Middlemarch by George Eliot

Source of book: I own this.

I have been wanting to read this book for ages, but it was one of the very few George Eliot books I didn’t own. Oddly, it is still the only book of hers I own that is not a hardback. (I own all her novels except Felix Holt.) I first read Silas Marner back in high school, and then read The Mill on the Floss in my 20s. Finally, I read Daniel Deronda in my 30s. Now, with Middlemarch in my 40s, I am finally reading the book considered to be her masterpiece. 

Regular readers of my blog will know that Anthony Trollope is my favorite Victorian novelist, but I would say George Eliot is a close second. Both share a keen sense of psychology and a fascination with the ways that rural English society interfaces with politics and religion. The novels mention great events (the Reform Bill of 1832 is at the center of discussions in the story), but the focus is on everyday stuff: marriage, birth, death, inheritance, relationships. 

Middlemarch is a long book, with a lot of related subplots, so I am not going to attempt a summary. Perhaps it is best just to name some of the main characters. The heroine is Dorothea, an idealistic and naive young woman who wants to do something meaningful with her life. It isn’t easy as a woman, however, as she finds out. She marries early in the book, choosing an older, fusty clergyman who is more or less writing a book tying all mythologies together. (He dies before succeeding, leaving that task to Joseph Campbell…) In contrast to Dorothea, who is an almost impossibly good person, is Rosamond, who wishes to escape both her plebeian (if well off) family, and the narrow confines of Middlemarch. She latches on to Lydgate, an ambitious but fortuneless doctor. Needless to say, this marriage does not go well for either party. Rosamond’s feckless brother Fred has received an education (at significant expense to his parents), but declines to become a clergyman, and thus has no obvious way to make a living. He is in love with the delightfully witty Mary, but has to find his way before they can marry. Rosamond and Fred’s uncle, Bulstrode, has a dark secret in his past which he wishes to keep secret - all while he adopts a sanctimonious and self-righteous religion that alienates others. 

This being a Victorian novel, tied up with all of this is the question of money. Who has it, who inherits it, and whose prospects are crippled because of a lack of it. This is also tied up with class: those who are considered aristocracy cannot “work for a living” in the normal sense without “lowering themselves.” A marriage outside one’s social class is either “climbing” (which is mostly good) or “lowering” (which most certainly isn’t.) Eliot, like Trollope, exposes the frustrations and hypocrisy this system require. 

Eliot’s particular twist on the genre consists in her focus, not so much on the courtships, but on the marriages themselves. Dorothea marries a few chapters into the book, while Rosamond marries about halfway. These two miserable marriages form the bulk of the narrative of much of the book. “Happily Ever After” this most certainly isn’t. The marriages (and others in the book) form a series of contrasts in compatibility (or lack thereof), grace, and sensitivity. 

Another theme in the book is the problem of womanhood. What IS Dorothea to do with herself? In another era, as Eliot points out, she might have become a saint. In our own time, she would be like my wife, with a career and a mission in life. But in Victorian Protestant England, her options were mostly marriage, marriage, and marriage. 

There are so many great lines in this book, it took me a whole page (on a mini-legal pad) to write them down. I’ll just run through them in some semblance of order - although not in the order they appear in the book. First is this exchange between Dorothea and her younger sister Celia. 

“Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish,” said Celia, as they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site.

“He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,” said Dorothea, inconsiderately.

“You mean that he appears silly.”

“No, no,” said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sister’s for a moment, “but he does not talk equally well on all subjects.”

“I should think none but disagreeable people do,” said Celia, in her usual purring way. “They must be very dreadful to live with. Only think! At breakfast, and always.” 

In this early exchange is the germ of so much that follows. Obviously, Celia is more the sort for Sir James, who bores Dorothea to death. But also, Dorothea’s idol, the crusty Casaubon, turns out to be miserable to live with - his ability to talk coherently on a variety of subjects does not translate into affection or respect toward Dorothea. I personally would hope that this is not a universal truth, however, because I kind of like to talk about all kinds of things, but don’t consider myself dreadful to live with. 

I’ll also mention the delightful neologism Eliot uses in describing the Renaissance paintings in Casaubon’s house: “severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities.” That makes me laugh every time. 

