Eliot (in propria persona). Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest. -0 -If energetic belief, pursuing a grand and remote end, is often in danger of becoming a demon-worship, in which the votary lets his son and daughter pass through the fire with a readiness that hardly looks like sacrifice: tender fellow-feeling for the nearest has its danger too, and is apt to be timid and sceptical towards the larger aims without which life cannot rise into religion. -oIt is one thing to love the fruits of treachery, and another thing to love traitors' II tradintento a molti place assai, Ma il traditore a gnun non piacque mai.' The same society has had a gibbet for the murderer and a gibbet for the martyr, an execrating hiss for a dastardly act, and as loud a hiss for many a word of generous truthfulness or just insight: a mixed condition of things which is the sign, not of hopeless confusion, but of struggling order. -- It is the lot of every man who has to speak for the satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of yesterday's faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow. -0 -The repentance which cuts off all moorings to evil, demands something more than selfish fear. George Eliot (in propria persona). 19I There are moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation. -0 -It is in the nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that there is a point at which it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us is mere fuel. — 0 — Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart: it aims at its own completeness. — 0 -~-0f Wherever affection can spring, it is like the green leaf and the blossom-pure, and breathing purity, whatever soil it may grow in. -0 -Life never seems so clear and easy as when the heart is beating faster at the sight of some generous self-risking deed. We feel no doubt then what is the highest prize the soul can win; we almost believe in our own power to attain it. -0 -As Romola walked, often in weariness, among the sick, the hungry, and the murmuring, she felt it good to be inspired by something more than her pity-by the belief in a heroism struggling for sublime ends, towards which the daily action of her pity could only I92 George Eliot (in propria persona). tend feebly, as the dews that freshen the weedy ground to-day tend to prepare an unseen harvest in the years to come. — 0 -Many legends were afterwards told in that valley about the blessed Lady who came over the sea, but they were legends by which all who heard might know that in times gone by a woman had done beautiful loving deeds there, rescuing those who were ready to perish. o-0 -After all has been said that can be said about the widening influence of ideas, it remains true that they would hardly be such strong agents unless they were taken in a solvent of feeling., The great world-struggle of developing thought is continually foreshadowed in the struggle of the affections, seeking a justification for love and hope. -0 —cTo the common run of mankind it has always seemed a proof of mental vigour to find moral questions easy, and judge conduct according to concise alternatives. -0 -To have a mind well oiled with that sort of argument which prevents any claim from grasping it, seems eminently convenient sometimes; only the oil becomes objectionable when we find it anointing other minds on which we want to establish a hold. -oAs a strong body struggles against fumes with the more violence when they begin to be stifling, a strong George Eliot (in propria persona). 193 soul struggles against phantasies with all the more alarmed energy when they threaten to govern in the place of thought. — o Hard speech between those who have loved is hideous in the memory, like the sight of greatness and beauty sunk into vice and rags. --- It is the way with half the truth amidst which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that are never born into sound. A course of action which is in strictness a slowlyprepared out-growth of the entire character, is yet almost always traceable to a single impression as its point of apparent origin. -0 -Unscrupulousness gets rid of much, but not of toothache, or wounded vanity, or the sense of loneliness, against which, as the world at present stands, there is no security but a thoroughly healthy jaw, and a just, loving soul. -0 -In the stress and heat of the day, with cheeks burning, with shouts ringing in the ears, who is so blest as to remember the yearnings he had in the cool and silent morning, and know that he has not belied them? -0 — Our naked feelings make haste to clothe themselves in propositions which lie at hand among our store of N 194 George Eliot (in propria persona). opinions, and to give a true account of what passes within us something else is necessary besides sincerity, even when sincerity is unmixed. -0 -Tito was at one of those lawless moments which come to us all if we have no guide but desire, and the pathway where desire leads us seems suddenly closed; he was ready to follow any beckoning that offered him an immediate purpose. -0 -Tito was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character. The inward shame, the reflex of that outward law which the great heart of mankind makes for every individual man, a reflex which will exist even in the absence of the sympathetic impulses that need no law, but rush to the deed of fidelity and pity as inevitably as the brute mother shields her young from the attack of the hereditary enemy-that inward shame was showing its blushes in Tito's determined assertion to himself that his father was dead, or that at least search was hopeless. -0 -The elements of kindness and self-indulgence are hard to distinguish in a soft nature. -0 -Vague memories hang about the mind like cobwebs, with tickling importunity. George Eliot (in propria persona). 195 We assume a load with confident readiness, and up to a certain point the growing irksomeness of pressure is tolerable; but at last the desire for relief can no longer be resisted. -0 -Tito had an innate love of reticence-let us say a talent for it-which acted as other impulses do, without any conscious motive, and, like all people to whom concealment is easy, he would now and then conceal something which had as little the nature of a secret as the fact that he had seen a flight of crows. -0 -The Florentine youth had had very evil habits and foul tongues: it seemed at first an unmixed blessing when they were got to shout 'Viva Gesu!' But Savonarola was forced at last to say from the pulpit, 'There is a little too much shouting of " Viva Gesi' /" This constant utterance of sacred words brings them into contempt. Let me have no more of that shouting till the next Festa.' -0 -When was,the fatal coquetry inherent in superfluous authorship ever quite contented with the ready praise of friends? -0 -Strong feeling unsatisfied is never without its superstition, either of hope or despair. -0 -Fruit is seed. I96 George Eliot (in propria persona). The light can be a curtain as well as the darkness. - - Perfect scheming demands omniscience. -o0 -Tito felt for the first time, without defining it to himself, that loving awe in the presence of noble womanhood, which is perhaps something like the worship paid of. old to a great nature-goddess, who was not allknowing, but whose life and power were something deeper and more primordial than knowledge -o0 -Perhaps of all sombre paths that on which we go back, after treading it with a strong resolution, is the one that most severely tests the fervour of renunciation. -0 -Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by airblown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistledown. -0 -To Our lives make a moral tradition for our individual selves, as the life of mankind at large makes a moral tradition for the race; and to have once acted greatly seems a reason why we should always be noble. \ But Tito was feeling the effect of an opposite tradition: he had won no memories of self-conquest and perfect faithfulness from which he could have a sense of falling. George Eliot (in propria persona). 197 It is not force of intellect which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts on a face bright with human expression; it is simply the negation of high sensibilities. -0 -There is no kind of conscious obedience that is not an advance on lawlessness. -0 -A widow at fifty-five whose satisfaction has been largely drawn from what she thinks of her own person, and what she believes others think of it, requires a *great fund of imagination to keep her spirits buoyant. -oThe light is perhaps never felt more strongly as a divine presence stirring all those inarticulate sensibilities which are our deepest life, than in those moments when it instantaneously awakens the shadows. -oIn the career of a great public orator who yields himself to the inspiration of the moment, that conflict of selfish and unselfish emotion which in most men is hidden in the chamber of the soul, is brought into terrible evidence; the language of the inner voices is written out in letters of fire. -0 -To one who is anxiously in search of a certain object the faintest suggestions have a peculiar significance. 198 George Eliot (in propria persona). Romola felt that intensity of life which seems to transcend both grief and joy-in which the mind seems to itself akin to elder forces that wrought out existence before the birth of pleasure and pain. --- This was the tangled web that Romola had in her mind as she sat weary in the darkness.. No radiant angel came across the gloom with a clear message for her.,In those times, as now, there were human beings who never saw angels or heard perfectly clear messages. - Such truth as came to them was brought confusedly in the voices and deeds of men not at all like the seraphs of unfailing wing and piercing vision-men who believed falsities as well as truths, and did the wrong as well as the right. The helping hands stretched out to them were the hands of men who stumbled and often saw dimly, so that these beings unvisited by angels had no other choice than to grasp that stumbling guidance along the path of reliance and action which is the path of life, or else to pause in loneliness and disbelief, which is no path, but the arrest of inaction and death. -0 -There was nothing transcendent in Savonarola's face. It was not beautiful. It was strong-featured, and owed all its refinement to habits of mind and rigid discipline of the body..The source of the impression his glance produced on Romola was the sense it conveyed to her of interest in her and care for her apart from any personal feeling. It was the first time she had encountered a gaze in which simple human George Eliot (in propria persona). 1 99 fellowship expressed itself as a strongly-felt bond. Such a glance is half the vocation of the priest or spiritual guide of men. - -0 -There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence; there are others to whom we have need to carry our trust and reverence ready made. -0 -The inspiring consciousness breathed into. Romola by Savonarola's influence that her lot was vitally united with the general lot had exalted even the minor details of obligation into religion. She was marching with a great army; she was feeling the stress ot a common life. If victims were needed, and it was uncertain on whom the lot might fall, she would stand ready to answer to her name. She had stood long; she had striven hard to fulfil the bond, but she had seen all the conditions which made the fulfilment possible gradually forsaking her. The one effect of her marriage-tie seemed to be the stifling predominance over her of a nature that she despised. All her efforts at union had only made its impossibility more palpable, and the relation had become for her simply a degrading servitude. The law was sacred. Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind that the problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lain before Savonarola-the problem where the sacredness of obedience ended, and where the sacredness of rebellion began. To her, as to him, there had come one of those moments in life when the soul must dare to act on its own warrant, not only without external law to appeal to, but in the face of a 200 George Eliot (in propria persona). law which is not unarmed with Divine lightningslightnings that may yet fall if the warrant has been false. -0 -No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. Romola's trust in Savonarola was something like a rope suspended securely by her path, making her step elastic while she grasped it; if it were suddenly removed, no firmness of the ground she trod could save her from staggering, or perhaps from falling.,0 — Savonarola's nature was one of those in which opposing tendencies co-exist in almost equal strength: - the passionate sensibility which, impatient of definite thought, floods every idea with emotion and tends towards contemplative ecstasy, alternated in him with a keen perception of outward facts and a vigorous practical judgment of men and things. -oIt was the habit of Savonarola's mind to conceive great things, and to feel that he was the man to do them. - Iniquity should be brought low; the cause of justice, purity, and love should triumph; and it should triumph by his voice, by his work, by his blood. In moments of ecstatic contemplation, doubtless the sense of self melted in the sense of the unspeakable, and in that part of his experience lay the elements of genuine self-abasement; but in the presence of his fellow-men for whom he was to act, pre-eminence. seemed a necessary condition of his life. Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). 20I Perhaps no man has ever had a mighty influence over his fellows without having the innate need to dominate, and this need usually becomes the more imperious in proportion as the complications of life make Self inseparable from a purpose which is not selfish. -0 -Impelled partly by the spiritual necessity that was laid upon hiir to guide the people, and partly by the prompting of public men who could get no measures carried without his aid, Savonarola was rapidly passing in his daily sermons from the general to the special-from telling his hearers that they must postpone their private passions and interests to the public good, to telling them precisely what sort of government they must have in order to promote that goodfrom 'Choose whatever is best for all' to ' Choose the Great Council,' and 'the Great Council is the will of God.' To Savonarola these were as good as identical propositions. The Great Council was the only practicable plan for giving an expression to the public will large enough to counteract the vitiating influence of party interests: it was a plan that would make honest impartial public action at least possible. And the purer the government of Florence would become-the more secure from the designs of men who saw their own advantage in the moral debasement of their fellows-the nearer would the Florentine people approach the character of a pure community, worthy to lead the way in the renovation of the Church and the world. And Fra Girolamo's mind never stopped short of that sublimest end: the objects towards which he felt hirm 202 Geo;ge Eliozt (ipropria persona). self working had always the same moral magnificence. He had no private malice-he sought no petty gratiication. Even in the last terrible days, when ignominy, torture, and the fear of torture, had laid bare every hidden weakness of his soul, he could say to his importunate judges: 'Do not wonder if it seems to you that I have told but few things; for my purposes were few and great.' -- The real force of demonstration for Girolamo Savonarola lay in his own burning indignation at the sight of wrong; in his fervent belief in an Unseen Justice that would put an end to the wrong, and in an Unseen Purity to which lying and uncleanness were an abomination. To his ardent, power-loving soul, believing in great ends, and longing to achieve those ends by the exertion of its own strong will, the faith in a supreme and righteous Ruler became one with the faith in a speedy divine interposition that would punish and reclaim. — oWhat was it that filled the ears of the prophets of old but the distant tread of foreign armies, coming to do the work of justice? -oIn Savonarola's excommunication she only saw the menace of hostile vice: on one side she saw a man whose life was devoted to the ends of public virtue and spiritual purity, and on the other the assault of alarmed selfishness, headed by a lustful, greedy, lying, and murderous old man, once called Rodrigo Borgia, and now lifted to the pinnacle of infamy as Pope George Eliot (in propria persona). 203 Alexander the Sixth. The finer shades of fact which soften the edge of such antitheses are not apt to be seen except by neutrals, who are not distressed to discern some folly in martyrs and some judiciousness in the men who burn them. 0 — The worst drop of bitterness can never be wrung on to our lips from without: the lowest depth of resignation is not to be found in martyrdom; it is only to be found when we have covered our heads insilence and felt, 'I am not worthy to be a martyr; the truth shall prosper, but not by me.' -o0 -There is no jot of worthy evidence that from the time of his imprisonment to the supreme moment, Savonarola thought or spoke of himself as a martyr. The idea of martyrdom had been to him a passion dividing the dream of the future with the triumph of beholding his work achieved. And now, in place of both, had come a resignation which he called by no glorifying name. But therefore he may the more fitly be called a martyr by his fellow-men to all time. For power rose against him not because of his sins, but because of his greatness-not because he sought to deceive the world, but because he sought to make it noble. And through that greatness of his he endured a double agony: not only the reviling, and the'torture, and the death-throe, but the agony of sinking from the vision of glorious achievement into that deep shadow where he could only say, 'I count as nothing: darkness encompasses me: yet the light I saw was the true light.' 204 George Eliot (in propria persona). Perhaps, while no preacher ever had a more massive influence than Savonarola, no preacher ever had more heterogeneous materials to work upon., And one secret of the massive influence lay in the highly mixed character of his preaching. Baldassarre, wrought into an ecstasy of self-martyring revenge, was only an extreme case among the partial and narrow sympathies of that audience. In Savonarola's preaching there were strains that appealed to the very finest susceptibilities of men's natures, and there were elements that gratified low egoism, tickled gossiping curiosity, and fascinated timorous superstition. His need of personal predominance, his labyrinthine allegorical interpretations of the Scriptures, his enigmatic visions, and his false certitude about the Divine intentions, never ceased, in his own large soul, to be ennobled by that fervid piety, that passionate sense of the infinite, that active sympathy, that clear-sighted demand for the subjection of selfish interests to the general good, which he had in common with the great.est of mankind. But for the mass of his audience all the pregnancy of his preaching lay in his strong assertion of supernatural claims, in his denunciatory visions, in the false certitude which gave his sermons the interest of a political bulletin; and having once held that audience in his mastery, it was necessary to his nature-it -was necessary for their welfare-that he should keep the mastery. The effect was inevitable. No man ever struggled to retain power over a mixed multitude without suffering vitiation; his standard must be their lower needs, and not his own best insight. The mysteries of human character have seldom been presented in a way more fitted to check the judgments of facile knowingness than in Girolamo Savonarola; Nello. 205 but we can give him a reverence that needs no shutting of the eyes to fact, if we regard his life as a drama in which there were great inward modifications accompanying the outward changes. And up to this period, when his more direct action on political affairs had only just begun, it is probable that his imperious need of ascendency had burned undiscernibly in the strong flame of his zeal for God and man. It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots, and give the offering a false show of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say,the victim is spotted, but it is not therefore in vain that his mighty heart is laid on the altar of men's highest hopes. Enough, enough! I am an absurd old barber. It all comes from that abstinence of mine, in not making bad verses in my youth: for want of letting my folly run out that way when I was eighteen, it runs out at my tongue's end now I am at the unseemly age of fifty. But Nello has not got his head muffled for all that: he can see a buffalo in the snow. Addio, giovane mio. -6 -Be not offended, bel giovane; I am but repeating what I hear in my shop: as you may perceive, my eloquence is simply the cream which I skim off my clients' talk. Heaven forbid I should fetter my impartiality by entertaining an opinion. I get the flower of men's thoughts, because I seize I get the flower of men's thoughts, because I seize 206 Nello. them in the first moment after shaving.. And that is what makes the peculiar fitness of a barber's shop to become a resort of wit and learning. For, look now at a druggist's shop: there is a dull conclave at the sign of II Moro, that pretends to rival mine; but what sort of inspiration, I beseech you, can be got from the scent of nauseous vegetable decoctions?-to say nothing of the fact that you no sooner pass the threshold than you see a doctor of physic, like a gigantic spider disguised in fur and scarlet, waiting for his prey; or even see him blocking up the doorway seated on a bony hack, inspecting saliva. -0 -Ah, mind is an enemy to beauty! I- myself was thought beautiful by the women at one time-when I was in my swaddling-bands. But now-oime! I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my face! -0 -If there are two things not to be hidden-love and a cough-I say there is a third, and that is ignorance, when once a man is obliged to do something besides wagging his head. The tonsor inequalis is inevitably betrayed when he takes the shears in his hand; is it not true, Messer Bardo? -0 -I have seen men whose beards have so invaded their cheeks, that one might have pitied them as the victims of a sad, brutalizing chastisement, befitting our Dante's Inferno, if they had not seemed to strut with a strange triumph in their extravagant hairiness. Nello. 207 We Florentines have liberal ideas about speech, and consider that an instrument which can flatter and promise so cleverly as the tongue, must have been partly made for those purposes; and that truth is a riddle for eyes and wit to discover, which it were a mere spoiling of sport for the tongue to betray. -0 -It isn't my wits are at fault,-I want no man to help me tell peas from paternosters,-but when you come to foreign fashions, a fool may happen to know more than a wise man. -0 -Babies can't choose their own horoscopes, and, indeed, if they could, there might be an inconvenient rush of babies at particular epochs. -oBetween you and me, bel giovane-trust a barber who has shaved the best scholars-friendliness is much such a steed as Ser Benghi's: it will hardly show much alacrity unless it has got the thistle of hatred under its tail. -0 -What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd with stones in their hands? -oBernardo Dovizi is a keen youngster, who will never carry a net out to catch the wind. -0 -Vhat says Luigi Pulci? ' Dombruno's sharp-cutting scimitar had the fame of being enchanted; but,' says 208 Bratti-Macchiavelli. Luigi, ' I am rather of opinion that it cut sharp because it was of strongly-tempered steel.' Yes, yes; Paternosters may shave clean, but they must be said over a good razor. San Giovanni be praised! a blind Florentine is a match for two one-eyed men. -0 -The cat couldn't eat her mouse if she didn't catch it alive, and Bratti couldn't relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. -0 -An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down. -0 -Deh! what are we sinners doing all our lives? Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing but the scum for our stomachs. The secret of oratory lies, not in saying new things, but in saying things with a certain power that moves the hearers-without which, as old Filelfo has said, your speaker deserves to be called, 'non oratorem, sed aratorem.' And, according to that test, Fra Girolamo is a great orator. -oSpiritual blasts break no walls down. But the Frate wants to be something more than a spiritual trumpet: he wants to be a lever, and what is more, he is a lever. Macchiavelli. 209 I measure men's dulness by the devices they trust in for deceiving others. Your dullest animal of all is he who grins and says he doesn't mind just after he has had his shins kicked. -0 -There is as wonderful a power of stretching in the meaning of visions as in Dido's bull's hide. It seems to me a dream may mean whatever comes after it. As our Franco Sacchetti says, a woman dreams over-night of a serpent biting her, breaks a drinking-cup the next day, and cries out, ' Look you, I thought something would happen-it's plain now what the serpent meant.' -oVeracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls. -0 -If a prophet is to keep his power, he must be a prophet like Mahomet, with an army at his back, that when the people's faith is fainting it may be frightened into life again. -oMany of these halfway severities are mere hotheaded blundering. The only safe blows to be inflicted on men and parties are the blows that are too heavy to be avenged. -0 -If a man incurs odium by sanctioning a severity that is not thorough enough to be final, he commits a blunder. -0 -Satan was a blunderer, an introducer of novitd, who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we o 2I0 R0o7,ola. should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait would have been more flattered. I think all lines of the human face have something either touching or grand, unless they seem to come from low passions; -0 There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. 0 -Father, it is a great gift of, the gods to be born with a hatred and contempt of all injustice and meanness. Yours is a higher lot, never to have lied and truckled, than to have shared honours won by dishonour. There is strength in scorn, as there was in the martial fury by which men became insensible to wounds. -0 -It is strange this life of men possessed with fervid beliefs that seem like madness to their fellow-beings. -0 You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, and sweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no good that we should keep our silent promises on which others build because they believe in our love and truth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured? Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants and hopes of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men who have such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best companions. Roszola. 2 I I It is only a poor sort of happiness, my Lillo, that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much-feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what wVe would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great-he can hardly keep himself from wickedness-unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo-you know why I keep to-morrow sacred; lie had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say,-' It would have been better for me if I had never been born.' 212 Bardo. Thou art not like the herd of thy sex, my Romola: thou art such a woman as the immortal poets had a vision of when they sang the lives of the heroestender but strong, like thy voice, which has been to me instead of the light in the years of my blindness. -oBlindness acts like a dam, sending the streams of thought backward along the already-travelled channels and hindering the course onward. -oYes, 'inan'is'-hollow, empty-is the epithet justly bestowed on Fame.... Inanis? yes, if it is a lying fame; but not if it is the just meed of labour and a great purpose. -0 -It is too often the 'palma sine pulvere,' the prize of glory without the dust of the race, that young ambition covets. But what says the Greek? ' In the morning of life, work; in the mid-day, give counsel; in the evening, pray.' -0 -What hired amanuensis can be equal to the scribe who loves the words that grow under his hand, and to whom' an error or indistinctness in the text is more painful than a sudden darkness or obstacle across his path? And even these mechanical printers who threaten to make learning a base and vulgar thingeven they must depend on the manuscript over which we scholars have bent with that insight into the poet's meaning which is closely akin to the mens divinior of the poet himself; unless they would flood the world Tito. 213 with grammatical falsities and inexplicable anomalies that would turn the very fountain of Parnassus into a deluge of poisonous mud. -0 -'For men, says Epictetus, 'are disturbed not by things themselves, but by their opinions or thoughts concerning those things.' And again, ' Whosoever will be free, let him not desire or dread that which it is in the power of others either to deny or inflict: otherwise, he is a slave.' -oIn the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause. 0 — What is that grosser, narrower light by which men behold merely the petty scene around them, compared with that far-stretching, lasting light which spreads over centuries of thought, and over the life of nations, and makes clear to us the minds of the immortals who have reaped the great harvest and left us to glean in their furrows? Fra Girolamo is a man to make one understand that there was a time when the monk's frock was a symbol of power over men's minds rather than over the keys of women's cupboards. -0 -No amount of wishing will fill the Arno, or turn a plum into an orange. 214 Bernardo. He who bids for nuts and news, may chance to find them hollow. -0 -When the towers fall, you know it is an ill business for the small nest-builders. -0 -The wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them. -oThe Golden Age can always come back as long as men are born in the form of babies, and don't come into the world in cassock or furred mantle. -0 -The loss of Constantinople was the gain of the whole civilized world. ) Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off. -0 -We Florentines mostly use names as we do prawns, and strip them of all flourishes before we trust them to our throats. -0 -I am of the same mind as Farinata degli Uberti: if any man asks me what is meant by siding with a party, I say, as he did, ' To wish ill or well, for the sake of past wrongs or kindnesses.' Savonarola. 215 I enter into no plots, but I never forsake my colours. If I march abreast with obstinate men, who will rush on guns and pikes, I must share the consequences. -0 -So/co lorto, sacco dritto-many a full sack comes from a crooked furrow; and he who will be captain of none but honest men will have small hire to pay. -0 Go, Romola, go home and rest. These fears may be only big ugly shadows of something very little and harmless. Even traitors must see their interest in betraying; the rats will run where they smell the cheese, and there is no knowing yet which way the scent will come. \ My daughter, every bond of your life is a debt: the \ right lies in the payment of that debt; it can lie nowhere else. In vain will you wander over the earth; \ you will be wandering for ever away from the right. -0 -If your own people are wearing a yoke, will you slip from under it, instead of struggling with them to lighten it? There is hunger and misery in our streets, yet you say,' I care not; I have my own sorrows; I will go away, if peradventure I can ease them.' The servants of God are struggling after a law of justice, peace, and charity, that the hundred thousand citizens among whom you were born may be governed righteously; but you think no more of this than if you were a bird, that 2i6 Savonarola. may spread its wings and fly whither it will in search of food to its liking. And yet you have scorned the teaching of the Church, my daughter. As if you, a wilful wanderer, following your own blind choice, were not below the humblest Florentine woman who stretches forth her hands with her own people, and craves a blessing for them; and feels a close sisterhood with the neighbour who kneels beside her and is not of her own blood; and thinks of the mighty purpose that God has for Florence; and waits and endures because the promised work is great, and she feels herself little. -0 --oYou are flying from your debts: the debt of a Florentine woman; the debt of a wife. You are turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you-you are going to choose another. But can man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birth-place or their father and mother. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of God into the wilderness. — 0 --- You are seeking your own will, my daughter. You -are seeking some good other than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good? It is not a thing of choice: it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. I say again, man cannot choose his duties. You may choose to forsake your duties, and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go forth; and what will you find, my daughter? Sorrow without duty-bitter herbs, and no bread with them. Savonarola. 217 My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, ' I will forsake my husband,' but you cannot cease to be a wife. -V0 -The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. That seems hard to you. It is the portal of wisdom, and freedom, and blessedness. And the symbol of it hangs before you. That wisdom is the religion of the cross. -0 -The pride of the body is a barrier against the gifts that purify the soul. -0 -There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good. -0 -My daughter, it is enough. The cause of freedom, which is the cause of God's kingdom upon earth, is often most injured by the enemies who carry within them the power of certain human virtues. The wickedest man is often not the most insurmountable obstacle to the triumph of good. -oRomola.