XI.

"Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her dark eyes flash out with a new fire. The resolute din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force—the meal forever pouring, pouring—the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fancy lace-work—the sweet, pure scent of the meal—all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her outside, everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relations outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful difficulty in their family intercourse—a flat and floury spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a little at a cousin's table where the fly wasau naturel; and the lady-spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story—the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was verycommunicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in mill society,'I think you never read any book but the Bible—did you Luke?''Nay, miss—an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.''But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got anyverypretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there'sPug'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 the ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know—and one sitting on a barrel.''Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' knowin' aboutthem.''But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke—we ought to know about our fellow-creatures.''Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; 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 arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo—an' rogues enoo—wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.''Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would likeAnimated Naturebetter; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, 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?''Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn—I can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks to the gallows—knowin' every thing 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.'

'I think you never read any book but the Bible—did you Luke?'

'Nay, miss—an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.'

'But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got anyverypretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there'sPug'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 the ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know—and one sitting on a barrel.'

'Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' knowin' aboutthem.'

'But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke—we ought to know about our fellow-creatures.'

'Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; 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 arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo—an' rogues enoo—wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.'

'Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would likeAnimated Naturebetter; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, 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?'

'Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn—I can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks to the gallows—knowin' every thing 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.'

But these are idyllic hours; presently the afternooncomes, Tom arrives, Maggie has an hour of rapturous happiness over him and a new fishing-line which he has brought her, to be hers all by herself; and then comes tragedy. Tom learns from Maggie the death of certain rabbits which he had left in her charge and which, as might have been expected, she had forgotten to feed. Here follows a harrowing scene of reproaches from Tom, of pleadings for forgiveness from Maggie, until finally Tom appears to close the door of mercy. He sternly insists: "Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the holidays before you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite all for nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing.... And you shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this terrible conclusion Tom runs off to the mill, while the heart broken Maggie creeps up to her attic, lays her head against the worm-eaten shelf and abandons herself to misery.

In the scene which I now read, howbeit planned upon so small a scale, the absolute insufficiency of justice to give final satisfaction to human hearts as now constituted, and the inexorable necessity of love for such satisfaction appear quite as plainly as if the canvas were of Promethean dimensions.

"Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself—hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to Tom now, would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there,and he would take her part. But, then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, and not because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the stairs."

In point of fact Tom has been sent from the tea-table for her, and mounts the attic munching a great piece of plum-cake.

... "He went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plum-cake, and not intending to retrieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one point, namely, that he would punish every body who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded being punished himself, if he deserved; but then he neverdiddeserve it.It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my wench.' 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.But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please forgive me—I can't bear it—I will always be good—always remember things—do love me—please, dear Tom?'We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect likemembers of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say,'Don't cry, then, Maggie—here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there was no more cake except what was down stairs."

It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my wench.' 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.

But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please forgive me—I can't bear it—I will always be good—always remember things—do love me—please, dear Tom?'

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect likemembers of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say,

'Don't cry, then, Maggie—here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.

'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there was no more cake except what was down stairs."

Various points of contrast lead me to cite some types of character which appear to offer instructive comparisons with this picture of the healthy English boy and girl. Take for example this portrait of the modern American boy given us by Mr. Henry James, Jr., in hisDaisy Miller, which was, I believe, the work that first brought him into fame. The scene is in Europe. A gentleman is seated in the garden of a hotel at Geneva, smoking his cigarette after breakfast.

"Presently a small boy came walking along the path—an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in Knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that he approached—the flower-beds, the garden benches, the trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright penetrating little eyes.'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard little voice—a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugarremained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't think sugar is good for little boys.'This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a peculiar manner.Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally.'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's these hotels.'Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother will certainly slap you,' he said.'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here—any American candy. American candy's the best candy.''And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne.'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child.'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne.'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,—'American men are the best,' he declared."

'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard little voice—a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.

Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugarremained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't think sugar is good for little boys.'

This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.

'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a peculiar manner.

Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally.

'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's these hotels.'

Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother will certainly slap you,' he said.

'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here—any American candy. American candy's the best candy.'

'And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne.

'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child.

'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne.

'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,—'American men are the best,' he declared."

