A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

218.
. II 10
an d agal.n.
When she wakes in the steamer which is taking her and Stephen to
Mudport, she stiffens her resolution in dread "lest her consoienoe
should be benumbed again. tl 11 And in her final moments of Itwrestlingll 12
with herself, she' waits for the inner "light" 13 and gives herself
"
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In this way Maggie uses Thomas 'a Kempis as a spiritual mentor, but
strength by uttering memorised words from The Imitation of Christ.
it is important to remember that this work oontains no partioularised
instruction. Rather it disousses the general duties of a Christian
suppliant. No more than George Eliot herself does Thomas 'a. Kempis prescribe
speoial behaviour for partioular oiroumstanoes. Towards the end
of her life George Eliot expressly denied ~ suoh intention. t~
funotion, II she wrote, "is that of the aesthetic, not the doctrinal
teacher--the rousing of the nobler emotions, which make mankind desire
the social right, not the prescribing of special measures." 14 Thomas
a Kempis has served to rouse in Maggie the "nobler emotions" .or mjGre
accurately to reinforce them. We can see that Maggie already has a moral
sensibility far in advance of her family and ver,y well developed in so
young a ohild, in her sensitive response to Philip's deformity, for example.
15 The goal of ideal behaviour whioh Maggie sets herself after
her reading of ~ Imitation .2!. Christ is elevated into a general prinoiple,
akin to Mr Lyon's Ithigher rule" 16 and Dorothea's "perfeot
Right." 17 We read that she has "years of striving after the highest and
best," 18 of "longingsafter perfeot goodness," 19 that she responds to
lithe possibility of shifting the position from which she looked at the
gratification of her own desires--of taking her stand out of herself, and
looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely-guided
whole. II 20 And, in addition to this central aspect of Maggie's moral
. development, there is a background of moral commentary, sometimes