A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

220.
be stripped S!!. self-seekineaJ 2 ~ naked, follow Jesus
naked; ~ ~ mayest £!!2. i9. thyself, ~ 1!!!. eternally
to Me •
. Theil"'allvainimaginations shall vanish, all evil disturbanoes,
and superfluous oares.
Then also immoderate fear shall leave thee, and inordinate
love shall die. 22
The missing sections I have underlined reveal that the surrender or the
will is required so that the suppliant can be ruled by the will of God.
Maggie, however, surrenders her will as a good in itself. She asks Philip,
"'Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied
us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three years-­
even joy in subduing II\Y own will.'" 23 And we have earlier been told of
her mother's ttpuzzled wonder" at the change in Maggie. ·'It was amazing
that this once 'contratr,y' child was become so submissive, so backward
to assert her own will. II 24
This brief discussion of the difference between Thomas 'a Kempia'
aotual instruotions and George Eliot's, and therefore Maggie t a, interpretation
of them reveals a possible danger to Maggie in the ~doption
of a prinoiple of renunoiation without the promised reward or guidance
of Christ. And this leads us to an examination of another aspect of the
influence Maggie reoeives from her mediaeval, devotional text. We have
seen that she internalises the general preoept until it becomes the
voice of her oonscience and that she uses it as an abstraot guiding prinoiple
at times of moral orisis. It reinforoes her natural tendenoy to
give importanoe to faithfulness and to loyalty towards the bondage of
the past. We need now to consider how this comes about. The surest clue
that we get, apart from the reference to the "voice, tl 25 ocours when
Maggie catches a glimpse of Philip on his visit to the mill with his
father. She wonders whether he would still admire her eyes and has to
beat down her impulse to fetch the mirror and look at herself. We read
that "she cheoked herself and snatched up her work, trying to repress