A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

172.
home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening
of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may
be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all
neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sent- 16
imental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.
The words I have underlined in this and the previous passage from
~ ~ .2!!. ~ Floss all relate very strongly to what I am calling for
convenience in this chapter George Eliot t S
concept of self. ''Habit'' refers
us back specifically to the laws of association and the explanation
they offer of how we come to know the world. In this case, however, it is
the inner world, the consciousness of self, that is being built up by
means of these affection-laden associations that are described as a
"sweet habit of the blood." The circumstances of Gwendolen's girlhood,
the lack of permanence and continuity have prevented her from laying up
a store of valuable and integrative memories. She has no real sense of
the past and this ab:ays suggest s in George Eliot ,.no sense of herself.
A character's past and his healthy accepting relationship with that past
implies, in a George Eliot novel, more than an untroubled conscience. The
past provides an awareness of identity and offers a means of making sense
out of the welter of ~xperiences
that confront us. The pattern of the
past suggests a pattern for the future, and provides a moral guideline
that protects us from every "wayward choice of @urJ own passion. II 17
Gwendolen as we follow her painful initiation into moral awareness is
handicapped severely by not being well "rooted in some common spot of
native land." An earlier heroine, Maggie Tulliver offers a telling"contrast.
When the Tullivers go bankrupt and all their furniture is removed
by the bailiff, Maggie t s poignant cry rings out, lit everyt hing is going
a'?lay from us--the end of our lives wil.l have nothing in it like the beginning.
'" 18 This is the hallme.rk of Maggie f s sense of herself. Her
identity is constituted for her by her past and especially by the