[1] "Scenes of Clerical Life," i. 191.
"I think it was Mr. Craig's pedigree only that had the advantage of being Scotch, and not his 'bringing up'; for, except that he had a stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the Loamshire people around him."[2] In short, except that lucifer matches are twice introduced as familiar things in days when the tinder-box was the only resource in general use for obtaining a light,[3] we have not observed anything in which the authoress could be "caught out."
[2] "Adam Bede," i. 302. [3] "Adam Bede," i. 219, 362.
But this conscientious fidelity has very serious drawbacks. It seems as if the authoress felt herself under an obligation to give everything literally as it took place; to shut out nothing which is superfluous; to suppress nothing which is unfit for a work of fiction (for not only have we a report of Dinah Morris's sermons, but the very words of the prayer which she put up for Hetty in the prison); to abridge nothing which is tiresome. People and incidents are described at length, although they have little or nothing to do with the story. We may mention as instances the detailed history and character which are given of Tom Tulliver's tutor, the Reverend Walter Stelling, and the account of Mr. Poyser's harvest-home, which, however good in itself, is utterly out of place between the crisis and the conclusion of the story. But most especially we complain of the fondness which the authoress shows for exhibiting uninteresting and tiresome people in all their interminable tediousness; and if the morbid tone which we have already mentioned reminds us of a French school of novelists, her passion for photographing the minutest details of dullness reminds us painfully of those American ladies who contribute so largely to the literature of our railway-stalls, by flooding their boundless prairies of dingy paper with inexhaustible masses of blotchy type. We quite admit the naturalness of the tradespeople and other small folks whom this writer has perhaps explored more deeply than any earlier novelist; but surely we have far too much of them. It has indeed been said that we are spoiled by the activity of the present day for enjoying the faithful picture of what life was in country parishes and in little country towns fifty years ago; but we really cannot admit the justice of this attempt to throw the blame on ourselves. Dullness, we may be sure, has not died out within the last half century, but is yet to be found in plenty; and, if times were dull fifty or a hundred years ago, the novelists of those days—Scott and Fielding, and Smollett, and even Goldsmith in his simple tale—did not make their readers groan under their dullness….
But are we likely to feel more kindly towards such people as those of whom we are now complaining, because all their triviality, and smallness, and tediousness are displayed at wearisome length on paper? If some Dutch painters bestowed their skill on homely old women and boozy boors, there is no evidence that they were capable of better things, and their choice of subjects is no justification for one who certainly can do better. Nor do we complain that we have an old woman or a coarse merrymaking occasionally, but that such things in their monotonous meanness fill whole rooms of "George Eliot's" gallery; and, in truth, the real parallel to her is not to be found in the old Dutchmen who honestly painted what was before their eyes, but rather in the perverseness of our modern "pre-Raphaelites." It is of these gentlemen—who, by the way, in their reactionary affectations are the most entire opposites of the simple, unaffected, and forward-striving artists who really lived before Raphael—it is of these gentlemen, with their choice of disagreeable subjects, uncomely models, and uncouth attitudes, their bestowal of superfluous labour on trifling details, and the consequent obtrusiveness of subordinate things so as to mar the general effect of the work, that "George Eliot" too often reminds us.
How very wearisome is the conversation of the clique of inferior women who worship Mr. Tryan! how dismally twaddling is that respectable old congregationalist, Mr. Jerome, with his tidy little garden and his "littel chacenut hoss"! We feel for Mr. Tryan when in the society of such people, although to him it was mitigated by the belief that he was doing good by associating with them, and that by love of incense from any quarter which is described as part of his character. But why should it be inflicted in such fearful doses on us, who have done nothing to deserve it, who have no "mission" to encounter it, and are entirely without Mr. Tryan's consolations under the endurance of it?
Adam Bede's mother is another sore trial of the reader's patience—with her endless fretful chatter, and all the details of her urging her sons, one after the other, to refresh themselves with cold potatoes: nay, we are not reconciled to these vegetables even by the fact that on one occasion they are recommended as "taters wi' the gravy in 'em."[1] But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the plague of tedious conversation reaches its height. Mrs. Tulliver is one of four married sisters, whose maiden name had been Dodson, and in these sisters there is a studious combination of family likeness with individual varieties of character. Mrs. Tulliver herself—whose "blond" complexion is generally associated by our authoress with imbecility of mind and character—belongs to that class of minds of which Mrs. Quickly may be considered as the chief intellectual type. Mrs. Pullet—the wife of a gentleman farmer, whose great characteristic is a habit of sucking lozenges, and whom Tom Tulliver most justly sets down as a "nincompoop"—is almost sillier than Mrs. Tulliver. She has the gift of tears ever ready to flow, and sheds them profusely on the anticipation of imaginary and ridiculous woes. Her favourite vanity consists in drawing dismal pictures of the future and in priding herself on the bodily sufferings of her neighbours; that one had "been tapped no end o' times, and the water—they say you might ha' swum in it if you'd liked"; that another's "breath was short to that degree as you could hear him two rooms off"; and her highest religion— the loftiest exercise of her faith and self-denial—is the accumulation of superfluous clothes and linen, in the hope that they may make a creditable display after her death. Mrs. Deane is "a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterwards to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly"; and of her we see but little. But of the eldest of the four, Mrs. Glegg, we see so much that we are really made quite uncomfortable by her; for she is a very formidable person indeed,— utterly without kindness, bullying everybody within her reach (her husband included), holding herself up as a model to everybody, and shaming all other families—especially those into which she and her sisters had married—by odious comparisons with the Dodsons. All this we grant is very cleverly done. The grim Mrs. Glegg and the fatuous Mrs. Tulliver and Mrs. Pullet talk admirably in their respective kinds; and we can quite believe that there are people who are not unfairly represented by the Dodsons—with, the narrow limitation of their thoughts to their own little circle—the extravagantly high opinion of their own vulgar family, with the corresponding depreciation of all in and about their own rank who do not belong to it—their perfect conviction that their own family traditions (such as the copious eating of salt in their broth) are the standard of all that is good—their consecration of all their most elevated feelings to the worship of furniture, and clothes, and table-linen, and silver spoons—their utter alienation from all that, in the opinion of educated people, can make life fit to be enjoyed. The humour of Mrs. Glegg's determination that no ill desert of a relation shall interfere with the disposal of her property by will on the most rigidly Dodsonian principles of justice, according to the several degrees of Dodsonship, is excellent; and so is the change in her behaviour towards Maggie, whom, after having always bullied her, she takes up for the sake of Dodsondom's credit when everybody else has turned against her….
[1] "Adam Bede," i. 54.
The writer does not seem to be aware that the fools and bores of a book, while they bore the other characters, ought not to bore but to amuse the reader, and that they will become seriously wearisome to him if there be too much of them. Shakespeare has contented himself with showing us his Dogberry and Verges, his Shallow and Slender, and Silence, to such a degree as may sufficiently display their humours; but he has not filled whole acts with them, and, even if he had, a five-act play is a small field for the display of prolix foolishness as compared with a three-volume novel. Lord Macaulay has been supposed to speak sarcastically in saying that he "would not advise any person who reads for amusement to venture on a certain jeu d'esprit of Mr. Sadler's as long as he can procure a volume of the Statutes at Large";[1] but we are afraid that we should not be believed if we were to mention the books to which we have had recourse by way of occasional relief from the task of perusing "George Eliot's" tales.
[1] "Miscellaneous Writings," ii. 68.