-Take care, father, lest your enemies have some reason when they say, that in your visions of what will further God's kingdom you see only what will strengthen your own party. Savonarola.-And that is true! The cause of my party is the cause of God's kingdom. 2l8 Caparra. Iomzola.-I do not believe it! God's kingdom is something wider-else let me stand outside it with the beings that I love. Eat eggs in Lent and the snow will melt. That's what I say to our people when they get noisy over their cups at San Gallo, and talk of raising a romor (insurrection): I say, never do you plan a romor; you may as well try to fill Arno with buckets. When there's water enough Arno will be full, and that will not be till the torrent is ready. -— o --- -0 -The Frate sees a long way before him; that I believe. But he doesn't see birds caught with winking at them, as some of our people try to make out. He sees sense and not nonsense. -oIf there's hot metal on the anvil, I lose no time before I strike; but I don't spend good hours in tinkling on cold iron, or in standing on the pavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout upward, like a pig under an oak-tree. -o — Sia, I '11 not deny which way the wind blows when every man can see the weathercock. -oThere, then, take the coat. It's made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But, for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It's like carrying fear about with one. Cosimo. 219 I love not to. be choked with other men's thoughts. -oA philosopher is the last sort of animal I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without spinning lies to account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray, women chatter, and philosophers spin false reasons-that's the effect the sight of the world brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints instead of cackling, or braying, or spinning lies. — o - Women think walls are held together with honey. -o — A perfect traitor should have a face which vice can write no marks on-lips that will lie with a dimpled smile-eyes of such agate-like brightness and depth that no infamy can dull them-cheeks that will rise from a murder and not look haggard. — oVa, Nello, thy tongue runs on as usual, like a mill when the Arno's full-whether there's grist or not. -0 — There you go, supposing you'll get people to put their legs into a sack because you call it a pair of hosen. -o Va! your human talk and doings are a tame jest; the only passionate life is in form and colour. 220 Various Characters. Holy Madonna! it seems as if widows had nothing to do now but to buy their coffins, and think it a thousand years till they get into them, instead of enjoying themselves a little when they've got their hands free for the first time.-Mo;nna Brigida. -0 -Let Romola muffle herself as she will, every one wants to see what there is under her veil, for she has that way of walking like a procession.-Monnla Brigida. — o Not but that the world is bad enough now-a-days, for the scandals that turn up under one's nose at every corner-I don't want to hear and see such things, but one can't go about with one's head in a bag.-Monna Brigida. o — What I say is, we've got to reverence the saints, and not to set ourselves up as if we could be like them, else life would be unbearable.-Moznna Brigida. -0 --- Blaspheme not against the usages of our city. There are new wits who think they see things more truly because they stand on their heads to look at them, like tumblers and mountebanks, instead of keeping the attitude of rational men. Doubtless it makes little difference to Maestro Vaiano's monkeys whether they see our Donatello's statue of Judith with their heads or their tails uppermost.-Pietro Ce:rini. Various Characters. 22I There has been no great people without processions and the man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by them to anything but contempt, is like the puddle that was proud of standing alone while the river rushed by.-Pietro Cennini. -0 -Our people-no offence to you, Cronaca-will run after anything in the shape of a prophet, especially if lie prophesies terrors and tribulations.-Pietro Cennini. -0 -No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.-Pietro Cennini. -o0 -I remember our Antonio getting bitter about his chiselling and enamelling of these metal things, and taking in a fury to painting, because, said he, 'the artist who puts his work into gold and silver, puts his brains into the melting-pot.'-Ridolfi. -0 -After all the talk of scholars, there are but two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other, and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the strongest.-Ridofi. -0 -— oI remember one day at Careggi, when Luigi was in his rattling vein, he was maintaining that nothing perverted the palate like opinion. 'Opinion,' said he, ' corrupts the saliva-that's why men took to pepper 222 Various Characters. Scepticism is the only philosophy that doesn't bring a taste in the mouth.' 'Nay,' says poor Lorenzo de' Medici, 'you must be out there, Luigi. Here is this untainted sceptic, Matteo Franco, who wants hotter sauce than any of us.' 'Because he has a strong opinion of himself,' flashes out Luigi, 'which is the original egg of all other opinion. He a sceptic? He believes in the immortality of his own verses. He is such a logician as that preaching friar who described the pavement of the bottomless pit.' Poor Luigi! his mind was like sharpest steel that can touch nothing without cutting.-Ridolfi. -0 -Every revelation, whether by visions, dreams, portents, or the written word, has many meanings which it is'given to the illuminated only to unfold.-Nanni. -0 -A wise dissimulation is the only course for moderate rational men in times of violent party feeling.- Tornabuoni. -oTo manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath.-Putcci -0 -Life was never anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest.-Cei. END OF 'ROMIOLA.' PART SIXTH. SA YINGS FROAM - ' FELIX HO TE' J I FELIX HOLT. George Eliot (in propria persona). THERE is seldom any wrong-doing which does not carry along with it some downfall of blindly-climbing hopes, some hard entail of suffering, some quicklysatiated desire that survives, with the life in death of old paralytic vice, to see.itself cursed by its woful progeny-some tragic mark of kinship in the one brief life to the far-stretching life that went before, and to the life that is to come after, such as has raised the pity and terror of men ever since they began to discern between will and destiny. But these things are often unknown to the world; for there is.much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer-committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow.months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred.a life has been breathed into no human ear. p 226 George Eliot (in propria persona). The poets have told us of a dolorous enchanted forest in the under world. The thorn-bushes there, and the thick-barked stems, have human histories hidden in them; the power of unuttered cries dwells in the passionless-seeming branches, and the red warm blood is darkly feeding the quivering nerves of a sleepless memory that watches through all dreams. These things are a parable. --— 0 Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning: if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded ycur passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with..the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments. He thinks himself sagacious, perhaps, because he trusts no bond except that of self-interest; but the only self-interest he can safely rely on is what seems to be such to the mind he would use or govern. Can he ever be sure of knowing this? George Eliot (in propria persona). 227 One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures. -0 -The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable. — oA man who had stolen the pyx, and got frightened when justice was at his heels, might feel the sort of penitence which would induce him to run back in the dark and lay the pyx where the sexton might find it; but if in doing so he whispered to the Blessed Virgin that he was moved by considering the sacredness of all property, and the peculiar sacredness of the pyx, it is not to be believed that she would like him the better for it. Indeed, one often seems to see why the saints should prefer candles to words, especially from penitents whose skin is in danger. -0 -Even the patriarch Job, if he had been a gentleman of the modern West, would have avoided picturesque disorder and poetical laments;and the friends who called on him, though not less disposed than Bildad the Shuhite to hint that their unfortunate friend was in the wrong, would have sat on chairs and held their hats in their hands. The harder problems of our life 228 George Eliot (in propria persona). have changed less than our manners; we wrestle with the old sorrows, but more decorously. -OA supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills: to know that high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread, and feel the chill air, and watch through darkness. It is not true that love makes all things easy: it makes us choose what is difficult. -0 -At that time, when faith in the efficacy of political change was at fever-heat in ardent Reformers, many measures which men are still discussing with little confidence on either side, were then talked about and disposed of like property in near reversion. Crying abuses-' bloated paupers,' 'bloated pluralists,' and other corruptions hindering men from being wise and happy-had to be fought against and slain. Such a time is a time of hope. Afterwards, when the corpses of those monsters have been held up to the public wonder and abhorrence, and yet wisdom and happiness do not follow, but rather a more abundant breeding of the foolish and unhappy, comes a time of doubt and despondency. But in the great Reform-year Hope was mighty. -o — The man who has failed in the use of some indirectness, is helped very little by the fact that his rivals are men to whom that indirectness is a something human, George Eliot (in propria persona). 229 very far from being alien. There remains this grand distinction, that he has failed, and that the jet of light is thrown entirely on his misdoings. -0 -The homage of a man may be delightful until he asks straight for love, by which a woman renders homage. -0 -Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being. -oEven the flowers and the pure sunshine, and the sweet waters of Paradise would have been spoiled for a young heart, if the bowered walks had been haunted by an Eve gone grey with bitter memories of an Adam who had complained, 'The woman... she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' And many of us know how, even in our childhood, some blank, discontented face on the background of our home has marred our summer mornings. Why was it, when the birds were singirfg, when the fields were a garden, and when we were clasping another little hand just larger than our own, there was somebody who found it hard to smile? -oThere is heroism even in the circles of hell for fellow-sinners who cling to each other in the fiery whirlwind and never recriminate. -oHuman impartiality, whether judicial or not, can hardly escape being more or less loaded. 230 George Eliot (in propri personaz). A doomed animal, with every issue earthed up except that where its enemy stands, must, if it has teeth and fierceness, try its one chance without delay. And a man may reach a point in his life in which his impulses are not distinguished from those of a hunted brute by any capability of scruples. Our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching, that, well encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little scruples. -0 -Though a man may be willing to escape through a sewer, a sewer with an outlet into the dry air is not always at hand. Running away, especially when spoken of as absconding, seems at a distance to offer a good modern substitute for the right of sanctuary; but seen closely, it is often found inconvenient and scarcely possible. -0 — Man cannot be defined as an evidence-giving animal. -0 — The sublime delight of truthful speech to one who has the great gift of uttering it, will make itself felt even through the pangs of sorrow. -oWe are all of us made more graceful by the inward presence of what we believe to be a generous purpose; our actions move to a hidden music-' a melody that's sweetly played in tune.' ------ It is only in that freshness of our time (i.e. youth) that the choice is possible which gives unity to life, Gcorge Eliot (in propria persona). 231 and makes the memory a temple where all relics and all votive offerings, all worship and all grateful joy, are an unbroken history sanctified by one religion. -0 -Very close and diligent looking at living creatures, even through the best microscope, will leave room for new and contradictory discoveries. -0 --o- - Mrs. Transome had thought that the possession of this child would give unity to her life, and make some gladness through the changing years that would grow as fruit out of these early maternal caresses.' But nothing had come just as she had wished. The mother's early raptures had lasted but a short time, and even while they lasted, there had grown up in the midst of them a hungry desire, like a black poisonous plant feeding in the sunlight,-the desire that her first, rickety, ugly, imbecile child should die, and leave room for her darling, of whom she could be proud. Such desires make life a hideous lottery, where every day may turn up a blank; where men and women who have the softest beds and the most delicate eating, who have a -very large share of that sky and earth which some are born to have no more of than the fraction to be got in a crowded entry, yet grow haggard, fevered, and restless, like those who watch in other lotteries. ------ Jealousy of all sorts-whether for our fortune or our love —is ready at combinations, and likely even to outstrip the fact.( 232 George Eliot (ill propria persona). Under the stimulus of small many-mixed motives, a great deal of business has been done in the world by well-clad and, in i833, clean-shaven men, whose names are on charity-lists, and who do not know that they are base. Mr. Johnson's character was not much more exceptional than his double chin. No system, religious or political, I believe, has laid it down as a principle that all men are alike virtuous, or even that all the people rated for ~8o houses are an honour to their species. -0 -All of us-whether men or women-are liable to this weakness of. liking to have our preference justified before others as well as ourselves. -0 -It is terrible-the keen bright eye of a woman when it has once been turned' with admiration on what is severely true; but then the severely true rarely comes within its range of vision. -OA woman's lot is made for her by the love she accepts. We are so pitiably in subjection to all sorts of vanity-even the very vanities we are practically renouncing! -0 -It comes in so many forms in this life of ours-the knowledge that there is something sweetest and noblest of which we despair, and the sense of something present that solicits us with an immediate and easy indulgence. George Eliot (in proopr a persona). 233 Men do not become penitent and learn to abhor themselves by having their backs cut open with the lash; rather, they learn to abhor the lash. -0 --- Human beings in moments of passionate reproach and denunciation, especially when their anger is on their own account, are never so wholly in the right that the person who has to wince cannot possibly protest against some unreasonableness or unfairness in their outburst. -0 -In the ages since Adam's marriage, it has been good for some men to be alone, and for some women also. -0 -The Hazaels of our world who are pushed on quickly against their preconceived confidence in themselves to do doglike actions by the sudden suggestions of a wicked ambition, are much fewer than those who are led on through the years by the gradual demands of a selfishness which has spread its fibres far and wide through the intricate vanities and sordid cares of an everyday existence. Perhaps some of the most terrible irony of the human lot is this or a deep truth coming to be uttered by lips that have no right to it. -0 -There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling. 234 George Eliot (ins propria persona). There is no point on which young women are more easily piqued than this of their sufficiency to judge the men who make love to them. — O_ A mind in the grasp of a terrible anxiety is not credulous of easy solutions. The one stay that bears up our hopes is sure to appear frail, and if looked at long will seem to totter. -o -- Young speculation is always stirred by discontent for which there is no obvious cause. When we are older, we take the uneasy eyes and the bitter lips more as a matter of course. -0 -Let every wooer make himself strongly expected; he may succeed by dint of being absent, but hardly in* the first instance. -0 -The best part of a woman's love is worship; but it is hard to her to be sent away with her precious spikenard rejected, and her long tresses too, that were let fall ready to soothe the wearied feet. -0 -Rufus Lyon was striving to purify his feeling in this matter from selfish or worldly dross-a striving which is that prayer without ceasing, sure to wrest an answer by its sublime importunity. - George Eliot (in propria persona). 235 The enthusiasms of the world are not to be stimulated by a commentary in small and subtle characters which alone can tell the whole truth. -0 A man with a definite will and an energetic personality acts as a sort of flag to draw and bind together the foolish units of a mob. -oIn a mind of any nobleness, a lapse into transgression against an object still regarded as supreme, issues in a new and purer devotedness, chastised by humility and watched over by a passionate regret. So it was with that ardent spirit which animated the little body of Rufus Lyon. Once in his life he had been blinded, deafened, hurried along by rebellious impulse; he had gone astray after his own desires, and had lct the fire die out on the altar; and as the true penitent, hating his self-besotted error, asks from all coming life duty instead of joy, and service instead of ease, so Rufus was perpetually on the watch lest he should ever again postpone to some private affection a great public opportunity which to him was equivalent to a command. -0oTo the end of men's struggles a penalty will remain for those who sink from the ranks of the heroes into the crowd for whom the heroes fight and die. -o — Very slight words and deeds may have a sacramental efficacy, if we can cast our self-love behind us, 236 George Eliot (in propria persona). in order to say or do them. And it has been well believed through many ages that the beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life; that the mind which sees itself blameless may be called dead in trespasses-in trespasses on the love of others, in trespasses on their weakness, in trespasses on all those great claims which are the image of our own need. -0 -It is in the nature of exasperation gradually to concentrate itself. t The sincere antipathy of a dog towards cats in general, necessarily takes the form of indignant barking at the neighbour's black, cat which makes daily trespass; the bark at imagined cats, though a frequent exercise of the canine mind, is yet comparatively feeble. -0 -Canvassing makes a gentleman acquainted with many strange animals, together with the ways of catching and taming them; and thus the knowledge of natural history advances amongst the aristocracy and the wealthy commoners of our land. — 0 Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking. -0 -A German poet was intrusted with a particularly fine sausage, which he was to convey to the donor's friend at Paris. In the course of a long journey he smelt the George Eliot (in propria persona). 237 sausage; he got hungry, and desired to taste it; he pared a morsel off, then another, and another, in successive moments of temptation, till at last the sausage was, humanly speaking, at an end. The offence had not been premeditated. The poet had never loved meanness, but he loved sausage; and the result was undeniably awkward. -0 -It is a fact perhaps kept a little too much in the background, that mothers have a self larger than their maternity, and that when their sons have become taller than themselves, and are gone from them to college or into the world, there are wide spaces of their time which are not filled with praying for their boys, reading old letters, and envying yet blessing those who are attending to their shirt-buttons. -0 -The stronger will always rule, say some, with an air of confidence which is like a lawyer's flourish, forbidding exceptions or additions. But what is strength? Is it blind wilfulness that sees no terrors, no manylinked consequences, no bruises and wounds of those whose cords it tightens? Is it the narrowness of a brain that conceives no needs differing from its own, and looks to no results beyond the bargains of to-day; that tugs with emphasis for every small purpose, and thinks it weakness to exercise the sublime powver of resolved renunciation? ' There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness. 238 George Elict (in propria persona). There will be queens in spite of Salic or other laws of later date than Adam and Eve; and here, in this small dingy house of the minister in Malthouse Yard, there was a light-footed, sweet-voiced Queen Esther. -0 -Half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless-nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter. -0 -In this way poor women, whose power lies solely in their influence, make themselves like music out of tune, and only move men to run away. -0 -A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them. f -0 -Under protracted ill every living creature will find something that makes a comparative ease, and even when life seems woven of pain, will convert the fainter pang into a desire. 0 -The mother's love is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities; it is an expansion of the animal existence; it enlarges the imagined range for self to move in: but in after years it can only continue to be joy on the same terms as other long-lived love-that is, by much suppression of self, and power of living in the experience of another. George Eliot (in propria persona). 239 Some men's kindness and love-makilig are more exasperating, more humiliating than others' derision; but the pitiable woman who has once made herself secretly dependent on a man who is beneath her in feeling, must bear that humiliation for fear of worse. Coarse kindness is at least better than coarse anger; and in all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of its dulness. -0 -What to one man is the virtue which he has sunk below the possibility of aspiring to, is to another the backsliding by which he forfeits his spiritual crown. -0 -We are very much indebted to such a linking of events as makes a doubtful action look wrong. --- It requires a conviction and resolution amounting to heroism not to wince at phrases that class our foreshadowed endurance among those common and ignominious troubles which the world is more likely to sneer at than to pity. -oHarold was one of those people to whose presence in the room you could not be indifferent: if you do not hate or dread them, you must find the touch of their hands, nay, their very shadows, agreeable. To -0 -Our pet opinions are usually those which place us in a minority of a minority amongst our own party: 240 George Eliot (in propria persona). very happily, else those poor opinions, born with no silver spoon in their mouths-how would they get nourished and fed? -0 -Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information, but, to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to the lack of matter. Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion. -oA character is apt to look but indifferently, written out in this way (i.e. in catalogue fashion). Reduced to a map, our premises seem insignificant, but they make, nevertheless, a very pretty freehold to live in and walk over. -0 -A diffident man likes the idea ot doing something remarkable, which will create belief in him without any immediate display of brilliancy. Celebrity may blush and be silent, and win a grace the more. -0 -That talkative maiden, Rumour, though in the interest of art she is -figured as a youthful winged beauty with flowing garments, soaring above the heads -of men, George Eliot (in pro pria persona). 241 and breathing world-thrilling news through a gracefully-curved trumpet, is in fact a very old maid, who puckers her silly face by the fireside, and really does no more than chirp a wrong guess or a lame story into the ear of a fellow-gossip; all the rest of the work attributed to her is done by the ordinary working of those passions against which men pray in the Litany, with the help of a plentiful stupidity against which we have never yet had any authorized form of prayer. -oQuick souls have their intensest life in the first anticipatory sketch of what may or will be, and the pursuit of their wish is the pursuit of that paradisiacal vision which only impelled them, and is left farther and farther behind, vanishing for ever even out of hope in the moment which is called success. -0 -Since then Harold's character had been ripened by a various experience, and also by much knowledge which he had set himself deliberately to gain. But the man was no more than the boy writ large, with an extensive commentary. -0 -We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display. We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from which we are regarded by our neighbour. Our fine patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration, though we turn ourselves all round to show them. Q 242 George Eliot (in propria persona). In our spring-time every day has its hidden growths in the mind, as it has in the earth, when the little folded blades are getting ready to pierce the ground. -oThere is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life, from the time when the primeval milkmaid had to wander with the wanderings of her clan, because the cow she milked was one of a herd which had made the pastures bare. Even in that conservatory existence where the fair Camellia is sighed for by the noble young Pine-apple, neither of them needing to care about the frost or rain outside, there is a nether apparatus of hot-water pipes liable to cool down on a strike of the gardeners or a scarcity of coal. 0 I have known persons who have been suspected of undervaluing gratitude, and excluding it from the list of virtues; but on closer observation it has been seen that, if they have never felt grateful, it has been for want of an opportunity; and that, far from despising gratitude, they regard it as the virtue most of all incumbent-on others towards them. -0oAt the last moment there is always a reason not existing before-namely, the impossibility of further vacillation. -0 -Perhaps the moment of most diffusive pleasure from public speaking is that in which the speech ceases and the audience can turn to commenting on it. The one George Eliot (in propria persona). 243 speech, sometimes uttered under great responsibility as to missiles and other consequences, has given a text to twenty speakers who are under no responsibility. Even in the days of duelling a man was not challenged for being a bore, nor does this quality apparently hinder him from being much invited to dinner, which is the great index of social responsibility in a less barbarous age. — o So fast does a little leaven spread within us-so incalculable is the effect of one personality on another.. -0o It was that mixture of pushing forward and being pushed forward, which is a brief history of most human things. -0 We hardly allow enough in common life for the results of that enkindled passionate enthusiasm which, under other conditions, makes world-famous deeds. -0 -Non omnia grandior a'tas qaze fugiamus habet, says the wise goddess: you have not the best of it in all things, 0 youngsters! the elderly man has his enviable memories, and not the least of them is the memory of a long journey in mid-spring or autumn on the outside of a stage-coach. Posterity may be shot, like a bullet through a tube, by atmospheric pressure from Winchester to Newcastle: that is a fine result to have among our hopes; but the slow old-fashioned way of getting from one end of our country to the other is the better thing to have in the memory. The 244 George Eliot (in propriaz ersond). tube-journey can never lend much to picture and narrative; it is as barren as an exclamatory 0! Whereas the happy outside passenger seated on the box from the dawn to the gloaming gathered enough istories of English life, enough of English labours in town and country, enough aspects of earth and sky, to make episodes for a modern Odyssey. -0 -When a woman feels purely and nobly, that ardour of hers which breaks through formulas too rigorously urged on men by daily practical needs, makes one of her most precious influences; she is the added impulse that shatters the stiffening crust of cautious experience. Her inspired ignorance gives a sublimity to actions so incongruously simple, that otherwise they would make men smile. Some of that ardour which has flashed out and illuminated all poetry and history was burning to-day in the bosom - of sweet Esther Lyon. The finest threads, such as no eye sees, if bound cunningly about the sensitive flesh, so that the movement to break them would bring torture, may make a worse bondage than any fetters. A panting man thinks of himself as a clever swimmer; but a fish swims much better, and takes his performance as a matter of course. -0 -From the British point of view masculine beauty is regarded very much as it is in the drapery business: George Eliot (in propria persona). 245 as good solely for the fancy department-for young noblemen, artists, poets, and the clergy. -oOn the point of knowing when we are disagreeable, our human nature is fallible. Our lavender-water, our smiles, our compliments, and other polite falsities, are constantly offensive, when in the very nature of them they can only be meant to attract admiration and regard. -oAll knowledge which alters our lives penetrates us more when it comes in the early morning: the day that has to be travelled with something new and perhaps for ever sad in its light, is an image of the life that spreads beyond. But at night the time of rest is near. -oBlows are sarcasms turned stupid: wit is a form of force that leaves the limbs at rest. -oJermyn had 'been the making of Johnson;' and this seems to many men a reason for expecting devotion, in spite of the fact that they themselves, though very fond of their own persons and lives, are not at all devoted to the Maker they believe in. -0 -Nature never makes men who are at once energetically sympathetic and minutely calculating. -0 -Express confessions give definiteness to memories that might more easily melt away without them. I 246 George Eliot (in propria persona). Questions of origination in stirring periods are notoriously hard to settle. It is by no means necessary in human things that there should be only one beginner. -0 -The destructive spirit tends towards completeness; and any object once maimed or otherwise injured, is as readily doomed by unreasoning men as by unreasoning boys. -oTo be right in great memorable moments, is perhaps the thing we need most desire for ourselves. -0 -So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore. -0 --o — What we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present* realities-a willing movement of a man's soul with the larger sweep of the world's forces-a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life. We see human heroism broken into units and say, this unit did little -might as well not have been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken, and met death-a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness. Goeorgc LViot (in pIropri t persona). 247 AMOTTOES. Ist Citizcl'- Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth That makes a vice of virtue by excess. 2d Citizen.-WVhat if the coolness of our tardier veins Be loss of virtue? st Citizen.- All things cool with timeThe sun itself, they say, till heat shall find A general level, nowhere in excess. 2id Ciizen. —'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought, That future middlingness. -o0 -The mind of a man is as a country which was once open to squatters, who have bred and multiplied and become masters of the land. But then happeneth a time when new and hungry comers dispute the land; and there is trial of strength, and the stronger wins. Nevertheless the first squatters be they who have prepared the ground, and the crops to the end will be sequent (though chiefly on the nature of the soil, as of light sand, mixed loam, or heavy clay, yet) somewhat on the primal labour and sowing. -0 -A —It was but yesterday you spoke him wellYou've changed your mind so soon? N. — Not I 'tis he That, changing to my thought, has changed my mind. No man puts rotten apples in his pouch Because their upper side looked fair to him. Constancy in mistake is constant folly. 248 George Eliot (in propria persona). Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed merriment which passes for humour with the vulgar. In their fun they have much resemblance to a turkeycock. It has a cruel beak, and a silly iteration of ugly sounds; it spreads its tail in self-glorification, but shows you the wrong side of that ornament-liking admiration, but knowing not what is admirable. i -0 — Truth is the precious harvest of the earth. But once, when harvest waved upon a land,.The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar, Locusts, and all the swarming foul-born broods, Fastened upon it with swift, greedy jaws, And turned the harvest into pestilence, Until men said, What profits it to sow? -0 -It is a good and soothfast saw; Half-roasted never will be raw; No dough is dried once more to meal, No crock new-shapen by the wheel; You can't turn curds to milk again, Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then; And having tasted stolen honey, You can't buy innocence for money. -0 — 'Tis grievous, that with all amplification of travel both by sea and land, a man can never separate himself from his past history. George Eliot (in propria persona). 