On the other hand compare this intense, dark-eyed Maggie in her garret and with her flaming ways, with Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh." Aurora Leigh, too, has her garret, and doubtless her intensity too, blossoms in that congenial dark and lonesomeness. I read a few lines from Book 1st by way of reminder.

"Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret-roomPiled high with cases in my father's name... Where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my pastLike some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here or thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gapIn heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow in the morning's dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books! At last, because the time was ripe,I chanced upon the poets."

And here, every reader ofThe Mill on the Flosswill remember how, at a later period, Maggie chanced upon Thomas à Kempis at a tragic moment of her existence; and it is fine to see how in describing situations so alike, the purely elemental differences between the natures of Mrs. Browning and George Eliot project themselves upon each other.

The scene in George Eliot concerning Maggie and Thomas à Kempis is too long to repeat here, but everyone will recall the sober, analytic, yet altogether vital and thrilling picture of the trembling Maggie, as she absorbs wisdom from the sweet old mediæval soul. But, on the other hand, Mrs. Browning sings it out, after this riotous melody:

"As the earthPlunges in fury when the internal firesHave reached and pricked her heart,And throwing flatThe marts and temples—the triumphal gatesAnd towers of observation—clears herselfTo elemental freedom—thus, my soul,At poetry's divine first finger-touch,Let go conventions and sprang up surprised,Convicted of the great eternitiesBefore two worlds.But the sun was highWhen first I felt my pulses set themselvesFor concord; when the rhythmic turbulenceOf blood and brain swept outward upon words,As wind upon the alders, blanching themBy turning up their under-natures tillThey trembled in dilation. O delightAnd triumph of the poet who would sayA man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,'A little human hope of that or this,And says the word so that it burns you throughWith special revelation, shakes the heartOf all the men and women in the worldAs if one came back from the dead and spoke,With eyes too happy, a familiar thingBecome divine i' the utterance!"

But the sun was highWhen first I felt my pulses set themselvesFor concord; when the rhythmic turbulenceOf blood and brain swept outward upon words,As wind upon the alders, blanching themBy turning up their under-natures tillThey trembled in dilation. O delightAnd triumph of the poet who would sayA man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,'A little human hope of that or this,And says the word so that it burns you throughWith special revelation, shakes the heartOf all the men and women in the worldAs if one came back from the dead and spoke,With eyes too happy, a familiar thingBecome divine i' the utterance!"

I have taken special pleasure in the last sentence of this outburst, because it restates with a precise felicity at once poetic and scientific, but from a curiously different point of view, that peculiar function of George Eliot which I pointed out as appearing in the very first of her stories, namely, the function of elevating the plane of all commonplace life into the plane of the heroic by keeping every man well in mind of the awfulegowithin him which includes all the possibilities of heroic action. Now this is what George Eliot does, in putting before us these humble forms of Tom and Maggie, and the like: shesaysthese common "yes" and "no" in terms of Tom and Maggie; and yet says them so that this particular Tom and Maggie burn you through with a special revelation—though one has known a hundred Maggies and Toms before. Thus we find the delight and triumph of the poetic and analytic novelist, George Eliot, precisely parallel to this delight and triumph of the more exclusively poetic Mrs. Browning, who says a man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," so that it shakesthe hearts of all the men and women in the world, etc. Aurora Leigh continues:

"In those days, though, I never analysed,Not even myself, Analysis comes late.You catch a sight of nature, earliest;In full front sun-face, and your eye-lids winkAnd drop before the wonder of 't; you missThe form, through seeing the light. I lived those days,And wrote because I lived—unlicensed else;My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent floodAbolished bounds—and, which my neighbor's field,Which mine, what mattered? It is thus in youth!We play at leap-frog over the god Time;The love within us and the love withoutAre mixed, confounded; if we are loved or loveWe scarce distinguish....In that first outrush of life's chariot wheelsWe know not if the forests move, or we."