Later in the book, Lydgate meets Dorothea, but finds her to be not his sort. 

To his taste, guided by a single conversation, here was the point on which Miss Brooke would be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. She did not look at things from the proper feminine angle. The society of such women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second form, instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and blue eyes for a heaven. 

Obviously, this is as laughably naive as Dorothea’s belief that Casaubon would accept her as an equal partner in his work. Ironically, Lydgate and Dorothea would have made the best match, in my view. If only his male ego had been up to the task of partnering with a formidable and intelligent woman, the two of them might have fulfilled both their dreams. Instead, Dorothea ends up with Mr. Casaubon, who himself has rather retrograde views of women. This passage is just amazingly perceptive - and discloses the way far too many men still think of women and marriage. 

Providence, in its kindness, had supplied him with the wife he needed. A wife, a modest young lady, with the purely appreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think her husband’s mind powerful. Whether Providence had taken equal care of Miss Brooke in presenting her with Mr. Casaubon was an idea which could hardly occur to him. Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife’s husband! Or as if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own person!

He is as naive as Lydgate in his own way - Dorothea is a far more formidible intellect than he bargained for; and, while she is sweet and devoted, she needs love and respect, which he fails or even declines to give her. 

Rosamond is quite the different creature from Dorothea. Educated in a finishing school to within an inch of her life, she is one who seems rather than is.

Every nerve in muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts that entered into her physique: she acted her own character, and so well, that she did not know it to be her own.

Later, Rosamond kisses up to Lydgate’s rich relatives, much to the irritation of Lydgate. His army cousin is particularly stupid and flirtatious. Eliot wryly remarks that “but to most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable--else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?”

The disillusionment, when it comes, is horrifying to the two men. Eliot describes Casaubon’s realization that Dorothea doesn’t just adore him uncritically. She too is human, and responds accordingly to disrespect and neglect. 

There was no denying that Dorothea was as virtuous and lovely a young lady as he could have obtained for a wife; but a young lady turned out to be something more troublesome than he had conceived. She nursed him, she read to him, she anticipated his wants, and was solicitous about his feelings; but there had entered into the husband’s mind the certainty that she judged him, and that her wifely devotedness was like a penitential expiation of unbelieving thoughts--was accompanied with a power of comparison by which himself and his doings were seen too luminously as a part of things in general. 

…

And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--his suspicions that he was not any longer adored without criticism--could have denied that they were founded on good reasons? On the contrary, there was a strong reason to be added, which he had not himself taken explicitly into account--namely, that he was not unmixedly adorable. He suspected this, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, and like the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have a companion who would never find it out.

That’s just a tour-de-force of psychological analysis. These are real, human, believable characters. Sadly, Casaubon is never able to simply treat Dorothea as an equal, and speak intimately with her. Every time she lets her feelings show, he withdraws and punishes her. He becomes “hard,” as the author puts it. 

Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm to cling with difficulty against his rigid arm.

There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which this unresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word, but not too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever 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 own denial knowledge. 

Eliot is one hundred percent right when she says that it is in the trivialities that relationships are destroyed. It is the proverbial straw - the weight of thousands of straws - that makes happiness and consonance impossible. I can say from experience in my professional life that more marriages die because of the cumulative effect of “hardness” than any other factor. This isn’t a gender thing - it happens both ways. At best, it is a refusal to consider the needs of the other spouse; in some ways, it is a form of emotional abuse. It happens in other relationships too, of course, and I would guess that most severed or damaged parent-child relationships will have this as a crucial element as well. Eventually, Casaubon becomes so paranoid that he tries to bully Dorothea. 

“Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea.”

“What is it?” said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.

“It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case of my death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid doing what I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I should desire.”

Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading her to the conjecture of some intention on her husband’s part which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.
“You refuse?” said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.

“No, I do not yet refuse,” said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need of freedom asserting himself within her; “but it is too solemn--I think it is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant what it will bind me to. Whatever affection prompted I would do without promising.”

“But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine; you refuse.”

“No, dear, no!” said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears. “But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge suddenly--still less a pledge to do I know not what.”