249 See now the virtue living in a word! Hobson will think of swearing it was noon When he saw Dobson at the May-day fair, To prove poor Dobson did not rob the mail. 'Tis neighbourly to save a neighbour's neck: What harm in lying when you mean no harm? But say 'tis perjury, then Hobson quakesHe '11 none of perjury. Thus words embalm The conscience of mankind; and Roman laws Bring still a conscience to poor Hobson's aid. -oHe rates me as the merchant does the wares He will not purchase —' quality not high!'Twill lose its colour opened to the sun, Has no aroma, and, in fine, is naughtI barter not for such commoditiesThere is no ratio betwixt sand and gems.' 'Tis wicked judgment! for the soul can grow, As embryos, that live and move but blindly, Burst from the dark, emerge regenerate, And lead a life of vision and of choice. — 0 -No man believes that many-textured knowledge and skill-as a just idea of the solar system, or the power of painting flesh, or of reading written harmoniescan come late and of a sudden: yet many will not stick at believing that happiness can come at any day and hour solely by a new disposition of events; though there is nought least capable of a magical production than a mortal's happiness, which is mainly a complex 250 Felix Holt. of habitual relations and dispositions not to be wrought by news from foreign parts, or any whirling of fortune's wheel for one on whose brow Time has written legibly. -0 -The devil tempts us not-'tis we tempt him, Beckoning his skill with opportunity. --- Our finest hope is finest memory; And those who love in age think youth is happy, Because it has a life to fill with love. ----- Why, there are maidens of heroic touch, And yet they seem like things of gossamer You'd pinch the life out of, as out of moths. O, it is not loud tones and mouthingness, 'Tis not the arms akimbo and large strides, That make a woman's force. The tiniest birds, With softest downy breasts, have passions in them, And are brave with love. In my opinion, that was a true word spoken by your friend when he said the great question was how to give every man a man's share in life. But I think he expects voting to do more towards it than I do. I want the working men to have power. I'm a working man myself, and I don't want to be anything else. But there are two sorts of power. There's a power to do mischief-to undo what has been done with great expense and labour, to waste and destroy, to be cruel Fclix Holt. 25 I to the weak, to lie and quarrel, and to talk poisonous nonsense. That's the sort of power that ignorant numbers have. It never made a joint stool or planted a potato. Do you think it's likely to do much toswards governing a great country, and making wise laws, and giving shelter, food, and clothes to millions of men? Ignorant power comes in the end to the same thing as wicked ponwer; it makes misery. ' It's another sort of power that I want us working men to have, and I can see plainly enough that our all having votes Nwill do little towards it at present. I hope we, or the children that come after us, will get plenty of political power some time. I tell everybody plainly, I hope there wrill be great changes, and that, some time, whether we live to see it or not, men will have come to.be ashamed of things they're proud of now.. But I should like to convince you that votes would never give you political power worth having while things are as they are now, and that if you go the right way to work you may get power sooner without votes. Perhaps all you who hear me are sober men, who try to learn as much of the nature of things as you can, and to be as little likcfools as possible. A fool or idiot is one who expects things to happen that never can happen; he pours milk into a can without a bottom, and expects the milk to stay there. The more of such vain expectations a man has, the more he is of a fool or idiot. And if any working man expects a vote to do for him what it never can do, he's foolish to that amount, if no more. I think that's clear enough, eh? The way to get rid of folly is to get rid of vain expectations, and of thoughts that don't agree with the nature of things. The men who have had true thoughts about water, and what it will do when it is 252 Felix Holt. turned into steam and under all sorts of circumstances, have made themselves a great power in the world: they are turning the wheels of engines that will help to change most things. But no engines would have done, if there had been false notions about the way water would act. Now, all the schemes about voting, and districts, and annual Parliaments, and the rest, are engines, and the water or steam-the force that is to work them-must come out of human nature-out of men's passions, feelings, desires. Whether the engines will do good work or bad depends on these feelings; and if we have false expectations about men's characters, we are very much like the idiot who thinks he '11 carry milk in a can without a bottom. In my opinion, the notions about what mere voting will do are very much of that sort. -0 I 'll tell you what 's, the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That 's the steam that is to work the engines. How can political freedom make us better, any more than a religion we don't believe in, if people laugh and wink when they see men abuse and defile it? And while public opinion is what it is -while men have no better beliefs about public duty -while corruption is not felt to be a damning disgrace-while men are not ashamed in Parliament and *out of it to make public questions which concern the welfare of millions a mere screen for their own petty private ends,-I say, no fresh scheme of voting will much mend our condition. For, take us working men of all sorts. Suppose out of every hundred who had a Felix Holt. 253 vote there were thirty who had some soberness, some sense to choose with, some good feeling to make them wish the right thing for all. And suppose there were seventy out of the hundred who were, half of them, not sober, who had no sense to choose one thing in politics more than another, and who had so little good feeling in them that they wasted on their own drinking the money that should have helped to feed and clothe their wives and children; and another half of them who, if they didn't drink, were too ignorant or mean or stupid to see any good for themselves better than pocketing a five-shilling piec'e when it was offered them. Where would be the political power of the thirty sober men? The power would lie with the seventy drunken and stupid votes. -0 -I'm not going to speak against treating voters; I suppose buttered ale, and grease of that sort to make the wheels go, belong to the necessary humbug of Representation. -0 -Where's the good of pulling at such a tangled skein as this electioneering trickery? As long as threefourths of the men in this country see nothing in an election but self-interest, and nothing in self-interest but some form of greed, one might as well try to purify the proceedings of the fishes, and say to a hungry codfish-'.My good friend, abstain; don't goggle your eyes so, or show such a stupid gluttonous mouth, or think the little fishes are worth nothing except in relation to your own inside.' Heed be open to no argument short of crimping him. 254 Felix Holt. I want to be a demagogue of a new sort; an honest one, if possible, who will tell the people they are blind and foolish, and neither flatter them nor fatten on them. I have my heritage-an order I belong to. I have the blood of a line of handicraftsmen in my. veins, and I want to stand up for the lot of the handicraftsman as a good lot, in which a man may be better trained to all the best functions of his nature than if he belonged to the grimacing set who have visitingcards, and are proud to be thought richer than their neighbours. Can't one work for sober truth as hard as for megrims? -0 -This world is not a very fine place for a good many of the people in it. But I've made up my mind it shan't be the worse for me, if I can help it. They may tell me I can't alter the world-that there must be a certain number of sneaks and robbers in it, and if I don't lie and filch somebody else will. Well, then, somebody else shall, for I won't. -0o The fact is, there are not many easy lots to be drawn in the world at present; and such as they are I am not envious of them. I don't say life is not worth having: it is worth having to a man who has some sparks of sense and feeling and bravery in him. And the finest fellow of all would be the one who could be glad to have lived because the world was chiefly miserable, and his life had come to help some one who needed it. He would be the man who had the most Felix Holt. 255 powers and the fewest selfish wants. But I 'm not up to the level of what I see to be best. -o — I would never choose to withdraw myself from the labour and common burthen of the world; but I do choose to withdraw myself from the push and the scramble for money and position. Any man is at liberty to call me a fool, and say that *mankind are benefited by the push and the scramble in the longrun. But I care for the people who live now and will not be living when the long-run comes. As it is, I prefer going shares with the unlucky. -0 -I '11 take no employment that obliges me to prop up my chin with a high cravat, and wear straps, and pass the live-long day with a set of fellows who spend their spare money on shirt-pins. That sort of work is really lower than many handicrafts; it only happens to be paid out of proportion. That's why I set myself to learn the watchmaking trade. My father was a weaver first of all. It would have been better for him if he had remained a weaver. I came home through Lancashire and saw an uncle Qf mine who is a weaver still. I mean to stick to the class I belong to-people who don't follow the fashions. -0 -Let a man once throttle himself with a satin stock, and he '11 get new wants and new motives. Metamorphosis will have begun at his neck-joint, and it will go * 256 Felix Holt. on till it has changed his likings first and then his reasoning, which will follow his likings as the feet of a hungry dog follow his nose. I '11 have none of your clerkly gentility. I might end by collecting greasy pence from poor men to buy myself a fine coat and a glutton's dinner, on pretence of serving the poor men. I 'd sooner be Paley's fat pigeon than a demagogue all tongue and stomach, though I should like well, enough to be another sort of demagogue, if I could. Why should I want to get into the middle class because I have some learning? The most of the middle class are as ignorant as the working people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem life. That's how the working men are left to foolish devices and keep worsening themselves: the best heads among them forsake their born comrades, and go in for a house with a high door-step and a brass knocker.. -0 -Thousands of men have wedded poverty because they expect to go to heaven for it; I don't expect to go to heaven for it, but I wed it because it enables me to do what I most want to do on earth. Whatever the hopes for the world may be-whether great or small —I am a man of this generation; I will try to make life less bitter for a few 3vithin my reach. I It is held reasonable enough to toil for the fortunes of a family, though it may turn to imbecility in the third generation. I choose a family with more chances in it. Felix HoIt. 257 It is just because 1;m a very ambitious fellow, with very hungry passions, wanting a great deal to satisfy me, that I have chosen to give up what people call worldly good. At least that has been one determining reason. It all depends on what a man gets into his consciousness-what life thrusts into his mind, so that it becomes present to him as remorse is present to the guilty, or a mechanical problem to an inventive genius. There are two things I 've got present in that way: one of them is the picture of what I should hate to be. I'm determined never to go about making my face simpering or solemn, and telling professional lies for profit; or to get tangled in affairs where I must wink at dishonesty and pocket the proceeds, and justify that knavery as part of a system that I can't alter. If I once wvent into that sort of struggle for success, I should want to win-I should defend the wrong that I had once identified myself with. I should become everything that I see now beforehand to be detestable. And what's more, I should do this, as men are doing it every day, for a ridiculously small prize-perhaps for none at all- perhaps for the sake of two parlours, a rank eligible for the churchwardenship, a discontented wife, and several unhopeful children. The other thing that's got into my mind like a splinter, is the life of the miserable-the spawning life of vice and hunger. I'll never be one of the sleek dogs. The old Catholics are right, with their higher rule and their lower. Some are called to subject themselves to a harder discipline, and renounce things voluntarily which are lawful for others. It is the old word-' necessity is laid upon me.' R 258 Felix Holt. I'm proof against that word failure. I 've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. As to just the amount of result he may see from his particular work-that's a tremendous uncertainty: the universe has not been arranged for the gratification of his feelings. As long as a man sees and believes in some great good, he'll prefer working towards that in the way he's best fit for, come what may. I put effects at their minimum, but I'd rather have the minimum of effect, if it's of the sort I care for, than the maximum of effect I don't care for-a lot of fine things that are not to my taste-and if they were, the conditions of holding them while the world is what it is, are such as would jar on me like grating metal. - a — Where great things can't happen, I care for very small things, such as will never be known beyond a few garrets and workshops. And then, as to one thing I believe in, I don't think I can altogether fail. If there's anything our people want convincing of, it is, that there's some dignity and happiness for a man other than changing his station. That's one of the beliefs I choose to consecrate my life to. If anybody could demonstrate to me that I was a flat for it, I shouldn't think it would follow that I must borrow money to set up genteelly and order new clothes. That's not a rigorous consequence to my understanding. -oIgnorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm. Felix Holt. 259 I know there's a stage of speculation in which a man may doubt whether a pickpocket is blameworthy -but I 'm not one of your subtle fellows who keep looking at the world through their own legs. -oO yes! give me a handful of generalities and analogies, and I'11 undertake to justify Burke and Hare, and prove them benefactors of their species. -oTruth-vendors and medicine-vendors usually recommend swallowing. When a man sees his livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to have orders for the dose, and not curious inquiries. -oI should say, teach any truth you can, whether it's in the Testament or out of it. It's little enough anybody-can get hold of, and still less what he can drive into the skulls of a pence-counting, parcel-tying generation, such as mostly fill your chapels. -0 -Dirty work wants little talent and no conscience. -oOh, your niceties-I know what they are. They all go on your system of make-believe. 'Rottenness' may suggest what is unpleasant, so you'd better say 'sugar-plums,' or something else such a long way off the fact that nobody is obliged to think of it. Those 260 Felix Holt. are your roundabout euphuisms that dress up swindling till it looks as well as honesty, and shoot with boiled peas instead of bullets. I hate your genfitlemnanly speakers. -0 -There are some people one must wish to judge one truly. Not to wish it would be mere hardness. ^ -OA bachelor's children are always young: they're immortal children-always lisping, waddling, helpless, and with a chance of turning out good. -0 -Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves. -0o A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs, and small notions, about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest. -0 -I '11 never marry, though I should have to live on raw turnips to subdue my flesh. I '11 never look back and say, ' I had a fine purpose once-I meant to keep my hands clean, and my soul upright, and to look truth in the face; but pray excuse me, I have a wife and children-I must lie and simper a little, else they '11 starve;' or ' My wife is nice, she must have her bread well buttered, and her feelings will be hurt if she is not thought genteel.' That is the lot Miss Esther is pre Fclix Holt. 261 paring for some man or other. I could grind my teeth at such self-satisfied minxes, who think they can tell everybody what is the correct thing, and the utmost stretch of their ideas will not place them on a level with the intelligent fleas. I should like to see if she could be made ashamed of herself. -0 -— o --- I can't bear to see you going the way of the foolish women who spoil men's lives. Men can't help loving them, and so they make themselves slaves to the petty desires of petty creatures. That's the way those who might do better spend their lives for nought-get checked in every great effort-toil with brain and limb for things that have no more to do with a manly life than tarts and confectionery. That's what makes women a curse; all life is stunted to suit their littleness. That's why I'll never love, if I can help it; and if I love, I '11 bear it, and never marry. -0o — Felix.-You said you didn't mind about people having right opinions so that they had good taste. Now I want you to see what shallow stuff that is. Esther.-Oh, I don't doubt it if you say so. I know you are a person of right opinions. Felix.-But by opinions you mean men's thoughts about great subjects, and by taste you mean their thoughts about small ones: dress, behaviour, amusements, ornaments. Esther.-Well-yes-or rather, their sensibilities about those things. Felix.-It comes to the same thing; thoughts, opinions, knowledge, are only a sensibility to facts and 262 Felix Holt. ideas. If I understand a geometrical problem, it is because I have a sensibility to the way in which lines and figures are related to each other; and I want you to see that the creature who has the sensibilities that you call taste, and not the sensibilities that you call opinions, is simply a lower, pettier sort of being-an insect that notices the shaking of the table, but never notices the thunder. Est/er.-Very well, I am an insect; yet I notice that you are thundering at me. Felix.-No, you are not an insect. That is what exasperates me at your making a boast of littleness. You have enough understanding to make it wicked that you should add one more to the women who hinder/ men's lives from having any nobleness in them. I wonder whether the subtle measuring of forces will ever come to measuring the force there would be in one beautiful woman whose mind was as noble as her face was beautiful-who made a man's passion for her rush in one current with all the great aims of his life. -0 Felix.-I don't measure my force by the negations in me, and think my soul must be a mighty one because it is more given to idle suffering than to beneficent activity. That's what your favourite gentlemen do, of the Byronic-bilious style. Est/zer.-I don't admit that those are my favourite gentlemen. Felix.-I 've heard you defend them-gentlemen like your'Rends, who have no particular talent for the finite, RRufus Lyon. 263 but a general sense that the infinite is the right thing for them. They might as well boast of nausea as a proof of a strong inside. -0 -I reverence the law, but not where it is a pretext for wrong, which it should be the very object of law to hinder.... I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning. -0 -Rztfus Lyon.-You will not deny that you glory in the name of Radical, or Root-and-branch man, as they said in the great times when Nonconformity was in its giant youth. Felix.-A Radical-yes; but I want to go to some roots a good deal lower down than the franchise. Rufus Lyon.-Truly there is a work within which cannot be dispensed.with: but it is our preliminary work to free men from the stifled life of political nullity, and bring them into what Milton calls 'the liberal air,' wherein alone can be wrought the final triumphs of the Spirit. Felix.-With all my heart. But while Caliban is Caliban, though you multiply him by a million he '11 worship every Trinculo that carries a bottle. This woman has sat under the Gospel all her life, and she is as blind as a heathen, and as proud and stiff-necked as a Pharisee; yet she is one of the souls I watch for. 'Tis true that even Sara, the chosen mother of God's people, showed a spirit of unbelief, 264 R ufzis Lyon. and perhaps of selfish anger; and it is a passage that bears the unminstakeable signet, 'doing honour to the wife or woman, as unto the weaker vessel.' For therein is the greatest check put on the ready scorn of the natural man. -0 -I have had much puerile blame cast upon me because I have uttered such names as Brougham and Wellington in the pulpit. Why not Wellington as well as Rabshakeh? and why not Brougham as well as Balaam? Does God know less of men than He did in the days of Hezekiah and Moses?-is his arm shortened, and is the world become too wide for his providence? -0 -'And all the people said, Amen.'... My brethren, do you think that great shout was raised in Israel by each man's waiting to say ' amen' till his neighbours had said amen? Do you think there will ever be a great shout for the right-the shout of a nation as of one man, rounded and whole, like the voice of the archangel that bound together all the listeners of earth and heaven-if every Christian of you peeps round to see what his neighbours in good coats are doing, or else puts his hat before his face that he may shout and never be heard? But this is what you do: when the servant of God stands up to deliver his message, do you lay your souls beneath the Word as you set out your plants beneath the falling rain?y No; one of you sends his eyes to all corners, he smothers his soul with small questions, 'What does brother Y. think?' 'Is this doctrine high enough for brother Z?' 'Will the church members be pleased?' Rzufis Lyon. 265 Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others, may happen to sear your own fingers, and make them dead to the quality of things. 'Tis difficult enough to see our way and keep our torch steady in this dim labyrinth: to whirl the torch and dazzle the eyes of our fellow-seekers is a poor daring, and may end in total darkness. -oTo an old memory like mine the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep. -oEsther.-This will not be a grief to you, I hope, father? You think it is better that I should go? Rufus.-Nay, child, I am weak. But I would fain be capable of a joy quite apart from the accidents of my aged earthly existence, which, indeed, is a petty and almost dried-up fountain-whereas to the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished. -0 -We may err in giving a too private interpretation to the Scripture. The word of God has to satisfy the larger needs of His people, like the rain and the sunshine-which no man must think to be meant for his own patch of seed-ground solely. -oTruly, the uncertainty of things is a text rather too wide and obvious for fruitful application; and to discourse of it is, as one may say, to bottle up the air, and make a present of it to those who are already standing out of doors. 266 6Ruflis Lyon. The Lord knoweth them that are His; but we-we are left to judge by uncertain signs, that so we may learn to exercise hope and faith towards one another; and in this uncertainty I cling with awful hope to those whom the world loves not, because their conscience, albeit mistakenly, is at war with the habits of the world. Our great faith, my Esther,. is the faith of martyrs: I will not lightly turn away from any man who endures harshness because he will not lie; nay, though I would not wantonly grasp at ease of mind through an arbitrary choice of doctrine, I cannot but believe that the merits of the Divine Sacrifice are wider than our utmost charity. I once believed otherwise-but not now, not now. -oEsthzer.-Father, I shall make a fieti t mazitre of you by-and-by; your hair looks so pretty and silken when it is well brushed. Rifiis.-Nay, child, I trust that while I would willingly depart from my evil habit of a somewhat slovenly forgetfulness in my attire, I shall never arrive at the opposite extreme. i For though there is that in apparel which pleases the eye, and I deny not that your neat gown and the colour thereof-which is that of certain little flowers that spread themselves in the hedgerows, and, make a blueness there as of the sky when it is deepened in the water,-I deny not, I say, that these minor strivings after a perfection which is, as it were, an irrecoverable yet haunting memory, are a good in their proportion. Nevertheless, the brevity of our life, and the hurry and crush of the great battle with error and sin, often oblige us to an advised neglect of what is less momentous. Rzfus Lyoan. 267 I say not that compromise is unnecessary, but it is an evil attendant on our imperfection; and I would pray every one to mark that, where compromise broadens, intellect and conscience are thrust into narrower room. -0 -— oEsther.-But that must be the best life, father. That must be the best life. Ruzfuls.-What life, my dear child? Esther. —'hy, that where one bears and does everything because of some great and strong feeling-so that this and that in one's circumstances don't signify. Rufus.-Yea, verily: but the feeling that should be thus supreme is devotedness to the Divine Will. -0 -We ought to strive that our affections be rooted in the truth. -oThe.ring and the robe of Joseph were no objects for a good man's ambition, but they were the signs of that credit which he won by his divinely-inspired skill, and which enabled him to act as a saviour to his brethren. -oI am an eager seeker for precision, and would fain find language subtle enough to follow the utmost intricacies of the soul's pathways, but I see not why a round word that means some object, made and blessed by the Creator, should be branded and banished as a malefactor. 268 Rzufus Lyon. It is a very glorious truth, albeit made somewhat painfill to me by the circumstances of the present moment, that as a counterpoise to the brevity of our mortal life (wherein, as I apprehend, our powers are being trained not only for the transmission of an improved heritage, as I have heard you insist, but also for our own entrance into a higher initiation in the Divine scheme)-it is, I say, a very glorious truth, that even in what are called the waste minutes of our time, like those of expectation, the soul may'soar and range, as in some of our dreams which are brief as a broken rainbow in duration, yet seem to. comprise a long history of terror or of joy. I ------ Though I am not endowed with an ear to seize those earthly harmonies, which to some devout souls have seemed, as it were, the broken echoes of the heavenly choir.I apprehend that there is a la- in music, disobedience whereunto would bring us in our singing to the level of shrieking maniacs or howling beasts. ---- Even as in music, where all obey and concur to one end, so that each has the joy of contributing to a whole whereby he is ravished and lifted up into the courts of heaven, so will it be in that crowning time of the millennial reign, when our daily prayer will be fulfilled, and one law shall be written on all hearts, and be the very structure of all thought, and be the principle of all action. A -0 -The very truth hath a colour from the disposition of the utterer. Rzfus Lyon. 269 As the traveller in the desert is often lured, by a false vision of water and freshness, to turn aside from the track which leads to the tried and established fountains, so the Evil One will take advantage of a natural yearning towards the better, to delude the soul with a self-flattering belief in a visionary virtue, higher than the ordinary fruits of the Spirit. -0 — We must duly weigh all things, not considering aught that befalls us as a bare event, but rather as an occasion for faithful stewardship. - — oWhere a great weight has to be moved, we require not so much selected instruments as abundant horsepower. -- — o — There are many who have helped to draw the car of Reform, whose ends are but partial, and who forsake not the ungodly principle of selfish alliances, but would only substitute Syria for Egypt-thinking chiefly of their own share in peacocks, gold, and ivory. -oRufzts.-David's cause against Saul was a righteous one; nevertheless not all who clave unto David were righteous men. Felix Holt.-The more was the pity, sir. Especially if he winked at their malpractices. -o — The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness. 270 270Irs. Holt. The temptations that most beset those who have great natural gifts, and are wise after the flesh, are pride and scorn, more particularly towards those weak things of the world which have been chosen to confound the things which are mighty. 1'IThe scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odours that lie on the track of truth. The mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up from receiving and holding ought that is precious-though it were heaven-sent manna. -o0 I pray you to mark the poisonous confusion of good and evil which is the wide-spreading effect of vicious practices. -0 -'One soweth, and another reapeth,' is a verity that applies to evil as well as good. -0 -'Tis a great and mysterious gift, this clinging of the heart, my Esther, whereby it hath often seemed to me that even in the very moment of suffering our souls have the keenest foretaste of heaven. I speak not lightly, but as one who hath endured. And 'tis a strange truth that only in the agony of parting we look into the depths of love.- - As for being saved without works, there 's a many, I daresay, can't do without that doctrine; but I thank the Lord I never needed to put myself on a level with the Mrs. Holt. -271 thief on the cross. I've done my duty, and more, if anybody comes to that; for I 've gone without my bit of meat to make broth for a sick neighbour: and if there's any of the church members say they 've done the same, I 'd ask them if they had the sinking at the stomach as I have; for I 've ever strove to do the right thing, and more, for good-natured I always was. I never did say I was everything that was bad, and I never will. -oI well know my duty: and I read my Bible; and I know in Jude where it's been stained with the dried tulip-leaves this many a year, as you're told not to rail at your betters if they was the devil himself; nor will I. -oYour trouble's easy borne when everybody gives it a lift for you. -0 -If everybody's son was guided by their mothers, the world 'ud be different. -0 -What folks can never have boxes enough of to swallow, I should think you have a right to sell. — oAs for curing, how can anybody know? There's no physic '1 cure without a blessing, and with a blessing I know I've seen a mustard plaister work when there was no more smell nor strength in the mustard than so 272 Denner. much flour. And reason good-for the mustard had lain in paper nobody knows how long-so I'll leave you to guess. -0 — My husband's tongue 'ud have been a fortune to anybody, and there was many a one said it was as good as a dose of physic to hear him talk; not but what that got him into trouble in Lancaslhire, but he always said, if the worst came to the worst, he could go and preach to the blacks. But he did better than that, Mr. Lyon, for he married me. When you 've been used to doing things, and they've been taken away from you, it's as if your hands had been cut off, and you felt the fingers as are of no use to you. I look upon it, life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to the still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it. -0 -Why, if I've only got some orange flowers to candy, I shouldn't like to die till I see them all right. -oI would change with nobody, madam. And if troubles were put up to market, I 'd sooner buy old than new. It's something to have seen the worst. - 'Denner. 273 Things don't happen because they're bad or good, else all eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most it is but six to the dozen. There's good chances and bad chances, and nobody's luck is pulled only by one string. -0 -Well, madam, put a good face on it, and don't seem to be on the look-out for crows, else you'll set other people watching. -oWhen I awake at cock-crow, I'd sooner have one real grief on my mind than twenty false. It's better to know one's robbed than to think one's going to be murdered. -0 -As for likenesses, thirty-five and sixty are not much alike, only to people's memories. -o --- There's a fine presence about Mr. Harold. I remember you used to say, madam, there were some people you would always know were in the room though they stood round a corner, and others you might never see till you ran against them. That's as true as truth. -0 -It mayn't be good-luck to be a woman. But one begins with it from a baby: one gets used to it. And I shouldn't like to be a man-to cough so loud, and stand straddling about on a wet day, and be so wasteful with meat and drink. They're a coarse lot, I think. S 274 Various Characters. Mr. Nolan.-I don't want to say things which may put younger men out of spirits, but I believe this country has seen its best days-I do indeed. Mr. Wace.