IW^HI &OW1W&* ""7 dversity of Southern Library Fac3 Ci 'if*" *"" f '3 i>'"' l S|k lM 3* 1 jE*fcL!Of I f n> f i LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS EDITED BY GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B. PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE GEORGE ELIOT SILAS MARNEK ENGLISH CLASSICS Edited by GEORGE RICE CARPENTER, A.B., Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia University. With full Notes, Introductions, Bibliographies, and other Explanatory and Illustrative Matter. Crown 8vo. BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. Edited by Albert S. Cook, Ph.D., L.H.D., Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale Uni- versity. CARLYLE'S ESSAY ON BUBNB. Edited by Wilson Farrand, A.M., Associate Princi- pal of theNewark Academy, Newark, N.J. COLERIDGE'S THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MABINEB. Edited !>y Herbert Bates, A.B., late of the University of Nebraska, In- structor in English in the Manual Train- ing High School, Brooklyn . COOPER'S THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Ed- ited by Charles F. Richardson, Ph.D., Winkley Professor of the English Lan- guage and Literature in Dartmouth College. DE QUINCEY'S FLIGHT OF A TABTAB TBIBE (REVOLT OF THK TARTARS). Edi'ed by Charles Sears Baldwin. Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in Yale University. DEFOE'S HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LON- DON. Edited bv Professor G. R. Carpenter, of Columbia University. DBYDEN'S PALAMON AND ABCITE. Edited by William T. Brewster, A.M., Tutor in Rhetoric in Columbia University. GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MABNER. Edited by Robert Herrick. A.B., Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Chicago. GOLDSMITH'S THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Edited by Mary A. Jordan. A.M., Pro- fessor of Rhetoric and Old English in Smith College. IBVINO'S TALES OF A TBAVELLEB. With an Introduction by Brander Matthews, Pro- fessor of Literature in Columbia Univer- sity, and Explanatory Notes by the general editor of the series. MACATTLAY'S ESSAYS ON MILTON AND ADDI- SON. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by James Greenleaf Croswell, A.B., Head Master of the Brearley School, New York. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON MILTON. Edited hy James Greenleaf Croswell, A.B., Head Master of the Brearley School, New York. MACAITLAY'S LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. Ed- ited by the Rev. Huber Gray Buehler, of the Hothkiss School, Lakeville, Conn. MILTON'S L'ALLEOBO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS, AND LYCIDAS. Edited by William P. Trent, A.M., Professor of English in the Univer- sity of the South. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. BOOKS I. AND II. Edited by Edward Everett Hale, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric and Logic in Uniou College. POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. BOOKS I., VI., XXII., AND XXIV. Edited by William H. Max- well, A. M , City Superintendent of Schools, New York, and Percival Chubb, of the Ethical Culture Schools, New York. SCOTT'S WOODSTOCK. Edited by Bliss Perry, A.M., Professor of Oratory and ^-Esthetic Criticism ii\ Princeton University. SCOTT'S ITANHOE. Edited by Bliss Perry, A.M., Professor of Oratory and ./Esthetic Criticism in Princeton University. SCOTT'S MABMION. Edited by Robert Morss Lovett.A.B., Assistant Professor of English iu the University of Chicago. SHAKSPERF'S JULIUS CJESAR. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George C. D. Odell, Ph.D., Tutor in Rhetoric antf English Composition in Columbia University. SHAKSPERE'S MACBETH. Edited by John Matthews Manly, Ph. D., Professor of English in the University of Chicago. SHAKSPEBE'S MEBCHAXT OF VENICE. Ed- ited by Francis B. Gummere, Pn.D., Pro- fessor of English in Haverford College. SHAKSPERE'S As You LIKE IT. With an Introduction by Barrett rt'endell, A.B , Assistant Professor of English in Harvard University, and Notes bv William Lycn Phelps, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Eng- lish in Yale University. SHAKSPEBE'S A MIPSUMMEB NIGHT'S DREAM. Edited bv George Pierce Baker, A.B., Assistant Professor of English in Harvard University. THE SIB ROGEB DE COVEBLEY PAPERS, from "The Spectator.' 1 Ed. ted By D. O. S. Lowell, A.M., of the Roxbury Latin School, Roxbury, Mass. SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF NELSON. Edited by Ed- win L. Miller, A.M., of the Euglewood High School, Illinois. TENNYSON'S THE PBINCESS. Edited by George Edward Wocdbcrry, A.B., Pro- fessor of Literature in Columbia Uni- versity. WEBSTER'S FIRST BUNKER HILL OBATIOX, together with other Addresses relating to the Revolution. Edited b" Fred Newton Scott, Ph.D., Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan. GEORGE ELIOT (After an etching by Rajon) Xoncjmans' Bncjlisb Glassies GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARNER EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION EGBERT HERRICK ASSISTANT rKOFESSOK OF K1IETOKIC IN THE UNIVEKSITY OF CIIICAOO NEW YORK LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. LONDON AND BOMBAY 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1895 BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. All riyhts reserved FIRST EDITION, AUGUST, 1895 REPRINTED MARCH AND AUGUST, 1806 JUNE AND OCTOBER, 1S98, UETISED AUGUST, 1899 TROW DIRECTORY UNO BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK PREFACE THE main aim of teachers of English during the last decade has been to enable students in the secondary schools to secure a wider and closer familiarity with the great Eng- lish classics. Until that aim be attained, indeed, we can scarcely hope to reap much benefit from the teaching of rhetoric, of composition, or of the history of English liter- ature, for each of these studies, however separated from the others by the specific objects it has in view, must de- pend to a greater or less degree on a knowledge of, and a familiarity with, at least a few of the large body of English classics, and with literary English the more dignified forms, usages, and idioms of the language, that have taken their place in our literature, and, by this very means, have become standard. In favor of more reading in the schools, accordingly, as affording a basis for information, a source of pleasure, and an incentive to, and even a means for, growth in power of expression, the National Committee of Ten has recently offered a strong recommendation. The Conference on English assigned three "periods" a week for each of the four years of the high-school course to the study of English literature, and advised that it be " taught incidentally, in connection with the pupils' study of particular authors and works; "that "the mechanical use of ''manuals of litera- ture' be avoided;" and that "the committing to memory of names and dates be not mistaken for culture." The position taken by the National Committee of Ten was fur- ' viii PREFACE ther strengthened by the action of the Conference on Uni- form Entrance Requirements in English, whose recommen- dations, since adopted by almost all the prominent colleges and universities throughout the country, prescribed " Read- ing " as the first of the two requirements in English for ad- mission to American colleges. A second recommendation of the Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English was, that certain English classics should be studied thoroughly, word by word and letter by letter, if need be, until the student should have as detailed and as intelligent an idea as his age and his opportunities permit, of their subject-matter, their form, and their structure. In strict conformity with the courses of reading and study mentioned above, and certain to be adopted widely and uniformly throughout the United States, the publish- ers have arranged for the editing of a series of English classics, especially designed for use in secondary schools, either in accordance with the system of English study rec- ommended and outlined by the National Committee of Ten, or in direct preparation for the uniform entrance re- quirements in English now adopted by the principal Amer- ican colleges and universities. The Editors have been chosen for their scholarship, their literary or critical abil- ity, or their experience in teaching, according as each quali- fication seemed most necessary for the treatment of the work in question. On their part, the publishers aim to provide a series of volumes moderate in price, attractive and service- able in point of mechanical execution, and fit in every way for permanent use and possession. The specific aims of the series are : I. To interest young students