Sadly, she is on the verge of agreeing anyway, when he dies. And fucking good riddance. He had some of my sympathy up until that moment, when he got full-on abusive. And it is abusive to demand that someone promise to do what you order them to do, without knowing what it is. And it is also abusive to try to bind someone beyond your own death. 

The situation with Lydgate and Rosamond is similar, although it is Rosamond who brutally punishes her husband for trying to get her to work with him as a team. One is left wondering how different things would have been with a bit of honest communication. Actually, come to think of it, the Garths do that - they may not always agree, but they communicate with love and respect.  

One of my favorite minor characters is Mr. Farebrother, a vicar. His interest isn’t really that much in his job - although he does work at it. He prefers his scientific experiments and his garden. Since he has several female relatives to support, he plays whist for money. As one of the more moderate religious sorts, he ends up being the most admirable of the clergymen, ironically. I mention him in this instance, to quote his mother, who gets into an exchange with Lydgate because she does not support any sort of change, including reform. 

“I object to what is wrong, Camden. 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 Prayer-book itself, you are liable to be contradicted.” 

Mrs. Farebrother is pretty harmless, to be sure. But danged if I haven’t had this used as a weapon against me a few times. This idea that the past was a utopia is ludicrous on its face, as is the idea that everyone agreed. But “we knew the truth, every new idea is heresy” is pretty much the Fundamentalist credo, and justifies preserving the hierarchies and injustices and superstitions of the past. 

Not as harmless as Mrs. Farebrother is Bulstrode, whose militant Puritanism combines with his “sharp” business practices as banker to earn the suspicion of his neighbors. When Lydgate shows up, it is rumored that he is an illegitimate son of Bulstrode. When Rev. Farebrother points out to his mother that Lydgate has family elsewhere and never met Bulstrode, she retorts:

“That is satisfactory so far as Mr. Lydgate is concerned, Camden,” said the old lady, with an air of precision. “But as to Bulstrode--the report may be true of some other son.”

In the actual event, the truth turns out to be even worse than an illegitimate son. (I won’t spoil it.)

Men in general do not come off all that well in this book, although there is one notable exception: Caleb Garth, who is patterned after Eliot’s own father. The two men who die leaving money are particularly loathsome in their use of money to control people after their death. Old Peter Featherstone has essentially strung Fred along with promises of an inheritance before changing his mind at the end. Eliot has no difficulty speaking evil of the dead. 

He loved money, but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, and perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel his power more or less uncomfortably. If any one here will contend that there must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not presume to deny this; but I must observe that 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, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance. 

I can think of a few people who fit this description. (Cough, cough, Trump, cough, cough…) Whatever good there theoretically may have been once has been killed by a lifetime of vice. 

Mr. Vincy is rather more comic, but he too shares the flaw of most of the men in the book in that they expect to be in charge and looked up to even when they clearly have not earned it. 

Apart from his dinners and his coursing, Mr. Vincy, blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had been a prime minister: the force of circumstances was easily too much for him, as it is for most pleasure-loving florid men; and the circumstances called Rosamond was particularly forcible by means of that mild persistence which, as we know, enables a white soft living substance to make its way in spite of opposing rock. 

The political element of the book centers, as I noted, on the Reform Bill. Dorothea chooses not to focus on the politics (at least early in the book), in part because she sees so much to be done locally. Her uncle, Mr. Brooke, has tenants, yet he fails to maintain and upgrade his houses and fields for their benefit. Dorothea points out to him that his idea of running for parliament on a pro-Reform platform is hypocritical if he won’t do the good he can where he is. 

“I used to come from the village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and all the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in what is false, while we don’t mind how hard the truth is for the neighbours outside our walls. I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.”

Dorothea is partly right. To the degree she is right, she is stating the one single true criticism conservatives make of liberals: all too often they can ignore the injustice in their own neighborhoods. But Dorothea is also half wrong. Individuals can and should do good in their personal lives, but true social reform requires those “wider changes” and can only be enforced against evil, greedy people (such as Featherstone) with the force of government. I may (and do) give to private charity, but even if I gave all I have, I would make little dent in providing meaningful healthcare to the millions who go without due to our cruel policies. (Which are rooted in racism and social darwinism…) Both approaches are necessary, but individual effort is both worthwhile and grossly insufficient. 