And now as showing the extreme range of George Eliot's genius, in regions where perhaps Mrs. Browning never penetrated, let me recall Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet, as types of women contrasting with Maggie and Aurora Leigh. You will remember how Mrs. Tulliver has bidden her three sisters, Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, and Mrs. Deane, with their respective husbands, to a great and typical Dodson dinner, in order to eat and drink upon the momentous changes impending in Tom's educational existence:

"The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied, for a woman of fifty, she had a very comely face and figure, though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume; for though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new things out before her old ones.Other women, if they liked, might have their best thread lace in every wash, but when Mrs. Glegg did it would be found that she had better lace laid by in the the right-hand drawer of her wardrobe, in the Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wool of St. Ogg's had bought in her life, although Mrs. Wool wore her lace before it was paid for. So of her curled fronts. Mrs. Glegg had doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front would be to introduce a most dream-like and unpleasant confusion between the sacred and the secular.So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house to-day—untied and tilted slightly, of course—a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long neck was protected by achevaux-de-friseof miscellaneous frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come recently into wear."Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by hers.'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used to be the way in our family for one to be as early as another—I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time—and not for one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the ways o' thefamily are altered, it shan't bemyfault; I'll never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder at sister Deane—she used to be more like me. But if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to ha' known better.'The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sister Pullet—it must be sister Pullet, because the sound was that of a four-wheel.Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on that subject.Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at the vague distance.'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly broken for the second time.There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated.'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, rather sharply, as they shook hands.Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind before she answered.'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric.'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver.'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water—they say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.''Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're talking of, for my part.''ButIknow,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; 'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish.Iknow as it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.''Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other occasions.'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn't many oldparish'slike her, I doubt.''And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' observed Mr. Pullet.'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.' 'Shedidsay so,' added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.''Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonderatyou, fretting and injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making his will.'Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability.'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on—left it all in lump to her husband's nevvy.''There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, 'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for—not as I'm one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when it must go out o' your own family.''I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o'clock. He told me about it himself—as free as could be—one Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in his talk—quite a gentlemanly sort o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said—the very words. 'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she added, turning to her husband.Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission."

So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house to-day—untied and tilted slightly, of course—a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long neck was protected by achevaux-de-friseof miscellaneous frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come recently into wear.

"Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by hers.

'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used to be the way in our family for one to be as early as another—I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time—and not for one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the ways o' thefamily are altered, it shan't bemyfault; I'll never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder at sister Deane—she used to be more like me. But if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to ha' known better.'

The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sister Pullet—it must be sister Pullet, because the sound was that of a four-wheel.

Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on that subject.

Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at the vague distance.

'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly broken for the second time.

There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.

Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated.

'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, rather sharply, as they shook hands.

Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind before she answered.

'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric.

'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver.

'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water—they say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.'

'Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're talking of, for my part.'

'ButIknow,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; 'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish.Iknow as it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.'

'Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other occasions.

'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn't many oldparish'slike her, I doubt.'

'And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' observed Mr. Pullet.

'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.' 'Shedidsay so,' added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.'

'Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonderatyou, fretting and injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making his will.'

Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability.

'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on—left it all in lump to her husband's nevvy.'

'There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, 'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for—not as I'm one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when it must go out o' your own family.'

'I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o'clock. He told me about it himself—as free as could be—one Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in his talk—quite a gentlemanly sort o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said—the very words. 'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she added, turning to her husband.

Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission."

Next day Mrs. Tulliver and the children visit Aunt Pallet: and we have some further affecting details of that sensitive lady weeping at home instead of abroad.

"Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing, said, 'Stop the children, for God's sake, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes.'Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped around his boots—a fact which may serve to correct the too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals—fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were safe on the landing.'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much interest. 'And how do you like it?''It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen.'Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which determined her to single out a particular key.'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but Ishouldlike to see what sort of a crown she's made you.'Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a suppositioncould only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen—it was a door key.'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet.'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer for 'em to come—they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind.'So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the passage—a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again!'It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something was due to it.'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open the shutter a bit farther.''Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. Tulliver.Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view.'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet.Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent.''That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at it contemplatively.'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of getting a humble imitation of thischef-d-œuvremade from a piece of silk she had at home.Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.'She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who knows?''Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope you'll have your health this summer.''Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.''Thatwouldbe unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. 'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy—never two summers alike.''Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day.'

Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped around his boots—a fact which may serve to correct the too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals—fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.

The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were safe on the landing.

'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.

'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much interest. 'And how do you like it?'

'It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen.'

Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which determined her to single out a particular key.

'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but Ishouldlike to see what sort of a crown she's made you.'

Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a suppositioncould only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen—it was a door key.

'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet.

'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.

'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer for 'em to come—they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind.'

