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Scenes of Clerical Life #1-3
Scenes of Clerical Life
When Scenes of Clerical Life, Eliot's first work of fiction, first appeared in print anonymously in 1857, critics immediately hailed it for its humorous irony, the truthfulness of its presentation of the lives of ordinary men and women, and its compassionate acceptance of human weakness. The three stories that comprise the volume foreshadow Eliot's greatest work, and an acquaintance with them is essential to a full understanding of one of the greatest English novelists.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1857
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About the author
George Eliot
3,157 books4,980 followersMary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
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June 17, 2019
“It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbor is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.”
Eliot uses her characteristic empathy to look behind the “scenes of clerical life” portrayed in this volume. She tells three stories, connected in that they take place in and around the fictional English town of Milby and each concerns a certain Anglican clergyman whose religious views are under criticism.
In “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” we watch the Reverend picked apart by his parishioners, and then see how his good deeds lead to misfortune. It is unsparingly tragic.
“Mr Gilfil’s Love-Story” is also sad, but is more high romance than tragedy, full of chivalry and unselfish passion.
The culmination is reached in “Janet’s Repentance.” By this time your heart has been pummeled by the first two “scenes,” and you are ready for a happy ending. But Eliot, true to form, has created a real life heroine and hero. They struggle with their own “sins” and their purgatory is harrowing, but this final installment ends with a beautiful triumph of the soul.
Each story has a long, drawn-out build up, and a couple of times I was confused by the timeframe or narrative point of view. Otherwise I found them gorgeous, dense, and moving, and I loved all three.
I can’t resist a few more thoughts …
Have you ever received a gift box that you thought contained one item but turned out to have multiple extra gifts tucked under the wrapping? That’s what a George Eliot story is like. You think it is one gift, but when you open it, you realize it’s overflowing with extra little surprise gems. And I could say that reading this book took effort, but that would be like complaining about the trouble it takes to unwrap all those extra gifts. Like almost missing one of hidden items in the gift package, as I read, I often thought, “Oh, that sentence! And I almost read too fast and missed its impact!”
Here’s an example of one such loaded sentence:
“I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind’s eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight.”
Not the fastest reading, right? But worth it, don’t you think?
I also kept thinking of the Virginia Woolf quote that Eliot’s Middlemarch was “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” which I believe applies to all of Eliot’s work. What does Woolf mean by this? One possibility is that being a grown-up is about handling the truth: things don’t happen the way you plan; everyone dies; people are more complicated than you think they are. Eliot is particularly good at that last one.
A quote from the author presented in the introduction may provide the key to her grown-up, empathetic style. In a letter to a friend, she wrote, “…our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.”
Each of the stories in this book was about unique and specific individuals. Each surprised me. And maybe they helped me to grow up just a little bit more.
Eliot uses her characteristic empathy to look behind the “scenes of clerical life” portrayed in this volume. She tells three stories, connected in that they take place in and around the fictional English town of Milby and each concerns a certain Anglican clergyman whose religious views are under criticism.
In “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” we watch the Reverend picked apart by his parishioners, and then see how his good deeds lead to misfortune. It is unsparingly tragic.
“Mr Gilfil’s Love-Story” is also sad, but is more high romance than tragedy, full of chivalry and unselfish passion.
The culmination is reached in “Janet’s Repentance.” By this time your heart has been pummeled by the first two “scenes,” and you are ready for a happy ending. But Eliot, true to form, has created a real life heroine and hero. They struggle with their own “sins” and their purgatory is harrowing, but this final installment ends with a beautiful triumph of the soul.
Each story has a long, drawn-out build up, and a couple of times I was confused by the timeframe or narrative point of view. Otherwise I found them gorgeous, dense, and moving, and I loved all three.
I can’t resist a few more thoughts …
Have you ever received a gift box that you thought contained one item but turned out to have multiple extra gifts tucked under the wrapping? That’s what a George Eliot story is like. You think it is one gift, but when you open it, you realize it’s overflowing with extra little surprise gems. And I could say that reading this book took effort, but that would be like complaining about the trouble it takes to unwrap all those extra gifts. Like almost missing one of hidden items in the gift package, as I read, I often thought, “Oh, that sentence! And I almost read too fast and missed its impact!”
Here’s an example of one such loaded sentence:
“I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind’s eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight.”
Not the fastest reading, right? But worth it, don’t you think?
I also kept thinking of the Virginia Woolf quote that Eliot’s Middlemarch was “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” which I believe applies to all of Eliot’s work. What does Woolf mean by this? One possibility is that being a grown-up is about handling the truth: things don’t happen the way you plan; everyone dies; people are more complicated than you think they are. Eliot is particularly good at that last one.
A quote from the author presented in the introduction may provide the key to her grown-up, empathetic style. In a letter to a friend, she wrote, “…our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.”
Each of the stories in this book was about unique and specific individuals. Each surprised me. And maybe they helped me to grow up just a little bit more.
June 23, 2017
While the first story in this collection would only garner a 3.5 rating from me, the other two more than make up for it and thus find me giving the book a firm 5-stars.
This is not technically a novel, but a collection of three stories that are all centered around the clergy in the same area of Milby and Shepperton, England. We meet, and are told the stories of, three separate clergyman who serve the district at separate times.
The first story is titled, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton , and his fortunes are indeed sad. I liked the story and caught glimpses of George Eliot’s masterful style, but I never felt overly attached to any of the characters and did not relate on an emotional level. Here is the shadow of greater things to come, I thought.
The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way imagined to ourselves.
Little did I know that the greater things were to be found in the second story of the series, Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story . Here is a man who did touch and pull at my heartstrings. Here is a story with depth and meaning, that keeps you captivated beginning to end. I could feel George Eliot blossoming as she wrote. Maynard Gilfil is one of the finest and sweetest characters in Eliot’s fine fiction.
But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty…
And, finally, the crowning glory is Janet’s Repentance , a story of reclamation and salvation and hope. This one brought me to tears, for I could not fail to feel Janet’s desperation and Mr. Tryan’s martyrdom at the hands of a society that purposely failed to appreciate or understand him. There is a sweetness and a sense of feeling that permeates this story that reminded me of why I loved The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch so much. There is moral instruction, without preaching, and there is example that is uplifting and yet ever human.
It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are coldly discussing a man’s career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labeling his opinions--’he is Evangelical and narrow’, or ‘Latitudinarian and Pantheistic’ or ‘Anglican and supercilious’--that man, in his solitude, is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one, because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult word, and do the difficult deed.
Could we not all take a lesson from that passage. Do unto others.
...everywhere there come sweet flowers without our foresight or labour. We reap what we sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit that spring from no planting of ours.
And finally:
They might give piety to much that was only puritanic egoism; they might call many things sin that were not sin; but they had at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided and resisted, and colour-blindness, which many mistake drab for scarlet, is better than total blindness, which sees no distinction of colour at all.
I am happiest when I close a book and feel that I have something worthwhile and meaningful to take away, that the impact is not temporary and will last, perhaps forever, in the part of the soul that craves instruction. Today I am happy.
This is not technically a novel, but a collection of three stories that are all centered around the clergy in the same area of Milby and Shepperton, England. We meet, and are told the stories of, three separate clergyman who serve the district at separate times.