Mr. Brooke does, however, find that his own opinion of himself is not shared by his tenants. In this, Dorothea is quite correct: he needs to tend his own garden, so to speak. 

He walked out of the yard as quickly as he could, in some amazement at the novelty of his situation. He had never been insulted on his own land before, and had been inclined to regard himself as a general favourite (we are all apt to do so, when we think of our own amiability more than of what other people are likely to want of us.)

Eliot is correct that all of us are subject to this to some degree. In the age of Trump, I think I have seen it most clearly in the response of Baby Boomer Evangelicals to the unpleasant experience of being called out on their racism. And on the way certain family members have responded when it turns out that they made themselves so unpleasant that they find themselves alone. It is nice, I suppose, to spend much of one’s life with the illusion that one is an amiable person, and never have to actually make the effort to be so. 

The chapter headings all have quotes. Often, these are from Eliot herself, in the form of poetry. Other times, they are quotations from other authors. I was particularly struck by this one from Sir Thomas Browne. 

It is the humour of many heads to extol the days of their forefathers, and declaim against the wickedness of times present. Which notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do, without the borrowed help and satire of times past; condemning the vices of their own times, by the expressions of vices in times which they commend, which cannot but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal, and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate and point at our times.

There is a doozy in there when it comes to my Fundamentalist Cult experience. The whole premise of it was that things (and people) were better back in the old days, so if we just returned to the culture and hierarchies of the (white) past, everything would be better. But the evils they decried existed in plenty in the past too, and the so-called “prophets” they love foretold nothing - they were just screaming about how bad racial and gender equality were. Furthermore, the past was not better anyway. It just gave more power to people like them. 

Sir Thomas Browne, by the way, wrote that in the middle of the 17th Century. As in, nearly 400 years ago. Things haven’t changed - the retrograde reactionaries of any age sound exactly the same. 

Speaking of things that are older than one expects, how about this one? 

The trash talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate...

Wait, what?? That is indeed a reference to “talking trash.” Which apparently they were doing back in 1871. I had never seen a reference to trash talk that far back, so who knew?

Going back the religious issue, Eliot puts some interesting words in Dorothea’s mouth. Eliot herself was not religious - and considering the fury her relationship with her lover brought, it isn’t that surprising she wasn’t into it. She did, however, respect religion, granting that when done right, it helped to moderate and regulate society in positive ways. After Casaubon’s death, Dorothea has the legal right (based on property) to appoint his successor in the parish. On advice from Lydgate, she appoints Farebrother - who also happens to reflect her own gentle and aspirational Christianity. Certainly, Farebrother suits her more than Bulstrode’s favorite, Mr. Tyke, and his Calvinist sermonizing. 

“It is hard to imagine what sort of notions our farmers and labourers get from their teaching. I have been looking into a volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would be of no use at Lowick--I mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies in the Apocalypse. 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.” 

This reflects my own frustration with Evangelicalism, which is obsessed with theories of atonement, the End Times™, and excluding as many people as possible. My journey out of that moral cesspit has been to a large degree trying to find a way that makes Christianity a force for wide blessing for everyone, not violence toward those outside the tribe. 

I do think that Calvinism is the worst of the worst - and Eliot (dang, isn’t she prescient?) nails it again.

He [Bulstrode] was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may be held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a measure of the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching proof that we are peculiar instruments of the divine intention.

This explains how the people I know who care most deeply about “total depravity” and “completely unearned grace” are also the exact same people who are the most cruel to others in their political beliefs. Eliot explains, I think, how one can believe in total depravity while being horribly self-righteous and convinced that those other people totally deserve their suffering. 

While Bulstrode (mostly) gets his just deserts, the one thing the novel doesn’t really satisfactorily resolve is the problem of Dorothea. She still desires to manage her own life, and her own property. But in the end, she ends up in another marriage, and must content herself with a husband and children - the conventional ending. To be sure, Will Ladislaw isn’t abusive - he seems like a nice enough guy. And in the epilogue, it appears he makes a decent go of it in politics (with a lot of support from the faithful Dorothea.) But Eliot refuses to pretend this is idea. She is intellectually superior to Will - that is clear enough. And she has enough ambition for two of them. It feels like a letdown by 21st Century standards. 