So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the passage—a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.

Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again!'

It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something was due to it.

'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open the shutter a bit farther.'

'Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. Tulliver.

Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view.

'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet.

Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent.'

'That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at it contemplatively.

'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of getting a humble imitation of thischef-d-œuvremade from a piece of silk she had at home.

Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.'

She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.

'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who knows?'

'Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope you'll have your health this summer.'

'Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.'

'Thatwouldbe unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. 'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy—never two summers alike.'

'Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day.'

I sincerely wish it were in my power to develop, alongside of the types of Maggie Tulliver and Aurora Leigh,a number of other female figures which belong to the same period of life and literature. I please myself with calling these the Victorian women. They would include the name-giving queen, herself, the Eve in Mrs. Browning'sDrama of Exile, Princess Ida in Tennyson'sPrincess, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, (one of these figures, you observe, is just as real to us as the other; and I have lost all sense of difference between actual and literary existence), Mrs. Browning, Dinah Morris, Milly Barton, Janet Dempster, Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, Romola, Dorothea Brooke, Myra, Charlotte Cushman, Mary Somerville and some others. If we are grateful to our sweet master Tennyson for hisDream of Fair Women, how grateful should we be to an age which has given us this realization of ideal women, of women who are so strong and so beautiful, that they have subtly brought about—that I can find no adjective so satisfactory for them as—"womanly" women. They have redeemed the whole time. When I hear certain mournful people crying out that this is a gross and material age, I reply that gross and material are words that have no meaning as of the epoch of the Victorian women. When the pessimists accuse the time of small aims and over-selfishness, I plead the Victorian women. When the pre-Raphaelites clamor that railroad and telegraph have fatally scarred the whole face of the picturesque and the ideal among us, I reply that on the other hand the Victorian women are more beautiful than any product of times that they call picturesque and ideal.

And it is curiously fine that in some particulars the best expression of the corresponding attitude which man has assumed toward the Victorian women in the growth of the times has been poetically formulated by a woman. In Mrs. Browning'sDrama of Exile, during those firstinsane moments when Eve is begging Adam to banish her for her transgression, or to do some act of retributive justice upon her, Adam continually comforts her and finally speaks these words:

... I am deepest in the guilt,If last in the transgression.... If GodWho gave the right and joyance of the worldBoth unto thee and me—gave thee to me,The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,Which sinned against more complement of giftsAnd grace of giving. God! I render backStrong benediction and perpetual praiseFrom mortal feeble lips (as incense smokeOut of a little censer, may fill heaven),That Thou, in striking my benumbed handsAnd forcing them to drop all other boonsOf beauty and dominion and delight,—Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this lifeWithin life, this best gift, between their palms,In gracious compensation.O my God!I, standing here between the glory and dark,—The glory of thy wrath projected forthFrom Eden's wall, the dark of our distressWhich settles a step off in that drear world,—Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallenOnly creation's sceptre,—thanking TheeThat rather Thou hast cast me out withherThan left me lorn of her in Paradise,With angel looks and angel songs aroundTo show the absence of her eyes and voice,And make society full desertnessWithout her use in comfort!Because withher, I standUpright, as far as can be in this fall,And look away from earth which doth convict,Into her face, and crown my discrowned browOut of her love, and put the thought of herAround me, for an Eden full of birds,And with my lips upon her lips,—thus, thus,—Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breathWhich cannot climb against the grave's steep sidesBut overtops this grief!"

O my God!I, standing here between the glory and dark,—The glory of thy wrath projected forthFrom Eden's wall, the dark of our distressWhich settles a step off in that drear world,—Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallenOnly creation's sceptre,—thanking TheeThat rather Thou hast cast me out withherThan left me lorn of her in Paradise,With angel looks and angel songs aroundTo show the absence of her eyes and voice,And make society full desertnessWithout her use in comfort!

Because withher, I standUpright, as far as can be in this fall,And look away from earth which doth convict,Into her face, and crown my discrowned browOut of her love, and put the thought of herAround me, for an Eden full of birds,And with my lips upon her lips,—thus, thus,—Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breathWhich cannot climb against the grave's steep sidesBut overtops this grief!"