The first story is titled, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton , and his fortunes are indeed sad. I liked the story and caught glimpses of George Eliot’s masterful style, but I never felt overly attached to any of the characters and did not relate on an emotional level. Here is the shadow of greater things to come, I thought.
The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way imagined to ourselves.
Little did I know that the greater things were to be found in the second story of the series, Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story . Here is a man who did touch and pull at my heartstrings. Here is a story with depth and meaning, that keeps you captivated beginning to end. I could feel George Eliot blossoming as she wrote. Maynard Gilfil is one of the finest and sweetest characters in Eliot’s fine fiction.
But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty…
And, finally, the crowning glory is Janet’s Repentance , a story of reclamation and salvation and hope. This one brought me to tears, for I could not fail to feel Janet’s desperation and Mr. Tryan’s martyrdom at the hands of a society that purposely failed to appreciate or understand him. There is a sweetness and a sense of feeling that permeates this story that reminded me of why I loved The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch so much. There is moral instruction, without preaching, and there is example that is uplifting and yet ever human.
It is apt to be so in this life, I think. While we are coldly discussing a man’s career, sneering at his mistakes, blaming his rashness, and labeling his opinions--’he is Evangelical and narrow’, or ‘Latitudinarian and Pantheistic’ or ‘Anglican and supercilious’--that man, in his solitude, is perhaps shedding hot tears because his sacrifice is a hard one, because strength and patience are failing him to speak the difficult word, and do the difficult deed.
Could we not all take a lesson from that passage. Do unto others.
...everywhere there come sweet flowers without our foresight or labour. We reap what we sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit that spring from no planting of ours.
And finally:
They might give piety to much that was only puritanic egoism; they might call many things sin that were not sin; but they had at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided and resisted, and colour-blindness, which many mistake drab for scarlet, is better than total blindness, which sees no distinction of colour at all.
I am happiest when I close a book and feel that I have something worthwhile and meaningful to take away, that the impact is not temporary and will last, perhaps forever, in the part of the soul that craves instruction. Today I am happy.
February 5, 2013
This collection of three stories, about the lives and work of clergymen in and near the small English town of Milby, was George Eliot’s first fictional work. As the Penguin Classics cover notes, it may seem odd that she chose church life for her stories, since she had broken with orthodox Christian belief some time earlier. After reading scholarly analyses of the Gospels, George Eliot had become convinced that they were essentially mythological stories. And, the introductory essay by David Lodge explains, this loss of belief led her to a stance of bold freethinking; she refused to attend church and for a time adopted a tone of confident secular scorn toward defenses of Christian faith.
There is none of that tone in the Clerical Life stories. They are, instead, beautiful stories of compassion and kindness, in which the church figures are more often portrayed sympathetically than otherwise. The plot of each can be told in a sentence. In the first story, the feelings of the parishioners toward their mediocre but well-meaning curate shift from laughing disregard to tender concern after calamity befalls his household. George Eliot had a rare power for making the commonplace moving and profound, and that power was already evident in this book.
If the plots are simple ones, Eliot’s purpose and message are somewhat less so. Two of the stories begin with energetic rifts in the community over some item of worship or church practice (e.g., Will the congregation sing a psalm or a more modern hymn for a newly married couple? Will Sunday evening lectures by the curate be tolerated? Will extemporaneous sermons in the evangelical style corrupt the congregation?). As people take sides against their neighbors over these issues, while giggling or sleeping through the sermons themselves, you the reader are lulled at first into imagining that Eliot’s project is a straightforward satire on the irrelevancy of much of what the Church does. It isn’t. Just as you’re chuckling or shaking your head at one of the characters along with the chorus of gossipy townspeople, something happens to jar you into recognition of a profound human need. And as your sympathy is awakened, so is the town’s; characters cast off their pettiness, and their better natures shine forth. Even the selfish and flawed characters reveal admirable capacities. You’re left regretting your own assumptions about the characters, having, as in Middlemarch, been taught a lesson by Eliot about hasty judgments.
What, then, is Eliot’s point about the Church? Why did she choose clerical life as the backdrop for her stories? My sense is that she’s conveying that, in the religion of humanity she’s espousing, Christian doctrine actually gets a lot of it right, and may be one of its best expressions. And by furnishing plentiful chances to serve others, life in a church community provides an avenue toward your own growth and fulfillment. It’s as if she’s saying that religious precepts, even if founded on mistaken beliefs, call us in the right direction for any kind of purposeful achievement in life: “No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.” Eliot’s claim for the mediocre curate in her first story is, at first, a modest one made with her characteristic gentle humor: by having the illusion that he is admired and doing much good, he is sustained to do a little good. By the end of the story, however, when he has unintentionally provided an occasion for his parishioners’ sympathy and generosity, he has done immense good.
Is there anything in Eliot’s writing relevant to today’s reader? If I were to describe my generation in broad terms, I would say that not many of us delve regularly into the Bible in search of enlightenment, yet we often still find ourselves drawn to church, especially as we reach parenting years. If this is a correct perception, then Eliot has a lot to say to us.
Even aside from its message, there is much to admire in Scenes of Clerical Life, especially if you enjoy Victorian literature. If the stories are not fast-paced, they are compelling, and told with an utter command of the English language that it is hard to find in today’s novels. Sentences go on for a paragraph, paragraphs go on for a page, but her prose throughout is lucid and elegant. I also especially enjoy her occasional interjections of dry but gentle humor. This is a good litmus test: if you find these two sentences delightful and amusing, you will probably like the book. If you find them annoying, it may not be for you. Passage #1: “Coffee despatched, the two young men walked out through the open window, and joined the ladies on the lawn, while Sir Christopher made his way to the library, solemnly followed by Rupert, his pet bloodhound, who, in his habitual place at the Baronet’s right hand, behaved with great urbanity during dinner; but when the cloth was drawn, invariably disappeared under the table, apparently regarding the claret-jug as a mere human weakness, which he winked at, but refused to sanction.” Passage #2: “The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently – by a remarkable approximation to human intelligence – finding great conversational resources in the change of weather.” I love the passages, and the book.
There is none of that tone in the Clerical Life stories. They are, instead, beautiful stories of compassion and kindness, in which the church figures are more often portrayed sympathetically than otherwise. The plot of each can be told in a sentence. In the first story, the feelings of the parishioners toward their mediocre but well-meaning curate shift from laughing disregard to tender concern after calamity befalls his household. George Eliot had a rare power for making the commonplace moving and profound, and that power was already evident in this book.
If the plots are simple ones, Eliot’s purpose and message are somewhat less so. Two of the stories begin with energetic rifts in the community over some item of worship or church practice (e.g., Will the congregation sing a psalm or a more modern hymn for a newly married couple? Will Sunday evening lectures by the curate be tolerated? Will extemporaneous sermons in the evangelical style corrupt the congregation?). As people take sides against their neighbors over these issues, while giggling or sleeping through the sermons themselves, you the reader are lulled at first into imagining that Eliot’s project is a straightforward satire on the irrelevancy of much of what the Church does. It isn’t. Just as you’re chuckling or shaking your head at one of the characters along with the chorus of gossipy townspeople, something happens to jar you into recognition of a profound human need. And as your sympathy is awakened, so is the town’s; characters cast off their pettiness, and their better natures shine forth. Even the selfish and flawed characters reveal admirable capacities. You’re left regretting your own assumptions about the characters, having, as in Middlemarch, been taught a lesson by Eliot about hasty judgments.
