A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

139.
tire area of Europe. Genius, he held, is necessarily intolerant of
fetters: on the one hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity;
on the other, it may confidently await those messages from
the universe which summon it to its peculiar work, only placing itself
in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime chances. The attitudes
27
of reoeptivity are various, and Will had sincerely tried many of them. II
His state of mind is made very clear to us from various conversations
vnth Dorothea, such as the following where he expounds his Shelleyan
definition of a poet and says to her that "'to be a poet is to have a
soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so
quick to feel, that . discernment is but a hand playing ,'nth finelyordered
variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge
passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling fLashes back as a new
organ of knowledge. II 28 Dorothea responds with a gently prosaio but
salutary reminder that he leaves out the poems. "'I think,'" she says
lI'that they are wanted to complete the poet.' II 29 Here'is a case where
Dorothea could well reproach him for his Vlant of "a sturdy neutral delight
in things as they Care]." 30
Under the influence of Dorothea and his desire to stand well in her
eyes, Will first takes the independent step of refUsing Mr Casaubon's
allowanoe, then takes an interest in political journalism and ultimately
sets out for London, to eat his dinners as a barrister in "preparation
for all public business. II 31 And the fact that we are told in the Finale
that tr\![ill became an ardent publio man" who was "at last returned to
Parliament," 32 shows that he did indeed carry out his intentions.
I will not consider here his suitability as a second husband for
Dorothea or how far critical objections towards him belong in the category
of complaints about his long hair and tillconventional habits, for
example, that of lying, stretched out full-length on hearth rugs; com-