I can’t help but feel that times are better now for women like Dorothea. My own wife is definitely more ambitious than I am, which is why her career is on a higher trajectory. I am content to do my work for clients and aim for justice in small things. I’ll never be rich, but I am fulfilled for the most part with what I do. She is management, and intends in a few years to complete her Nurse Practitioner license. Fortunately, she doesn’t find me to be a disappointment. But there is a place for women like that in today’s society, certainly more than in the Victorian Era, and she is able to follow her calling in a way Dorothea never can. 

One final bit of humor, after all that seriousness. Mary Garth is in love with Fred Vincy, and their courtship is pretty amusing. She has quite the tongue, but she is clearly good for him. When she asks her father to bless the union, after she has basically proposed (like my wife did first, btw…), she has this to say about why she loves Fred:

“Oh dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding anyone else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.”

 And that, I suppose, is as good of a line as any. Mary assumes a level of intimacy and communication with Fred - which they certainly have - is a good basis for a marriage. And it is, really. In contrast to the other marriages, this one has promise, because it is founded on a mutuality, a high degree of love, respect, and good humor. 

I will say, I greatly enjoyed reading Middlemarch. Eliot is sometimes forgotten in our time and day, the greatest female novelist of the era, and one of the all time greats. Middlemarch is not exactly like any of the other novels of hers I have read - but each has been unique. This one is as good of a place to start as any, although Silas Marner has the advantage of being shorter, for those intimidated by long books. 

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Source of book: I own this. My wife found a hardback Everyman’s Library edition at a library sale for me.

This book was the August selection for the Reading To Know book club, but it took a bit longer than that to read. Here are the other reviews:

Carrie

Sky

Barbara

Heather

I would imagine most of us read Silas Marner as part of our assigned reading in high school. That was my introduction to George Eliot. I later read The Mill on the Floss, which has some autobiographical elements.

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. She also went by Marian and Mary Anne at various times, but decided to write under a man’s name so that her novels would be taken seriously and not pigeonholed into the light romantic fluff associated with female writers. (A version of this prejudice continues today, of course.)

Eliot was considered to be rather unattractive, even at a young age, but was highly intelligent and a voracious reader. Her parents thus decided that an advantageous marriage was unlikely, and invested in her education. Like Christina Rossetti and Anne Bradstreet, she was able to gain an education unusual for women of the time.

George Eliot circa 1860, by Samuel Laurence. This is the most flattering picture of her I could find.

True to the expectation, she stayed home and kept house for her father from the death of her mother when she was sixteen until his death when she was thirty. After a year abroad, she returned to England and edited a political journal for several years.

In 1854, at age thirty-five, she began a relationship with George Henry Lewes, which was to last for the next twenty years until his death.

The problem was, Lewes was already married. He had an open marriage, and his wife had several children by another man. Since he knew of that affair, he lacked grounds to divorce her. She likewise, could not divorce him, because adultery wasn’t grounds for a woman to get a divorce, so they just went their separate ways. (For more peculiar rules regarding divorce in the Victorian and earlier eras, see my post on domestic violence.) So, Lewes and Eliot couldn’t marry. Had they lived a century later, they would have been able to marry, and thus avoid the stigma.

Now, having a longstanding affair like this was actually fairly commonplace in the Victorian Era. It wasn’t even all that scandalous if a man had a mistress. It was rather expected. But, a man had to be discreet. He should pretend the other woman didn’t exist. Lewes and Eliot made the social mistake of being open about their relationship. (Keep this thought in mind, because it becomes a key plot point.)

Daniel Deronda was Eliot’s last book. While Middlemarch is generally considered to be her masterpiece, there are many who make the argument in favor of Daniel Deronda. Since I have not read Middlemarch yet, I cannot weigh in. I can, however, highly recommend Daniel Deronda.

My edition of this book is 900 pages long. I am reasonably used to long books. I have read several over 500 pages this year. However, August was a busy month for me, and I got behind. It took a while to get through it.

Even by Victorian standards, this isn’t a short book. I believe one of the main reasons for this is that Eliot combined two books into one.

