A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

134.
and is therefore related to the notion I!)f "debt, II of payine what is
due. The original emphasis of the Vlord was on 11m oral or legal obligation;
that which one oueht or is bound to do"; (OED., ''Duty'', 4). This relates
to mants supposed contract vdth the State, (the ~ cites Hobbes's
Leviathan). A further usage of duty includes the Christian notion of
what is due to God, as set dovm in the Ten Commandments, as for example,
Ecclesiastes xii. 13, where we read, "Feare God and kepe his
commandments: for this is tho whole dutie of man." And in a non-
Christian age there has been a further change of emphasis, conferring
the binding sense of what is morally right. (OED, 'lJ)uty", 4 b).
Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" is offered as an example of the later meaning
and the following lines from that poem clearly show the elevation
of Duty to an absolute principle. Vlordsworth refers to duty as "Stern
lawgiver!" and then concludes with this prayer:
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!
Earlier in the poem, Vlordsworth defines duty in these terms as
a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
'When empty terrors overawe; 8
From vain temptations dost set free;
This is yhe same tone of voice, with its strong note of stoicism, as
that in which George Eliot proclaimed her thrilling words that duty is
peremptory and absolute. This aspect of duty implies a duty which is
fixed and immutable, against which there is no appeal. A similar concept
of duty is discussed in F. D. Maurice I s ~ Conscience: Lectures on
Casuistry (186~).
A staunch admirer of George Eliot's novels, he dismisses
what he says are called ain the cant of our day elective
affinities, II 9 a term borrowed from the lanGuage of chemical inter-