What, then, is Eliot’s point about the Church? Why did she choose clerical life as the backdrop for her stories? My sense is that she’s conveying that, in the religion of humanity she’s espousing, Christian doctrine actually gets a lot of it right, and may be one of its best expressions. And by furnishing plentiful chances to serve others, life in a church community provides an avenue toward your own growth and fulfillment. It’s as if she’s saying that religious precepts, even if founded on mistaken beliefs, call us in the right direction for any kind of purposeful achievement in life: “No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience: a principle of subordination, of self-mastery, has been introduced into his nature; he is no longer a mere bundle of impressions, desires, and impulses.” Eliot’s claim for the mediocre curate in her first story is, at first, a modest one made with her characteristic gentle humor: by having the illusion that he is admired and doing much good, he is sustained to do a little good. By the end of the story, however, when he has unintentionally provided an occasion for his parishioners’ sympathy and generosity, he has done immense good.
Is there anything in Eliot’s writing relevant to today’s reader? If I were to describe my generation in broad terms, I would say that not many of us delve regularly into the Bible in search of enlightenment, yet we often still find ourselves drawn to church, especially as we reach parenting years. If this is a correct perception, then Eliot has a lot to say to us.
Even aside from its message, there is much to admire in Scenes of Clerical Life, especially if you enjoy Victorian literature. If the stories are not fast-paced, they are compelling, and told with an utter command of the English language that it is hard to find in today’s novels. Sentences go on for a paragraph, paragraphs go on for a page, but her prose throughout is lucid and elegant. I also especially enjoy her occasional interjections of dry but gentle humor. This is a good litmus test: if you find these two sentences delightful and amusing, you will probably like the book. If you find them annoying, it may not be for you. Passage #1: “Coffee despatched, the two young men walked out through the open window, and joined the ladies on the lawn, while Sir Christopher made his way to the library, solemnly followed by Rupert, his pet bloodhound, who, in his habitual place at the Baronet’s right hand, behaved with great urbanity during dinner; but when the cloth was drawn, invariably disappeared under the table, apparently regarding the claret-jug as a mere human weakness, which he winked at, but refused to sanction.” Passage #2: “The rooks were cawing with many-voiced monotony, apparently – by a remarkable approximation to human intelligence – finding great conversational resources in the change of weather.” I love the passages, and the book.
November 7, 2019
I received this from Blog A Penguin in return for which we had to post a review on the Penguin blog (which is now defunct, I think). It was easy because I loved this book and it made me wonder why I waste my time reading some contemporary stuff - most of which never warrants re-reading like the classics do.
There was some silly stuff in the intro about Eliot being conflicted over her loss of faith and the clerical life she depicts - I don't see the problem. These are affectionate portraits of ordinary people and their faults and foibles, and there's nothing unkind or strident in any of it. Eliot wrote as Austen and Trollope did, with a gentle wit and clever satire, relying on the perspicacity of her readers to discern the issues that mattered. So she knows how the wife of Amos Bates is worn out by child-bearing; how the social strata of English country life could trifle with a foundling's heart and break it; and how the religious controversies of the day were all so much of a storm in a tea cup.
I loved these gentle stories and am sorry to come to the end of them. Maybe I should read Middlemarch again...
There was some silly stuff in the intro about Eliot being conflicted over her loss of faith and the clerical life she depicts - I don't see the problem. These are affectionate portraits of ordinary people and their faults and foibles, and there's nothing unkind or strident in any of it. Eliot wrote as Austen and Trollope did, with a gentle wit and clever satire, relying on the perspicacity of her readers to discern the issues that mattered. So she knows how the wife of Amos Bates is worn out by child-bearing; how the social strata of English country life could trifle with a foundling's heart and break it; and how the religious controversies of the day were all so much of a storm in a tea cup.
I loved these gentle stories and am sorry to come to the end of them. Maybe I should read Middlemarch again...
September 12, 2014
Eliot's first novel is more like three short stories thematically linked through religious examination, female prerogative and compassionate love. A way for the budding author to control the plots without getting lost and yet while reading the assured prose one doubts that a possible outcome. Eliot breathes such life into her characters, examining them in complex intellectual, spiritual and emotional terms, so much so that one is forced to admit our current fiction writers are all defeated by personal/political narcissism. The balance she finds between men and women, faith and reason, is so subtle and ambiguous that the work becomes nothing less than high-art and should be a template for how an artist engages with the world around them.
April 22, 2025
Edit: April 22, 2025. Funny! I read the first two novellas in April of 2024! Then went into a slump.
Editing to say I finished Janet's Repentance and while I had a hard time getting into it (the first 3 chapters), once it hit, it HITS! This ended up being my favorite of the collection with the first, Amos Barton, as my 2nd favorite.
4 stars to Amos Barton
4 stars to The Love Story of Mr. Gilfil
4.5 stars to Janet's Repentance
So overall I'd give 4.5 stars to the collection.
_________________
April 24, 2024
I'm going to dnf the last novella in this book and come back to it another time. My brain just doesn't want to read it right now. I'm feeling slumpy and instead of giving this collection of 3 novellas a lesser rating due to my slump, I'm going to rate it based on the two I did read.
Editing to say I finished Janet's Repentance and while I had a hard time getting into it (the first 3 chapters), once it hit, it HITS! This ended up being my favorite of the collection with the first, Amos Barton, as my 2nd favorite.
4 stars to Amos Barton
4 stars to The Love Story of Mr. Gilfil
4.5 stars to Janet's Repentance
So overall I'd give 4.5 stars to the collection.
_________________
April 24, 2024
I'm going to dnf the last novella in this book and come back to it another time. My brain just doesn't want to read it right now. I'm feeling slumpy and instead of giving this collection of 3 novellas a lesser rating due to my slump, I'm going to rate it based on the two I did read.
October 28, 2022
After reading Janet's Repentance I was compelled to read the first two stories and I think enjoyed them more because Eliot allowed more humour and gentleness, although the understanding and sensitivity she shows in her portrayal of domestic abuse in Janet's Repentance is very fine. Eliot's writing never disappoints me.
April 29, 2024
Granted, this isn’t probably as deserving of five stars as Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, The Mill on the Floss, or Romola (!), but it still gets the highest rating from me for its sheer delight, the charm of its Hardy-esque bucolic setting, and the undeniable emotional power and impact of George Eliot’s prose, albeit an early example of it, before she was truly writing at the height of her ability.
All three novellas included in this collection demonstrate a remarkable ability to draw the reader in, and George Eliot’s dialogue is already witty, pointed, lucid, and poignant. The self-realization and revelations the main characters undergo, and the remarkably relatable character arcs, particularly in “Janet’s Repentance,” are as good as anything GE writes later on, even though the shorter length of these stories prevents the depth of development that we see in GE’s later major works.