On the one hand, this is a tragedy. The tragedy of Gwendolyn Harleth, who marries for money against her conscience and better judgment, and pays (most) of the consequences, before being rescued by a deux ex machina at the end.

The other half of the tale is one of self-discovery by the title character and his eventual romance with the beautiful Jewess, Mirah Lapidoth.

Both plots tie together pretty well, but either could have stood alone - particularly the first one.

Gwendolyn is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating female protagonists in Victorian literature. One of the clues as to Eliot’s gender is that she is far harsher to Gwendolyn than any male Victorian author could be. Her faults are not excused, but are dwelt on, and not lovingly. Still, Eliot makes her just sympathetic enough that she isn’t a villain. She is irritatingly entitled and egoistic, but one still doesn’t wish terrible things on her. And she certainly finds herself in an awkward position without a clear good choice.

Stunningly beautiful, and reasonably witty, she is expected by all to make an advantageous marriage. Sure, she is a bit full of herself, and her tongue has an acid edge, but she is young, and will presumably improve with a little age.

Two problems, though, interfere. First, she fears the dependency that marriage will bring. She has no intention of being ruled by a man. (Her mother’s unhappy second marriage gives her pretty good reason for anxiety.)

Second, her family loses its fortune. It wasn’t a big fortune to start with, but now she becomes responsible for the financial fortunes of her family. Her uncle the clergyman generously helps with their support, but he doesn’t have that much to share. Her mother intends to do some sewing for the little it will bring in, but it is Gwendolyn who is expected to become a governess until her great beauty snares an appropriately wealthy man.

Gwendolyn is not eager to submit to the role of governess, though. She has never been raised with employment in mind, and her proud spirit recoils at having to take orders.

“As to the sweetness of labour and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry...these, even if they had been eloquently preached to her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines…”

This is an interesting mirror image of Eliot’s own experience. She was “ugly” and therefore was raised with the idea that she would have to find employment, income, and satisfaction in working with her hands or brains.

Perhaps this might have lent the bitter edge to her portrayal of Gwendolyn.

Enter Henleigh Grandcourt.

(Side note: I love the way this name rolls off the tongue. I am reminded of a similarly stuffy British name in the character of Heneage Dundas - a minor character in Patrick O’Brian’s books.)

Grandcourt is blessed with, not one, but two likely inheritances. He got his father’s property, of course. He is also in line to receive the property of his uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger (another delightful character), who had the misfortune to have only daughters. This is a source of distress to the good-natured, if a bit clueless Sir Hugo, as his own family will be relatively impoverished while his nephew receives nearly everything.

Grandcourt takes a liking to Gwendolyn, and seems on the verge of proposing, when Gwendolyn makes an unpleasant discovery.

Grandcourt has another family already. In his younger years, he took up with the wife of an Irish military officer. She left her husband because he was abusive; so, by comparison, Grandcourt seemed like a welcome change, even if they couldn’t marry. (Again, enter those Victorian marriage laws: abuse was not grounds for a woman to obtain a divorce. Her husband could have divorced her due to her adultery, but chose not to out of spite.) So, Grandcourt never does marry Lydia, his mistress, but they have children together.

Gwendolyn meets Lydia and learns all, and essentially promises not to marry Grandcourt. Her prospective poverty, however, overcomes her scruples, and she marries Grandcourt. First and foremost, because she realizes this is the way she is expected to rescue her family (and, let it be said, herself) from poverty.

This is where the sexual politics get interesting. Grandcourt is in a position of power. He has a vast current and prospective fortune, which he has and will receive solely because he is male. Gwendolyn is impoverished. So, she already owes him big time.

Grandcourt isn’t a benevolent dictator either. He gets off on controlling others, and Gwendolyn is simply his latest pet. She is beautiful arm-candy, and he knows that he can get her to do whatever he wants. In fact, her resistance to his control makes his success all the sweeter.

I was reminded a bit of another written a decade later by George Meredith. I am determined that all of my children read The Egoist before they marry. Actually, anyone enamored of Victorian era marriage should read it. In that book, which is humorous where Daniel Deronda is dark, the wealthy and highly eligible Sir Willoughby sees woman as a mirror for himself to gaze in and see his own views and opinions reflected back. It is all about him, and women are just commodities in which he can revel: they confirm his high opinion of himself.