The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen had been appearing regularly each year. TheScenes from Clerical Lifehad appeared in book form in 1858,Adam Bedewas printed in 1859,The Mill on the Flosscame out in 1860, and now, in 1861, followedSilas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. It is with the greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book without comment. In some particularsSilas Marneris the most remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me straight to that pitilessPardoner's Taleof Chaucer in which gold is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer'sPardoner's Talethree riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a dead body which is borne past the door onits way to burial. They learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. "Because," says he,

"Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif;Thus walke I like a resteles caitif,And on the ground, which is my modres gate,I knocke with my staf erlich and lateAnd say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'"

"Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand the three young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oak tree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving at the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good fortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lest they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of hearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their companion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink he is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all.

To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him and murder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie deadunder the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has come true, and theyhavefound death under that tree. In George Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding gold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late at night from a fox-hunt on foot—for he had killed his horse in the chase—finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a large sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; he makes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and finds the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from the hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled with guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into the darkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds; nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one day found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floor where he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who had fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered into Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; when one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry, which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house, becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathern bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to be afterwardsbrought to light as another phase of the frequent identity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to remember those doubly dreadful words inRomeo and Juliet, where Romeo having with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries:

"There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,Doing more murder in this loathsome worldThan these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell.I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh."

I must also instance one little passing picture inSilas Marnerwhich though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some of the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his whole faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he is smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's passion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his two leathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly lift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kept his treasure concealed, pour out thebright yellow heaps of coin and run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul—and one can imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially religious—becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her little golden-haired child is making her way along the road past Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the Squire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all and demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she has become an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies down and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of Marner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places her head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the little one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding what seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up the little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching humanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she constantly places before us lives which change in a manner of which this is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing usintense and hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, then finding where loveisworthy, and thereafter loving larger loves, and living larger lives.

Is not this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of Adam Bede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; of Romola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth?

This last name brings us directly to the work which we were specially to study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationships among themselves which cause them to fall into various groups according to various points of view. There is one point however from which her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which one includes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other group consists solely ofDaniel Deronda. This classification is based on the fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of a time which is past. It is only inDaniel Deronda, after she has been writing for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first ventures to deal with English society of the present day. To this important claim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which will in the sequel develop into great significance.Daniel Derondahas had the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such a degree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even ventured to call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusing Gwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirah and Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt to awaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of the Jews. This comparative failure ofDaniel Derondato please current criticism and even the ardentadmirers of George Eliot, so clearly opens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness in certain vital portions of the structure of our society that I have thought I could not render better service than by conducting our analysis ofDaniel Derondaso as to make it embrace some of the most common of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall in largest possible outline the movement ofDaniel Deronda. This can be done in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns two people—one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought up with all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understand when we think of the highest English refinement, wayward—mainly because she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow than her own—and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontent which desires the best and which will only be small when its horizon contains but small objects. The other main personage is Daniel Deronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has a striking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful and noble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities of English political life and to shrink from involving his own existence in such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of his youth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the first book as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whether life is worth living.

It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found asking herself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, by the chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her own desire—guilty enough in such a connection—for plenty of horses to ride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form so integral a portion of modern Englishlife; driven, too, by what one must not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name and position of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearance of lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blasé brutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand of Grandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffers a thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found—as is just said—wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living.

Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to the questions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answers them satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the course of her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; his loftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, his general passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,—in a word, his goodness—form a complete revelation to her. She suddenly discovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibility of making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interest whose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasures which had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, Daniel Deronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visions of a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and the wealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause of reëstablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also for him, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worth living, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energies of the loftiest kind.

Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands of story. One of these might be calledTheRepentance of Gwendolen Harleth, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. The other might be calledThe Mission of Daniel Deronda. These two strands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread by the organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair and satisfactory answer to the common question over which these two young protagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?"

Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, the development of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into a great and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is done with such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, with such a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether so subtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I were asked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious and altogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I should specifyDaniel Deronda.

It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn a repentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required in order to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that through which our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards a clear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examining the instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me on this point—as mentioned in my last lecture—I find that the real difference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare ever drew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly are in Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones under mistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. But surely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be feltby any man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatly wronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexion that all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come at last. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engaged to its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by the new,—that total substitution of some higher motive for the whole existing body of emotions and desires,—that emergence out of the twilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of a love which does not turn upon self,

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