-I am sorry to hear it from one of your experience, Mr. Nolan. I 'd make a good fight myself before I 'd leave a worse world for my boys than I 've found for myself. There isn't a greater pleasure than doing a bit of planting and improving one's buildings, and investing one's money in some pretty acres of land, when it turns up here and there-land you 've known from a boy. It's a nasty thought that these Radicals are to turn things round so as one can calculate on nothing. One doesn't like it for one's-self, and one doesn't like it for one's neighbours. But somehow, I believe it won't do: if we can't trust the Government just now, there 's Providence and the good sense of the country; and there's a right in things-that's what I've always said-there's a right in things. The heavy end will get downmost. And if Church and King, and every man being sure of his own, are things good for this country, there 's a God above will take care of 'em. -0 -It's all one web, sir. The prosperity of the country is one web.-Mr. Nolanz. -0 -Trade, properly conducted, is good for a man's constitution. I could have shown you, in my time, weavers past seventy, with all their faculties as sharp as a penknife, doing without spectacles. It's the new system of trade that's to blame: a country can't have too much trade if it's properly managed.-Mr. Nolan. Various Characters. 275 If a man 's got a bit of property, a stake in the country, he '11 want to keep things square. Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger.-Mr. Wace. o — If a nag is to throw me, I say let him have some blood.-Mr. Wace. ---- I've seen it again and again. If a man takes to tongue-work it's all over with him. ' Everything's wrong,' says he. That's a big text. But does he want to make everything right? Not he. He'd lose his text. 'We want every man's good,' say they. Why, they never knew yet what a man's good is. How should they? It's working for his victual-not getting a slice of other people's.-Mr. Wace.. -0 -Putty has said to me, ' Johnson, bear in mind there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don't understand; and the other is, to tell them what they 're used to.' I shall never be the man to deny that I owe a great deal to Putty.-Mr. 7ohnson. -oA man who puts a non-natural strained sense on a promise is no better than a robber.-Rev. A. Debarry. -0 -If the instructed are not to judge for the uninstructed, why, let us set Dick Stubbs to make our almanacs, and have a President of the Royal Society elected by universal suffrage.-Rev. A. Debarry. 276 Various Characters. Let me tell you, a plain truth may be so worried and mauled by fallacies as to get the worst of it.-Rev. A. Debarry. — oWill anybody here come forward and say, 'A good fellow has no need to tack about and change his road?' No, there's not one of you such a Tom-noddy. What's good for one time is bad for another. If anybody contradicts that, ask him to eat pickled pork when he's thirsty, and to bathe in the Lapp there when the spikes of ice are shooting. And that's the reason why the men who are the best Liberals now are the very men who used to be the best Tories. There isn't a nastier horse than your horse that'll jib and back and turn round when there is but one road for him to go, and that's the road before him.-Parson Lingon. Why, lad, if the world was turned into a swamp, I suppose we should leave off shoes and stockings, and walk about like cranes.-Parson Linzgon. -oThe best sort of Tory turns to the best sort of Radical. There's plenty of Radical scum-I say, beware of the scum, and look out for the cream.Parson Lingon. -0 -If the mob can't be turned back, a man of family must try and head the mob, and save a few homes and hearths, and keep the country up on its last legs as long as he can.-Parson Lingon. Various Characters. 277 There's one sort of fellow sees nothing but the end of his own nose, and another sort that sees nothing but the hinder side of the moon; but my nephew Harold is of another sort; he sees everything that's at hitting distance, and he's not one to miss his mark. -Parson Linigon. Ay, ay, use his gun to bring down your game, and after that beat the thief with the butt-end. That's wisdom and justice and pleasure all in one.-Parson Lingoin. -oI 'm no fool myself: I 'm forced to wink a good deal, for fear of seeing too much, for a neighbourly man must let himself be cheated a little.-Parson Lingozn. -0 -I suppose if a lover picked one's pocket, there's no woman would like to own it.-Mrs. Transome. — OIt seems to me that a man owes something to his birth and station, and has no right to take up this notion or the other, just as it suits his fancy; still less to work at the overthrow of his class.-Mrs. Transome. -0 — Can a man apologize for being a dastard?-Mrs. Transomze. There's truth in wine, and there may be some in gin and muddy beer; but whether it's truth worth my 278 Various Character-s. knowing, is another question. I 've got plenty of truth in my time out of men who were half-seas-over, but never any that was worth a sixpence to me.-Mr. Christian. -OThere's folks born to property, and there's folks catch hold on it: and the law's made for them as catch hold.-Tommy Trozmnsem. o — None o' your shooting for me-it's two to one you '11 miss. Snaring's more fishing-like. You bait your hook, and if it isna the fishes' goodwill to come, that's nothing again' the sporting genelman. And that's what I say by snaring.- Tommy Trozinsem. -0 -I 'm pretty deep; I see a good deal further than Spilkins. There was Ned Patch, the pedlar, used to say to me, 'You canna read, Tommy,' says he. ' No: thank you,' says I; ' I n not going to crack my headpiece to make myself as big a fool as you.'-Tommy Tromznsezm. -0 -We may surely wink at a few things for the sake of the public interest, if God Almighty does; and if He didn't, I don't know what would have become of the country-Government could never have been carried on, and many a good battle would have been lost. That's the philosophy of the matter, and the common sense too.-Sir Maximus Debarry. Various Characters. 279 Ah, sir, I 've that sort of head that I 'e often wished I was stupider. I use things up, sir; I see into things a deal too quick. I eat my dinner, as you may say, at breakfast-tinie. That's why I hardly ever smoke a pipe. No sooner do I stick a pipe in my mouth than I puff and puff till it's gone before other folks are well lit; and then, where am I? I might as well have let it alone. In this world it's better not to be too quick. But you know what it is, sir. —Mr. Chubbb. -oEsther Lyon.-When anything is offered to me, it seems that I prize it less, and don't want to have it... I have often read that that is in human nature, yet it takes me by surprise in myself. I suppose I didn't think of myself as human nature. Harold Transome.-I don't confess to the same waywardness. I am very fond of things that I can get. And I never longed much for anything out of my reach. Whatever I feel sure of getting I like all the better. I think half those priggish maxims about human nature in the lump are no more to be relied on than universal remedies. There are different sorts of human nature. Some are given to discontent and longnmg, others to securing and enjoying. I And let me tell you, the discontented longing style is unpleasant to live with. I Esther.-Oh, I assure you I have abjured all admiration for it. -0 -— o — There are varieties in fault-finding. At our Paris school the master I liked best was an old man who stormed at me terribly when I read Racine, but yet showed that he was proud of me.-Esther Lyon. 280 Various Characters. If I had ever met the giant Cormoran, I should have made a point of agreeing with him in his literary opinions.-Esther Lyon. -o-, It is difficult for a woman ever to try to be anything good when she is not believed in-when it is always supposed that she must be contemptible.- i Esther Lyon. -0 -Harold Transome.-I see you can be ardent in your admiration. Esther Lyon.-Yes, it is my champagne; you know I don't like the other kind. -0 -One likes a 'beyond' everywhere.-Esther Lyon. -0 -There are new eras in one's life that are equivalent to youth-are something better than youth.-Harold Transome. -0-. It is rather too much for any man to keep the consciences of all his party.-Harold Transome. -0 -The difference between Liberal and Liberal, as you and I know, is something like the difference between fish and fish.-Harold Transomze. Various Characters. 28l A ready tongue may do a man as much harm as good in a court of justice. He piques himself on making a display, and displays a little too much.Harold Transomc. -0 -I have heard it said, a bridge is a good thingworth helping to make, though half the men who worked at it were rogues.-Harold Transome. -0 -iMr. Nuttwood.-I cannot but think it a snare when a professing Christian has a bass voice like Brother Kemp's. It makes him desire to be heard of men; but the weaker song of the humble may have more power in the ear of God. Felix Holt.-Do you think it any better vanity to flatter yourself that God likes to hear you, though men don't? MAr. Nulttlood.-Mr. Lyon may understand you, sir. He seems to be fond of your conversation. But you have too much of the pride of human learning for me. I follow no new lights. Felix.-Then follow an old one. Follow the light of the old-fashioned Presbyterians that I 've heard sing at Glasgow. The preacher gives out the psalm, and then everybody sings a different tune, as it happens to turn up in their throats. It's a domineering thing to set a tune and expect everybody else to follow it. It's a denial of private judgment. END OF C FELIX HOLT.' 0 4 .PART SE VENTH. SA YINCVS FROM 'MIDDLEMARCH.' i I z I.N MIDDLEMARCH. Georgfe Eliot (in jropria persona). WHO that cares much to know the history of man, and how that mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with distinctively human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel, and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order. 285 286 George Eliot (in propria persona). That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul. Their ardour alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse. Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favourite love-stories in prose and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oaryfooted kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and George Eliot (in propria persona). 287 sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some long-recognisable deed. -0 If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come. -0 -What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. -0 -Pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion. -0 -We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves. -0 — Goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy. -0 -A man vows, and yet will not cast away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to 288 George Eliot (in propria persona). break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow. -0 -We are not afraid of telling over and over again how a man comes to fall in love with a woman and be wedded to her, or else be fatally parted from her. Is it due to excess of poetry or of stupidity that we are never weary of describing what King James called a woman's' makdom and her fairnesse,' never weary of listening to the twanging of the old Troubadour strings, and are comparatively uninterested in that other kind of 'makdom and fairnesse' which must be wooed with industrious thought and patient renunciation of small desires? In the story of this passion, too, the development varies: sometimes it is the glorious marriage, sometimes frustration and final parting. And not seldom the catastrophe is wound up with the other passion, sung by the Troubadours. For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour for generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like.a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing George Eliot (in propria persona). 289 in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance. -0 -That pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations of circumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than any single momentous bargain. -0 -There is no human being who having both passions and thoughts does not think in consequence of his passions-does not find images rising in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or sting it with dread. -o0 -We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire. -0 -When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions bringing in their verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a rare and blessed lot which some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd-to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good in us. The pitiable lot is that of the man who could not call himself a martyr even though he were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but ugly passions incarnate-who knows that he is stoned, T 290 George Eliot (in propria persona). not for professing the Right, but for not being the man he professed to be. -0 -The pain, as well as the public estimate of disgrace, depends on the amount of previous profession. To men who only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is disgrace. -0 -Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life-the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it-can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul - wasting struggle with worldly annoyances. -0 -- --- That swamp [of debt] which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there-in a condition in which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul. o-0 -We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. -0 -There are episodes in most men's lives in which their highest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objects that fill their inward vision. George Eliot (in propria persona). 291 J We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, 'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts-not to hurt others. -0 -The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. -0 -Those childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman, who has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate of her bald doll, creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own love. -0 -It is in those acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are for ever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness-calling their denial knowledge. -0 -One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! -0 -Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes. -0 -Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation? 292 George Eliot (in propria persona). I am not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, could escape unfavourable reflections of himself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. -0 -One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which- it is very unpleasant to find depreciated. ---- Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened with ruin? -oNews is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar. -0 -Nettle-seed needs no digging. o - What elegant historian would neglect a striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee the history of the world, or even their own actions?-For example, that Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen measuring their idle days with watches. Here is a mine of truth, which, however George Eliot (in propria persona). 293 vigorously it may be worked is likely to outlast our coal. -0 -Even Caesar's fortune at one time was but a grand presentiment. We know what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapes may be disguised in helpless embryos.-In fact, the world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities. -0 -Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous. -OA man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping. -0 -Most of us know little of the great originators until they have been lifted up among the constellations and already rule our fates. But that Herschel, for example, who 'broke the barriers of the heavens '-did he not once play a provincial church-organ, and give musiclessons to stumbling pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth among neighbours who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his garments than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares, which made the retarding friction of his course towards final companionship with the immortals. 294 Gcorge Eliot (in propria pcrsona). When young ardour is set brooding over the conception of a prompt deed, the deed itself seems to start forth with independent life, mastering ideal obstacles. — 0 Ardent souls, ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to the fulfilment of their own visions. -oto Our good depends on the quality and breadth of ur emotion. — o --- A vigorous error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth a-breathing: the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of substances, the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and Lavoisier is born. -0 People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world. looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy. — O — Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love. o-0 There are many wonderful mixtures in the world which are all alike called love, and claim the privileges George Eliot (in propria persona). 295 of a sublime rage which is an apology for everything (in literature and the drama). -0 -An old friend is not always the person whom it is easiest to make a confidant of. -0 -One can begin so many things with a new person! -even begin to be a better man. -0 -The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even over the present quickening in the general pace of things. -0 -- Rome, the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral lprocession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar. To those who have looked at Rome with the quicke ning powser of a knowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, and traces out the suppressedl transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome may still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken revelations of that. Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of know 296 George Eliot (in propria crsoua). ledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society; but Dorothea had no such defence against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense, and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained through her after-years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and in certain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in Gcorge Eliot (it propria persona). 297 the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. -0 -There never was a true story which could not be told in parables where you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa. -0 -We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it. -0 -The Rubicon, we know, was a very insignificant stream to look at; its significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions. -0 -Caleb Garth often shook his head in meditation on the value, the indispensable might of that myriadheaded, myriad-handed labour by which the social body is fed, clothed, and housed. It had laid hold of his imagination in boyhood. The echoes of the great hammer where roof or keel were a-making, the signal-shouts of the workmen, the roar of the furnace, the thunder and plash of the engine, were a sublime music to him; the felling and lading of timber, and the huge trunk vibrating star-like in the distance along the highway, the crane at work on the wharf, the piledup produce in warehouses, the precision and variety of muscular effort wherever exact work had to be turned out,-all these sights of his youth had acted on him as 298 George Eliot (in propria persora). poetry without the aid of the poets, had made a philosophy for him without the aid of philosophers, a religion without the aid of theology. -0 -Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves: there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same incongruous manner. -oWould it not be rash to conclude that there was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the thin music of a mandolin? -0 -A man's mind-what there is of it-has always the advantage of being masculine,-as the smallest birchtree is ot a higher kind than the most soaring palm,and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality. -0 --- The country gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart on their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfect discrimination on the belts of thicker life below. -0 -Any one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced neighbour. Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis f5erso7ce folded in her hand. George Eliot (in propria persona). 299 Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbours' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness. -0 -Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity will make us witty. — 0 -In Middlemarch a wife could not long remain ignorant that the town held a bad opinion of her husband. No feminine intimate might carry her friendship so far as to make a plain statement to the wife of the unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband; but when a woman with her thoughts much at leisure got them suddenly employed on something grievously disadvantageous to her neighbours, various moral impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance. Candour was one. To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion. Then, again, there was the love of truth-a wide phrase, but meaning in this relation, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than her husband's character warranted, or manifest too much satisfaction in her lot: the poor thing should have some hint given her that if she knew the truth she would have less complacency in her bonnet, and in light dishes for a supper-party. 300 George Eliot (in propria persona). Stronger than all, there was the regard for a friend's moral improvement, sometimes called her soul, which was likely to be benefited by remarks tending to gloom, uttered with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the furniture and a manner implying that the speaker would not tell what was on her mind, from regard to the feelings of her hearer. On the whole, one might say that an ardent charity was at work setting the virtuous mind to make a neighbour unhappy for her good. ---- A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from Rosamond's fingers [as she played]; and so indeed it was, since souls live on in perpetual echoes, and to all fine expression there goes somewhere an originating activity, if it be only that of an interpreter. -0 — O - When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations., (I fear the part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies.) -0 -Looking at the mother [Mrs Garth], you might hope that the daughter would become like her, which is a prospective advantage equal to a dowry-the mother too often standing behind the daughter like a malignant prophecy-' Such as I am, she will shortly be.' George Eliot (in propria persona). 301 Certainly, the exemplary Mrs Garth had her droll aspects, but her character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavour of skin. -0 -In all failures, the beginning is certainly the half of the whole. -0 -Young love-making-that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to-the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung-are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust. -0 -Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and coloured by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived; for Sinbad himself may have fallen by good-luck on a true description, and wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zig-zags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. -0 -What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, 302 George Eliot (in propria persona). expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. -0 -Dorothea filled up all blanks [in Mr Casaubon] with unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness to the higher harmonies. And there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship, which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. -0 -Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship? -0 -In courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight-that, in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin. -0 -You cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or George Eliot (in pro ria persona). 303 worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same. And it would be astonishing to find how soon the change is felt if we had no kindred changes to compare with it. To share lodgings with a brilliant dinner-companion, or to see your favourite politician in the Ministry, may bring about changes quite as rapid: in these cases too we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we sometimes end by inverting the quantities. o — The early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult-whether that of a shrimp-pool or of deeper waters-which afterwards subsides into cheerful peace. -0 -That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. -0 -To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion. -oShallow natures dream of an easy sway over the emotions of others, trusting implicitly in their own 304 George Eliot (in propria prsona). petty magic to turn the deepest streams, and confident, by pretty gestures and remarks, of making the thing that is not as though it were. -0 -In poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look small in. -0 --- The shallowness of a waternixie's soul may have a charm until she becomes didactic. -0 -Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? If it happens to have been cut in stone, though it lie face downmost for ages on a forsaken beach, or 'rest quietly uinder the drums and tramplings of many conquests,' it may end by letting us into the secret of usurpations and other scandals gossiped about long empires ago: -this world being apparently a huge whispering-gallery. Such conditions are often minutely represented in our petty lifetimes. -0 -Most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love. I think that the rare Englishmen who have this gesture [of shrugging the shoulders] are never of the George Eliot (in prop ia persona). 305 heavy type-for fear of any lumbering instance to the contrary, I will say, hardly ever: they have usually a fine temperament and much tolerance towards the smaller errors of men (themselves inclusive). -0 -That beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly. -0 -There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deepseated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men. -0 -Dr Lydgate cared not only for ".cases," but for John and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth. -0 -While we are talking and meditating about the earth's orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is the stable earth and the changing day. -oIt is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love's bond has turned to a power of galling. -0 -In marriage, the certainty, ' She will never love me much,' is easier to bear than the fear, 'I shall love her no more.' u 306 George Eliot (inz propria persona). Lydgate's endurance was mingled with a self-discontent which, if we know how to be candid, we shall confess to make more than half our bitterness under grievances, wife or husband included. It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us. -0 — If Mr Casaubon, speaking for himself, has rather a chilling rhetoric, it is not therefore certain that there is no good work or fine feeling in him. Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact? Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man, to wonder, with keener interest, what is the report of his own consciousness about his doings or capacity: with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily labours; what fading of hopes, or what deeper fixity of self-delusion the years are marking off within him; and with what spirit he wrestles against universal pressure, which will one day be too heavy for him, and bring his heart to its final pause. Doubtless his lot is important in his own eyes; and the chief reason that we think he asks too large a place in our consideration must be our want of room for him, since we refer him to the Divine regard with- perfect confidence; nay, it is even held sublime for our neighbour to expect the utmost there, however little he may have got from us. -0 -Are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all the significance Georoe Eliot (in propria persona). 307 of its life-a significance which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has need of them? -o0 -Here was a man who now for the first tine found himself looking into the eyes of death-who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace 'We must all die' transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness 'I must die-and soon,' then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first. To Mr Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly found himself on the dark river-brink, and heard the plash of the on-coming oar, not discerning the forms, but expecting the summons. -0 -There are some kinds of authorship in which by far the largest result is the uneasy susceptibility accumulated in the consciousness of the author-one knows of the river by a few streaks amid a long-gathered deposit of uncomfortable mud. -0 -Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. 308 Gcologe Eliot '(in propria persona). What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? -0 -There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism. -0 -Very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings. o — Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder. -0 -A man may, from various motives, decline to give his company; but perhaps not even a sage would be gratified that nobody missed him. -0oA woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. -0 -Mr Bulstrode had a deferential bending attitude in listening, and an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes, which made those persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected to make no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the Gcorgc Eliot (il prop ria persona). 309 light and look judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. -0 -Loud men called Bulstrode's subdued tone an undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with openness; though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candour in the lungs. -0 -Let the wise be warned against too great readiness of explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong. -0 -A full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine fount of admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible. -0 -Some one highly susceptible to the contemplation of a fine act has said, that it produces a sort of regenerating shudder through the frame, and makes one feel ready to begin a new life. -0 -It is given to us sometimes, even in our everyday life, to witness the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue that may lie in a selfsubduing act of fellowship. -0 -There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecra 3 o George Eliot (in propria persona). tion: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become that worst kind of sacrilege which tears down the invisible altar of trust. 'If you are not good, none is good' -those little words may give a terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity for remorse. -0 -'The theatre of all my actions is fallen,' said an antique personage when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who get a theatre where the audience demands their best. 0 — The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character. -0 -A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself, who had the happiness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago, and so to take his place among the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is observed to walk under, glories in his copious remarks and digressions as the least imitable part of his work, and especially in those initial chapters to the successive books of his history, where he seems to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium, and chat with us in all the lusty ease of his fine English. But Fielding lived when the days were longer (for time, like money, is measured by our needs), when summer afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly George Eliot (in propria persona). 311 in the winter evenings. We belated historians must not linger after his example; and if we did so, it is probable that our chat would be thin and eager, as if delivered from a camp-stool in a parrot-house. -0 -There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy. -0 -To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. Mr Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: it was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying. His experience. was of that pitiable kind which shrinks from pity, and fears most of all that it should be known: it was that proud narrow sensitiveness which has not mass enough to spare for transformation into sympathy, and quivers, thread-like, in small currents of self-preoccupation, or, at best, of egoistic scrupulosity. For my part, I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught, and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life, and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self-never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold,.never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, 312 George Eliot (in propria persona). the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. Becoming a dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr Casaubon's uneasiness. Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet there must always be our poor little eyes peeping as usual, and our timorous lips more or less under anxious control. I suppose no doctor ever came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebodycures which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as much credit as the written or printed kind. 