Where Willoughby is laughably clueless, but completely non-malicious, Grandcourt is truly malevolent. He “prefers command to love,” as Eliot puts it.

His behavior is never violent - or even outwardly angry. To an outsider, Gwendolyn even has a “good” marriage. But Grandcourt is undeniably abusive to her. He has the power, and enjoys bullying her. And, under the laws she lives under, she has no options. To leave would mean an even worse poverty, as her disgrace would prevent employment - except as a prostitute. And then, her family would suffer as well.

Even worse for Gwendolyn is her guilt concerning Lydia. She knows she has wronged her, but cannot at this point make things right. As Eliot puts it, the Furies have entered her marriage and pursued her. In her despair, she turns to Deronda for advice as to how to become a better person.

Who is Daniel Deronda? That is a question not answered until near the end of the novel. Deronda has been raised by Sir Hugo, who has never revealed his parentage. Everyone, including Deronda himself, suspects that he is Sir Hugo’s illegitimate son, but only Sir Hugo knows.

In the meantime, while he decides what he intends to do with himself for the rest of his life (he has a little income from those mysterious parents), he ends up rescuing Mirah from a suicide attempt. She has fled her abusive father, who attempted to sell her into prostitution, and had been looking for her mother and brother, who she hasn’t seen since she was a very small child.

Deronda locates the brother (the mother is long dead) by a series of coincidences, and becomes friends with him.

While this part of the plot is less convincing that the other, it contains some very interesting ideas. First of all, Eliot introduces the idea of Zionism - the quest to re-establish the nation of Israel - at a time when it was fairly new to non-Jews in Europe. I was a bit surprised to find it here. I was not surprised to find descriptions of anti-Semitism as it existed in Europe.

In the light of subsequent events, it was a bit jarring to see a note of optimism about the acceptance of Jews in Germany, to be sure. Eliot could not have foreseen the Holocaust, but details of her descriptions look prophetic in retrospect. (This would be an interesting future post. The connection of the Holocaust to millennia of anti-Semitism in Europe. Also the unfair portrayal of Nietzsche as a proto-Nazi and the whitewashing of Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic views in certain right-wing circles. I’ll think about it.)

There are also a few mentions of the Kabbalah, the Jewish version of mysticism. If you are interested in further fictional reading in this regard, I highly recommend the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer (not to be confused with Isaac Singer, the sewing machine magnate.)  

The two plots come together at a few crucial points. One is the contrast between Gwendolyn’s self absorption and Deronda’s compassion. She thinks nearly entirely of herself (and a little of her mother). Deronda is easily caught up in the emotion of empathy for those less fortunate - even Gwendolyn.

There is also the contrast between Gwendolyn, who fears work, and fears even more being subservient to anyone, with the Meyricks, who take in Mirah despite their own poverty. Gwendolyn has difficulty imagining life outside her privileged bubble, and it is only through Deronda’s encouragement that she is finally able to look outside herself.

I really wish I had the time and space to quote extensively from this book. There really are great lines throughout - often many on one page. From the opening scene with its description of wealthy gamblers (which could be a modern description of gamblers at Las Vegas, minus a little of the glitz), to the many potent zingers against social hypocrisy.

Particularly pricking are the ones on class and gender relations.

For example, in the description of Gwendolyn’s aunt, “Many of her opinions, such as those on church government and the character of Archbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been arrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness.”

Or, of Grandcourt, “was good-looking, of sound constitution, virtuous or at least reformed…” Yes, a woman must be unstained and pure. A man can settle for “reformed” provided he has a nice little income.

Or the later observation that “Gwendolyn’s view of her position might easily have been no other than that her husband’s marriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while [Lydia] Glasher represented his forsaken sin.”

Perhaps Gwendolyn’s flippant remark to Grandcourt, laced with more truth than she intends to share:

“We women can’t go in search of adventures - to find out the North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about why some of them have got poisonous.”

