A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

stinctive rescue of Mirah and the constant help and advioe he gives to
his friend, Hans lfeyerick. Sir Hugo more than once oomments on J)eronda • s
tendenoy to attract lame dogs and warns him to keep himself unscathed in
such encounters. These acts, whioh are motivated by his ooncern for other~
are examples of the, e~quisite .mora.Lsensibili:t;y:'ee~se:El:iot
ifkA.'t;;;:pa.i.aa
to display in this character. He would appear an insufferable prig if
it were not for the fact that he does show a moral weakness, and a relatively
serious one in George Eliot's oanon: he is aimless and drifting.
He himself is very much aware of this and assooiates his indecisiveness,
his inability to oommit himself to any profession or way of life,
with his ignoranoe as to his parentage. In his own mind he :feels that
onoe this is oleared up he will feel free and thus be able to make some
necessary commitment. Eventually this 'sense of a possible :future partisanship
becomes so identified in his mind with some duty connected with his
parentage that he convinces himself that the two are identical really,
not just ideally.
The evening on which he rescues Mirah his disaffected condition is
made very clear. "It was already a year or more sinoe he had oome back
to England, II we discover, 'twith the understanding that his eduoation
was finished, and that he was somehow to take his place in English society;
but though, in deference to Sir HUgo's wish, and to fenoe off
idleness, he had begun to read law, this apparent deoision had been
without other result than to deepen the roots of indeoision." 63 He is
aware that his will is somewhat IIparalysed, It 64. that he has fallen into
a "meditative numbness. tt 65 He longs forusome external event, or some
inward light, thatfir1lIi urge him into a definite line of aotion." 66
Instead, he feels as if he isllroaming ••• like a yearning disembodied
spirit, stirred with a vague socia~passion, "butw1thout'lt'uedJ..QQal
habitation to render fellowship relt-l." 67 He dreads, and at the same