Mr Tryan is a new favourite character. After the parade of quirky, eccentric, pompous, hypocritical, hilarious, and downright evil clergymen of Austen, Dickens, Brontë, and Hardy, he is the humble, compassionate, long-suffering pastoral shepherd everyone would desire in their life—made gloriously ironic by Eliot’s own complicated personal history with Christianity and clergymen! Just goes to show what a genius she is…
A wonderful and highly recommended volume in the GE catalog—don’t miss this one just because its format and literary genre are different than her other works!
And as always, a huge thank-you to my GE buddy reading friends—you make my journey through her oeuvre so incredibly rewarding, rich, and personal! ❤️
All three novellas included in this collection demonstrate a remarkable ability to draw the reader in, and George Eliot’s dialogue is already witty, pointed, lucid, and poignant. The self-realization and revelations the main characters undergo, and the remarkably relatable character arcs, particularly in “Janet’s Repentance,” are as good as anything GE writes later on, even though the shorter length of these stories prevents the depth of development that we see in GE’s later major works.
Mr Tryan is a new favourite character. After the parade of quirky, eccentric, pompous, hypocritical, hilarious, and downright evil clergymen of Austen, Dickens, Brontë, and Hardy, he is the humble, compassionate, long-suffering pastoral shepherd everyone would desire in their life—made gloriously ironic by Eliot’s own complicated personal history with Christianity and clergymen! Just goes to show what a genius she is…
A wonderful and highly recommended volume in the GE catalog—don’t miss this one just because its format and literary genre are different than her other works!
And as always, a huge thank-you to my GE buddy reading friends—you make my journey through her oeuvre so incredibly rewarding, rich, and personal! ❤️
October 28, 2023
This debut novel by George Eliot (Marian Evans) — actually three novellas — was written in 1857, sometimes referred to as the Age of Religious Novels. Anthony Trollope wrote Barchester Towers in the same year. "Janet's Repentance" has unusual themes for a Victorian novel: domestic abuse and a female alcoholic.
Eliot was an early "exvangelical" who experienced a conversion while in her teens, then renounced her faith seven years later. And yet she paints a compelling and complimentary portrait of Edgar Tryan, the Evangelical pastor in the last story. As with many novels of manners, the plot moves at the pace of a glacier. The snark and humor evoked snorts of laughter.
After a dinner where two families are just meeting, but expecting their children to marry:
3.5 stars
Eliot was an early "exvangelical" who experienced a conversion while in her teens, then renounced her faith seven years later. And yet she paints a compelling and complimentary portrait of Edgar Tryan, the Evangelical pastor in the last story. As with many novels of manners, the plot moves at the pace of a glacier. The snark and humor evoked snorts of laughter.
After a dinner where two families are just meeting, but expecting their children to marry:
When the ladies were in the drawing-room again, Lady Assher was soon deep in a statement to Lady Cheverel of her views about burying people in woollen.More gems:
She wanted something to rely on besides her own resolutions.
But our good Amos laboured under a deficiency of small tact as well as small cash.
They entered, all with that brisk and cheerful air which a sermon is often observed to produce when it is quite finished.
3.5 stars
July 5, 2025
This was my first exposure to George Eliot. So I will have to read much more before I can adequately understand whether I appreciated this sufficiently.
George Eliot, Scenes of a Clerical Life (1857) [4]
“The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton” [5.5]
“Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story” [5-]
“Janet’s Repentance” [3.5]
I found the first story utterly delightful, and its sharp and wicked wit was wholly unexpected. The second was also sharp and vivid; the characters are so original! But the final story was more melodramatic, somewhat tedious, with all its theological speculations, and thus unnecessarily long. The central issue of domestic abuse is mostly delayed until the final quarter. The characterizations are vivid, and some of the prose is wonderful. But it did not need to go on at such great length.
George Eliot, Scenes of a Clerical Life (1857) [4]
“The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton” [5.5]
“Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story” [5-]
“Janet’s Repentance” [3.5]
I found the first story utterly delightful, and its sharp and wicked wit was wholly unexpected. The second was also sharp and vivid; the characters are so original! But the final story was more melodramatic, somewhat tedious, with all its theological speculations, and thus unnecessarily long. The central issue of domestic abuse is mostly delayed until the final quarter. The characterizations are vivid, and some of the prose is wonderful. But it did not need to go on at such great length.
April 28, 2024
Even George Eliot’s early efforts at fiction in these three stories are filled with such human emotion! She brought tears to my eyes with each story, though Janet’s Repentance is definitely my favorite of the three.
March 1, 2020
I read 'Scenes of Clerical Life' after having just read Trollope's 'Chronicles of Barsetshire' and all of Jane Austen's works. It is interesting how arcane arguments within the Church of England was such a hot topic for Victorian novelists. There is, with all three writers, a sense that the clergy are the moral and intellectual backbone of a community, even though they may be personally flawed and often not particularly good at relating to their parishioners. More than Trollope and Austen, George Eliot is searching earnestly for what is sacred, even though she does not, at this stage in her life, believe in the reality of a transcendent God. In the characters of Mrs Barton and Janet Dempster we have women who have beautifully noble, loving, self-sacrificing natures; they are by nature religious, quite apart from belief in any creed. But their lives are tragic ones, Eliot does not allow them the benefit of a providential God. Yet reading Eliot makes me feel that every flawed person has a sacred core, perhaps too crushed by the sorrow of the world to be clearly evident, but never-the-less, there is cause for compassion and common human feeling, rather than petty judgementalism.
July 7, 2020
I finished this a couple of weeks ago. All I can say is that this is astonishingly good, both intellectually and emotionally. The writing is truly gifted and I enjoyed every minute.
March 20, 2017
In my Penguin Classics edition there is an appendix 'How I Came to Write Fiction' written by George Eliot and dated Dec 6 1857 in which she describes the background to this book. That and the introduction by David Lodge proved enormously interesting in helping to portray how the book took shape. It details what suggestions the publisher, Blackwood made when the stories were sent to him to be published in his magazine and how Eliot responded to his criticism.
The religious themes of the stories may not be of any great interest to the modern reader although I understand they were 'hot topics' in their day but the stories are mainly well-written. Already Eliot is showing an ability to create and describe life in a small industrial town and people it with an array of believable characters from the pauper in the workhouse to the country knight in the manor house.
Some of the writing is over-sentimental and melodramatic but that was very much the fashion of the time. There are flashes of brilliance and some humour amongst all the angst. I thought the weakest of the novellas was 'Mr Gilfil's Love Story'. The main characters were boring, the hero too good to be true and the love interest not at all lovable but petulant and ill-tempered. Lots of animal imagery, I didn't count how many times Caterina was compared to a bird or a timid animal or a monkey but it was far too much and detracted from the narrative. An experienced George Eliot would have handled it more skilfully.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the development of a great novelist and to any admirer of Eliot who, like me,has read all of her other books but overlooked this one.
The religious themes of the stories may not be of any great interest to the modern reader although I understand they were 'hot topics' in their day but the stories are mainly well-written. Already Eliot is showing an ability to create and describe life in a small industrial town and people it with an array of believable characters from the pauper in the workhouse to the country knight in the manor house.