in certain books (those prescribed for reading in the uniform entrance require- ments) as literature, and to draw attention to the main subjects of importance in them. No stress is laid on PREFACE IX merely linguistic study ; but every effort is made, by crit- ical and biographical introductions, by pertinent explana- tory notes, by bibliographies, chronological tables, and, in some instances, by portraits, maps, and plans, to make these books not only pleasant and useful reading in them- selves, but incentives to further reading and study. II. To provide, in each case, for the books prescribed for study a thorough and satisfactory method of treatment. Teachers in secondary schools will remember that the rec- ommendations of the Committee of Ten and the uniform requirements suggested jointly by various associations of colleges and preparatory schools are general, rather than particular, and that definite methods of study still remain to be laid down by scholars and experienced teachers. Precisely this is done by the part of the present series de- voted to the books prescribed for study. The position and the reputation of the editors are a sufficient guarantee that these volumes do all that can be done, at the present time and under the present circumstances, toward defining and typifying the best modern methods of studying literature in secondary schools. III. To provide for students in secondary schools who are not preparing for college, a uniform series of properly edited English classics for reading and study. The series which we here present has the great advantages of uni- formity and of authority, and, it is believed, will be widely adopted throughout the country by schools that refuse to give students who do not pursue their studies beyond the high school a less wide and thorough training in their mother tongue than those who go to college. George Eliot's charming story of " Silas Marner " is re- printed, by the kind permission of Messrs. "William Black- wood and Sons, from the authorized English edition of X PREFACE that wort. No changes whatever have been made in the text. The portrait of George Eliot which forms the front- ispiece is after the well-known etching by Eajon. Explicit advice as to the way in which " Silas Marner" should be read in secondary schools will be found in the " Suggestions for Teachers and Students." The " Chron- ological Table" is designed to show who were George Eliot's most important contemporaries in England and America. G. K. CARPENTEB. COLUMBIA COLLEGE, June, 1895. CONTENTS PAGK INTRODUCTION SUGGESTIONS FOB TEACHERS AND STUDENTS . . . xxxiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xxxvm PART I o CHAPTER I CHAPTER II 18 CHAPTER III 28 CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V 51 CHAPTER VI 57 CHAPTER VII C9 CHAPTER VIII . . 76 CHAPTER IX 8G CHAPTER X 95 CHAPTER XI 113 CHAPTER XII 136 CHAPTER XIII 148 CHAPTER XIV 15S CHAPTER XV 167 Xll CONTENTS PART II PAGE CHAPTER XVI 1G9 CHAPTER XVII 186 CHAPTER XVIII 198 CHAPTER XIX 203 CHAPTER XX 214 CHAPTER XXI 217 CONCLUSION ..,... ,223 INTRODUCTION I. BIOGRAPHY THE most delightful introduction a student can have to George Eliot's life and personality will be found in certain scenes and characters of her earlier novels. Although the novelist nowhere draws exact portraits of her early friends or associates, or describes actual events of importance in her early life, yet the country scenes of Midland England and the character of English country life in the first part of this century, from which George Eliot derived her most inspiring material, are imbedded bit by bit in her early fiction and in " Middlemarch " (written in 1871-1872). Her first stories, " The Scenes of Clerical Life," were laid in Warwickshire at Nuneaton, within a few miles of her early home. Her father's occupation, that of supervisor or manager of a large estate, with special skill in the man- agement of forests and the valuation of land, is described in connection with Caleb Garth in "Middlemarch;" Adam Bede also possesses many characteristics drawn from her father. The quick-witted Mrs. Poyser in "Adam Bede," with her admirable housewifely qualities, suggests George Eliot's mother, and the Dodsons in the " Mill on the Floss " are in many respects pictured from her own family. Dorothea Brooke's relationship with her sister Celia in "Middlemarch" resembles George Eliot's own life with her younger sister Christina. The central story of "Adam Bede" was told George Eliot by an aunt, a XIV INTRODUCTION Methodist preacher, who visited Mr. Evans's family when the novelist was in her teens. Indeed, many of the feat' ures of the young Methodist Dinah Morris were suggested by this aunt, who made a deep impression at that time upon George Eliot ; through her also, it is probable, the novelist became familiar with "the life of an artisan ear- ly incorporated in a narrow religious sect," which formed the character of Silas Marner. Perhaps the " Mill on the Floss " is the most autobiographical novel, in that the heroine, Maggie Tulliver, indicates many of George Eliot's impulses. It is noteworthy that only two important works, " Komola " and " Daniel Deronda," have no immediate connection with the Midland England where George Eliot lived, almost without interruption, the first thirty years of her life. Mary Ann (sometimes written by herself Marian) Evans was born November 22, 1819, in the parish of Chilvers Col ton, Warwickshire, England. " The year 1819," says Mr. Cross, " is memorable as a culminating period of bad times and political discontent in England. The nation was suffering acutely from the reaction after the excite- ment of the last Napoleonic war. George IV. did not come to the throne till January, 1820, so that George Eliot was born in the reign of George III. Waterloo was not yet an affair of five years old. Byron had four years, and Goethe had thirteen years still to live. The last of Miss Austen's novels had been published only eighteen months, and the first of the Waverley series only six years before. Thackeray and Dickens were boys at school, and George Sand was a girl of fifteen. That ' Greater Britain' (Can- ada and Australia), which to-day forms so large a read- ing public, was then scarcely more than a geographical ex- pression, with less than half a million inhabitants, all told, where at present there are eight millions ; and in the INTRODUCTION XV United States, where more copies of George Eliot's books are now sold than in any other quarter of the world, the population then numbered less than ten millions, where to-day it is fifty-five millions. Including Great Britain, these English-speaking races have increased from thirty millions in 1820 to one hundred millions in 1884 ; and with a corresponding increase in education we can form some conception how a popular English writer's fame has widened its circle." 1 She died in 1880, having lived through the important periods of a century that has been filled with industrial, commercial, and intellectual move- ments. Mr. Cross, in his "Life," thus describes the England which she was born into : "There was a remoteness about a detached country house, in the England of those days, difficult for us to conceive now with our rail- ways, penny-post, and telegraphs ; nor is the Warwickshire country about Griff an exhilarating surrounding. There are neither hills nor vales, no rivers, lakes, or sea nothing but a monotonous succes- sion of green fields and hedgerows, with some fine trees. The only water to be seen is the ' Brown Canal. ' The effect of such a landscape on an ordinary observer is not inspiring, but ' effective magic is trans- cendent nature ; ' and with her transcendent nature George Eliot has transfigured these scenes, dear to Midland souls, into many an idyllic picture, known to those who know her books. In her childhood the great event of the day was the passing of the coach before the gate of Griff House, which lies at a bend of the high-road between Coventry and Nuneaton, and within a couple of miles of the mining village of Bedworth, 'where the land began to be blackened with coal pits, the rattle of hand-looms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here were powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high wages at the ale-house with their fellows of the Benefit Club ; 1 George Eliot's Life, J. W. Cross (Harper and Brothers), edition of 1885, page 4. xvi INTRODUCTION here the pale, eager faces of hand-loom weavers, men and women, haggard from sitting up late at night to finish the week's work, hardly begun till the Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small children were dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to the loom ; pious Dissenting women, perhaps, who took life patiently, and thought