A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

154.
The Incalculable Effect.
The previous sections examined such concepts as moral development,
the nature of the "moral sense," intuitionism, absolutism and
duty. I will now look at George Eliottsway of dealing with the individual
suffering human being, with the "cry from soul to soul, without
other consciousness than their moving with kindred natures in the same
embroiled medium, the same troublous fitfully-illuminated life. II 1
In the essay on Young already referred to, George Eliot writes that
"in proportion as morality is emotional, it will exhibit itself in
direct sympathetic feeling and action, and not as the recognition of a
rule." 2 The personal world of human relationships requires tldirect
sympathetic feeling and action." This phrase could serve as a summary
for one particular kind of personal relationship which George Eliot
returns to frequently in the novels; this is the mentor/pupil'relationship
where, as a result of trust and openness between two people, one
or both of them achieve moral growth. Esther's changed conception of
possibilities in Felix Holt~ because of her friendship with Felix is
described as "a dissolving view, in which the once-clear images were
gradually melted into new forms and new colours •• ~.So
fast does a
little leaven spread within us--so incalculable is the effect of one
personality on another." 3 The use of the word "incalculable II shows us
that we have left behind the world of irreversible laws, of rigorously
determined consequences and effects. I am not trying to suggest, however,
that George Eliot would have held that the laws did not obtain in such
instances, that they had been miraculously suspended in the case of
personal relationships. She would have firmly and bravely acknowledged
that the laws held as rigorously in this context as in any other, but