Some of the writing is over-sentimental and melodramatic but that was very much the fashion of the time. There are flashes of brilliance and some humour amongst all the angst. I thought the weakest of the novellas was 'Mr Gilfil's Love Story'. The main characters were boring, the hero too good to be true and the love interest not at all lovable but petulant and ill-tempered. Lots of animal imagery, I didn't count how many times Caterina was compared to a bird or a timid animal or a monkey but it was far too much and detracted from the narrative. An experienced George Eliot would have handled it more skilfully.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the development of a great novelist and to any admirer of Eliot who, like me,has read all of her other books but overlooked this one.
September 11, 2016
Scenes of a Clerical Life was Eliot’s first piece of creative writing, and it has the well-drawn characters, the psychological insights, the wit, the sympathy, and the evocation of the English countryside and rural life that came to a fuller fruition in Middlemarch. It also has a touch of the Gothic, a style that the Victorians loved.
After it was published in 1857 Dickens wrote to George Eliot, who was not then know to be a woman:
“I am (I presume) bound to adopt the name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can suggest no better one: but I should have been strongly disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seemed to me such womanly touches in those moving fictions, that the assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so like a woman since the world began.”
I'm so wrapped up with the Victorians, not least through reading this book, that I wrote a blog about it:
https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
After it was published in 1857 Dickens wrote to George Eliot, who was not then know to be a woman:
“I am (I presume) bound to adopt the name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can suggest no better one: but I should have been strongly disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seemed to me such womanly touches in those moving fictions, that the assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so like a woman since the world began.”
I'm so wrapped up with the Victorians, not least through reading this book, that I wrote a blog about it:
https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...
May 6, 2021
An engaging, interesting book consisting of two novellas and a short novel. All three stories concerns clergymen in Warwickshire, England in the 1850s. I enjoyed each story. The characters are well developed and each story has an interesting plot.
George Eliot and Victorian literature fans should find this book a very satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1857.
George Eliot and Victorian literature fans should find this book a very satisfying reading experience.
This book was first published in 1857.
December 7, 2018
4.5*
Me encantaron los tres relatos que componen este volumen. "El arrepentimiento de Janet" me pareció espectacular. Costumbrismo con una crítica sutil pero a la vez despiadada a muchos usos y costumbres de la época. Por momentos me recordaba a la moralidad de Jane Austen pero por momentos más ácida.
Mary Ann Evans se convertido en una de mis favoritas.
Me encantaron los tres relatos que componen este volumen. "El arrepentimiento de Janet" me pareció espectacular. Costumbrismo con una crítica sutil pero a la vez despiadada a muchos usos y costumbres de la época. Por momentos me recordaba a la moralidad de Jane Austen pero por momentos más ácida.
Mary Ann Evans se convertido en una de mis favoritas.
May 4, 2021
It's always interesting to see where a great author started but this is not her best. Some great characters and pieces of writing but a little slow at the beginning of each story.
September 20, 2013
I wouldn't have stuck with this if it weren't for the author. Because I love George Eliot's later books, I figured these 3 short stories would be worth reading even if they started out slow and ended up melodramatic and not quite believable. (How can people so conveniently, or unexpectedly, die?) I love George Eliot's insights and writing, and I enjoyed reading her first published work. She definitely matured and improved as a writer by the time she wrote Silas Marner and Middlemarch!
A taste of George Eliot's wisdom:
“Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.”
“We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence.”
Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
[Most people] are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. … Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.
The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.
A taste of George Eliot's wisdom:
“Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.”
“We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that windy self-subsistence.”
Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.
Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. That's my way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat.
[Most people] are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. … Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones.
The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.
December 13, 2017
Simply beautiful stories in a prose style that is both dense and poetic but also extremely readable.
The first story of Amos Barton is sort of like a reverse Madame Bovary, where it's a sort of boring, unfulfilling marriage and the woman wants more, but she stays by him. For some reason near the end of it I was holding back tears, even though the scene wasn't particularly sad or shocking or moving, just something about the humanity of it got to me.
The second story of Mr Gilfil is even better, though the ending plot twist is a bit "ehhh". The story's setup and structure is just flawless though, it's extremely easy to be pictured in your mind as a TV series.
The final story of Janet is probably the most complicated and dense. It's first part is basically long, confusing, religious discussions which slowly lead in to the plot of competing religious doctrines forcing the town in to two camps, and then the stage is set. It's pretty difficult to follow unless you have a strong grasp of the religious landscape of country towns in England from 1790 to 1830 (read: very few people), but once that's out of the way it's pretty smooth sailing.
In short, this book was solid in every aspect.
The first story of Amos Barton is sort of like a reverse Madame Bovary, where it's a sort of boring, unfulfilling marriage and the woman wants more, but she stays by him. For some reason near the end of it I was holding back tears, even though the scene wasn't particularly sad or shocking or moving, just something about the humanity of it got to me.
The second story of Mr Gilfil is even better, though the ending plot twist is a bit "ehhh". The story's setup and structure is just flawless though, it's extremely easy to be pictured in your mind as a TV series.
The final story of Janet is probably the most complicated and dense. It's first part is basically long, confusing, religious discussions which slowly lead in to the plot of competing religious doctrines forcing the town in to two camps, and then the stage is set. It's pretty difficult to follow unless you have a strong grasp of the religious landscape of country towns in England from 1790 to 1830 (read: very few people), but once that's out of the way it's pretty smooth sailing.
In short, this book was solid in every aspect.
March 16, 2022
Three tenuously linked novellas are grouped into one volume here. Only the first ("Amos Barton") delivers the promise that eventually led to Eliot's (Mary Anne Evans's) masterpiece, "Middlemarch." All three stories blend a more tart version of Jane Austen's observations of small-town society in England in the early 19th century with Charles Dickens's taste for an often exaggerated sentimentality. The first nicely balances the two impulses and offers naturalistic writing along with a fairly clean story line. The next two take the reader into thick swamps of sentimentality and moralizing, too often stretching pathos into bathos, and tightly wrapping plots into acceptable Victorian norms. The third story ("Janet's Repentance") does, however, include an interesting historical view of religious conflicts in small communities of the time, as well as a surprising account of the psychological factors at play in spousal abuse. Eliot's dry humour and acute perceptions are generally on display throughout. The whole book is interesting, but a bit of a chore to get through, even if you accept a prose style that's stilted by today's standards.
July 5, 2017
I discovered this classic writer as a result of a scene from the latest CBC version of Anne of Green Gables in which Aunt Josephine gives Anne a book by George Eliot. George Eliot was a woman writing under a pseudonym. Published in 1857 serially in a magazine, the success of "Scenes of Clerical Life" encouraged the writer to pursue her career. Lucy Maud Montgomery, born in 1874 would no doubt have been influenced by the stories that George Eliot artfully describes to us.
The third, and longest story of this book, "Janet's Repentance" brought the Methodist (dissenting sects) history of that era to life for me. George Eliot was well familiar with the Methodists as she has been described as having lived an "earnestly Evangelical girlhood". It is a thoroughly sympathetic and artful portrayal of a woman who comes under Methodist influence in the early 19th century. To me, it brought a historical period that I have lately been reading in to life. This is also important reading in a study of the role of women in that era.