that salvation depended chiefly on predestination, and not at all on cleanliness. The gables of Dissenting chapels now made a visible sign of religion and of a meeting-place to counterbalance the ale house, even in the hamlets. Yet there were the grey steeples too, and the church-yards, with their grassy mounds and venerable head stones, sleeping in the sunlight ; there were broad fields and homesteads, and fine old woods covering a rising ground, or stretching far by the road- side, allowing only peeps at the park and mansion which they shut in from the working-day world. In these Midland districts the traveller passed rapidly from one phase of English life to another ; after looking on a village dingy with coal dust, noisy with the shaking of looms, he might skirt a parish all of fields, high hedges, and deep-rutted lanes ; after the coach had rattled over the pavement of a manufacturing town, the scene of riots and trades-union meetings, it would take him in another ten minutes into a rural region, where the neighborhood of the town was only felt in the advantages of a near market for corn, cheese, and hay, and where men with a considerable banking account were accustomed to say that they never meddled with politics them- selves.' " ' " There was nothing of the infant phenomenon about George Eliot," writes Mr. Cross, and until she began to live with her father near Coventry in 1841, her life was that of a more than usually serious young woman, who had at- tended various boarding-schools in the neighborhood and for several years had had the care of her father's house. At Coventry she made several intimate and lifelong friend- ships with people interested in new intellectual movements. This congenial intercourse gave a great impulse to her studies she had been for a number of years a wide reader and we find her reading Greek and Latin with the master 1 Quoted by Mr. Cross from the Introduction to Felix Holt. INTRODUCTION xvii of the Coventry Grammar School, and learning Italian and German. She wrote to a friend in 1839 : " My mind presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern ; scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton ; newspaper topics ; morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, chemistry ; reviews and metaphysics all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast-thickening every -day accession of actual events, relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations." In 1846 appeared her first work, a translation from the German of Strauss's ' ' Life of Jesus, " a book that had a wide influence upon the advanced religious thought of the time. At Coventry, in 1848, she met Emerson : " I have met Emerson," she wrote, "the first man I have ever seen/* Mr. Evans died in 1849, and, after a brief residence abroad, in 1850 she became an assistant-editor of the West- minster Review, her connection with which she contin- ued until 1853. Although editorial work proved exacting and painful drudgery, she was brought by it into London life, and through her connection with the magazine she met many of the foremost literary and scientific writers of the time, especially Harriet Martineau, Herbert Spencer, and George Henry Lewes. Lewes, who was at that time engaged in editorial work also, was interested in scientific and philosophical studies. His best-known works are his " Biographical History of Philosophy" (1845) and his "Life of Goethe" (1855). George Eliot's friendship for Lewes became stronger, and ended in 1853 in their union. The closest companionship and mutual aid in their several lines of intellectual work followed uninterruptedly until Mr. Lewes's death the most severe blow to George Eliot in 1878. Mr. Lewes was of unimaginable aid and assistance to his wife, especially in xviii INTRODUCTION two ways : he took upon himself all business cares and negotiations with publishers ; and he encouraged her in the many fits of depression and self -distrust that constantly beset her, even after her reputation was established. In- deed, it was due to his encouragement that her first vent- ure in fiction, ''Amos Barton," one of the "Scenes of Clerical Life," was completed and sent to the publisher, Mr. Blackwood. Of this event George Eliot says : "September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it was then I be- gan to write fiction. It had always been a vague dream of mine that sometime or other I might write a novel ; and my shadowy conception of what the novel was to be varied, of course, from one epoch of my life to another. But I never went further towards the actual writing of the novel than an introductory chapter- describing a Staffordshire vil- lage and the life of the neighboring farm houses ; and as the years passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts of a novel. My ' introductory chapter ' was pure description , though there were good materials in it for dramatic presentation. It happened to be among the papers I had with me in Germany, and one evening at Ber- lin something led me to read it to George. He was struck with it as a bit of concrete description, and it suggested to him the possibility of my being able to write a novel, though he distrusted indeed, disbe- lieved in my possession of any dramatic power. Still, he began to think that I might as well try sometime what I could do in fiction, and by and by, when we came back to England, and I had greater suc- cess than he ever expected in other kinds of writing, his impression that it was worth while to see how far my mental power would go to- wards the production of a novel was strengthened. He began to say very positively, 'You must try and write a story,' and when we were at Tenby he urged me to begin at once. I deferred it, however, after my usual fashion with work that does not present itself as an absolute duty. But one morning, as I was thinking what should be the subject of my first story, my thoughts merged themselves into a dreamy doze, INTRODUCTION xix and I imagined myself writing a story, of which the title was ' The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton.' I was soon wide awake again and told G. He said, ' Oh, what a capital title ! ' and from that time I had settled in my mind that this should be my first story. George used to say, ' It may be a failure it may be that you are un- able to write fiction. Or, perhaps, it may be just good enough to war- rant your trying again.' Again, ' You may write a chef-d'ceuvre at once there's no telling.' But his prevalent impression was, that though I could hardly write a poor novel, my effort would want the highest quality of fiction, dramatic presentation. He used to say, ' You have wit, description, and philosophy those go a good way towards the production of a novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment.' We determined that if my story turned out good enough we would send it to Blackwood ; but G. thought the more probable result was that I should have to lay it aside and try again. But when we returned to Richmond I had to write my article on 'Silly Novels,' and my re- view of ' Contemporary Literature ' for the Westminster, so that I did not begin my story till September 22d. After I had begun it, as we were walking in the park, I mentioned to G. that I had thought of the plan of writing a series of stories, containing sketches drawn from my own observation of the clergy, and calling them ' Scenes from Clerical Life,' opening with ' Amos Barton.' He at once accepted the notion as a good one fresh and striking ; and about a week after- wards, when I read him the first part of 'Amos,' he had no longer any doubt about my ability to carry out the plan. The scene at Cross Farm, he said, satisfied him that I had the very element he had been doubt- ful about - it was clear I could write good dialogue. There still re- mained the question whether I could command any pathos ; and that was to be decided by the mode in which I treated Milly's death. One night G. went to town on purpose to leave me a quiet evening for writing it. I wrote the chapter from the news brought by the shep- herd to Mrs. Hackit, to the moment when Amos is dragged from the bedside, and I read it to G. when he came home. We both cried over it, then he came up to me and kissed me, saying, ' I think your pathos is better than your fun.' " When " Amos Barton " was sent to the publishers, Blackwood replied to Lewes : " It is a long time since I have read anything so fresh, so humorous, so touching. " xx INTRODUCTION And from this time (George Eliot was then thirty-seven) * she felt that her work in literature had been found. Henceforth the story of her life is largely an account of the growth of her novels, interleaved by notes of travel on short visits to continental countries and