't) It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog. - That sort of reputation which precedes performance,-often the larger part of a man's fame. 0 -It is wonderful how much uglier things will look when we only suspect that we are blamed for them. Even our own persons in the glass are apt to change their aspect for us after we have heard some frank remark on their less admirable points; and on the other hand, it is astonishing how pleasantly conscience takes our encroachments on those who never complain or have nobody to complain for them. George Eliot (in propria persona). 313 The most glutinously indefinite minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box, concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch. -0 --- A kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition. -0 — Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers, but, dressed in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite. -0 -The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots. ----- The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers. -0 -We get the fonder of our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friends have. -0 -In warming himself at French social theories Lydgate had brought away no smell of scorching. We may handle even extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving, and preference for armorial bearings in our own case, link us indissolubly with the established order. 314 George Eliot (in proria pcrsona). Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference between what for the sake of variety I will call goose and gander: especially on the innate submissiveness of the goose as beautifuliy corresponding to the strength of the gander. -0 -There are answers vhich, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room. -0 -When gratitude has become a matter of reasoning there are many ways of escaping from its bonds. o-0. — There is a forsaking which still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. -0 — The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favour of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke's large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorotbea! compared with her, the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it. -0 -When Mrs Casaubon was announced Will started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his finger-ends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which George Eliot (in proypria persona). 315 might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man's passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-tol) differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass pannels? -0 -Notions and scruples are like spilt needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating. -OIt is only what we are vividly conscious of that we can vividly imagine to be seen by Omniscience. -0 -An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will he minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going every-where impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the 3 6 George Eliot (in propria persona). egoism of any person now absent-of Miss Vincy, for example. -0 -The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief. -0 -If a princess in the days of enchantment had seen a four-footed creature from among those which live in herds come to her once and again with a human gaze which rested upon her with choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeyings, what would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for the gaze which had found her, and which she would know again. Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy. oDoes any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid-necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections? o-0 -The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos. -0 -Scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill: something we must believe in and do, and whatever that something may be called, it is virtually our own judgment, even when it seems like the most slavish reliance on another. George Eliot (in propria persona). 317 Rosamond blushed and looked at her lover as the garden flowers look at us when we walk forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light: is there not a soul beyond utterance, half-nymph, halfchild, in'those delicate petals which glow and breathe about the centres of deep colour? -oThe gladness in Mr Farebrother's face was of that active kind which seems to have energy enough not only to flash outwardly, but to light up busy vision within: one seemed to see thoughts as well as delight in his glances. -0 -Religion can only change when the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal fear remains nearly at the level of the savage. -0 -The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memoryr, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth and decay; but intense memory forces a man to own his blameworthy past. -0 -The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama. -0 — The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a resolved submission, when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself. 31I8 Georgc Eliot (in propria persona. When Fred Vincy was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlour, and was sorry for other men who could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr Farebrother. 'He was ten times worthier of you than I was,' Fred could now say to her, magnanimously. 'To be sure he was,' Mary answered; 'and for that reason he could do better without me. But you-I shudder to think what you would have been-a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!' -0 -Ben and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike-also it occurred to her that in the East the men too wore petticoats. But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, ' The more spooneys they!' and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys were not better than girls. Mrs Garth pronounced that both were alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and throw with more precision to a greater distance. With this oracular sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles. George Eliot (in propria persona). 319 Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their longwaited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval. Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the-thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epicthe gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common. Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope and enthusiasm, and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each other and the world. -oSir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin-young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not wellborn. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed that she could not have been 'a nice woman,' else she would not have married either the one or the other. 320 George Eliot (in propria persona). Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling under prosaic conditions. Among the many remarks passed on her mistakes, it was never said in the neighbourhood of Middlemarch that such mistakes could not have happened if the society into which she was born had not smiled on propositions of marriage from a sickly man to a girl less than half his own age-on modes of education which make a woman's knowledge another name for motley ignorance-on rules of conduct which are in flat contradiction with its own loudly asserted beliefs. While this is the social air in which mortals begin to breathe, there will be collisions such as those in Dorothea's life, where great feelings will take the aspect of error and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is for ever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Alexander broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; Mottoes. 321 and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 'Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian: We are but mortals, and must sing of man.' -0 -Was never true love loved in vain, For truest love is highest gain. No art can make. it: it must spring Where elements are fostering. So in heaven's spot and hour Springs the little native flower, Downward root and upward eye, Shapen by the earth and sky. -0 -Full souls are double mirrors, making still An endless vista of fair things before Repeating things behind. -0 -'Ist Gent.-All times are good to seek your wedded home Bringing a mutual delight. 2d Gent.- Why, true. The calendar hath not an evil day For souls made one by love, and even death Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves While they two clasped each other, and foresaw No life apart. x 322 Mottoes. I would not creep along the coast, but steer Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars. -0 -' The clerkly person smiled and said, Promise was a pretty maid, But being poor she died unwed.' -0 -' Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts, Breathing bad air, run risk of pestilence; Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line, May languish with the scurvy.' -0 Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are. -0 -'ist Gent.-Our deeds are fetters thatweforgeourselves. 2d Gent.-Ay, truly: but I think it is the world That brings the iron.' -oist Gent.-How class your man?-as better than the most, Or, seeming better, worse beneath that cloak? As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite? 2d Gent.-Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books, The drifted relics of all time. As well Mottoes. 323 Sort them at once by size and livery: Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf Will hardly cover more diversity Than all your labels cunningly devised To class your unread authors. -- Wise in his daily work was he: To fruits of diligence, And not to faiths or polity, He plied his utmost sense. These perfect in their little parts, Whose work is all their prizeWithout them how could laws, or arts, Or towered cities rise? -0 -Ist Gent. -An ancient land in ancient oracles Is called 'law-thirsty:' all the struggle there Was after order and a perfect rule. Pray, where lie such lands now? 2d Gent.-Why, where they lay of oldIn human souls. -0 -It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what outsiders call inconsistency-putting a dead mechanism of 'ifs' and 'therefores' for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment. -0 -'Follows here the strict receipt For that sauce to dainty meat, 324 Mottoes. Named Idleness, which many eat By preference, and call it sweet: First watch for morsels, like a hound, MIaix well with buffets, stir them round, With good thick oil of flatteries, Andfroth with mean self-lauding lies. Serve warm: the vessels you must choose To keep it in are dead men's shoes.' -0 -'Black eyes you have left, you say, Blue eyes fail to draw you; Yet you seem more rapt to-day, Than of old we saw you. Oh I track the fairest fair Through new haunts of pleasure; Footprints here and echoes there Guide me to my treasure: Lo! she turns-immortal youth Wrought to mortal stature, Fresh as starlight's aged truthMany-named Nature!' -0 -How will you know the pitch of that great bell Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal: listen close Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill: Then shall the huge bell tremble-then the mass With myriad waves concurrent shall respond In low soft unison. -0 -Pity the laden one; this wandering woe May visit you and me. Mir Brooke. 325 Sir Humphry Davy? Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy: I dined with him years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too-the poet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him-and I dined with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright's. There's an oddity in things now. But Davy was there: }e was a poet too. Or, as I may say, Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true in every sense, you know. -0 -(To Mr Casaubon.)-Get Dorothea to play backgammon with you in the evenings. And shuttlecock, now-I don't know a finer game than shuttlecock for the daytime. I remember it all the fashion. To be sure, your eyes might not stand that, Casaubon. But you must unbend, you know. Why, you might take to some light study: conchology, now: I always think that must be a light study. Or get Dorothea to read you light things, Smollett -' Roderick Random,' 'Humphrey Clinker:' they are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonlythere's a droll bit about a postilion's breeches. We have no such humour now. I have gone through all these things, but they might be rather new to you. -0 -There is a lightness about the feminine mind-a touch and go-music, the fine arts, that kind of thing -they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A woman 326 Mr Brooke. should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old English tune. That is what I like; though I have heard most things-been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that sort. But I'm a conservative in music-it's not like ideas, you know. I stick to the good old tunes. -0 -Severity is all very well, but it's a great deal easier when you've got somebody to do it for you. -oSir Jamzes C~hettam.-I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry, because I am going to take one of the farms into my own hands, and see if something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming among my tenants. Do. you approve of that, Miss Brooke? Mr Brooke.-A great mistake, Chettam, going into electrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlour of your cow-house. It won't do. I went into science a great deal myself at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can let nothing alone. No, no-see that your tenants don't sell their straw, and that kind of thing; and give them draining-tiles, you know. But your fancy-farming will not do-the most expensive sort of whistle you can buy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds. Dorothea.-Surely it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good V of all. Mr Brooke. 327 Mr Brooke.-Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know. I remember when we were all reading Adam Smith. There is a book, now. I took in all the new ideas at one time-human perfectibility, now. But some say, history moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far-over the hedge, in'fact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I have always been in favour of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. -0 -Mr Brooke.-Burke, now:-when I think of Burke, I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough to give you, Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know. And we shall always want talent in the house: reform as we will, we shall always want talent. Ladislaw.-Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing if they were always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand. -0 -Dorothea. -I should wish to have a husband who was above me in judgment and in all knowledge. MIJr Brooke.-Ah?-I thought you had more of your own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion-liked it, you know. Dorothea. —I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live according to them. Mr Brooke.-Very true. You couldn't put the thing 328 Dorothea Brooke. better-couldn't put it better, beforehand, you know. But there are oddities in things. Life isn't cast in a mould-not cut out by rule and line, and that sort of thing.. I never married myself, and it will be the better for you and yours. The fact is, I never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them. It is a noose, you know. Temper now. There is temper. And a husband likes to be master. Dorothea.-I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of higher duties. I never thought of it as mere personal ease. -0 -(To Dorothea.)-You must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies a little in our family. I had it myself-that love of knowledge, and going into everything-a little too much-it took me too far; though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female line; or it runs underground like the rivers in Greece, you know-it comes out in the sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went a good deal into that, at one time. People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbours. -0 -I think we deserve to be beaten out of our beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords-all of us who let tenants live in such sties as we see round us. Life in cottages might be happier than ours, if they were real houses fit for human beings from whom we expect duties and affections. Dorothea Brooke. 329 After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not?- They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think. 0 -There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that-to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail. -0 -Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. -0 -How very beautiful these gems are! It is strange how deeply colours seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St John. They look like fragments of heaven. -0 -Celia.-O Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself. Dorothea.-No, no, dear, no. Celia.-Yes, indeed you must; it would suit youin your black dress, now. You might wear that. Dorothea.-Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket. Celia.-Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it. Dorothea.-No, dear, no. Souls have complexions, too: what will suit one will not suit another. -0 -Sir 7ames Cheffam.-Your sister is given to selfmortification, is she not? 330 Dorothea Brooke. Celia.-I think she is. She likes giving up. Dorothea.-If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, not self-mortification. -0-O Dorothea (sipeaking of a tiny Maltese pu5ppy).-It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets. Sir James Chettam.-. Oh, why? Dorothea.-I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy. They are too helpless: their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting. I like to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on their own little affairs or can be companions to us, like Monk here. Those creatures are parasitic. -0 --o - Celia.-How very ugly Mr Casaubon is! Dorothea.-Celia! He. is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw. He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets. Celia.-Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them? Dorothea.-Oh, I daresay! when people of a certain sort looked at him. Celia.-Mr Casaubon is so sallow. Dorothea.-All the better. I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a coczonz de lait. Celia.-Dodo! I never heard you make such a comparison before. Dorothea.-Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a good comparison: the match is perfect. Celia.-I wonder you show temper, Dorothea. Dorothea.-It is so painful in you, Celia, that you Dorothea Brooke. 33I will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with.a toilette, and never see the great soul in a man's face. Celia.-Has Mr Casaubon a great soul? Dorothea.-Yes, I believe he has. — OCelia.-Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr Casaubon? Dorothea.-Not that I know of. Celia.-I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soup so. Dorothea. -What is there remarkable about his soup-eating? Celia.-Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he always blinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm sure I am sorry for. those who sat opposite to him if he did. Dorothea.- Celia, pray don't make any more observations of that kind. Celia.-Why not? They are quite true. Dorothea.-Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe. Celia.-Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it is a pity Mr Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might have taught him better. -0 -I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest-I mean that which takes'in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most / people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much. Dorothea and Ladislaw. AMr Farebrother.-There is the terrible Nemesis following on some errors, that it is always possible for those who like it to interpret them into a crime: there is no proof in favour of the man outside his own consciousness and assertion. Dorothea.-Oh, how cruel! And would you not like to be the one person who believed, in that man's innocence, if the rest of the world belied him? Besides, there is a man's character beforehand to speak for him. Mr Farebrother.-But, my dear Mrs Casaubon, character is not cut in marble-it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and, changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do. Dorothea.-Then it may be rescued and healed. Dorothea.-There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescoes, or with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe-like a child present at great ceremonies where there are grand robes and processions; I feel myself in the presence of some higher life than my own. But when I begin to examine the pictures one by one, the life goes out of them, or else is something violent and strange to me. It must be my own dulness. I am seeing so much all at once, and not understanding half of it. That always makes one feel stupid. It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine-something like being blind, while people talk of the sky. Ladislaw.-Oh, there is a great deal in the feeling for art which must be acquired. Art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles, and Dorothea and Ladislau'. sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to pieces I should find it made up of many different threads. There is something in daubing a little one's self, and having an idea of the process. -O - Ladislaz.-You seem not to care about cameos. Dorothea.-No, frankly, I don't think them a great object in life. Ladislaw.-I fear you are a heretic about art generally. How is that? I should have expected you to be very sensitive to the beautiful everywhere. Dorothea.-I suppose I am dull about many things. I should like to make life beautiful-I mean every-> body's life. And then all this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside life and make it no better for the world, pains one. It spoils my enjoyment of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from it. Ladislaw.-I call that the fanaticism of sympathy. You might say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement. If you carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn evil that you might have no advantage over others. The best piety is to enjoy-when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. It is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken care of when you feel delight-in art or in anything else. Would you turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and moralising over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom. 334 Dorothea and Ladislaw. Dorothea.-Indeed you mistake me. I am not a sad melancholy creature. I am never unhappy long together. I am angry and naughty- not like Celia: I have a great outburst, and then all seems glorious again. I cannot help believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way. I should be quite willing to enjoy the art here, but there is so much that I don't know the reason of-so much that seems to me a consecration of ugliness rather than beauty. The painting and sculpture may be wonderful, but the feeling is often low and brutal, and sometimes even ridiculous. Here and there I see what takes me at once as noble -something that I might compare with the Alban Mountains or the sunset from the Pincian Hill; but that makes it the greater pity that there is so little of the best kind among all that mass of things over which men have toiled so. Ladislaw.-Of course there is always a great deal of poor work: the rarer things want that soil to grow in. Do-roztea.-O dear, I see it must be very difficult to do anything good. I have often felt since I have been in Rome that most of our lives would look much ugfler and more bungling than the pictures, if they could be put on the wall. -0 -Dorothea.-It is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if'people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired. Ladislaw.-If a man has a capacity forgreat thoughts, he is likely to overtake them before he is decrepit. But it is quite true that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working out their ideas. Dorothea.-You correct me. I expressed myself ill. Dorothea and Ladislaw. 335 I should have said that those who have great thoughts get too much worn in working them out. I used to feel about that, even when I was a little girl; and it always seemed to me that the use I should like to make of my life would be to help some one who did great works, so that his burthen might be lighter. -0 -Dorothea.- Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of that-I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it up. Ladislaw.-I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it. The thing one most longs for may be surrounded with conditions that would be intolerable. -0 -Ladislaw.-I shall hardly ever see you now. Dorothea.-No, hardly ever. But I shall hear of you. I shall know what you are doing for my uncle. Ladislaw.-I shall know hardly anything about you. No one will tell me anything. Dorofthea.-Oh, my life is very simple. I am always at Lowick. Ladislaw.-That is a dreadful imprisonment. Dorothea.-No, don't think that. I have no longings. I mean, for myself. Except that I should like not to have so much more than my share without doing anything for others. But I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me. Ladislaw.-What is that? Dorothea.-That by desiring what is perfectly good, 336 Mr Farebrotlier. even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot 4 do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil-widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower. Ladislaw.-That is a beautiful mysticism-it is aDorothea.-Please not to call it by any name. You will say it is Persian, or something else geographical. It is my life. I have found it out, and cannot part with it. I have always been finding out my religion since I was a little girl. I used to pray so muchnow I hardly ever pray. I try not to have desires merely for myself, because they may not be good for others, and I have too much already. I only told you, that you might know quite well how my days go at Lowick. Ladislaw.-God bless you for telling me! Dorothea.-What is your religion? I mean-not what you know about religion, but the belief that helps you most? Ladislaw.-To love what is good and beautiful when I see it. But I am a rebel: I don't feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I don't like. Dorothea.-But if you like what is good, that comes " to the same thing. It's rather a strong check to one's self-complacency to find how much of one's right doing depends on not being in want of money. A man will not be tempted to say the Lord's Prayer backward to please the devil, if he doesn't want the devil's services. If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else. Mr Farebrother. 337 To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline! -0 — I don't translate my own convenience into other people's duties. O-0 There's no knowing what a mixture will turn out beforehand. Some sorts of dirt serve to clarify. -0 -Mr Farebrother.-Men of your profession don't generally smoke. Nor of mine either, properly, I suppose. You will hear that pipe alleged against me by Bulstrode and Company. They don't know how pleased the devil would be if I gave it up. Lydga/e.-I understand. You are of an excitable temper and want a sedative. I am heavier, and should get idle with it. I should rush into idleness, and stagnate there with all my might. MrFarebrothzer..-And you mean to give it all to your work. I am some ten or twelve years older than you, and have come to a compromise. I feed a weakness or two lest they should get clamorous. -0 -Lydgate.-Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humouring everybody's nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humour? The shortest way is to make your value felt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not. Mr Farebrother.-With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Y 338 Mary Garth. Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellows pull you. -o(To Lydgate.)-Take care-exg5erlo crede-take care not to get hampered about money matters. I know, by a word you let fall one day, that you don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are right enough there. But try and keep clear of wantingsmall sums that you haven't got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously; but a man likes to assume superiority over himself, by holding up his bad example and sermonising on it. Mary.-What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy! You are the most unbecoming companion. Rosamond Vincy.-Oh no! No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality. Mary.-You mean'my beauty. Rosamond.-What have you been doing lately? Mary.-I? Oh, minding the house-pouring out syrup-pretending to be amiable and contentedlearning to have a bad opinion of everybody. Rosamond.-It is a wretched life for you. Mary.-No. I think my life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's.. Rosamond.-Yes; but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young. Mary.-She is interesting to herself, I suppose; and I am not at all sure that everything gets easier as one gets older. Mary Garth. 339 I suppose we never quite understand why another dislikes what we like. -0 -To me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom she is grateful. -0 -Fred Vincy.-I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly. IMarvy.-I think the goodness should come before he expects that. Fred. - You know better, Mary. Women don't love men for their goodness. Mary.-Perhaps not. But if they love them, they never, think them bad. -0 -Fred l7incy.-I suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always known-ever since she can remember; as a man often is. It is always some new fellow who strikes a girl. Miary.-Let me see. I must go back on my experience. There is Juliet-she seems an example of what you say. But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long while; and Brenda Troil-she had known Mordaunt Merton ever since they were children; but then he seems to have been an estimable young man; and Minna was still more deeply in love with Cleveland, who was a stranger. Waverley was new to Flora Maclvor; but then she did not fall in love with him. And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose, and Corinne-they may be said to have 340 Mary Garth. fallen in love with new men. Altogether my experience is rather mixed. -0 -Fred Vincy.- I am not fit, to be a poor man. I should not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich. Mary.-You would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has not pleased God to call you. -0 -Mafry.-I could not love a man who is ridiculous. Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him respectable, if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can never imagine him preaching and exhorting, and pronouncing blessings, and praying by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a caricature. His being a clergyman would be only for gentility's sake, and I think there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile gentility. I used to think that of Mr Crowse, with his empty face and neat umbrella and mincing little speeches. What right have such men to represent Christianity-as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly-as ifMr Farebrother.-Young women are severe; they don't feel the stress of action as men do, though perhaps I ought to make you an exception there. But you don't put Fred Vincy on so low a level as that. Mary.-No, indeed; he has plenty of sense, but I think he would not show it as a clergyman. He would be a piece of professional affectation. -0 -Mr Farebrot/er.-Fred says frankly he is not fit for a clergyman, and I would do anything I could to hinder a man from the fatal step of choosing the Calcb Garth. 341 wrong profession. He quoted to me what you said, Miss Garth-do you remember it? Mary.-I have said so many impertinent things to Fred-we are such old playfellows. Stir Farebrotlher.-You said, according to him, that he would be one of those ridiculous clergymen who help to make the whole clergy ridiculous. Really, that was so cutting that I felt a little cut myself. Caleb GarltA.-She gets her tongue from you, Susan, M1ary.-Not its flippancy, father. It is rather too bad of Fred to repeat my flippant speeches to Mr Farebrother. MJrs Gar/h.-It was certainly a hasty speech, my dear. We should not value our Vicar the less because there was a ridiculous curate in the next parish. Caleb.-There's something in what she says, though. A bad workman of any sort makes his fellows mistrusted. Things hang together. JMr Farcbrotzher.-Clearly. By being contemptible we set men's minds to the tune of contempt. I certainly agree with Miss Garth's view of the matter, whether I am condemned by it or not. -0 -Mary.-I don't love Fred because he is a fine match. Calcb.-What for then? Mary.-Oh dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband. Fred Vincy.-You do think I could do some good at this sort of work, if I were to try? Caleb.-That depends. You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not be always 342 Caleb Garth. looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There's this and there's that-if I had this or that to do, I might make something of 'it. No matter what a man is-I wouldn't give twopence for him, whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn't do wvell wvhat he undertook to do. Fred.-I can never feel that I should do that in being a clergyman. Caleb.-Then let it alone, my boy, else you'll never be easy. Or, if you are easy, you'll be a poor stick. -0 -It makes me very happy, Mr Farebrother, that I've got an opportunity again with the letting of the land, and carrying out a notion or two \with improvements. It's a most uncommonly cramping thing, as I've often told Susan, to sit on horseback, and look over the hedges at the wrong thing, and not be able to put your hand to it to make it right. What people do who go into politics I can't think: it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres. -0 — A man may do wrong, and his will may rise clear out of it, though he can't get his life clear. That's a bad punishment. -0 -Things may be bad for the poor man-bad they are; but I want the lads here not to do what will make Caleb Garth. 