The third, and longest story of this book, "Janet's Repentance" brought the Methodist (dissenting sects) history of that era to life for me. George Eliot was well familiar with the Methodists as she has been described as having lived an "earnestly Evangelical girlhood". It is a thoroughly sympathetic and artful portrayal of a woman who comes under Methodist influence in the early 19th century. To me, it brought a historical period that I have lately been reading in to life. This is also important reading in a study of the role of women in that era.
January 2, 2016
Eliot's earliest attempt at fiction, this comprises three novellas, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story", and "Janet's Repentance". I found the novellas a little on the melodramatic side (particularly the latter two) compared to her later works, but they show Eliot's developing artistry as a writer of fiction: subtle characterization, quiet humor, and most of all, interest in searching out and presenting truths about humanity. Scenes of Clerical Life wouldn't be my first recommendation for a reader new to Eliot, but for those who have already read her more mature works, Scenes is well worth reading.
April 30, 2018
If somehow you missed reading this -- the first fiction ever published by George Eliot -- then don't feel you must rush out and get it. It is distinctly early Eliot; she had not hit her stride. These four novellas veer into romanticism and Dickensian sentimentality all too often. But it is George Eliot nonetheless -- the wise voice, the dry humor, the keen observation of human nature and frailty -- it is all there, springing out sometimes when you least expect it. So I am glad to have read this, no matter its faults....
October 18, 2020
I found this book on my bookshelves, probably having bought it on impulse at a used book sale. In trying to finally read all the unread books on those shelves, I found this to be unexpectedly engaging. It was George Eliot's first novel, and proves to be not only witty and entertaining, if sometimes on the melodramatic side, but also surprisingly modern. Her treatment of domestic abuse and alcoholism show compassion and understanding that would fit the 21st century. And discussions of sectarianism and prejudice are quite timely too.
December 27, 2024
Actually, not that great. Overly long for short stories, verbose, lacking in a strong narrative thread, slow. Each story eventually gets going but long after I wish I’d given up. You can see the seeds of greatness, but except for the purist there is no need to read these stories.
February 15, 2021
Scenes of Clerical Life. (1858):
............
The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton
For an early work this story has amazing insight into human nature and behaviour, along with a detailed description of the place and time, and also usage of the language far more extensive than what one is used to during 20th century even before the sms era.
Even if one knows nothing of the author it is easy to suspect post finishing the book that this is an autobiographical tale, and it mainly at heart is a very deeply loving daughter's heartbreaking tribute to her very beautiful and universally loved mother who was also a very good person, along with the outward story that is a factual exoneration of her father of a false blame and suspicion harboured by silly neighbours of the parish who could not imagine a beautiful woman taking an extensive stay with a family of a man of cloth even if his own wife was beautiful, much loved by all including himself, and very much present on premises.
Why the author could not show details of the family post the departure of the mother is what one immediately questions after finishing this abruptly ending tale - along with such questions as what happened to other children (only two are mentioned, did the rest die as children did of decease and starvation in poverty in Europe those days?) and why Patty did not marry. That can be only explained by the surmise that this is the story of Mary Ann Evans who took the pen name of George Eliot in order to be able to write in peace and publish at all (- misogyny was not so violent then as now what with crimes against women being more violent and explicit by the day, but women were not seen as people who could think and were certainly not allowed to write and publish, and being an exception was a harsh struggle, so Bronte sisters had male names to publish too as did Madam Sand -) and that she did not marry due to the horror and pathos of the marriage of her mother who died so early in her life, compounded by the fact that there was no dowry for Patty or Mary Ann Evans to help her marry with security of a middle class life, since her father was a poor man of cloth with several children to feed and clothe and shelter.
One cannot but help compare here, since it is very pertinent and relevant - Barton in all his poverty and ordinary Englishman's life and persona of someone who has been to university and is involved day to day in matters intellectual and religious (for Barton approaches religion and sermons within strictly the intellectual realm and bores his parish stiff, enabling them to distance themselves until they sympathise with his loss of his wife) and little or none of the luxuries or power in his life or riches for that matter, is nonetheless no different from the Mongol (Mughal is Persian for Mongol, and the close relatives of Kublai Khan that settled in India routed via Persia bringing that nomenclature) emperor Shah Jahan who built that extravagant mausoleum for his wife on top of the revered temple of the majority religion of the country, achieving two shots in one; both the women were worn out by extensive childbearing beyond their health capability and died due to this "excessive love from the husband", a husband who was incapable of forbearing his sexual appetite even when the consequences endangered the wife's health to the point of death.
Perhaps the only difference is that Barton (or Evans) had no harem to satisfy his needs elsewhere while preserving the loved wife's health and life, and Shah Jahan did but wore out the one loved nevertheless. Amelia Barton died after giving birth to seven children (or is it eight?) and Mumtaj Mahal to fourteen, but then the latter had servants galore to do all her work and take care of her as well, and no lack of physicians or food or remedies of any sort available around in half the known world.
Milly Barton was poor, overworked, starving, worrying about her children being fed and clothed, and paying the bills in all honour.
This says two separate and related things to any aware reader - one, those involved in intellectual and spiritual line of work are likely to be poor as a rule, whether vicars and curates of England or Brahmans of India or rabbis of Jewish diaspora anywhere for that matter, and especially more so when they have families of their own to support and are not allowed to make money by using any skills since they are men of cloth or are Brahmans as indeed they are not by tradition allowed in most of these cases. And two, the only difference in the various traditions mentioned here is that in the older ones the Brahman or the rabbi is at least nominally most respected member of the society while a curate or a vicar is not accorded that social respect without backing of independent wealth, which in fact gets him a better living too.
Positions of vicar, curate, etc might be obtained by anybody and are not hereditary, but that in practice merely means that the positions are either bought by someone for the person appointed or are doled out as a favour to someone for some reason for the favour; as a consequence those richer get higher positions and those from poor background get less paid ones if at all, in church as well in trade or military or any other sphere of work.
On thinking it over, men inheriting their father's trade is not so far off this buying of positions, since most poor in the world are limited to what knowledge their parents can provide them as heritage; and women all over the world are limited even now with everyone seeing them as reproductive functionaries and food preparing and other services providers, to be browbeaten and blackmailed and threatened into it irrespective of time, place, relationship, occasion, whatever.
Indeed the only women that escape it might be born princesses and queens regina of Europe, if any. Others may fight back, but this merely makes life unpleasant, and this is the choice offered them socially as a weapon to force them to submit - until they do submit they are constantly attacked. I have heard a supposedly educated scientist from space agency of Europe questioning sexual capacity of a very famous high profile chief of a computer firm only because he heard about her being appointed in that position, and he went worse from that point. Till date I suspect most people hold him innocent in the huge quarrel we had and of course he probably does not mention his wrongs if indeed he is aware of them, but then even if he did they would not seem wrong to most people but only humour, not to be taken seriously or pointed out the wrongs of seriously. He in fact said it was different if he made racist jokes, which he would not, and was very angry when informed it was not different at all.
His wife wanted to discuss caste system of India, and was nonplussed when pointed out that her not requiring her sons or husband to help her in the kitchen but requiring or expecting any woman around irrespective of age, including any casual visitor or invited guests or new acquaintances, was caste system.