vacation days in rural England. "Amos Barton " appeared in 1857, under the nom de plume of George Eliot ; it was some time before the author's identity was found out, and although Dick- ens was keen enough to detect the feminine hand in the " Scenes " and in " Adam Bede," the majority of the crit- ics were deceived by the firm, masculine style of the new novelist. George Eliot at once began another story for " Scenes of Clerical Life," and in 1859 appeared " Adam Bede." The immediate fame that this novel won established be- yond a doubt George Eliot's power as a novelist. Yet, after each work was completed, she suffered from severe mental and nervous depression, during which she doubted the continuation of her powers. Frequent changes of scene and country life were necessary to restore her vigor. In 1860 the " Mill on the Floss " was published, and, while assembling in her mind the material for an histor- ical novel on Italian life, she wrote " Silas Marner." AVe have the first mention of this new book in a letter to her publisher of January, 1861 : "I am writing a story which came across my other plans by a sudden inspiration. I don't know at present whether it will resolve itself into a book short enough for me to complete before Easter, or whether it will expand beyond that possibility. It seems to me that nobody will take any interest in it but my- self, for it is extremely unlike the popular stories going ; but Mr. Lewes declares that I am wrong, and says it is as good as anything I have done. It is a story of old- 1 " Hers was a large, slow growing nature." J. W. Cross. INTRODUCTION xxi fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought. I think I get slower and more timid in my writing, but perhaps worry about houses and servants and boys, with want of bodily strength, may have had something to do with that. I hope to be quiet now." x The following entry in her journal, February, 1861, is concerned with " Silas Marner : " " The first month of the new year has been passed in much bodily discomfort, making both work and leisure heavy. I have reached page 209 in my story, which is to be in one vol- ume, and I want to get it ready for Easter, but I dare promise myself nothing with this feeble body.-" Later in February we have this letter to Black wood : " I send you by post to-day about two hundred and thirty pages of MS. I send it because, in my experience, printing and its pre- liminaries have always been rather a slow business ; and as the story if published at Easter at all should be ready by Easter week, there is no time to lose." The time of composition must, therefore, have been only a few months. Another letter to Mr. Blackwood states the author's own opinion in regard to the effect of the story : " I don't wonder at your finding my story, as far as you have read it, rather sombre ; indeed, I should not have believed that any one would have been interested in it but myself (since Wordsworth is dead) if Mr. Lewes had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope you will not find it at all a sad story, as a whole, since it sets or is intended to set in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, nat- ural relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially all that relates to the psychology of Silas ; except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal play of humor. It 1 Life, vol. ii., page 206. xxii INTRODUCTION came to me first of all quite suddenly, as a sort of legend- ary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen - weaver with a bag on his back ; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became in- clined to a more realistic treatment. My chief reason for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my writings to appear in the order in which they are written, because they belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification with them which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I generally like them better at that distance, but then I feel as if they might just as well have been writ- ten by somebody else." And again to another friend : " Silas Marner is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations." From time to time George Eliot's letters and journals make mention of the satisfactory success of " Silas Mar- ner," the large sales that were made of this, as well as of her previous books (in this practical evidence of the wide influence of her work George Eliot always showed keen interest), and of the translation into French. The entry in her journal for January 1, 1862, reads : " Mr. Black- wood sent me a note enclosing a letter from Montalembert * about ' Silas Marner/ / began again my novel of Romola." With the writing of " Silas Marner/' the first period of George Eliot's authorship may be said to close. Her early works were in a sense more spontaneous, more unpremed- itated, less careful than the long novels to come. They were written in the flush of immediate and unexpected success ; the later novels caused her more anxiety and left her more exhausted. About the time of the composition of "Silas Marner," she had been preparing herself for 1 A noted French historian. INTRODUCTION xxiii " Romola " by two visits to Florence and by wide reading in Italian history and literature. The list of books di- rectly consulted for the preparation of this historical novel covers an octavo page, so thoroughly did George Eliot gather facts for her imaginative treatment. "llomola" was published in parts in the Cornhill Magazine during 1863 ; it attained even greater success than her previous novels, and by many is still regarded as George Eliot's masterpiece. " I began it a young woman," she said of it, "I finished it an old woman." " Felix Holt," a picture of the radical movement in Eng- lish politics, followed in I860. In 1868 "The Spanish Gypsy," a dramatic poem that had engaged her deepest in- terest for a number of years, was published and favorably reviewed ; most lovers of George Eliot, however, find this poem, and, indeed, all her poetry, full of strenuous and noble thought as it is, inferior in power to her novels. " Middlemarch " was finished in 1872. Although this long novel has been criticised on artistic grounds for intro- ducing too many characters, for its poor construction, and, in places, for its labored style, yet to many it is the richest fruit of George Eliot's experience. Four years later (1876) appeared her last important work, " Daniel Deronda." Lewes died in 1878, and after a dark period of bereavement and depression, Mrs. Lewes accepted the devotion and lov- ing care of an old family friend : she married Mr. J. W. Cross. She died in December of the same year, 1880. George Eliot wrote in her journal of 1861 : " Alas ! I could have done much more if I had been well, but that regret applies to most years of my life." This fact of con- stant ill-health and almost morbid depression, against which she forced herself to her work, is noticeable from her early years. It necessitated the warm sympathy and regard of a circle of intimate friends, and the unwearied care and de- xxiv INTRODUCTION votion of Mr. Lewes, and, at the very end, of Mr. Cross, to make her literary labors possible. Her nature was ex- cessively timid, and had it not been for the encouragement and faith of those life-long companions, probably George Eliot's great novels would never have been accomplished. Her mind, as well as her body, needed constant refresh- ment from the labors of composition and her voluminous studies ; hence we find, especially during the later years of her life, repeated changes of scene, flying trips to the Continent, and short visits to the country. Once away from London, in the quiet English country she knew so well, or absorbed in the pleasures of travel, her mind threw off its distrust, and plans for new work began to form them- selves. Reference has been made to the scholarly pains which George Eliot took in collecting historical material for "Romola." Probably no other great novelist has been as learned, in the sense of widely read, as was George Eliot. Her list of reading, at any time from the Coventry period until her death, was enormous and diversified. Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German she used fluently and for pleasure, and the great masterpieces of literature in those languages she read and re-read. Outside of pure literature her tastes were unusually developed in two lines philosophy (especially theological and religious philos- ophy) and science. Her early studies, we have already seen, were in German philosophy. The long friendship with Herbert Spencer, and the intimate interest in Lewes's scientific work, made her familiar with the scientific move- ment of the time. Her eager mind absorbed the results of the progressive thought of her contemporaries. During the periods of her intermittent residence in London many dis- tinguished scientists frequented her home at The Priory, Regent's Park. George Eliot never mingled in general INTRODUCTION XX V society, but on Sunday afternoons The Priory was a meet- ing-place for men distinguished in various callings. Her life was passed in a period of great intellectual expansion, especially religious and scientific, and everywhere her novels bear evidence of that fact. George Eliot's large features were not beautiful ; but her face was impressive. Hers was an earnest nature, serious with itself and with others, and in spite of the humor that lights up her best work, her outlook on life is always moral, often tragic never flippant or merely gay. " I will never write anything to which my whole heart, mind, and conscience don't consent, so that I may feel that it was something however small which wanted to be done in this world, and that I am just the organ for that small bit of work." And again : " My books were written out of my deepest belief, and as well as I can for the great public, and every sincere, strong word will find its mark in that public." The moral earnestness . that pervades her novels is the source of her great strength, and also, to some critics, of the weakness of her work in artistic value. II. STYLE A CONTEMPORARY reviewer praised George Eliot's style in the translation from Strauss in these words : " A faithful, elegant, and scholar-like translation. Whoever reads these volumes without any reference to the German must be pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiomatic, and harmoni- ous force of the English style. But he will be still more satisfied when, on turning to the original, he finds that the rendering is word for word, thought for thought, and sen- tence for sentence. In preparing so beautiful a rendering xxvi INTRODUCTION as the present, the difficulties can have been neither few nor small in the way of preserving in various parts of the work the exactness of the translation, combined with that uniform harmony and clearness of style which imparts to the volumes before us the air and spirit of an original." George Eliot's prose may be called scholarly in the sense that it reflects her wide reading and her acquaintance with the best thought of her time. Many of her happiest fig- ures of speech are drawn from scientific, especially chemical and biological, studies, and hardly a chapter of narrative or description can be found in her novels that does not betray acquaintance with scientific or philosophical thought. In- deed, one defect in the prevailing lucidity of her diction is due to the excessive use of abstract terms, that may be at- tributed to scientific reading and to the study and trans- lation of much German philosophical prose. But George Eliot's style is not scholarly in the sense of an accurate use of English idiom. Although the later editions of her novels were carefully revised, yet in many details, such as the constant misuse of a word (e.g., " egoism "for "ego- tism"), improper prepositions, incomplete or misplaced tenses, here and there the use of a singular noun with a plural verb or pronoun of reference (as the use of "every- one" with "their"), and the confusing misplacement of phrases, her style is not above reproach. Attention has been called in this edition to some slips in style in " Silas Marner." The student, while not necessarily making a grammar lesson out of a charming story, should be con- stantly alive to inaccuracies of style and to slovenly dic- tion. George Eliot's prose has its peculiar excellences that will be noted, but it cannot be called " pure " in the sense that we call Jane Austen's, or Thackeray's, or Hawthorne's prose pure. INTRODUCTION xxvii There is another characteristic of George Eliot's style, that often renders her stories uncongenial to the student who is not naturally bookish : she not only uses a very wide vocabulary, but she employs also many words of Latin (and hence unfamiliar) derivation. For instance, on page 3 of this edition we find " Superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted or even intermittent and occasional ; " on page 12 she describes Marner and his friend in these ponderous words, " The ex- pression of trusting simplicity in Marner's face, heightened by that absence of special observation, that defenceless, deer-like gaze which belongs to large prominent eyes, was strongly contrasted by the self-complacent suppression of inward triumph that lurked in the narrow slanting eyes and compressed lips of William Dane ; " and again we find " du- biety," " the ready transition of infancy," " erudite re- search ; " " Eppie was reared without punishment, the burden of her misdeeds being borne vicariously by father Silas." At times, however, George Eliot intentionally em- ploys this vocabulary of long Latin words for the sake of humor ; the weight of the diction is in absurd contrast to the simple matters stated : " Even if any brain in Eave- loe had put the said two facts together, I doubt whether a combination so injurious to the prescriptive respectability of a family with a mural-monument and venerable tankards, would not have been suppressed as an unsound tendency. But Christmas puddings, brawn, and abundance of spiritu- ous liquors throwing the mental originality into the chan- nel of nightmare, are great preservatives against a danger- ous spontaneity of waking thought." Although this habit of using long words slightly unfa- miliar in ordinary reading, and often general rather than concrete or special, takes away the point here and there and makes the reading of a novel tiresome, it should xxvin INTRODUCTION be remembered that it is often the fault of the reader rather than of the author. George Eliot's novels give the careful student an admirable chance to increase his knowledge of words. He should not attempt to read " Si- las Marner," for instance, without frequently consulting an unabridged dictionary. He may find at first glance some general, hazy meaning in a descriptive passage, but he cannot appreciate its full sense or power until he has made the vocabulary his own. In short, he must use a dictionary ; this school edition is not intended to furnish an escape from the discipline of reading. If we find George Eliot's prose bookish and Latin in the descriptive and analytic parts, in dealing with rustic life, with homely characters, such as Mrs. Winthrop or Mr. Macey, the novelist shows her familiarity Avith the simple, strongly Anglo-Saxon usage of workaday life. Her dia- lect is said to be remarkably true to life ; it is more than that it is crisp and racy. Chapters VI. and VII. of " Silas Marner " furnish good examples of this power ; and the conversation of the party at the Red House is nicely calculated to indicate a slight rise in social position. In all the purely dramatic parts of her story the novelist aban- dons her learned vocabulary for the homely idioms she knew intimately. That George Eliot loved the country itself, the lanes, the flat fields, the very earth, her figures of speech con- stantly show. Note, for instance, the following : Marner's hoarding of money " made a loam deep enough for the seeds of desire ; " his life had shrunk away from the past, " like a rivulet that has sunk far down from the grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little shivering thread that cuts a groove for itself in the barren sand ; " " where their mother earth shows another lap." The student's attention should also be called to George INTRODUCTION xxix Eliot's firm paragraphing. In spite of the interruption of dialogue the author's finely methodical mind divided her narrative or descriptive passages into distinct units. Each paragraph advances the thought, and at the close of the paragraph the emphasis of the thought is reached. It would be well for the student to summarize some chapters of the story paragraph by paragraph in order that he may appreciate the advantages of a careful use of this valuable element in composition. George Eliot's style apart from her subject-matter, in spite of the defects already mentioned, is an excellent in- tellectual tonic for a young student. Her wide interests, the association of ideas that her words carry, are reflected from the firm, varied, and copious diction. She is never pretty, and rarely pedantic ; she writes not to show off her powers, but to make thoroughly real her thoughts and emotions. III. METHODS THE student will quickly observe, as he reads " Silas Marner," that George Eliot is not content to unfold the story and to present the characters by the simple means of describing the people and places and narrating the few events. The novelist does describe and admirably as in