Eliot plays more on this idea through the character of Deronda’s mother, who was forced by a domineering father into a marriage she did not desire. The pressure to be the good girl eventually overwhelmed her, leaving havoc behind.

Or maybe Eliot’s biting aside after Sir Hugo lightly dismisses the importance of birth in determining success, “as men after dining well often agree that the good of life is distributed with wonderful equality.” Touché.

This, contrasted with Deronda’s observation about wealth. “[I am] not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than he needs for himself.”

I might also go with Eliot’s perceptive notice that gambling is a refuge from dullness and boredom. (Ever watch a bingo game at a senior center? Just a little scary.)

“I don’t admit the justification,” said Deronda [to Gwendolyn]. “I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how could any one find an intense interest in life? And many do.”

I also loved Deronda’s comment that age or novelty by itself should not be an argument for or against anything. Fashions - and ideas - must be weighed on their own merits, and not rejected or accepted just because of the comfort of habit or the thrill of the new.

Also, the exchange between Mrs. Meyrick and her outspoken daughter Kate.

“I notice mothers are like the people I deal with - the girls’ doings are always priced low.”

“My dear child, the boys are such a trouble - we should never put up with them, if we didn’t make believe they were worth more.”

It was also fun to learn a new word: calignosity. Calignous is “misty, dim; obscure, dark.” In context, Deronda prefers that he not know his origins, preferring “cheerful calignosity.” I love that.

Finally, I must note some great observations regarding music. Deronda attends a Jewish service, and is carried away by the power of the liturgy, even though he cannot understand it.

That “strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning - like the effect of an Allegri’s Miserere or a Palestrina’s Magnificat. The most powerful movement of a feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of gladness, a Gloria in excelsis that such Good exists; both the yearning and the exultation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long generations of struggling fellow-men.”

Yes. A thousand times yes! If you have never experienced this, I pity you.

The most I can do is to introduce you to the two masterworks of the Renaissance era cited above. You can (and should be able to) enjoy and understand both without knowing the text. But, for the record, the Miserere is Psalm 51, written by King David after getting called on his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband. (The text accompanies the music in this clip.)

The Magnificat is the song of the Virgin Mary from the Gospel of Luke, after she is told she will give birth to Christ. 

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded : the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him : throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever. (translation from The Book of Common Prayer)

I’ll end with Deronda’s view of the place of music in the soul. Gwendolyn has given up singing after a true musician tells her she lacks the skill to be a professional. She rejects Deronda’s proposal she take it up again for pleasure and for the good it will do her.

“I don’t feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own middlingness.”

“For my part,” said Deronda, “people who do anything finely always inspirit me to try. I don’t mean that they make me believe I can do it as well. But they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be done. I can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world would be more dismal if I thought music itself not good for much. Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.”

“But then if we can’t imitate it? - it only makes our own life seem the tamer,” said Gwendolyn, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on her own insignificance.

“That depends on the point of view, I think,” said Deronda. “We should have a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our own performances. “

This is encouraging to me. I know the limitations of my own ability all too well, and it falls short of the perfection I desire. But excellence is worth pursuing for its own sake.

Anyway, I loved this book, and highly recommend it. Eliot is psychologically astute, and the conversations seem as if they could be from our own time, even though the institutions have changed. The main weaknesses are typical of the Victorian era: a sentimental ending, a too-neat resolution, a death from consumption, and the conformity at the end to the “damsel in distress” view of gender roles. Once one acknowledges the need to adhere to certain elements of the formula to sell books, one can enjoy Eliot’s solid command of narrative, pacing, and especially the language, which is rich and yet easily comprehensible.

Note on the Furies:

The Furies, also known as the Erinyes, were a group of female underworld deities in Greek mythology. (Eventually, it became common to refer to three of them.) They were goddesses of vengeance, pursuing those who did wrong, particularly those who broke oaths. They figure prominently in Aeschylus’ play cycle, the Oresteia, in which they relentlessly pursue the protagonists in vengeance for the ongoing blood feud within the family of Agamemnon.

They are thus fitting in this book, as they pursue Gwendolyn, who has broken her oath to Lydia.

The Remorse of Orestes or Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1862 by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. I wonder if this painting partially inspired Eliot’s use in this book. It predated the book by just a few years.