Most men and probably most women too would think this is harsh against Barton and against someone who spent twenty years and millions of public fund to build the most famous mausoleum in the world, since men's sexual needs are held not only incontrollable but sacrosanct, with rape considered natural and of no consequence and in fact the woman's fault for being raped (why was she there, what did she were, did she not encourage it and want it and if so how does anyone prove it, what difference does it make unless it is a damage to her husband or father's honour) through most of the world even now when law is changing and some lip service to a woman's right to be not assaulted is paid at some places around the world.
But fact is, these women died of their husbands "love" for them, thoughtless as it was and driven by the physical needs of the husbands, and what difference does a tombstone or a mausoleum make to the one that is dead?
If that is not convincing, consider what a man - any man anywhere in the world - would say offered the same alternative, of repeated usage and death in youth with a handsome mausoleum as a memento to the "love". It is a no brainer - men would club anyone suggesting this to death, with no memorial.
March 10, 2011.
February 07-09, 2021.
............
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
............
" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
............
"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
............
"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
............
" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
............
"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
............
" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
February 09-11, 2021.
............
Janet's Repentance
George Eliot begins this one in a pub, describing men discussing various branches of church over drinks, and objecting to those other than their own, with her sharp wit sheathed so one would miss when she's cut ....
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The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton
For an early work this story has amazing insight into human nature and behaviour, along with a detailed description of the place and time, and also usage of the language far more extensive than what one is used to during 20th century even before the sms era.
Even if one knows nothing of the author it is easy to suspect post finishing the book that this is an autobiographical tale, and it mainly at heart is a very deeply loving daughter's heartbreaking tribute to her very beautiful and universally loved mother who was also a very good person, along with the outward story that is a factual exoneration of her father of a false blame and suspicion harboured by silly neighbours of the parish who could not imagine a beautiful woman taking an extensive stay with a family of a man of cloth even if his own wife was beautiful, much loved by all including himself, and very much present on premises.
Why the author could not show details of the family post the departure of the mother is what one immediately questions after finishing this abruptly ending tale - along with such questions as what happened to other children (only two are mentioned, did the rest die as children did of decease and starvation in poverty in Europe those days?) and why Patty did not marry. That can be only explained by the surmise that this is the story of Mary Ann Evans who took the pen name of George Eliot in order to be able to write in peace and publish at all (- misogyny was not so violent then as now what with crimes against women being more violent and explicit by the day, but women were not seen as people who could think and were certainly not allowed to write and publish, and being an exception was a harsh struggle, so Bronte sisters had male names to publish too as did Madam Sand -) and that she did not marry due to the horror and pathos of the marriage of her mother who died so early in her life, compounded by the fact that there was no dowry for Patty or Mary Ann Evans to help her marry with security of a middle class life, since her father was a poor man of cloth with several children to feed and clothe and shelter.
One cannot but help compare here, since it is very pertinent and relevant - Barton in all his poverty and ordinary Englishman's life and persona of someone who has been to university and is involved day to day in matters intellectual and religious (for Barton approaches religion and sermons within strictly the intellectual realm and bores his parish stiff, enabling them to distance themselves until they sympathise with his loss of his wife) and little or none of the luxuries or power in his life or riches for that matter, is nonetheless no different from the Mongol (Mughal is Persian for Mongol, and the close relatives of Kublai Khan that settled in India routed via Persia bringing that nomenclature) emperor Shah Jahan who built that extravagant mausoleum for his wife on top of the revered temple of the majority religion of the country, achieving two shots in one; both the women were worn out by extensive childbearing beyond their health capability and died due to this "excessive love from the husband", a husband who was incapable of forbearing his sexual appetite even when the consequences endangered the wife's health to the point of death.
Perhaps the only difference is that Barton (or Evans) had no harem to satisfy his needs elsewhere while preserving the loved wife's health and life, and Shah Jahan did but wore out the one loved nevertheless. Amelia Barton died after giving birth to seven children (or is it eight?) and Mumtaj Mahal to fourteen, but then the latter had servants galore to do all her work and take care of her as well, and no lack of physicians or food or remedies of any sort available around in half the known world.
Milly Barton was poor, overworked, starving, worrying about her children being fed and clothed, and paying the bills in all honour.
This says two separate and related things to any aware reader - one, those involved in intellectual and spiritual line of work are likely to be poor as a rule, whether vicars and curates of England or Brahmans of India or rabbis of Jewish diaspora anywhere for that matter, and especially more so when they have families of their own to support and are not allowed to make money by using any skills since they are men of cloth or are Brahmans as indeed they are not by tradition allowed in most of these cases. And two, the only difference in the various traditions mentioned here is that in the older ones the Brahman or the rabbi is at least nominally most respected member of the society while a curate or a vicar is not accorded that social respect without backing of independent wealth, which in fact gets him a better living too.
Positions of vicar, curate, etc might be obtained by anybody and are not hereditary, but that in practice merely means that the positions are either bought by someone for the person appointed or are doled out as a favour to someone for some reason for the favour; as a consequence those richer get higher positions and those from poor background get less paid ones if at all, in church as well in trade or military or any other sphere of work.
On thinking it over, men inheriting their father's trade is not so far off this buying of positions, since most poor in the world are limited to what knowledge their parents can provide them as heritage; and women all over the world are limited even now with everyone seeing them as reproductive functionaries and food preparing and other services providers, to be browbeaten and blackmailed and threatened into it irrespective of time, place, relationship, occasion, whatever.
Indeed the only women that escape it might be born princesses and queens regina of Europe, if any. Others may fight back, but this merely makes life unpleasant, and this is the choice offered them socially as a weapon to force them to submit - until they do submit they are constantly attacked. I have heard a supposedly educated scientist from space agency of Europe questioning sexual capacity of a very famous high profile chief of a computer firm only because he heard about her being appointed in that position, and he went worse from that point. Till date I suspect most people hold him innocent in the huge quarrel we had and of course he probably does not mention his wrongs if indeed he is aware of them, but then even if he did they would not seem wrong to most people but only humour, not to be taken seriously or pointed out the wrongs of seriously. He in fact said it was different if he made racist jokes, which he would not, and was very angry when informed it was not different at all.
His wife wanted to discuss caste system of India, and was nonplussed when pointed out that her not requiring her sons or husband to help her in the kitchen but requiring or expecting any woman around irrespective of age, including any casual visitor or invited guests or new acquaintances, was caste system.
Most men and probably most women too would think this is harsh against Barton and against someone who spent twenty years and millions of public fund to build the most famous mausoleum in the world, since men's sexual needs are held not only incontrollable but sacrosanct, with rape considered natural and of no consequence and in fact the woman's fault for being raped (why was she there, what did she were, did she not encourage it and want it and if so how does anyone prove it, what difference does it make unless it is a damage to her husband or father's honour) through most of the world even now when law is changing and some lip service to a woman's right to be not assaulted is paid at some places around the world.
But fact is, these women died of their husbands "love" for them, thoughtless as it was and driven by the physical needs of the husbands, and what difference does a tombstone or a mausoleum make to the one that is dead?
If that is not convincing, consider what a man - any man anywhere in the world - would say offered the same alternative, of repeated usage and death in youth with a handsome mausoleum as a memento to the "love". It is a no brainer - men would club anyone suggesting this to death, with no memorial.