343 things worse for themselves. The cattle may have a heavy load; but it won't helpl) 'em to throw it over into the roadside pit, when it's partly their own fodder. -0 -I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm clear it must be done to save the innocent. -0 -The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them forward. I was young myself once, and had to do without much help; but help would have been welcome to me, if it had been only for the fellowfeeling's sake. -0 -The soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof. -0 (To his wife.)-A true love for a good woman is a great thing, Susan. It shapes many a rough fellow. -0 -Marriage is a taming thing. -0 -Mrs Garth.-It seems to me, a loss which falls on another because we have done right is not to lie upon our conscience. Caleb.-It's the feeling. You don't mean your horse to tread on a dog when you're backing out of the way; but it goes through you when it's done. 344 Airs Cadwallader. There's no sort of work that could ever be done well if you minded what fools say. You must have it inside you that your plan is right, and that plan you must follow. -O - Caleb.-It's a thousand pities Christy didn't take to business, Susan. I shall want help by-and-by. And Alfred must go off to the engineering-I've made up my mind to that. I shall make Brooke have new agreements with the tenants, and I shall draw up a rotation of crops. And I'll lay a wager we can get fine bricks out of the clay at Bott's corner. I must look into that: it would cheapen the repairs. It's a fine bit of work, Susan! A man without a family would be glad to do it for nothing. IMrs Gar/th.-Mind you don't, though. Caleb.-No, no; but it's a fine thing to come to a man when he's seen into the nature of business: to have the chance of getting a bit of the country into good fettle, as they say, and putting men into the right way with their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving and solid building done-that those who are living and those who come after will be the better for. I'd sooner have it than a fortune. I hold it the most honourable work that is. It's a great gift of God, Susan. Mrs Gar/z.-That it is, Caleb. And it will be a blessing to your children to have had a father who did such work: a father whose good work remains though his name may be forgotten. Celia Brooke.-I will go 'anywhere with you, Mrs Cadwallader; but I don't like funerals. Mrs Cadwallader. 345 MIrs Cadwallader.-Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you must accommodate your tastes: I did that very early. When I married Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them. -oA woman's choice usually means taking the only man she can get. -0 — These charitable people never know vinegar from wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic. -0 -It is not martyrdom to pay bills that one has run into one's self. -0 -I can't wear my solemnity too often, else it will go to rags. 0 — Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on. -0 -Sir yames Chetlam.-I don't believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his land. Mrs Cadwallader.-Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it will not do to keep one's own pigs lean. -0 -Mrs Cadwallader.-Dorothea is engaged to be married. Engaged to Casaubon. 346 iTrs Cadwallader. Sir 7ames Chettam.-Casaubon? Mrs Cadwallader.-Even so. Sir 7ames.-Good God! It is horrible! He is no better than a mummy! Mrs Cadwallader.-She says he is a great soul.-A great bladder for dried peas to rattle in! -0 -Lady Chettam.-Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear? Mrs Cadwallader. - It strengthens the disease. Everything depends on the constitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile-that's my view of the matter: and whatever they take is a sort of grist to the mill. -0 -Mrs Cadwallader.-Now, do nzot let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on your -humming and hawing. You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by everybody. Mr Brooke.-That is what I expect, you knowwhat I expect as an independent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers is not likely to be hooked on by any party. He may go with them up to a certain point-up to a certain point, you know. But that is what you ladies never understand. Mrs Cadwallader.-Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a man can have any certain point when he belongs to no party-leading a Mrs Cadvalladcr. 347 roving life, and never letting his friends know his address. 'Nobody knows where Brooke will bethere's no counting on Brooke'-that is what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable. How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you, and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket? Mir Brooke.-I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics. Your sex are not thinkers, you knowvar-iuz et nmztabile semtfer-that kind of thing. You don't know Virgil. I knew-I was going to say, poor Stoddart, you know. That was what he said. You ladies are always against an independent attitude-a man's caring for nothing but truth, and that sort of thing. And there is no part of the country where opinion is narrower than it is here-I don't mean to throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent line; and if I don't take it, who will? AMrs Cad-wallder.-Who? Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position. People of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk it about. -0o IMrs Cadzwnallader.-I warned you all of it. I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr Brooke is going to make a splash in the mud. And now he has done it. AMr Cadwanllader.-Weell, he might have taken it into his head to marry. That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with politics. lirs Cadwallader.-He may do that afterwards, when he has come out on the other side of the mud with an ague. 348 IMrs Cadwallader. Mr Cadwallader.-I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion. There's such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke. Mrs Cadwallader.-There is one good chance-that he will not like to feel his money oozing away. If I knew the items of election expenses I could scare him. It's no use plying him with wide words like Expenditure: I wouldn't talk of phlebotomy, I would empty a pot of leeches upon him. What we good stingy people don't like, is having our sixpences sucked away from us. — o — Mrs Cadwallader.-You will certainly go mad in that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons and women who have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad: they are taken care of-then. But you must not run into that. I daresay you are a little bored here with our good dowager; but think what a bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures if you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things sublimely. Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must get a few people round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them. That is a good lowering medicine. Dorothea.-I never called everything by the same name that all the people about me did. MArs Cadwallader.-But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear, and that is a proof of sanity. Dorothea.-No. I still think that the greater part of lMrs Cadwallader. 349 the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion. -0 -Celia.-Dodo need not make such a slavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among her friends. Lady Chettam.-My dear Celia, a widow must wear her mourning at least a year. Mrs Cadwallader.-Not if she marries again before the end of it. Lady Chettam.-That is very rare, I hope. No friend of ours ever committed herself in that way except Mrs Beevor, and it was very painful to Lord Grinsell when she did so. Her first husband was objectionable, which made it the greater wonder. And severely she was punished for it. They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair, and held up loaded pistols at her. Mrs Cadwallader.-Oh, if she took the wrong man! Marriage is always bad then, first or second. Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other. I would rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first. Lady Chettam.-My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you. I am sure you would be the last woman to marry again prematurely, if our dear Rector were taken away. Mrs Cadwallader.-Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is lawful to marry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead of Christians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must take the consequences, and one who does 350 Mr Vincy-Mr Trumbdul. it twice over deserves her fate. But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery-the sooner the better. Mr Bulstrode (pjouring himself out a glass qo water, and ofenling a sandwrichz box).-I cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy? Mr Vincy.-No, no; I've no opinion of that system. Life wants padding. -0 -I've never changed: I'm a plain Churchman now, just as I used to be before doctrines came up. I take the world as I find it, in trade and everything else. I'm contented to be no worse than my neighbours. — o If you come to religion, it seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an ounce beforehand:-one must trust a little to' Providence and be generous. - 0 --- (To BltZstrode).-I never professed to be anything but worldly: and, what's more, I don't see anybody else who is not worldly. I suppose you don't conduct business on what you call unworldly principles. The only difference I see is that one worldliness is a little bit honester than another. o — Mr Vincy.-I tell you the lad's an unlucky lad, Lucy. And you've always spoiled him. Mrs Vincy.-Well, Vincy, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him when he came. You were as proud as proud. Mr Vincy.-Who knows what babies will turn to? I was fool enough, I daresay.. Mr Trumbull.-Now, ladies, I shall appeal to you. Mr Trumbull. 35I Here is a fender which at any other sale would hardly be offered without reserve, being, as I may say, for quality of steel and quaintness of design, a kind of thing that might not fall in with ordinary tastes. Allow me to tell you that by-and-by this style of workmanship will be the only one in vogue-half-a-crown, you said? thank you-going at half-a-crown, this characteristic fender; and I have particular information that the antique style is very much sought after in high quarters. Three shillings-three-and-sixpencehold it well up, Joseph! Look, ladies, at the chastity of the design-I have no doubt myself that it was turned out in the last century! Four shillings, Mr Mawmsey?-four shillings. Mrs Mawzmsey.-It's not a thing I would put in nmy drawing-room. I wonder at Mrs Larcher. Every blessed child's head that fell against it would be cut in two. The edge is like a knife. Mr Trzmbull. —Quite true, and most uncommonly useful to have a fender at hand that will cut, if you have a leather shoe-tie or a bit of string that wants cutting and no knife at hand: many a man has been left hanging because there was no knife to cut him down. Gentlemen, here's a fender that if you had the misfortune to hang yourselves would cut you down in no time-with astonishing celerity-four-and-sixpence -five-five-and-sixpence-an appropriate thing for a spare bedroom where there was a four-poster and a guest a little out of his mind —six shillings-thank you, Mr Clintup-going at six shillings-going-gone! Mr Clintufi.-It was worth six shillings to have a fender you could always'tell that joke on. -0 -Mr Trumbzul. —Now, ladies, this tray contains a very recherchy lot-a collection of trifles for the drawing 352 Mr Trumbull. room table-and trifles make the sum of human things -nothing more important than trifles-(yes, Mr Ladislaw, yes, by-and-by)-but pass the tray round, Josephthese bijoux must be examined, ladies. This I have in myhand is an ingenious contrivance-a sort of practical iebus, I may call it: here, you see, it looks like an elegant heart-shaped box, portable-for the pocket: there again, it becomes like a splendid double floweran ornament for the table; and now-a book of riddles! No less than five hundred printed in a beautiful red. Gentlemen, if I had less of a conscience, I should not wish you to bid high for this lot-I have a longing for it myself. What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more than a good riddle?-it hinders profane language, and attaches a man to the society of refined females. This ingenious article itself, without the elegant domino-box, card-basket, &c., ought alone to give a high price to the lot. Carried in the pocket it might make an individual welcome in any society. Four shillings, sir?-four shillings for this remarkable collection of riddles with the et caeteras. Here is a sample: ' How must you spell honey to make it catch lady-birds? Answer-money.' You hear?-ladybirds-honey — money. This is an amusement to sharpen the intellect; it has a sting-it is what we call satire, and wit without indecency. Four-and-sixpence-five shillings. 0 Mr Trumbull.-Yes, Mr Ladislaw, yes; this interests you as a connoissure, I think. It is some pleasure to have a picture like this to show to a company of ladies and gentlemen-a picture worth any sum to an individual whose means were on a level Mr Tru;mbull. 353 with his judgment. It is a painting of the Italian school-by the celebrated Gitydo, the greatest painter in the world, the chief of the Old Masters, as they are called-I take it, because they were up to a thing or two beyond most of us-in possession of secrets now lost to the bulk of mankind. Let me tell you, gentlemen, I have seen a great many pictures by the Old Masters, and they are not all up to this mark-some of them are darker than you might like, and not family subjects. But here is a Gzuydo-the frame alone is worth pounds-which any lady might be proud to hang up-a suitable thing for what we call a refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the Corporation wished to show his munificence. Turn it a little, sir? yes. Joseph, turn it a little towards Mr Ladislaw-Mr Ladislaw, having been abroad, understands the merit of these things, you observe. Ladislaw.-Five pounds. Mr Trimbull.-Ah! Mr Ladislaw! the frame alone is worth that. Ladies and gentlemen, for the credit of the town! Suppose it should be discovered hereafter that a gem of art has been amongst us in this town, and nobody in Middlemarch awake to it. Five guineas -five seven-six-five ten. Still, ladies, still! It is a gem, and 'Full many a gem,' as the poet says, has been allowed to go at a nominal price because the public knew no better, because it was offered in circles where there was-I was going to say a low feeling, but no!-Six pounds-six guineas-a Guydo of the first order going at six guineas-it is an insult to religion, ladies; it touches us all as Christians, gentlemen, that a subject like this should go at such a low figure-six pounds ten-seven-. z 354 Dr Lydgatc. Mr Trumbull.-Now, gentlemen, you who are connoissures, you are going to have a treat. Here is an engraving of the Duke of Wellington surrounded by his staff on the field of Waterloo; and notwithstanding recent events which have, as it were, enveloped our great hero in a cloud, I will be bold to say-for a man in my line must not be blown about by political winds-that a finer subject-of the modern order, belonging to our own time and epoch-the understanding of man could hardly conceive: angels might, perhaps, but not men, sirs, not men. Mr Powderell.-Who painted it? MJr Trzumbull.-It is a proof before the letter, Mr Powderell-the painter is not known. Mr Powderell.-I'll bid a pound! If I had not taken that turn when I was a lad, I might have got into some stupid draught-horse work or other, and lived always in blinkers. I should never have been happy in any profession that did not call forth the highest intellectual strain, and yet keep me in good warm contact with my neighbours. There is nothing like the medical profession for that: one can have the exclusive scientific life that touches the distance and befriend the old fogies in the parish too. -0 -Trawley would have it, the medical profession was an inevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men-men who truckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside the walls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus within. Dr Lydgate. 355 The fittest man for a particular post is not always the best fellow or the most agreeable. Sometimes, if you wanted to get a'reform, your only way would be to pension off the good fellows whom everybody is fond of, and put them out of the question. -0 -There must be a systole and diastole in all inquiry. A man's mind must be continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and the horizon of an object-glass. -0 -What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true, and the thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false. -0 -The most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except one's self. -0 -It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men's dispositions. -0 -(To Mrs Lydgate.)-Haven't you ambition to want your husband to be something better than a Middlemarch doctor? I shall make you learn my favourite bit from an old poet'Why should our pride make such a stir to be And be forgot? What good is like to this, To do worthy the writing, and to write Worthy the reading and the world's delight?' What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,-and to write out myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet. 356 Various Characters. Mrs Lydgate. —Do you know, Tertius, I often wish you had not been a medical man. LyCdfate.-Nay, Rosy, don't say that. That is like saying you wish you had married another man. Mrs Lydate.-Not at all; you are clever enough for anything: you might easily have been something else. And your cousins at Quallingham all think that you have sunk below them in your choice of a profession. Lydgate.-The cousins at Ouallingham may go to the devil! It was like their impudence if they said anything of the sort to you. Mrs Lydgate.-Still, I do not think it is a nice profession, dear. Lydgate.-It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamond. And to say that you love me without loving the medical man in me, is like saying that you like eating a peach but don't like its flavour. Don't say it again, dear, it pains me. \ They say fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.-lMrs Farebrother. -0 -Mrs Farebrother-.-I say, keep hold of a few plain truths, and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr Lydgate, there never was any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had the same opinions. But now, if you speak out of the Prayerbook itself, you are liable to be contradicted. Various Characters. 357 Lydgate. -That makes rather a pleasant time of it for those who like to maintain their own point. Mr Farebrother.-But my mother always gives way. Mrs Farebrother.-No, no, Camden, you must not lead Mr Lydgate into a mistake about me. I shall never show that disrespect to my parents, to give up what they taught me. Any one may see what comes of turning. If you change once, why not twenty times? Lydgate.-A man might see good arguments for changing once, and not see them for changing again. Sirs Farebrother.-Excuse me there. If you go upur arguments, they are never wanting, when a man has no constancy of mind. My father never changed, and he preached plain moral sermons without arguments, and was a good man-few better. When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get you a good dinner with reading you the cookery-book. That's my opinion, and I think anybody's stomach will bear me out. Mr Farebrother.-About the dinner certainly, mother. Mfrs Farebrother.-It is the same thing, the dinner or the man. I am nearly seventy, Mr Lyclgate, and I go upon experience. I am not likely to follow new lights, though there are plenty of them here as elsewhere. I say, they came in with the mixed stuffs that will neither wash nor wear. It was not so in my youth: a Churchman was a Churchman, and a clergyman, you might be pretty sure, was a gentleman, if nothing else. But now he may be no better than a Dissenter. -0oWhat's Bulstrode?-he's got no land hereabout that 358 Various Characters. ever I heard tell of. A speckilating fellow! He may come down any day, when the devil leaves off backing him. And that's what his religion means: he wants God A'mighty to come in. That's nonsense! There's one thing I made out pretty clear when I used to go to church-and it's this: God A'mighty sticks to the land. He promises land, and He gives land, and He makes chaps rich with corn and cattle.-Mr Feathersfone. -o0 -The little waves make the large ones, and are of the same pattern.-Ladisla-w. -0 -Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning.-Ladislaw. -0 -Ladislaw.-You want to express too much with your painting. And what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poor stuff after all. They perturb and dull conceptions instead of raising them. Language is a finer medium. Naumanizn.-Yes, for those who can't paint. There you have perfect right. I did not recommend you to paint, my friend. Ladislaw.-Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for being vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations of women. As if a woman were a mere coloured superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a difference in their very Various Characters. 359 breathing: they change from moment to moment.This woman whom you have just seen, for example: how would you paint her voice, pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you have seen of her. -oTo be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion-a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.-LadisZaw. -0 — Lydgate.-It's no use your puffing Brooke (in the 'Pioneer') as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw: they only pick the more holes in his coat in the 'Trumpet.' Ladislaw.-No matter; those who read the 'Pioneer' don't read the ' Trumpet.' Do you suppose the public reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have a witches' brewing with a vengeance then-'Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may'-and nobody would know which side he was going to take. - -0 -Ladislaw.-It's good to have resident members [of Parliament]. Lydgate.-Why? Ladislaw. - They represent the local stupidity better; and they are kept on their best behaviour in the neighbourhood. -0 -Wait for wisdom and conscience in public agentsfiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust to is 360 Various Characters. the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text-which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous upholder of the wrong.-Ladislaw. -0 -You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody but me, Vincy. Why, you never threw your leg across a finer horse than that chestnut, and you gave him for this brute. If you set him cantering, he goes on like twenty sawyers. I never heard but one worse roarer in my life, and that was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me to take him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal in wind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of the country, that joke did.-Zfr Bambridge. -0 -Mr Standish.-A fine woman, Miss Brooke! an uncommonly fine woman, by God! Mr Chichely.-Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman-something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better. Mr Standish.-There's some truth in that. And, by God, it's usually the way with them. I suppose it answers some wise ends: Providence made them so, eh, Bulstrode? 7Mr Bulstrode.-I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source. I should rather refer it to the devil. Various Characters. 361 Mr Chichely.-Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman. -0 -Mrs Cadwallader says it is nonsense, people going a long journey when they are married. She says they get tired to death of each other, and can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home.-Celia Brooke. -0 -I'n seen lots o' things turn up sin' I war a young -un-the war an' the peace, and the canells, an' the oald King George, an' the Regen', an' the new King George, an' the new un as has got a new ne-amean' it's been all aloike to the poor mon. What's the canells been t' him? They 'n brought him neyther me-at nor be-acon, nor wage to lay by, if he didn't save it wi' clemmin' his own inside. Times ha' got wusser for him sin' I war a young un. An' so it'll be wi' the railroads. They'll on'y leave the poor mon furder behind. But them are fools as meddle. This is the big folks's world, this is.- Timothy Cooper. -0 -Mr Mawmsey.-As to Reform, sir, put it in a family light. Will it support Mrs Mawmsey, and enable her to bring up six children when I am no more? I put the question fctiously, knowing what must be the answer. Very well, sir. I ask you what, as a husband and a father, I am to do when gentlemen come to me and say, 'Do as you like, Mawmsey; but if you vote against us, I shall get my groceries elsewhere: when I sugar my liquor I like to feel that I am benefiting the country by maintaining tradesmen of the right colour.' Those very words have been spoken to me, 362 Various Characters. sir, in the very chair where you are now sitting. I don't mean by your honourable self, Mr Brooke. Mr Brooke.-No, no, no-that's narrow, you know. Until my butler complains to me of your goods, Mr Mawmsey, until I hear that you send bad sugars, spices-.that sort of thing-I shall never order him to go elsewhere. Mr Mawmsey.-Sir, I am your humble servant, and greatly obliged. There would be some pleasure in voting for a gentleman who speaks in that honourable manner. Ar Brooke.-Well, you know, Mr Mawmsey, you would find it the right thing to put yourself on our side. This Reform will touch everybody by-and-bya thoroughly popular measure-a sort of A, B, C, you know, that must come first before the rest'can follow. I quite agree with you that you've got to look at the thing in a family light: but public spirit, now. We're all one family, you know-it's all one cupboard. Such a thing as a vote, now: why, it may help to make men's fortunes at the Cape-there's no knowing what may be the effect of a vote. Mr Mawmnsey.-I beg your pardon, sir, but I can't afford that. When I give a vote I must know what I'm doing; I must look to what will be the effects on my till and ledger, speaking respectfully. Prices, I'll admit, are what nobody can know the merits of; and the sudden falls after you've bought in currants, which are a goods that will not keep-I've never myself seen into the ins and outs there; which is a rebuke to human pride. But as to one family, there's debtor and creditor, I hope; they're not going to reform that away; else I should vote for things staying as they are. Few men have less need to cry for change than Various Characters. 363 I have, personally speaking - that is, for self and family. I am not one of those who have nothing to lose: I mean as to respectability both in parish and private business, and noways in respect of your honourable self and custom, which you was good enough to say you would not withdraw from me, vote or no vote, while the article sent in was satisfactory. -0 -There are men who don't mind about being kicked blue if they can only get talked about.-Dr Sfira.gue. — 0 We must not inquire too curiously into motives. They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.-Mr Casaubon. -0 -Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.-Mr Cadwallader. --- (To Mrs Casaubon.)-There's a reason in mourning, as I've always said; and three folds at the bottom of your skirt and a plain quilling in your bonnet-and if ever anybody looked like an angel, it's you in a net quilling-is what's consistent for a second year. At least, that's my thinking; and if anybody was to marry me flattering himself as I should wear those hijeous weepers two years for him, he'd be deceived by his own vanity, that's all.-Tantriz55. -0 -Sir 7ames Chettam.-I think that Dorothea commits a wrong action in marrying Ladislaw. 364 Various Charactcrs. Mr Cadwallader.-My dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant to us. -oFred Vincy.-I don't know what to do, unless I can get at Mary's feeling. Mr Farebrother.-You mean that you would be guided by that as to your going into the Church? Fred.-If Mary said she would never have me I might as well go wrong in one way as another. Mr Farebrother.-That is nonsense, Fred. Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness. Fred.-Not my sort of love. I have never been without loving Maiy. If I had to give her up, it would be like beginning to live on wooden legs. -0 -Mr Brooke.-Dagley, my good fellow. Dagley.-Oh, ay, I'm a good feller, am I? Thank ye, sir, thank ye. I'm glad to hear I'm a good feller. Mr Brooke.-Your little lad Jacob has been caught killing a leveret, Dagley: I have told Johnson to lock him up in the empty stable an hour or two, just to frighten him, you know. But he will be brought home by-and-by, before night: and you'll just look after him, will you, and give him a reprimand, you know? Dagfley.-No, I woon't: I'll be dee'd if I'll leather my boy to please you or anybody else, not if you was twenty landlords istid o' one, and that a bad un. Mr Brooke.-Well, well, I'll speak to your wife-I didn't mean beating, you know. How do you do, Mrs Dagley? I came to tell you about your boy: I don't want you to give him the stick, you know. ' arious Characters. 365 Dagzley.-No, nor he woon't hev the stick, whether you want it or no. You've got no call to come an' talk about sticks o' these primises, as you woon't give a stick tow'rt mending. Go to Middlemarch to ax for your charrickter. Mrs Dagley.-You'd far better hold your tongue, Dagley, and not kick your own trough over. When a man as is father of a family has been an' spent money at market and made himself the worse for liquor, he's done enough mischief for one day. But I should like to know what my boy's done, sir. Dagley.-Niver do you mind what he's done, it's my business to speak, an' not yourn. An' I wull speak, too. I'll hev my say-supper or no. An' what I say is, as I've lived upo' your ground from my father and grandfather afore me, an' hev dropped our money into't, an' me an' my children might lie an' rot on the ground for top-dressin' as we can't find the money to buy, if the King wasn't to put a stop. Mr Brooke.-My good fellow, you're drunk, you know. Another day, another day. Dagley.-I'm no more drunk nor you are, nor so much. I can carry my liquor, an' I know what I meean. An' I meean as the King 'ull put a stop to't, for them say it as knows it, as there's to be a Rinform, and them landlords as never done the right thing by their tenants 'ull be treated i' that way as they'll hev to scuttle off. An' there's them i' Middlemarch knows what the Rinform is-an' as knows who'll hev to scuttle. Says they, 'I know who your landlord is.' An' says I, 'I hope you're the better for knowin' him, I arn't.' Says they, 'He's a close-fisted un.' 'Ay, ay,' says I. 'He's a man for the Rinform,' says they. That's what they says. An' I made out what the s66 Variouzs Characters. Rinform wer-an' itwer to send you an' your likes a-scuttlin'; an' wi' pretty strong-smellin' things too. An' you may do as you like now, for I'm none afeard on you. An' you'd better let my boy aloan, an' look to yoursen, afore the Rinform has got upo' your back. That's what I'n got to say. -0 --- — Mrs Mawmsey.-Does. this Mr Lydgate mean to say there is no use in taking medicine? I should like him to tell me how I could bear up at Fair time, if I didn't take strengthening medicine for a month beforehand. Think of what I have to provide for calling customers! a large veal pie-a stuffed fillet-a round of beef-ham, tongue, et cetera, et cetera! But what keeps me up best is the pink mixture, not the brown. I wonder, Mr Mawmsey, with your experience, you could have patience to listen. I should have told him at once that I knew a little better than that. -Mr Mawmsey. -No, no, no; I was not going to tell him my opinion. Hear everything and judge for yourself is my motto. But he didn't know who he was talking to. I was not to be turned on his finger. People often pretend to tell me things, when they might as well say, 'Mawmsey, you're a fool.' But I smile at it: I humour everybody's weak place. If physic had done harm to self and family, I should have found it out by this time: -0-. Mrs Dollofy.-Bulstrode was forced to take Old Harry into his counsel, and Old Harry's been too many for him. Mr Crabbe.-Ay, ay, he's a 'complice you can't send out o' the country. Various Characters. 367 As to listening to what one lawyer says without asking another-I wonder at a man o' your cleverness, Mr Dill. It's well known there's always two sides, if no more; else who'd go to law, I should like to know?-Mlrs D)ollofj. 0-o,Mr yonas.-Why shouldn't they dig the man up, and have the Crowner? It's been done many and many's the time. If there's been foul play they might find it out. Mrs Dollop.-Not they, Mr Jonas! I know what doctors are. They're a deal too cunning to be found out. And this Doctor Lydgate that's been for cutting up everybody before the breath was well out o' their body-it's plain enough what use he wanted to make o' looking into respectable people's insides. He knows drugs, you may be sure, as you can neither smell nor see, neither before they're swallowed nor after. Why, I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has brought more live children into the world nor ever another i' Middlemarch-I say I've seen drops myselt as made no difference whether they was in the glass or out, and yet have griped you the next day. So I'll leave your own sense to judge. Don't tell me! All I say is, it's a mercy they didn't take this Doctor Lycldgate on to our club. There's many a mother's child might ha' rued it. END OF 'MIDDLEMARCH. I PART EIGHTH. SAYINGS FROM 'THE SPA NISH GYPS Y' AND OTHER POEMS. 