Chapter I., the village of Raveloe (page 6), or Marner's appearance in Raveloe (page 7), and Squire Cass (page 86), and Eppie's life with Silas in Chapter XVI. She also tells such past events as are necessary to the reader's understanding of the story ; for example, near the close of the first chapter two pages of condensed narration give us Marner's history up to the time of his coming to Raveloe. The novelist also relates in the dramatic form of xxx INTRODUCTION conversation, as, in the scene between Godfrey Cass and his wife and Silas Marner over the possession of Eppie (pages 203-213). Wherever George Eliot merely describes or narrates facts she shows her great power of carrying the reader rapidly along in the current of her story, and of making him feel the real existence of the people who are talking and acting. But for her purpose, which is always that of expressing a moral or ethical truth, this impersonal method of story- telling is not complete. She does not choose to let the reader supply for himself the mental and moral life, the psychology, of her characters. She is not content with leaving him on the outside of the story, as we are left in every -day life, to notice only external actions and appear- ances, and to speculate about causes and motives. She explains and discusses her characters and their acts, and in this way takes the reader with her into the secrets and deeper underlying processes that cause the facts which ap- pear to make the story. The analysis of characters and events, as this process of explanation and discussion is called, is to George Eliot more important than the charac- ters or events in themselves, and she constantly interrupts the thread of her narrative to make the analysis clear. Thus she hopes to realize the life of her imaginary beings more completely than would the reader who saw merely the outside. Let us take an example from " Silas Marner." On page 5 of Chapter I. the novelist seeks to explain why ignorant village people regarded Marner with superstition. First, using colloquial language to make the feeling real, she presents the simple reasoning of his neighbors that the weaver must possess evil powers ; then she discusses for the space of a dozen lines this process of mind among such people. In the same way George Eliot explains later in INTRODUCTION xxxi the chapter, page 11, why Marner regarded his fits as a kind of divine interference in his life. Again, in Chaptei II., after first describing the growth in Silas Marner of the habit -.pf hoarding money, she explains the state of mind that permitted him to adopt this unnatural way of life. The same method is used in the case of less interesting characters ; Godfrey Cass, for example, is morally weak and irresolute, though not at bottom a bad fellow. The exact state of mind which puts him into his brother's power is analyzed at length in Chapter III., page 35 ; and after introducing an episode between Godfrey and his vicious brother, the novelist continues to the end of the chapter her discussion of the fundamental weakness of the young man. At the close of this analysis she departs still farther from the ordinary methods of telling a story by description and narration. " The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong- doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature ; and the good-humored, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a bitter man, visited by cruel wishes that seemed to enter, and depart, and enter again, like demons who had found in him a ready garnished home." Here, for the moment leaving the immediate interests of the story, she stops to reflect, or moralize, or draw a lesson from the situa- tion. This manner of discussing the moral sides of the story, so frequently adopted by George Eliot, is often called the didactic (teaching) method. Although she in- serts these passages of direct teaching with comparative infrequency, many examples of the didactic method may be found in "Silas Marner" (for good instances see page 93, Chapter IX., "Favorable chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who/' etc. ; or page 150, Chapter XIIL, "The prevarication and white-lies," etc.). The student should note the presence of these various methods as the story unfolds itself. He will find that in xxxii INTRODUCTION many chapters the analysis and the teaching are easily sep- arated from the pure narrative, and that they frequently occur at the close of chapters, where the novelist seems to pause for reflection before presenting a new episode. It is also noteworthy that, as the story progresses and the char- acters are well understood, the analysis grows less and less frequent. Part II. contains few examples of pure analysis. Many critics and readers of George Eliot have found this analytic and didactic habit of hers the chief stumbling-block in the way of a complete enjoyment of her work. They feel that the story should tell itself unaided by reflection or analysis, and that the moral should be shown by the events, not directly taught. Certainly few English novelists teach so directly as George Eliot, or explain causes and motives so persistently. Thackeray and Dickens, her two great contemporaries in fiction, moralize frequently, but rarely analyze deeply. Scott's pages of analysis or teaching are few and far between, and Hawthorne rarely " preaches/' although he constantly describes the hidden workings of the mind. It will be interesting for the student, while reading " Silas Marner," to contrast the novelist's methods used in telling this simple story with the narrative in the " House of Seven Gables." But our purpose is not a judicial one in reading "Silas Marner." The novelist has presented her characters definitely and has unfolded a moral situation that of a cruelly warped nature reconstructed by a fresh and deep human interest. Perhaps no other way of tell- ing such a story would have brought out its spiritual tragedy. And, before all other things, George Eliot was concerned with the spiritual aspect of life. She desired to express this in aesthetic, i.e., beautiful, or artistic form; in writing the following (taken from a letter to Mr. Frederic Harrison), she explains her ideal : "I think aesthetic teach- INTRODUCTION xxxiii ing is the highest of all teaching, because it deals in life with its highest complexity. But if it ceases to be purely aesthetic if it lapses anywhere from the picture to the diagram it becomes the most offensive of all teaching." IV. THE STORY " IT is a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought." In these words George Eliot first describes " Silas Marner." Later, in another letter to her publisher, she touches upon a different aspect of the tale : . . "it sets, or is intended to set, in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural relations." These two statements present the im- portant elements of the story, the rural setting of the ac- tion in an English village at the beginning of our century, where the simplicity of the social life is adapted to bring out in high relief the tragedy of Silas ; and, on the other hand, the spiritual truth of Silas's regeneration, caused by the awakening of the affections through his love for the helpless child. Each element is essential to the strength of the other, and throughout the book each is kept in sight. The superstition, ignorance, and conservatism of the Ravel oe villagers, at the Squire's house as well as at the Rainbow, form the background for the strange figure of the weaver, Silas Marner. He himself belongs to a re- mote epoch of pre-factory days, when isolation tended to produce simplicity and intensity of character, and igno- rance also. Thus his position in life makes the drama more possible and more forcible. He loses his faith in the justice of God and man by an unexpected and undeserved calamity ; it is restored by an unforeseen and mysterious blessing. xxxi'v INTRODUCTION The story is brightened and made more real by a num. ber of minor characters who take part in the action. God- frey Cass through his folly and weakness of will prepares unhappiness for himself and his wife, and yet, in just rec- ognition of the complexity of human events, the novelist shows how his weakness and failure are a means for the salvation of Silas, So, also, George Eliot uses the villain- ous Dunsey as an instrument in abstracting Silas's gold. Until the loss of his gold hoard, which had become his God, had taken place, Silas was not in a condition to be reached by outside concerns. The firm outline of the minor lives in the story show George Eliot's power of character drawing as much as the delineation of Silas. The villagers, especially Mr. Macey and Dolly Winthrop, the doctor, old Squire Cass, and the Lammeters are all described vividly and made