A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

The most direot effeot of Maggie's submission to the spiritual
guidanoe of Thomas 1 Kempis is to be seen in the developing sensitivity
of her conscienceo Her initial reading of the marked passages is de~
scribed as if she is not merely reading, but listening to an aotual
person, "seeming rather to listen [t~ a low voioe. It 6 And the suggestion
is early made that she oan find. the muoh sought-for guidanoe in her
own self, im. her own moral and. spiritual awareness. She disoovers that
"here was insight, and strength, and oonquest, to be won by means entirely
within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be
heard. tI 7 The effect of Feuerbaoh' s demythologising of the Christian
message is unmistakable here. It is the human soul which is divine,
therefore the word "Teacher tt is given the upper oase. To find this
Teacher, Maggie internalises the "quiet voioe" and makes its teaching
her own. Thus, when Philip offers Maggie his company and shared discourse
about books and. musio and painting, his tempting voioe is oontrasted
both with the inner voioe of her conscience and with the "voioe
of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and. renounoed--in the
cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting
and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different fran ours--but
under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate
desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness." 8
It is an amalgam of both these voioes, the distant voice of Thomas ~
Kempis and the inner voioe of her conscience which interrupts Fhilip t 5
tempting offer of friendship. In this way "the voioe that said this made
sweet music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent monotonous
warning from another voioe which she had been learning to obey. It 9 And
later when she is grappling with the full force of the temptation,
longing to enjoy his proffered company and free herself from "the narrow
valley of humiliation," the "severe monotonous warning came again and