2 A I I.: THE SPANISH GYPSY. George Eliot (in Jropria persona). 'TIS the warm South, where Europe spreads her lands Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep: Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love On the Mid Sea that moans with memories, And on the untravelled Ocean's restless tides. -0 -Within Bedmar Has come the time of sweet serenity When colour glows unglittering, and the soul Of visible things shows silent happiness, As that of lovers trusting though apart. The ripe-cheeked fruits, the crimson-petalled flowers; The wingad life that pausing seems a gem Cunningly carven on the dark green leaf; The face of man with hues supremely blent To difference fine as of a voice 'mid sounds:371 372 George Eliot (in proypria persona). Each lovely light-dipped thing seems to emerge Flushed gravely from baptismal sacrament. All'beauteous existence rests, yet wakes, Lies still, yet conscious, with clear open eyes And gentle breath and mild suffused joy. 'Tis day, but day that falls like melody Repeated on a string with graver tonesTones such as linger in a long farewell. -0 -And still the light is changing: high above Float soft pink clouds; others with deeper flush Stretch like flamingos bending toward the south. Comes a more solemn brilliance o'er the sky, A meaning more intense upon the airThe inspiration of the dying day. -0 — JUAN'S SONG. DAY is dying! Float, 0 song, Down the westward river, Requiem chanting to the DayDay, the mighty Giver. Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds, Melted rubies sending Through the river and the sky, Earth and heaven blending; George Eliot (in propria persona). 373 All the long-drawn earthy banks Up to cloud-land lifting: Slow between them drifts the swan, 'Twixt two heavens drifting. Wings half open, like a flower Inly deeper flushing, Neck and breast as virgin's pureVirgin proudly blushing. Day is dying! Float, 0 swan, Down the ruby river; Follow, song, in requiem To the mighty Giver. -0oInfant awe, that unborn breathing thing, Dies with what nourished it, can never rise From the dead womb and walk and seek new pasture. -0 -Even images of stone Look living with reproach.on him who maims, Profanes, defiles them. -0 -The fond Present that, with mother-prayers And mother-fancies looks for championship Of all her loved beliefs and old-world ways From that young Time she bears within her womb. 374 George Eliot (in propria persona). It has been so with rulers, emperors, Nay, sages who held secrets of great Time, Sharing his hoary and beneficent lifeMen who sate throned among the multitudesThey have sore sickened at the loss of one. -o — PABLO'S SONG. THE world is great: the birds all fly from me, The stars are golden fruit upon a tree All out of reach: my little sister went, And I am lonely. The world is great: I tried to mount the hill Above the pines, where the light lies so still, But it rose higher: little Lisa went, And I am lonely. The world is great: the wind comes rushing by, I wonder where it comes from; sea-birds cry And hurt my heart: my little sister went, And I am lonely. The world is great: the people laugh and talk, And make loud holiday: how fast they walk! I'm lame, they push me: little Lisa went, And I am lonely. George Eliot (in propria persona). 375 On solitary souls, the universe Looks down inhospitable; the human heart Finds nowhere shelter but in human kind. -o-0 -In the screening time Of purple blossoms, when the petals crowd And softly crush like cherub cheeks in heaven, Who thinks of greenly withered fruit and worms? O the warm southern spring is beauteous! And in love's spring all good seems possible: No threats, all promise, brooklets ripple full And bathe the rushes, vicious crawling things Are pretty eggs, the sun shines graciously And parches not, the silent rain beats warm As childhood's kisses, days are young and grow, And earth seems in its sweet beginning time Fresh made for two who live in Paradise. 0 — PABLO'S SONG. WARM whispering through the slender olive leaves Came to me a gentle sound, Whispering of a. secret found In the clear sunshine 'mid the golden sheaves: Said it was sleeping for me in the morn, Called it gladness, called it joy, Drew me on-' come hither, boy'To where the blue wings rested on the corn. 376 George Eliot (in propria persozna). I thought the gentle sound had whispered trueThought the little heaven mine, Leaned to clutch the thing divine, And saw the blue wings melt within the blue. -0 -The time is great. (What times are little? To the sentinel That hour is regal when he mounts on guard.) -0 -Castilian gentlemen Choose not their task-they choose to do it well. -0 -Life itself May not express us all, may leave the worst And the best too, like tunes in mechanism Never awaked. -0 -Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixedEach ardent impulse grappling with a thoughtResists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer. George Eliot (in propria persona). 377 PABLO'S SONG. IT was in the prime Of the sweet Spring-time. In the linnet's throat Trembled the love-note, And the love-stirred air Thrilled the blossoms there. Little shadows danced Each a tiny elf, Happy in large light And the thinnest self. It was but a minute In a far-off Spring, But each gentle thing, Sweetly-wooing linnet, Soft-thrilled hawthorn tree, Happy shadowy elf With the thinnest self, Live still on in me; O the sweet, sweet prime Of the past Spring-time. -0 — So the dire hours Burthened with destiny-the death of hopes Darkening long generations, or the birth Of thoughts undying-such hours sweep along 378 George Eliot (in propria persona). In their aerial ocean measureless Myriads of little joys, that ripen sweet And soothe the sorrowful spirit of the world, Groaning and travailing with the painful birth Of slow redemption. -0 -The soul of man is widening towards the past: No longer hanging at the breast of life Feeding in blindness to his parentageQuenching all wonder with Omnipotence, Praising a name with indolent pietyHe spells the record of his long descent, More largely conscious of the life that was. -0 -In moments high Space widens in the soul. -0 -Faith, the stronger for extremity, Becomes prophetic. -0 — Can we believe that the dear dead are gone? Love in sad weeds forgets the funeral-day, Opens the chamber door and almost smilesThen sees the sunbeams pierce athwart the bed Where the pale face is not. George Eliot (in propria persona). 379 Spirits seem buried and their epitaph Is writ in Latin by severest pens, Yet still they flit above the trodden grave And find new bodies, animating them In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls. So Juan was a troubadour revived, Freshening life's dusty road with babbling rills Of wit and song, living 'mid harnessed men With limbs ungalled by armour, ready so To soothe them weary, and to cheer them sad. Guest at the board, companion in the camp, A crystal mirror to the life around, Flashing the comment keen of simple fact Defined in words; lending brief lyric voice To grief and sadness; hardly taking note Of difference betwixt his own and others'; But rather singing as a listener To the deep moans, the cries, the wild strong joys Of universal nature, old yet young. -0 JUAN'S SONG. PUSH off the boat, Quit, quit the shore, The stars will guide us back:O gathering cloud, O wide, wide sea, 0 waves that keep no track! 380 Fedahma. On through the pines! The pillared woods, Where silence breathes sweet breath:0 labyrinth, 0 sunless gloom, The other side of death! So soft a night was never made for sleep, But for the waking of the finer sense To every murmuring and gentle sound, To subtlest odours, pulses, visitings That touch our frames with wings too delicate To be discerned amid the blare of day. (She pauses near the window to gather some jasmine: then walks again.) Surely these flowers keep happy watch-their breath Is their fond memory of the loving light. I often rue the hours I lose in sleep: It is a bliss too brief, only to see This glorious world, to hear the voice of love, To feel the touch, the breath of tenderness, And then to rest as from a spectacle. I need the curtained stillness of the night To live through all my happy hours again With more selection-cull them quite away From blemished moments. Then in loneliness The face that bent before me in the day Rises in its own light, more vivid seems Fedalma. 38I Painted upon the dark, and ceaseless glows With sweet solemnity of gazing love, Till like the heavenly blue it seems to grow Nearer, more kindred, and more cherishing, Mingling with all my being. Then the words, The tender low-toned words come back again, With repetition welcome as the chime Of softly hurrying brooks-' My only loveMy love while life shall last-my own Fedalma!' Oh it is mine-the joy that once has been! Poor eager hope is but a stammerer, Must listen dumbly to great memory, Who makes our bliss the sweeter by her telling. -oIt must be sad to outlive aught we love. So I shall grieve a little for these days Of poor unwed Fedalma. Oh, they are sweet, And none will come just like them. Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summers dead, And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries For what has been and is not. Are they, Silva? -0 -These rubies greet me Duchess. How they glow! Their prisoned souls are throbbing like my own. Perchance they loved once, were ambitious, proud; Or do they only dream of wider life, Ache from intenseness, yearn to burst the wall 382 Fedalma. Compact of crystal splendour, and to flood Some wider space with glory? Poor, poor gems! We must be patient in our prison-house, And find our space in loving. O — Fedalma.-These gems have life in them: their colours speak, Say what words fail of. So do many thingsThe scent of jasmine, and the fountain's plash, The moving shadows on the far-off hills, The slanting moonlight, and our clasping hands. O Silva, there's an ocean round our words That overflows and drowns them. Do you know Sometimes when we sit silent, and the air Breathes gently on us from the orange-trees, It seems that with the whisper of a word Our souls must shrink, get poorer, more apart. Is it not true? Don Silva. Yes, dearest, it is true. Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken: even your loved words Float in the larger meaning of your voice As something dimmer. -0 -H-inda.-You love the roses-so do I. I wish The sky would rain down roses, as they rain Fedalma. 383 From off the shaken bush. Why will it not? Then all the valley would be pink and white And soft to tread on. They would fall as light As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be Like sleeping and yet waking, all at once! Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go, Will it rain roses? Fedalma. No, my prattler, no! It never will rain roses: when we want To have more roses we must plant more trees. -0 -Our words Lave wings, but fly not where we would. -oDon Silva.-O God, it's true then!-true that you, A maiden nurtured as rare flowers are, The very air of heaven sifted fine Lest any mote should mar your purity, Have flung yourself out on the dusty way. Fedalma.-Yes, it is true. I was not wrong to dance. The air was filled with music, with a song That seemed the voice of the sweet eventideThe glowing light entering through eye and earThat seemed our love-mine, yours-they are but oneTrembling through all my limbs, as fervent words 384 Fedalma. Tremble within my soul, and must be spoken. And all the people felt a common joy And shouted for the dance., A brightness soft As of the angels moving down to see Illumined the broad space. The joy, the life Around, within me, were one heaven: I longed To blend them visibly: II longed to dance Before the people-be as mounting flame To all that. burned within them! Nay, I danced; There was no longing: I but did the deed Being moved to do it. Oh! I seemed new-waked To life in unison with a multitudeFeeling my soul upborne by all their souls, Floating within their gladness! Soon I lost All sense of separateness: Fedalma died As a star dies, and melts into the light. I was not, but joy was, and love and triumph. -0 -Father, I choose! I will not take a heaven Haunted by shrieks of far-off misery. No! On the close-thronged spaces of the earth A battle rages: Fate has carried me 'Mid the thick arrows: I will keep my standNot shrink and let the shaft pass by my breast Fedalma. 385 To pierce another. Oh, 'tis written large The thing I have to do. -oThe saints were cowards who stood by to see Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves Upon the Roman spears, and died in vainThe grandest death, to die in vain-for love Greater than sways the forces of the world! -0 -Father, my soul is weak, the mist of tears Still rises to my eyes, and hides the goal Which to your undimmed sight is clear and changeless. But if I cannot plant resolve on hope It will stand firm on certainty of woe. I choose the ill that is most like to end With my poor being. Hopes have precarious life. They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness. But faithfulness can feed on suffering, And knows no disappointment. Trust in me! If it were needed, this poor trembling hand Should grasp the torch-strive not to let it fall Though it were burning down close to my flesh, No beacon lighted yet: through the damp dark I should still hear the cry of gasping swimmers. Father, I will be true! 2B 386 Fedalma. D)on Silva.-What am I but a miserable brand Lit by mysterious wrath? I lie cast down A blackened branch upon the desolate ground Where once I kindled ruin. I shall drink No cup of purest water but will taste Bitter with thy lone hopelessness, Fedalrr a, Fedalma.-Nay, Silva, think of me as one who sees A light serene and strong on one sole path Which she. will tread till death. He trusted me, and I will keep his trust My life shall be its temple. I will plant His sacred hope within the sanctuary And die its priestess-though I die alone, A hoary woman on the altar step, Cold 'mid cold ashes. That is my chief good. The deepest hunger of a faithful heart Is faithfulness. ( Wish me nought else. -0 -Calamity Comes like a deluge and o'erfloods our crimes, Till sin is hidden in woe. You-I-we two, Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight, Opened the sluices of that deep. -0 -Don Silva. Dear! you share the woeNay, the worst dart of vengeance fell on you. Fedalma. 387 Fedabma.-Vengeance! she does but sweep us with her skirtsShe takes large space, and lies a baleful light Revolving with long years-sees children's children, Blights them in their prime... Oh, if two lovers leaned To breathe one air and spread a pestilence, They would but lie two livid victims dead Amid the city of the dying. We With our poor petty lives have strangled one That ages watch for vainly. -0 -Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day, The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless, Shining in all the barren crevices Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark, Where I may dream that hidden waters lie; As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man, Who, gazing from his narrow shoal of sand On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue, Sees that full light is errorless despair. The insects' hum that slurs the silent dark Startles, and seems to cheat me, as the tread Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause, And hears them never pause, but pass and die. Music sweeps by me as a messenger Carrying a message that is not for me. 388 S7gan. The very sameness of the hills and sky Is obduracy, and the lingering hours Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves, Of whom I want nought but the secret news They are forbid to tell. -0 — (To Silva.)-We may not make this world a paradise By walking it together hand in hand, With eyes that meeting feed a double strength. - We must be only joined by pains divine Of spirits blent in mutual memories. Silva, our joy is dead. We must walk Apart unto the end. Our marriage rite Is our resolve that we will each be true - To high allegiance, higher than our love. - Our dear young love-its breath was happiness! ~ But it had grown upon a larger life Which tore its roots asunder. We rebelledThe larger life subdued us. Yet we are wed; For we shall carry each the pressure deep Of the other's soul. Silva. Juan, cease thy song. Our whimpering poesy and small-paced tunes Have no more utterance than the cricket's chirp For souls that carry heaven and hell within. Yuan. 389 711an. True, my lord, I chirp For lack of soul; some hungry poets chirp For lack of bread. 'Twere wiser to sit down And count the star-seed, till I fell asleep With the cheap wine of pure stupidity. -0 I'm a plucked peacock-even my voice and wit Without a tail!-why, any fool detects The absence of your tail, but twenty fools May not detect the presence of your wit. — oHem! taken rightly, any single thing, The Rabbis say, implies all other things. A knotty task, though, the unravelling Meum and Tium from a saraband: It needs a subtle logic, nay, perhaps A good large property, to see the thread. -0 Our nimble souls Can spin an insubstantial universe Suiting our mood, and call it possible, Sooner than see one grain with eye exact And give strict record of it. Yet by chance Our fancies may be truth and make us seers. 'Tis a rare teeming world, so harvest-full, Even guessing ignorance may pluck some fruit. 390 jzian. Men who are soui at missing larger game May wing a chattering sparrow for revenge. -0 -There's more of odd than even in this world. Else pretty sinners would not be let off Sooner than ugly; for if honeycombs Are to be got by stealing, they should go Where life is bitterest on the tongue. -0 -'Tis but a toilsome game To bet upon that feather Policy, And guess where after twice a hundred puffs 'Twill catch another feather crossing it: Guess how the Pope will blow and how the king; What force my lady's fan has; how a cough Seizing the Padre's throat may raise a gust, And how the queen may sigh the feather down. Such catching at imaginary threads, Such spinning twisted air, is not for me. If I should want a game, I '11 rather bet On racing snails, two large, slow, lingering snailsNo spurring, equal weights-a chance sublime, Nothing to guess at, pure uncertainty. o-0 -Your teaching orthodoxy with faggots may only bring up a fashion of roasting. ZarcF. 39I Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue. -oFedalma.tGood Juan, I could have no nobler friend. You 'd ope your veins and let your life-blood out To save another's pain, yet hide the deed With jesting-say, 'twas merest accident, A sportive scratch that went by chance too deepAnd die content with men's slight thoughts of you, Finding your glory in another's joy. \ 7uan.-Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea. Honey's not sweet, commended as cathartic. Such names are parchment labels upon gems Hiding their colour. What is lovely seen Priced in a tarif?-lapis lazuli, Such bulk, so many drachmas: amethysts Quoted at so much; sapphires higher still. * The stone like solid heaven in its blueness Is what I care for, not its name or price. So, if I live or die to serve my friend, 'Tis for my love-'tis for my friend alone, And not for any rate that friendship bears In heaven or on earth. Fedalma. Zincali's faith? Men say they have none. 392 Zarca. Zarca. Oh, it is a faith Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts: Faith to each other: the fidelity Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place Who share the same dire thirst, and therefore share The scanty water: the fidelity Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire, Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands, The speech that even in lying tells the truth Of heritage inevitable as past deeds, Nay, in the silent bodily presence feel The mystic stirring of a common life Which makes the many one: fidelity To the deep consecrating oath our sponsor Fate Made through our infant breath when we were born, The fellow-heirs of that small island, Life, Where we must dig and sow and reap with brothers. Fear thou that oath, my daughter-nay not fear, But love it; for the sanctity of oaths Lies not in lightning that avenges them, But in the injury wrought by broken bonds And in the garnered good of human trust. -- Let men contemn us: 'tis such blind contempt That leaves the winged broods to thrive in warmth Unheeded, till they fill the air like storms. So we shall thrive-still darkly shall draw force Zarca. 393 Into a new and multitudinous life That likeness fashions to community, Mother divine of customs, faith and laws. 'Tis ripeness, 'tis fame's zenith that kills hope. Huge oaks are dying, forests yet to come Lie in the twigs and rotten-seeming seeds. --- Because our race has no great memories, I will so live, it shall remember me For deeds of such divine beneficence As rivers have, that teach men what is good By blessing them. -0 — The rich heritage, the milder life, Of nations fathered by a mighty Past. -0 -'Life and more life unto the chosen, death To all things living that would stifle them!' So speaks each god that makes a nation strong. -0 -Royal deeds May make long destinies for multitudes. -0 -Strong souls Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength 394 Zarca. In farthest striving action; breathe more free In mighty anguish than in trivial ease. -o0 -'Tis a vile life that like a garden pool Lies stagnant in the round of personal loves; That has no ear save for the tickling lute Set to small measures-deaf to all the beats Of that large music rolling o'er the world: A miserable, petty, low-roofed life, That knows the mighty orbits of the skies Through nought save light or dark in its own cabin. The very brutes will feel the force of kind And move together, gathering a new soulThe soul of multitudes. -0 — — oIn vain, my daughter! Lay the young eagle in what nest you will, The cry and swoop of eagles overhead Vibrate prophetic in its kindred frame, And make it spread its wings and poise itself For the eagle's flight. (To Fedalma.)-Nay, never falter: no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, 7arca. 395 The undivided will to seek the good: 'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. Say we fail! We feed the high tradition of the world, And leave our spirit in our children's breasts. -oIs there a choice for strong souls to be weak? For men erect to crawl like hissing snakes? I choose not-I am Zarca. Let him choose Who halts and wavers, having appetite To feed on garbage. -0 To my inward vision Things are achieved when they are well begun. The perfect archer calls the deer his own While yet the shaft is whistling. His keen eye Never sees failure, sees the mark alone. -0 — Fighting for dear life men choose their swords For cutting only, not for ornament. What nought but Nature gives, man takes perforce Where she bestows it, though in vilest place. Can he compress invention out of pride, 396 Zarca. Make heirship do the work of muscle, sail Towards great discoveries with a pedigree? Sick men ask cures, and Nature serves not hers Daintily as a feast. A blacksmith once Founded a dynasty, and raised on high The leathern apron over armies spread Between the mountains like a lake of steel. -0 -He who rules Must humour full as much as he commands; Must let men vow impossibilities; Grant folly's prayers that hinder folly's wish And serve the ends of wisdom. -o0 High device is still the highest force, And he who holds the secret of the wheel May make the rivers do what work he would. With thoughts impalpable we clutch men's souls, Weaken the joints of armies, make them fly Like dust and leaves before the viewless wind. Tell me what's mirrored in the tiger's heart, I'11 rule that too. What man is he who brandishes a sword In darkness, kills his friends, and rages then Against the night that kept him ignorant? Don Silva. 397 A woman's dream who thinks by smiling well To ripen figs in frost. -0 -Vengeance is just: Justly we rid the earth of human fiends Who carry hell for pattern in their souls. But in high vengeance there is noble scorn It tortures not the torturer, nor gives Iniquitous payment for iniquity. The great avenging angel does not crawl To kill the serpent with a mimic fang; He stands erect, with sword of keenest edge That slays like lightning. -0 -Men might well seek For purifying rites; even pious deeds Need washing. (To Fedalyna.) Ah, yes! all preciousness To mortal hearts is guarded by a fear. All love fears loss, and most that loss supreme, Its own perfection-seeing, feeling change From high to lower, dearer to less dear. Can love be careless? If we lost our love XVhat should we find?-with this sweet Past torn off, 398 Donl Silva. Our lives deep scarred just where their beauty lay? The best we found thenceforth were still a worse: The only better is a Past that lives On through an added Present, stretching still In hope unchecked by shaming memories To life's last breath. And so I tremble too. -oSepzhardo.- Resolve will melt no rocks. Don Silva. But it can scale them. ----- There's no blameless life Save for the passionless, no sanctities But have the selfsame roof and props with crime, Or have their roots close interlaced with vileness. -oI am no friend of fines and banishment, Or flames that, fed on heretics, still gape, And must have heretics made to feed them still. -0 -Prudence is but conceit Hoodwinked by ignorance. There's nought exists That is not dangerous and holds not death For souls or bodies. Prudence turns its helm To flee the storm and lands 'mid pestilence. Wisdom would end by throwing dice with folly But for dire passion which alone makes choice. Don Silva. 399 Thoughts That nourish us to magnanimity Grow perfect with more perfect utterance, Gathering.full-shapen strength. -0 -Conscience is harder than our enemies, ) Knows more, accuses with more nicety, t Nor needs to question Rumour if we fall, Below the perfect model of our thought. -o0 -Love supreme Defies all sophistry-risks avenging fires. For me 'Tis what I love determines how I love. The goddess with pure rites reveals herself And makes pure worship. -oRivers blent take in a broader heaven, And we shall blend our souls. -0 -What is our certainty? Why, knowing all That is not secret. Mighty confidence! One pulse of Time makes the base hollow-sends The towering certainty we built so high 400 Sephardo. Toppling in fragments meaningless. What isWhat will be-must be-pooh! they wait the key Of that which is not yet; all other keys Are made of our conjectures, take their sense From humours fooled by hope, or by despair. Know what is good? 0 God, we know not yet If bliss itself is not young misery With fangs swift growing. -oLife's a vast sea That does its mighty errand without fail, Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing. Truth, to us, is like a living child Born of two parents: if the parents part And will divide the child, how shall it live? Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide The path of man, both aged and yet young, As angels are, ripening through endless years. On one he leans: some call her Memory, And some, Tradition; and her voice is sweet, With deep mysterious accords: the other, Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams A light divine and searching on the earth, Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields, Yet clings with loving check, and shines anew Scphardo. 40I Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked But for Tradition; we walk evermore To higher paths, by brightening Reason's lamp. -0 -1 Storms will lay The fairest trees and leave the withered stumps. -0o Thought Has joys apart, even in blackest woe, And seizing some fine thread of verity Knows momentary godhead. -oPrediction is contingent, of effects Where causes and concomitants are mixed To seeming wealth of possibilities Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend To tell the adventures of each single fish Within the Syrian Sea? Show me a fish, I'11 weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured, What would have devoured hizm-but for one Bias Who netted him instead; nay, could I tell That had Blas missed him, he would not have died Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion, Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger? 2 C 402 Sephardo. Wise books For half the truths they hold are honoured tombs. -oMan thinks Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his: Can we divine their world?-the hidden life That mirrors us as hideous shapeless power, Cruel supremacy of sharp-edged death, Or fate that leaves a bleeding mother robbed? Oh, they have long tradition and swift speech, Can tell with touches and sharp darting cries Whole histories of timid races taught To breathe in terror by red-handed man. -0 -My lord, I will be frank; there's no such thing As naked manhood. If the stars look down On any mortal of our shape, whose strength Is to judge all things without preference, He is a monster, not a faithful man. While my heart beats, it shall wear livery. -0 -Nay, they are virtues for you warriorsHawking and hunting! You are merciful When you leave killing men to kill the brutes. Sephardo. 403 But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose To know the mind that stirs between the wings Of bees and building wasps, or fills the woods With myriad murmurs of responsive sense And true-aimed impulse, rather than to know The thoughts of warriors. -OIf conscience has two courts With differing verdicts, where shall lie the appeal? Our law must be without us or within. The Highest speaks through all our people's voice, Custom, tradition, and old sanctities; Or he reveals himself by new decrees Of inward certitude. -0o Though Death were king, And Cruelty his right-hand minister, Pity insurgent in some human breasts Makes spiritual empire, reigns supreme As persecuted faith in faithful hearts. Your small physician, weighing ninety pounds, A petty morsel for a healthy shark, Will worship mercy throned within his soul Though all the luminous angels of the stars Burst into cruel chorus on his ear, 404 Various Characters. Singing, 'We know no mercy.' He would cry'I know it,' still, and soothe the frightened bird And feed the child a-hungered, walk abreast Of persecuted men, and keep most hate For rational torturers. There I stand firm. I read a record deeper than the skin. What! Shall the trick of nostrils and of lips Descend through generations, and the soul That moves within our frame like God in worldsConvulsing, urging, melting, witheringImprint no record, leave no documents, Of her great history? Shall men bequeath The fancies of their palate to their sons, And shall the shudder of restraining awe, The slow-wept tears of contrite memory, Faith's prayerful labour, and the food divine Of fasts ecstatic-shall these pass away Like wind upon the waters, tracklessly? Shall the mere curl of eyelashes remain, And god-enshrining symbols leave no trace Of tremors reverent?-The Prior... '^WS — o The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd; They walk by averaged precepts: sovereign men, Seeing by God's light, see the general Various Characters. 405 By seeing all the special-own no rule But their full vision of the moment's worth. 'Tis so God governs, using wicked menNay, scheming fiends, to work his purposes. The Prior. — o-0 -Particular lies may speak a general truth. The Prior. -0 -In God's war Slackness is infamy.-The Prior. -0 A man's a man; But when you see a king, you see the work Of many thousand men.-Blasco. -0 They talk of vermin; but, sirs, vermin large Were made to eat the small, or else to eat The noxious rubbish.-Blasco. -0o Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man, Yet ends in mischief.-Lore;zz. 406 Various Czaracters. Pooh, thou 'rt a poet, crazed with finding words May stick to things and seemlike qualities. No pebble is a pebble in thy hands: 'Tis a moon out of work, a barren egg, Or twenty things that no man sees but thee. Lorenzo. END OF THE SPANISH GYPSY.' THE LEGEND OF UBALT JUBAL, Lamech's son, That mortal frame wherein was first begun The immortal life of song. -0 -To the far woods he wandered, liste(:nng, And heard the birds their little stories sing In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speechMelted with tears, smiles, glances-that can reach More quickly through our frame's deep-winding night, And without thought raise thought's best fruit, delight. — o — It was at evening, When shadows lengthen from each westwa:d thing, When imminence of change makes sense more fine And light seems holier in its grand decline. The fruit-trees wore their studded coronal, Earth and her children were at festival, 407 408 The Legend of 7ubal. Glowing as with one heart and qne consentThought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance blent... The sun had sunk, but music still was there, And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air: It seemed the stars were shining with delight And that no night was ever like this night. All clung with praise to Jubal: some besought That he would teach them his new skill; some caught, Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet, The tone's melodic change and rhythmic beat: 'Twas easy following where invention trodAll eyes can see when light flows out from God. And thus did Jubal to his race reveal Music their larger soul, where woe and weal Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance, Moved with a wider-winged utterance. Now many a lyre was fashioned, many a song Raised echoes new, old echoes to prolong. -0 -That true heaven, the recovered past, The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast. -0 -The future, that bright land which swims In western glory, isles and streams and bays, Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze. The Legend of 7ubal. 409 Man's life was spacious in the early world: It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled; Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies, And grew from strength to strength through centuries; Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs, And heard a thousand times the sweet birds' marriage hymns. -0-o Things new made, Usurping sense, make old things shrink and fade And seem ashamed to meet the staring day. -o0 -The soul without still helps the soul within, And its deft magic ends what we begin. -0 -Strong passion's daring sees not aught to dare. -0 -And a new spirit from that hour (the hour when Death first aifpeared among them) came o'er The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more, But even the sunshine had a heart of care, Smiling with hidden dread-a mother fair Who folding to her breast a dying child Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild. 410 Tiw Legend of.7ubazl. Death was now lord of life, and at his word Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred, With measured wing now audibly arose Throbbing through all things to some unknown close. Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn, And Work grew eager, and Device was born. It seemed the light was never loved before, Now each man said, "Twill go and come no more.' No budding branch, no pebble from the brook, No form, no shadow, but new dearness took From the one thought that life must have an end; And the last parting now began to send Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss, Thrilling them into finer tenderness. Then Memory disclosed her face divine, That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves, And shows the presence that no sunlight craves, No space, no warmth, but moves among them all Gone and yet here, and coming at each call, With ready voice and eyes that understand, And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand. Thus to Cain's race death was tear-watered seed Of various life and action-shaping need. But- chief the sons of Lamech felt the stings Of new ambition, and the force that springs In passion beating on the shores of fate. They said, 'There comes a night when all too late The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand. The Legend of 7zbaL 411 The eager thought behind closed portals stand, And the last wishes to the mute lips press Buried ere death in silent helplessness. Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave, And while the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide And rule above our graves, and power divide With that great god of day, whose rays must bend As we shall make the moving shadows tend. Come, let us fashion acts that are to be, When we shall lie in darkness silently.' END OF THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.' ARMGART. Various Characters. Leo. Ay, my lady, That moment will not come again: applause May come and plenty; but the first, first draught! Music has sounds for it-I know no words. I felt it once myself when they performed My overture to Sintram. Well! 'tis strange, We know not pain from pleasure in such joy. Armg.-O, pleasure has cramped dwelling in our souls, And when full being comes must call on pain To lend it liberal space. -o0 -Armg.-How old are you? Leo. Threescore and five. Armzg. That's old. I never thought till now how you have lived. They hardly ever play your music? Leo (raising his eyebrows and throwing out his Zip). No! 412 Various Characters. 4I3 Schubert too wrote for silence: half his work Lay like frozen Rhine till a summer came That warmed the grass above him. Even so! His music lives now with a mighty youth. Armg.-Do you think yours will live when you are dead? Leo.-Pfui! The time was, I drank that homebrewed wine And found it heady, while my blood was young Now it scarce warms me. Tipple it as I may, I am sober still, and say: ' My old friend Leo, Much grain is wasted in the world and rots Why not thy handful?' Armg. Strange! since I have known you Till now I never wondered how you lived. When I sang well-that was your jubilee. But you were old already. Leo. Yes, child, yes Youth thinks itself the goal of each old life Age has but travelled from a far-off time Just to be ready for youth's service. Well! It was my chief delight to perfect you. Armg.-Good Leo! You have lived on little joys. But your delight in me is crushed for ever. Your pains, where are they now? They shaped intent Which action frustrates; shaped an inward sense Which is but keen despair, the agony Of highest vision in the lowest pit. 414 Various Characters. The best intent Grasps but a living present which may grow Like any unfledged bird.-Armgart. -0 Sacraments Are not to feed the paupers of the world. A rmngart. -0 -Your blessed public Had never any judgment in cold bloodThinks all perhaps were better otherwise, Till rapture brings a reason.-Leo. -0o What is fame But the benignant strength of One, transformed To joy of Many? Tributes, plaudits come As necessary breathing of such joy, And may they come to me!-Arrmgart. -0 I hate your epigrams and pointed saws Whose narrow truth is but broad falsity. A rmgart. -0 -Life is not -rounded in an epigram, And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid. The Graf. 0 -Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through. The Graf. Various Characters. 415 I choose to walk high with sublimer dread Rather than crawl in safety.-Artngart. -oI will not feed on doing great tasks ill, Dull the world's sense with mediocrity, And live by trash that smothers excellence. A4 rmzgar t. — 0 -Commonness is its own security. —rmzgart. -0 -(To the Doctor.) 0 you stand And look compassionate now, but when Death came With mercy in his hands, you hindered him. I did not choose to live and have your pity. You never told.me, never gave me choice To die a singer, lightning-struck, unmaimed, Or live what you would make me with your curesA self accursed with consciousness of change, A mind that lives in nought but members lopped, A power turned to pain-as meaningless As letters fallen asunder that once made A hymn of rapture. Armigart. -0 -An inborn passion gives a rebel's right: I would rebel and die in twenty worlds Sooner than bear the yoke of thwarted life, 4 16 Various Characters. ' l Each keenest sense turned into keen distaste, Hunger not satisfied but kept alive Breathing in languor half a century.-Armgarf. -0 -Armgart.-Now I am fallen dark; I sit in gloom, Remembering bitterly. Yet you speak truth; I wearied you, it seems; took all your help As cushioned nobles use a weary serf, Not looking at his face.' Walurgaa. 0, I but stand As a small symbol for a mighty sumThe sum of claims unpaid for myriad lives. I think you never set your loss beside That mighty deficit. Is your work goneThe prouder queenly work that paid itself And yet was overpaid with men's applause: Are you no longer chartered, privileged, But sunk to simple woman's penury, To ruthless Nature's chary averageWhere is the rebel's right for you alone? Noble rebellion lifts a common load; But what is he who flings his own load off And leaves his fellows toiling? Rebel's right? Say rather, the deserter's. 0, you smiled From your clear height on all the million lots Which yet you brand as abject. Armg. I was blind With too much happiness: true vision comes Sazrious Characters. 417 Only, it seems, with sorrow. \' ere there one This moment near me, suffering what I feel, And needing me for comfort.in her pangThen it were worth the while to live; not else. IValfi.-One-near you-why, they throng! you hardly stir But your act touches them. We touch afar. For did not swarthy slaves of yesterday Leap in their bondage at the Hebrews' flight, Which touched them through the thrice millennial dark? But you can find the sufferer you need With touch less subtle. - A/rmg. \Who has need of me? Wal C.-Lov e finds the need it fills. -- -0 -Leo. We must bury our dead joys And live above them with a living world. Armgart.-Dear Leo, I will bury my dead joy. Leo. —Mothers do so, bereaved; then learn to love Another's living child. Arming. 0, it is hard To take the little corpse, and lay it low, And say, ' None misses it but me.' END OF 'ARMGART.' PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOODII AND SONS. SELECT LIST OF WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS' PUBLICATIONS. THE ABODE OF SNOW: OBSERVATIONS ON A JOURNEY FROM CHINESE TIBET TO THE INDIAN CAUCASUS, THROUGH THE UPPER VALLEYS OF THE HIMALAYA. By ANDREW WILSON. With Map of the Author's Route, &c. 8vo, 15s. 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By WILLIAM SMITH, D.D., Minister of North Leith; Convener of the General Assembly's Endowment Committee. Being the BAIRD LECTURE for 1875. Crown 8vo, 6s. HOURS OF CHRISTIAN DEVOTION. Translated from the German of A. Tholuck, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Halle, and Councillor of the Supreme Consistory, Prussia. By the Rev. ROBERT MENZIES, D.D. With a Preface written for this Translation by the Author. New and cheaper Edition, crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. " To many of these meditations four or five great texts are prefixed, and the reader feels that the gentle pressure of a powerful hand has crushed these sacred fruits, and handed him the fragrant wine of the kingdom in a golden goblet.... The abundance and variety of the material furnished in this volume for quiet pondering render farther characterisation difficult We are thankful for the introduction of this wise, thoughtful, helpful book in this dark sad season."-British Quarterly Review. THE WORKS OF THE RIGHT REV. BISHOP HAY, of Edinburgh. Together with a Memoir of the Author, and Portrait engraved from the Painting at the College of Blairs. Edited under the supervision of the Right Rev. Bishop STRAIN. A New Edition, in 5 vols. Crown 8vo, 21s. 6 Select List of THE SPANISH GIPSY. By GEORGE ELIOT. A New Edition, being the Fifth. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. THE LEGEND OF JUBAL, AND OTHER POEMS. By the SAME. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 6s. WISE, WITTY, AND TENDER SAYINGS, In Prose and Verse. Selected from the Works of George Eliot. By ALEXANDER MAIN. Handsomely printed on toned paper, bound in gilt cloth. Second Edition, 6s. NERO: AN HISTORIOAL PLAY. By W. W. STORY. Fcap. 8vo. GRAFFITI D'ITALIA. By W. W. STORY, Author of 'Roba di Roma.' A New Edition, being the Second. Fcap. 8vo, 7s. 6d. " As a sculptor's sketches in a kind of poetic neutral tint, they are of great value, quite apart from their intrinsic value as poems. "-A tlenceum. " In the present volume he has translated the marble for us into poetry. Goethe used to say that sculpture was the most poetical of all the arts. And in a certain high transcendental sense he is perfectly right. Those who are interested in the question should certainly study the Cleopatra of Story in marble, and the Cleopatra as we find her translated in the present volume into verse." — Westminster Review. FABLES IN SONG. By ROBERT, LORD LYTTON, Author of 'Poems by Owen Meredith.' Two vols. crown 8vo, 15s. "These two volumes, by Lord Lytton, have given us greater pleasure than any poetry which has been published for a long time back.. They do fresh honour to a famous name, and bear testimony not inferior to that which his former works have borne to 'Owen Meredith's' poetic powers. Judged by a high standard, these Fables in Song have indeed faults which cannot be passed over, but they contain many pages of striking merit, finely imagined and finely written." —Times. "He has given new life, new form, new force to the fable, and the doing so must be pronounced a remarkable discovery, and a striking feat of literary originality."-Standcard. LYRICS, LEGAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. By GEORGE OUTRAM, Esq., Advocate. Edited, with Introductory Notice, by HENRY GLASSFORD BELL, Esq., Advocate, Sheriff of Lanarkshire. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 4s. (d. Messrs Blackwood's Publications. 7 SONGS AND VERSES: Social and Scientific. By an old Contributor to 'Maga.' A New Edition, with Music of some of the Songs. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. "The productions thrown off by this eccentric muse have all the merits of originality and variety....He has written songs, not essayssuch a hotch-potch of science and humour, jest and literature, gossip and criticism, as might have been served at the Noctes Ambrosianas in the blue parlour at Ambrose's."-Saturday Review. THE BOOK OF BALLADS. Edited by BON GAULTIER. Twelfth Edition, with numerous Illustrations by Doyle, Leech, and Crowquill. Gilt edges, post 8vo, 8s. 6d. LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS, AND OTHER POEMS. By W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L., Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres in the University of Edinburgh. Twenty-third Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 7s. 6d. "Professor Aytoun's 'Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers'-a volume of verse which shows that Scotland has yet a poet. Full of the true fire, it now stirs and swells like a trumpet-note-now sinks in cadences sad and wild as the wail of a Highland dirge."-Quarterly Review. LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS, An Illustrated Edition. From designs by SIR J. NOEL PATON and W. H. PATON, R.S.A. Engraved by John Thomson, W. J. Linton, W. Thomas, Whymper, Cooper, Green, Dalziels, Evans, &c. In small quarto, printed on toned paper, bound in gilt cloth, 21s. BOTHWELL: A POEM. By the SAME. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 7s. 6d. THE BALLADS OF SCOTLAND. Edited by the SAME. Fourth Edition. 2 vols. fcap. 8vo, 12s. THE POEMS OF FELICIA HEMANS. Complete in One Volume, Rloyal8vo, with Portrait by Finden. Cheap Edition, 5s. The same with Plates, gilt edges, extra binding, 7s. 6d. Another Edition, with Memoir by her Sister, Seven Volumes, fcap., 35s. Another Edition, in Six Volumes, cloth, gilt edges, 15s. The same 6 vols. bound in 3, 12s. 6d., or cloth extra, gilt edges, 15s. SELECT POEMS OF MRS HEMANS. In One Vol. fcap. 8vo, gilt edges, 3s. 8 Select List of THE COURSE OF TIME; A POEM. By ROBERT POLLOK, A.M. Small fcap. 8vo, cloth, gilt, 2s. 6d. THE COTTAGE EDITION, 32mo, sewed, 6d. The Same, cloth, gilt edges, Is. Another Edition, with Illustrations by Birket Foster and others, fcap,, gilt cloth, 3s. 6d., or with edges gilt, 4s. POETICAL WORKS OF D. M. MOIR (DELTA). With Memoir by THOMAS AIRD, and Portrait. Second Edition. 2 vols. fcap. 8vo, 12s. DOMESTIC VERSES. By the SAME. New Edition, fcap. 8vo, cloth, gilt, 4s. 6d. THE PARADISE OF BIRDS. AN OLD EXTRAVAGANZA IN A MODERN DRESS. By WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE, Author of 'Ludibria Lunne.' Second Edition. 3s. 6d. TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CLASSICS. THE ODYSSEY AND ILIAD OF HOMER. Translated into English Verse in the Spenserian Stanza. By PHILIP STANHOPE WORSLEY and PROFESSOR CONINGTON. 4 vols. crown 8vo, 39s. THE /ENEID OF VIRGIL. Translated in English Blank Verse. By G. K. RICKARDS, M.A., and LORD RAVENSWORTH. 2 vols. fcap. Svo, 10s. THE ODES OF HORACE. With Life and Notes by THEODORE MARTIN. Second Edition. [In the Press. CATULLUS. With Life and Notes. By the Same. Second Edition, revised, post 8vo, 6s. 6d. THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO. Translated in English Blank Verse. By HENRY KING, IM.A., Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d. THE KING CEDIPUS AND PHILOCTETES OF SOPHOCLES. Translated into English Verse. By L EWIS CAMPBELL, M.A., Professor of Greek in the University of St Andrews. Octavo, 5s. THREE PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES: ANTIGONE, ELECTRA, AND DEIANIRA. Translated in English Verse. By the SAME. Uniform with the above, 6s. AfMessrs Blackwood's Publications. 9 TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CLASSICS-Continued. THE ELEGIES OF ALBIUS TIBULLUS. Translated into English Verse, with Life of the Poet, and Illustrative Notes. By JAMES CRANSTOUN, B.A., Author of a Translation of 'Catullus.' Crown 8vo, 6's. 6d. THE ELEGIES OF SEXTUS PROPERTIUS. Translated into English Verse, with LIFE of the POET, and ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. By the same. Crown 8vo. [1,i the Press. ANCIENT CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. Edited by the Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, MI.A. Complete in 20 Volumes, fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. each, containing HOMER. XENOPHON. ARISTOPHANES. HERODOTUS. CICERO. HESIOD. C.ESAR. SOI'IIOCLES. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. VIRGIL. PLINY. TACITUS. HORACE. EURIPIDES. LUCIAN. ESCHYLUS. JUVENAL. PLATO. THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. "It is difficult to estimate too highly the value of such a series as this in giving ' English readers' an insight, exact as far as it goes, into those olden times which are so remote and yet to many of us so close. "-Saturday R]eview. "In the advertising catalogues we sometimes see a book labelled as one 'without which no gentleman's library can be looked upon as complete.' It may be said with truth that no popular library or mechanics' institute will be properly furnished without this series. Here the intelligent working man may possess himself of as good a general idea of the lives and writings of Xenophon and Cicero as remains in the heads of nine out of ten old Cambridge or Oxford graduates. These handy-books to ancient classical literature are at the same time as attractive to the scholar as they ought to be to the English reader. We think, then, that they are destined to attain a wide and enduring circulation, and we are quite sure that they deserve it."- Westminster IReview, April 1875. FRENOH HOME LIFE. By ' an English Looker-on, who has ived for a quarter of a century in France amidst ties and affections which have made that country his second home."-Preface. CONTENTS - Servants. - Children. - Furniture. - Food. - Manners. -Language.-Dress.-Marriage. Second Edition, 5s. " Nous en avons assez dit pour faire comprendre tout l'attrait que prdsente un pareil livre. En le lisant les Anglais apprennent i mieux nous jugrer; nous apprendrons, nous, a mieux nous connaltre."-Journal de Pcatis. "This is a work of singular knowledge, written by a man possessing rare powers of observation and social tact. That the writer has resided long in France, the most superficial glance into the book will make clear; for, whatever the passing traveller can do, he cannot attain to such result of clear picture, vivid contrast, and firm hold on general causes as we have here "-,British Qeuarterly Revieiw. o Select List of MIDDLEMAROH; A STUDY OF ENGLISH PROVINCIAL LIFE. By GEORGE ELIOT. New Edition, complete in one volume, crown 8vo, price 7s. 6d. With Illustrated Title by Birket Foster, Engraved by C. H. Jeens. GEORGE ELIOT'S NOVELS. Each complete in one Volume. With Illustrations. ADAM BEDE. 3s. 6d. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. 3s. 6d. SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE. 3s. SILAS MARNER: THE WEAVER OF RAVELOE. 2s. 6d. FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. 3s. 6d. GIANNETTO. By LADY MARGARET MAJENDIE. Originally published in 'Blackwood's Magazine.' Crown 8vo, 5s. "No one can lay down the book without reading to the end, nor fail to be impressed by the end when it comes... This tale is full of power and promise. "-Spectator. "'Giannetto' is so complete at all points, that blame must go out of its way to search for unimportant trifles; and it is with the greatest pleasure that we find ourselves able to distinguish a novel, for once, with almost unqualified praise."-Globe. MR SMITH: A PART OF HIS LIFE. By L. B. WALFORD. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. " This is the most readable book that has come into our hands for some time."-Pall Mall Gazette. "One of the most natural and good-toned novels of the season."Guardian. " ' Mr Smith' will be popular everywhere, at once, and deservedly."Evening Standard. FAIR TO SEE. By LAURENCE LOCKHART, late Captain 92d Highlanders. With Twelve Illustrations. In 2 vols. post 8vo, 21s. New Edition, in 1 vol. post 8vo, 6s. "But politics are the smallest part of this very readable novel, the interest never flags, for the story is as full of ' situations' as a good play."Times. " Fair to See' is something more than a clever novel. It shows no little artistic power; and as you read it you feel that there is much more in the book than at first you fancied.... The scenes on the moors, in the barracks, and the ball-rooms, are all dashed off by an expert. These are minor merits, but they go far towards assuring the success of a story which marks a decided advance on the author's first novel."-Pall Mall Gazette. Messrs tBlackwood's Publications. I I A Cheap Edition. THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER. By MRS OLIPHANT, Author of 'Chronicles of Carlingford.' 1 vol. crown 8vo. "As a story and a study of Scottish Life, ' Valentine and his Brother' is simply a masterpiece.... We are not sure that Mrs Oliphant has ever written anything better.-British Quarterly Revievw. "At least a quarter of a century must have passed since Mrs Oliphant first charmed us with her first novel. Her hand, however, has not lost its cunning, and the story before us is in every respect worthy of the author of 'Margaret Maitland' and the ' Chronicles of Carlingford."Spectator. " One of the best written and most enjoyable novels that has been published for some time."-Scotsman. KATIE STEWART: A TRUE STORY. By the SAME. A Cheap Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. NEW VOLUME OF BLACKWOOD'S STANDARD NOVELS. JOHN: A LOVE STORY. By MRS OLIPHANT, Author of 'Chronicles of Carlingford,' &c. With illustrated boards, 2s.; or neatly bound in cloth, 2s. 6d. The other Volumes of the Series are:FLORIN SERIES, Illustrated Boards. TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. By MICHAEL SCOTT. CRUISE OF THE MIDGE. By MICHAEL SCOTT. CYRIL THORNTON. By CAPTAIN HAMILTON. ANNALS OF THE PARISH. By JOHN GALT. THE PROVOST, AND OTHER TALES. By JOHN GALT. SIR ANDREW WYLIE. By JOHN GALT. THE ENTAIL. By JOHN GALT. REGINALD DALTON. By JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. PEN OWEN. By DEAN HOOK. ADAM BLAIR. By JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. LADY LEE'S WIDOWHOOD. By COLOEL HAMLET. SALEM CHAPEL. By Mrs OLIPHANT. THE PERPETUAL CURATE. By Mrs OLIPHANT. MISS MARJORIBANKS. By Mrs OLIPHANT. Or in Cloth Boards, 2s. 6d. SHILLING SERIES, Illustrated Cover. THE RECTOR, AND THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY. By Mrs OLIPHANT. THE LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH. By D. M. MOIn. PENINSULAR SCENES AND SKETCHES. By F. HARDMAN. SIR FRIZZLE PUMPKIN, NIGHTS AT MESS, &c. THE SUBALTERN. LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. By G. F. RUXTON. VALERIUS: A ROMAN STORY. By JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. Or in Cloth Boards, Is. 6d. Each complete in one Volume, uniform in size and legibly printed. OTHER WORKS LN PRERARATION. I2 Select List of THE MAID OF SKER. By R. D. BLACKMORE, Author of 'Lorna Doone,' &c. Originally published in 'Blackwood's Magazine.' New Edition, crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. "His descriptions are wonderfully vivid and natural, although he loves to paint nature in her most extravagant freaks. His pages are brightened everywhere with quiet humour; the quaint dry turns of thought remind you occasionally of Fielding." —Times. WORKS OF SAMUEL WARREN. People's Edition, 4 vols. crown 8vo, cloth, 18s. Or separately:DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN. 3s. 6d. TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR. 5s. NOW AND THEN. LILY AND BEE. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESENT AGE. 1 vol., 4s. 6d. ESSAYS, CRITICAL, IMAGINATIVE, AND JURIDICAL. 1 vol., 5s. TALES FROM ' BLAOKWOOD.' 12 volumes. Sewed, 12s. Bound in cloth, 18s. The Volumes are sold separately, Is. and Is. 6d., and may be had of most Booksellers, in 6 volumes, handsomely half-bound in red morocco, 28s. 12 volumes, half-calf, richly gilt, 30s. Also, elegantly bound in cloth, and in handsome box, 21s. PICOOADILLY: A Fragment of Contemporary Biography. By LAURENCE OLIPHANT. With Eight Illustrations by Richard Doyle. 5th Edition, 4s. 6d. ' The picture of 'Good Society'-meaning thereby the society of men and women of wealth or rank-contained in this book, constitutes its chief merit, and is remarkable for the point and vigour of the author's style. "-A theeceunm. " The real interest of ' Piccadilly' lies in the clever morceaux. with which it is literally jewelled. They sparkle on every page. Mr Oliphant is one of the wittiest Jeremiahs of his time.'"-Pall _Mall Gazette. THE SAME, WITHOUT ILLUSTRATIONS. Illustrated Boards, 2s. 6d. SPEECHES, SPOKEN AND UNSPOKEN. By EDWARD LORD LYTTON. With a Memoir by his son, $OBERT LORD LYTTON. In two volumes, 8vo, 24s. PARADOXES AND PUZZLES. HISTORICAL, JUDICIAL, AND LITERARY. By JOHN PAGET, Barrister-at-Law. Octavo. 12s. A HANDBOOK OF WEATHER FOLK-LORE. BEING A COLLECTION OF PROVERBIAL SAYINGS IN VARIOUS LANGUAGES RELATING TO THE, WEATHER, WITH fEXPLANATORY AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. By the Rev. C. SWAINSON, M.A., Vicar of High Hurst Wood. Fcap. 8vo, Roxburghe binding, 6s. 6d. Afessrs Blackwood's Publications. 13 MEMOIR OF COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT. A CHAPTER OF RECENT FRENCH HISTORY. By MRS OLIPHANT, Author of the 'Life of Edward Irving,' &c. In 2 vols. crown 8vo, ~1, 4s. "Having a delightful subject, she has handled it in an altogether delightful way.... It is as good, full, and truthful a portrait of his life and character as could be desired; and while the skill of the author makes it as interesting as a novel, it may be read as an altogether trustworthy 'chapter of recent French history.' " —Examiner. WORKS OF PROFESSOR WILSON. Edited by his Son-in-law, Professor FERRIER. In 12 vols. crown 8vo, ~2, 8s. CONTAINING THE NOCTES AMBROSIANIE. With Notes and a Glossary. In 4 vols. crown 8vo, 16s. RECREATIONS OF CHRISTOPHER NORTH. In 2 vols. New Edition, with Portrait, 8s. ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. Four vols. crown 8vo, 16s. TALES. Comprising 'The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life;' 'The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay;' and 'The Foresters.' In one vol. crown 8vo, 4s., cloth. Cheap Edition, fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. POEMS. Containing the "Isle of Palms," the " City of the Plague," " Unimore," and other Poems. Complete Edition. Crown 8vo, 4s. HOMER AND HIS TRANSLATORS, AND THE GREEK DRAMIA. Crown 8vo, 4s. THE BOOK OF THE FARM, Detailing the Labours of the Farmer, Farm-Steward, Ploughman, Shepherd, Hedger, Farm-Labourer, Field-Worker, and Cattleman. By HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E. Illustrated with Portraits of Animals painted from the life; and with 557 Engraving; on Wood, representing the principal Field Operations, Implements, and Animals treated of in the Work. A New and Revised Edition, the third, in great part Rewritten. 2 vols. large 8vo, ~2, 10s. CATTLE AND CATTLE BREEDERS. By WILLIAM M-'COMBIE, M.P., Tillyfour. A New and Cheaper Edition. 2s. 6d., cloth. 14 Select List of THE LIVE STOCK OF THE FARM. By ROBERT O. PRINGLE, Editor of 'Irish Farmers' Gazette,' Author of ' Prize Essay on Agriculture of Orkney Islands,' ' Purdon's Veterinary Hand Book,' &c. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 9s. Contents:-CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT BREEDS-MANAGEMENT OF CATTLE - BREEDING - FOOD - SHEEP - FARM-HORSES - SWINEPOULTRY. "Everything relating to the breeding, rearing, and feeding of farm live-stock is intelligently discussed. It evinces a clear cultured mind, thoroughly conversant with the latest results of science in breeding and feeding animals. It is lucidly written, and contains much interesting and valuable information, and is, in hackneyed phraseology, just such a volume as no farmer's library should be without. "-The Farmer. HANDY BOOK OF ORNAMENTAL CONIFERS, AND OF RHODODENDRONS AND OTHER AMERICAN FLOWERING SHRUBS, Suitable for the Climate and Soils of Britain. With descriptions of the best kinds, and containing Useful Hints for their successful Cultivation. By HUGH FIASER, Fellow of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. Crown 8vo, 6s. THE BOOK OF THE GARDEN. By CHARLES M'INTOSH, formerly Curator of the Royal Gardens of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, and lately of those of his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, K.G., at Dalkeith Palace. In two large vols. royal 8vo, embellished with 1350 Engravings. The work is divided into two great sections, each occupying a volumethe first comprising the formation, arrangement, and laying out of gardens, and the construction of garden buildings; the second treating of the tlleory and practice of horticulture. Sold separately, viz.:VOL. I. ON THE FORMATION OF GARDENS AND CONSTRUCTION OF GARDEN EDIFICES. 776 pages, and 1073 Engravings, ~2, 10s. VOL. II. PRACTICAL GARDENING. 868 pages, and 279 Engravings, ~1, 17s. 6d. THE GARDENER: A MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE AND FLORICULTURE. Edited by DAVID THOMSON, Author of 'A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Pine-Apple,' 'The Handy Book of the Flower-Garden,' &c., assisted by a Staff of the best Practical Writers. Published Monthly, 6d. A BOOK ABOUT ROSES, HOW TO GROW AND SHOW THEM. By S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Author of 'A Little Tour in Ireland.' Fifth Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. Afessrs Blackwood's Publications. I5 HANDY BOOK OF THE FLOWER-GARDEN: Being Practical Directions for the Propagation, Culture, and Arrangement of Plants in Flower-Gardens all the Year Round. Embracing all classes of Gardens, from the largest to the smallest. With Engraved and Coloured Plans. By DAVID THOMSON, Gardener to his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, K.G., at Drumlanrig. A New and Enlarged Edition. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. THE HANDY BOOK OF FRUIT - CULTURE UNDER GLASS: Being a Series of Elaborate Practical Treatises on the Cultivation and Forcing of Pines, Vines, Peaches, Figs, Melons, Strawberries, and Cucumbers. With Engravings of hothouses, &c., most suitable for the cultivation and forcing of these fruits. By the SAME. In crown 8vo, with Engravings, 7s. 6d. DOMESTIC FLORICULTURE, WINDOW GARDENING, AND FLORAL DECORATIONS. Being practical directions for the Propagation, Culture, and Arrangement of Plants and Flowers as Domestic Ornaments. By F. W. BURBIDGE. Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustrations, 7s. 6d. HANDBOOK OF HARDY HERBACEOUS AND ALPINE FLOWERS FOR GENERAL GARDEN DECORATION. Containing Descriptions, in Plain Language, of upwards of 1000 Species of Ornamental Hardy Perennial and Alpine Plants, adapted to all Classes of Flower-Gardens, Rockwork, and Waters; along with Concise and Plain Instructions for their Propagation and Culture. By WILLIAM SUTHERLAND, formerly Manager of the Herbaceous Department at Kew. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE GRAPE VINE. By WILLIAM THOMSON, Tweed Vineyards. Eighth Edition, enlarged. 8vo, 5s. THE HANDY BOOK OF BEES. BEING A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THEIR PROFITABLE MANAGEMENT. By A. PETTIGREW. Second and Cheaper Edition, revised, crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. "' Mr Pettigrew, the author of this Handy Book, has proved the practicability of his theories so successfully, that, since the date of his first edition, he has in many parts of Great Britain revolutionised apiculture; and he writes with the authority of a hereditary bee-keeper, for his father was a labourer in Lanarkshire, who kept bees with such results that his dwelling at Carluke, near Hamilton, got the name of the ' Honey Bank;' and a good bank it was to him and his children; for he not only made as much as ~100 in a season by his bees, but also saved enough to rise in life."-Saturday Reviewo. 16 Select List of Messrs Blackwood's Publications. HANDY HORSE-BOOK; OR, PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS IN RIDING, DRIVING, AND THE GENERAL CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF HORSES. By "MAGENTA." A New Edition, with 6 Engravings, 4s. 6d. "As cavalry officer, hunting horseman, coach-proprietor, whip, and steeplechase-rider, the author has had long and various experience in the management of horses, and he now gives us the cream of his information." — Athenaceum. " He propounds no theories, but embodies in simple untechnical language what he has learned practically."-Sporting Gazette. OUR DOMESTICATED DOGS: Their Treatment in Reference to Food, Diseases, Habits, Punishment, Accomplishments, &c. By the Author of the 'Handy Horse-book.' 2s. 6d., bound in gilt cloth. A MANUAL OF ENGLISH PROSE LITERATURE, Biographical and Critical: designed mainly to show Characteristics of Style. By W. MINTO, M.A. Crown 8vo, lOs. 6d. "It is a work which all who desire to make a close study of style in English prose will do well to use attentively. '-Standard. "An admirable book, well selected and well put together."- Westminster Revieo. OHARAOTERISTICS OF ENGLISH POETS, From Chaucer to Shirley. By the SAME. 1 vol. crown 8vo, 9s. "Altogether this is a most faithful and thorough piece of work, fitted to be largely useful, and may take rank among the best educational efforts which have recently issued from the press."-NlVo conformnist. " This volume shows not only a good deal of reading, but judgment and taste. "-Saturday Reviezw. ETYMOLOGICAL AND PRONOUNOING DIOTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Including a very Copious Selection of Scientific Terms. For use in Schools and Colleges, and as a Book of General Reference. By the REV. JAMES STORMONTH. The Pronunciation carefully Revised by the Rev. P. H. PHELP, M.A., Cantab. Crown 8vo, pp. 775, 7s. 6d. "This dictionary is admirable. It deserves a place in every English School."- Westminster Revievw. A MANUAL OF BOTANY, ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL. FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS. By ROBERT BROWN, M.A., Ph.D., F.L.S., F.R.G.S., Lecturer on Botany in the School of Arts, Edinburgh, under the Science and Art Department of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, &c. &c. Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustrations, 12s. 6d. THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DATE DUE T 4. ls2! t i; - A?9-1 AiPR 05 19 -.I. yN 3.98 7 3\ r^,....,s o 2" I Ff 0 8 198Z M......- 1... MAY 13196 4k J_ - -,,: II i, — 1AW Z S-kl-i lIkIll. A A 3AW3 ONO I 't - - I SeVe 6i.SOO 9106 6 L.1 I A k,4.4. NIP