to live as independent human beings who interest us. Peculiarities of character are displayed so far as we need to know them. Each actor receives due attention ; no one is slurred, or left vague. Thus the sense of real life all important in telling a story is created by the careful treatment given to the minor characters. We may find, then, three essential requirements of good fiction satisfied in " Silas Marner " : Scene, Character, and Plot. And all three are kept in equal prominence. The novelist does not allow the strain of Silas's tragedy to over- shadow the humorous aspects of the life about him, nor does she neglect to relate his life with the other people of the scene. In other words " Silas Marner " is a story ; the fine analysis of motive and character, the many sane and sagacious reflections on life, should not permit us to for- get that we are reading a story, i.e., enjoying a picture of human life. EGBERT HERKICK. SUGGESTIONS FOE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN preparing the present volume, the second of the series of books for "reading/ 3 the editor has had two distinct aims. First, he has endeavored to give the student, by means of the introduction and the notes, all the information neces- sary for a thorough understanding of the book in question. Second, he has attempted to lead him on to read, sponta- neously and with pleasure, other books of the same sort or of cognate sorts. In pursuance of both aims he now ventures to suggest to such teachers, pupils, or chance readers as have no better plans of their own, the follow- ing scheme of study : I. The pupil's first step must be to read at home, or in his school hours for study preferably the former a por- tion of " Silas Marner," varying in length from five to twenty-five pages, according to his age and experience. In each case he should read the assigned passage twice, first with a view to getting an intelligent idea of the sub- ject-matter in general, and of obtaining from it as much pleasure as possible, and second, with a view to assuring himself that he knows precisely what the author means by every word, sentence, and paragraph of the passage. He should not, of course, concern himself, in any but the rar- est cases, with the etymology of particular words, or with the ferreting out of remote allusions. All words not to be found in a good dictionary, all allusions that cannot be understood by a boy or girl of ordinary information, are xxxvi SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS explained in the notes. The notes must not be relied on, however, to escape the discipline of reading. A pupil who does not have a sufficiently definite idea of common words or expressions, which the author uses and which are not ex- plained in the notes, to appreciate the author's meaning or the point of his allusion, must consult an encyclopae- dia, a dictionary, or some Aviser friend. II. The second step in the treatment of a book pre- scribed for reading is taken in the class-room. Here the instructor, with as little formality as possible, should make certain that each student has mastered the part of the book designated, i.e., that he has an intelligent idea of the sub- ject-matter, as a whole and in detail ; that he really under- stands what the author's object was in this particular part of his work ; and that he enjoys and appreciates the au- thor's wit, humor, satire, or whatever the dominant quality of the passage may be. III. It is important, also, that the student should connect the information he obtains from the passage in question with the information afforded by his other studies and by his own experience and observation. Wherever " Silas Mar- ner," for example, brings forward matters touched on in any other branch of study, or questions of thought or action made prominent by local interest, the pupil's mind should be taught to fasten tenaciously on these points, that he may realize the interconnection between sub- jects of study seemingly diverse, and gain a flexibility of mind that passes readily from one point of view to another, and makes every possible use of every fact and fancy it has once come into the possession of. IV. It is even more important that the pupil should be stimulated to carry on lines of study and reading which the prescribed book suggests. He may with profit read a short biography of George Eliot or passages from Mr. Cross's lar- SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS xxxvii ger " Life and Letters," for more detailed information in regard to her life than that furnished by the Introduction. He should be encouraged to read the " Scenes of Clerical Life" and, perhaps, "Komola" and "Adam Bede," or " Middlemarch." These thoughtful novels should, in their turn, aid to develop in him a taste, too frequently wholly absent, for thoughtful reading of all sorts and for observation and reflection in regard to the life around him. After a further acquaintance with George Eliot, the stu- dent would do well to read Jane Austen's " Pride and Prejudice," or Mrs. Gaskell's " Cranford," or Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre/' all noteworthy novels of English life by English women. V. Exercises in composition, based upon the book, should not be neglected. These may be mere summaries, or simple analyses of plot or character. If such exercises be continued long, an effort should be made to introduce other elements than that of summarizing the mere giving back again, in presentable form, of facts already desig- nated. The student should learn to gather facts for himself. It is his power of observation that needs to be trained, when once his power of acquiring what is pointed out to him is thoroughly tested. It is recommended, therefore, that composition-subjects be chosen, as much as possible, after the summarizing is once done thoroughly, from the subjects of reading and study referred to under IV., or else from material furnished by the student's own life and experience. For this purpose frequent short themes (containing from 100 to 300 words) are more useful than longer, more pre- tentious efforts at "essay-writing." These papers need not invariably be criticised in detail by the instructor, but may be read aloud and discussed before the class. Such exercises, it is believed, will encourage the student to write briefly and naturally on what he sees in books and xxxviii SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS thinks about them. Some hints for composition-subjects are given in the notes. Furthermore, wherever it is pos- sible, the student should be encouraged to keep a note- book in which may be gathered information about books, biographical and critical facts, etc. VI. It would be folly to lay down one plan of treating such a book as " Silas Marner " to be followed in all classes. Individual needs both of students and teachers will necessitate varying methods of teaching fiction in the class-room. All instructors will agree, however, that the one important object in teaching literature, at least to young students, is to arouse fresh, spontaneous interest in the work as literature, not as literary history, ethics, or grammar. . To this end the editor doubts the utility of any mechanical scheme for analyses of plot or character, such as the " diagraming " of the moral development of persons presented in the author's tale. The " diagram " will too easily convince the student that the story, which he should read with delight, as if it were a tale of real life, has been written merely to illustrate a precept and to point a moral. A thoughtful reading of " Silas Marner " will reveal to the pupil the deep moral concern which George Eliot has in life, but he should not be taught by a mathematical representation that the moral lesson is the only one to be drawn from the book. BIBLIOGRAPHY. The best and authorized edition of George Eliot's works is published by William Black wood and Sons, Edinburgh. There are many American reprints. The only authoritative source of information about George Eliot's life is " George Eliot's Life, as Related in her Let- ters and Journals " (London, 1885), arranged and edited by her husband, Mr. J. W. Cross. An American reprint has been made by Harper and Brothers in three volumes, and an edition in paper has been issued in the Franklin Square Series. There is a short biography by Oscar SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS xxxix Browning in the Great Writers Series, and another by Mathilde Blind in the Eminent Women Series. To the former is appended a good bibliography. An excellent biographical notice is that by Leslie Stephen in the ' ' Dic- tionary of National Biography." Among many critical articles may be mentioned those by Edward Dowden, in " Studies in Literature, 1789-1877 ;" by Edmond Scherer, " Etudes critiques sur la litterature contemporaine," vols. i., v., and viii. (see also Saintsbury's translation of Scherer's essays on English literature) ; by R. H. Hutton, in " Essays on Some of the Modern Guides of English Thought in Matters of Faith ; " by P. W. H. Myers, in " Essays, Modern ; " and by Henry James, in " Partial Portraits." xl CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE w'P-l oo . O 05 " J B or. e * g. g gjg fci M c <-3pq-$ S a fl S S. 2'Jp^c 00 ( Sc 5 ,H' Si U < G *n >d R .2 o *^ >9 y m a i to H ^ Q M S^H a '2 co I- CO CO CO I-l M 1* 1 V g o ^ la ^ 2 " S Gffl ^ A >> O ^ i ^ G j o o o a, u a ffl-g E 4; [T] o n H a w o3 co i-3 i? W "" CO ' CO 1 1 r-t CO ~~ i d cs -r; " M a OR g o 2 S 02 EH W M *3 S" B"S TS 1 Id 1 i H S cc"-J Q 'o < -2 ^ d "C ej T 1 . 