March 10, 2011.
February 07-09, 2021.
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Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
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" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
............
"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
............
"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
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" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
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"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
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" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
February 09-11, 2021.
............
Janet's Repentance
George Eliot begins this one in a pub, describing men discussing various branches of church over drinks, and objecting to those other than their own, with her sharp wit sheathed so one would miss when she's cut ....
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December 3, 2022“The drowning man, urged by the supreme agony, lives in an instant through all his happy and unhappy past: when the dark flood has fallen like a curtain,memory,in a single moment, sees the drama acted over again. And even in those earlier crises, which are but types of death-when we are cut off abruptly from the life we have known, when we are ourselves by some sudden shock on the confines of the unknown-there is often the same sort of lighting-flash though the dark and unfrequented chambers of memory.”
August 20, 2024
Oh so Nuneaton’s just always been like that.
It was so surreal to go to St Nic’s after and imagine everything she describes passing across the backdrop of the same stones I was looking at.
But really interesting to see her personal philosophies coming through gently. Dickens was right though - could only have been written by a woman
Amos Barton ⭐️
Mr Gilfil ⭐️⭐️
Janet ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
It was so surreal to go to St Nic’s after and imagine everything she describes passing across the backdrop of the same stones I was looking at.
But really interesting to see her personal philosophies coming through gently. Dickens was right though - could only have been written by a woman
Amos Barton ⭐️
Mr Gilfil ⭐️⭐️
Janet ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
February 16, 2012
Scenes of Clerical Life is really a compilation of three novellas, each as adequate as the last.
The first novella, The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton, suffers most of Eliot's tendency to take a survey of provincial life. It, like the other novellas, takes an expansive view of Shepperton and Milby, and will tell the story through vignettes and conversations of secondary and tertiary characters. They help to create a vivid environment and are more or less necessary for the form of realism she ultimately championed. The character of Reverend Barton himself is humorously pathetic - in that masterful balance of compassion and snarky condescension that Eliot seems to have nailed quite early on in her career - but is not incredibly present. Much of the narrative deals with gossip, imputation, slander and the like in a way similar to, but also inferior to, The Mill on the Floss and the rumors about Maggie Tulliver. The first novella is gently humorous in parts and possesses enough insight about imputation, but it is oddly unsympathetic; tedious, yet padded in very strange machinations plot-wise. There's a noticeable thematic left-turn near the novella's end: it veers away from rumor and toward Barton's regret at his negligence (which we hardly see in the novella). Whether or not it's because Eliot saw difficulty in continuing down the established thematic direction, I'm unsure. But it did feel somewhat like an act of cowardice.
The second novella, Mr. Gilfil's Love Story is the most standard fare of the three. It, too, hardly deals with its title protagonist; instead it focuses on the lovelorn, self-absorbed Caterina who finds herself between a man who loves her (Mr. Gilfil) and the man she thinks is leading her on. This one doesn't have quite the same humor, and once again uses death to very, very dated dramatic effect. The point it makes about Caterina's self-involvement and her wickedness is a point well taken: many "leading me on" accusations are completely unfounded, and often the tortured love-lorn soul is just another myopic plebeian with self-absorption problems. Eliot doesn't portray her this cruelly, granted, but the "wronged" here isn't necessarily wronged, which is always a point worth reiterating.
The third novella, and by far the strongest, Janet's Repentance tells the story of a Dissenting, Evangelical priest who enters a town that is more or less religiously divided. The three novels are set in a climate of religious sectarianism and Anglican-based paranoia; as if the threat of Evangelical infiltration was some sort of "red scare" to be confronted. But Janet's Repentance has the darkly hilarious Mr. Dempster, and Janet, a woman so confused by the concept of loyalty. Mr. Tryan is suitably reverential, but transcends the cliche of being pious-with-a-bad-past. Eliot uses Tryan to ask: is over-working yourself to death in the name of charity really the best way to utilize your piety? Wouldn't a little self-indulgence contribute more piety in the world, e.g. better housing accommodations and a fuller diet? Chapter 10 of this novella includes some astounding insights about the marketplace of ideas, about 'puritanical egoism', and our ill-bred romanticizing of heroes. Janet's Repentance eloquently makes a case about the simple remedy sympathy can be to many mental, emotional, and societal ills. It is a very strong end after two take-it-or-leave-it stories. So, in short: all in all another perfectly welcome offering from George Eliot.
The first novella, The Sad Fortunes of Rev. Amos Barton, suffers most of Eliot's tendency to take a survey of provincial life. It, like the other novellas, takes an expansive view of Shepperton and Milby, and will tell the story through vignettes and conversations of secondary and tertiary characters. They help to create a vivid environment and are more or less necessary for the form of realism she ultimately championed. The character of Reverend Barton himself is humorously pathetic - in that masterful balance of compassion and snarky condescension that Eliot seems to have nailed quite early on in her career - but is not incredibly present. Much of the narrative deals with gossip, imputation, slander and the like in a way similar to, but also inferior to, The Mill on the Floss and the rumors about Maggie Tulliver. The first novella is gently humorous in parts and possesses enough insight about imputation, but it is oddly unsympathetic; tedious, yet padded in very strange machinations plot-wise. There's a noticeable thematic left-turn near the novella's end: it veers away from rumor and toward Barton's regret at his negligence (which we hardly see in the novella). Whether or not it's because Eliot saw difficulty in continuing down the established thematic direction, I'm unsure. But it did feel somewhat like an act of cowardice.
The second novella, Mr. Gilfil's Love Story is the most standard fare of the three. It, too, hardly deals with its title protagonist; instead it focuses on the lovelorn, self-absorbed Caterina who finds herself between a man who loves her (Mr. Gilfil) and the man she thinks is leading her on. This one doesn't have quite the same humor, and once again uses death to very, very dated dramatic effect. The point it makes about Caterina's self-involvement and her wickedness is a point well taken: many "leading me on" accusations are completely unfounded, and often the tortured love-lorn soul is just another myopic plebeian with self-absorption problems. Eliot doesn't portray her this cruelly, granted, but the "wronged" here isn't necessarily wronged, which is always a point worth reiterating.
The third novella, and by far the strongest, Janet's Repentance tells the story of a Dissenting, Evangelical priest who enters a town that is more or less religiously divided. The three novels are set in a climate of religious sectarianism and Anglican-based paranoia; as if the threat of Evangelical infiltration was some sort of "red scare" to be confronted. But Janet's Repentance has the darkly hilarious Mr. Dempster, and Janet, a woman so confused by the concept of loyalty. Mr. Tryan is suitably reverential, but transcends the cliche of being pious-with-a-bad-past. Eliot uses Tryan to ask: is over-working yourself to death in the name of charity really the best way to utilize your piety? Wouldn't a little self-indulgence contribute more piety in the world, e.g. better housing accommodations and a fuller diet? Chapter 10 of this novella includes some astounding insights about the marketplace of ideas, about 'puritanical egoism', and our ill-bred romanticizing of heroes. Janet's Repentance eloquently makes a case about the simple remedy sympathy can be to many mental, emotional, and societal ills. It is a very strong end after two take-it-or-leave-it stories. So, in short: all in all another perfectly welcome offering from George Eliot.
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