1 rH to tA'g ^ ft 2 , "g H 'fl 'C r5 J2 . fl M ^ "^ to G C 3 WORKS. rtb^ ^bH ^H C3 h-H C^ hOS fi^ 'o ^rri Sgg Is S a ^ s oog 2fl .a 3 og fe gCC d ^6H CO PH feH a s s .203 E O O o to aj S M o" 05 ^-2 ^> M hH ' * M ^_^ as ir . M^IU O . * O In "o ' S? J o S 1 t~ co O co CO 06 CO CO CO GO CO SILAS MARNER THE WEAVER 1 OF KAVELOE GEORGE ELIOT "A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts." WORDSWORTH. 1 See the article on "Weaving" in tlie Encyclopaedia Britannica for a full description of the hand-loom and the weaver's work, to which reference is made throughout the story. The power-loom, or factory weaving, did not hecome general in England before 1825. PART I CHAPTER I IN the days l when the spinning-wheels 2 hummed busily in the farmhouses and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of pol- ished oak there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, 3 or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country- folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien- looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset ; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag ? and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every per- son or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermit- J "In the days when the spinning wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses ; " "in that far-off time " (page 3) ; "in the early years of this century " (page 4) ; the time of the story is vaguely indicated. For more direct reference, see note 2, page 7, and note 3, page 28. 2 Spinning-wheels were used at home to prepare the yarn from the flux, which was then given to the weaver. 3 Rough paths between the hedges that line English cross-roads ; to be distinguished from turnpikes or highways. 4 8ILA8 MARNER tent 1 and occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew Avhere wandering men had their homes or their origin ; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother ? To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery : to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring ; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of in- offensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of a crime ; especially if he had any reputation for knowl- edge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself suspicious : honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not over-wise or clever at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather ; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they par- took of the nature of conjuring. 2 In this way it came to pass that those scattered linen- weavers emigrants from the town into the country were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belong to a state of loneliness. In the early years of this century, such a linen-weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at his vocation 3 in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, 4 and not far from the edge of a deserted 1 " Unwonted, or even intermittent," a good example of George Eliot's diction. See INTRODUCTION, under Style. 2 Magic. 3 A correct use of the word ; distinguish from avocation. 4 We gather from the description of the country (see page 6 : "it lay in the rich central plain ") that Raveloe was situated in the fertile SILAS MARNER 5 stone-pit. The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fasci- nation for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious action of the loom, by a pleasant sense of scorn- ful superiority, drawn from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with the bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver. But sometimes it happened that Marner, pausing to adjust an irregularity in his thread, became aware of the small scoundrels, and, though chary of his time, he liked their intrusion so ill that he would descend from his loom, and, opening the door, would fix on them a gaze that was always enough to make them take to their legs in terror. For how was it possible to believe that those large brown protuberant eyes in Silas Marner's pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that was not close to them, and not rather that their dreadful stare could dart cramp, or rick- ets, 1 or a wry 2 mouth at any boy who happened to be in the rear ? They had, perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hint that Silas Marner could cure folk's 3 rheuma- tism if he had a mind, and add, still more darkly, that if you could only speak the devil fair enough, he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering echoes of the old demon- worship 4 might perhaps even now be caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry ; for the rude mind with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain central counties of England, perhaps in Warwickshire, which was for a long time George Eliot's home. 1 A disease of children. ! Twisted. 3 Examine the use of this word ; see also page 9. 4 Lesser gods, or demons, were feared and worshipped in all primitive religions. 6 SILAS MARNER from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a life of hard toil has never been illuminated by any en- thusiastic religious faith. To them pain and mishap pre- sent a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment : their imagination is almost barren of the im- ages that feed desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear. "Is there anything you can fancy that you would like to eat ? " I l once said to an old labouring man, who was in his last illness, and who had refused all the food his wife had offered him. " No/' he answered, " I've never been used to nothing but common victual, and I can't eat that." Experience had bred no fancies in him that could raise the phantasm 2 of appetite. And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered, undro \vned by new voices. Not that it was one of those barren parishes 3 lying on the outskirts of civilization inhabited by meagre sheep and thinly-scattered shep- herds : on the contrary, it lay in the rich central plain of what we are pleased to call Merry England, and held farms which, speaking from a spiritual point of view, paid highly-desirable tithes. 4 But it was nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, quite an hour's journey on horseback from any turnpike, 5 where it was never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion. It was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large 1 Note the unexpected introduction of the author's personality by the use of this pronoun. 2 An apparition or illusion ; compare pJiantom. 3 See note 2, page 28. 4 A tax (originally a tenth part of the yearly proceeds of an estate) for the support of the parish church. 5 Main highways for the use of which a tax, called a toll, is charged ; still common in parts of the United States. brick-and-stone homesteads, 1 with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing close upon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory, which peeped from among the trees on the other side of the churchyard : a village which showed at once the summits of its social life, and told the practised eye that there was no great park and manor-house in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefs in Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, drawing enough money from their bad farming, in those war times, 2 to live in a rollicking fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, 3 and Easter tide. It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Eaveloe ; he was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange for people of average cult- ure and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupa- tion, and his advent from an unknown region called " North'ard." So had his way of life : he invited no comer to step across his door-sill, and he never strolled into the village to drink a pint at the Rainbow, 4 or to gos- sip at the wheelwright's : he sought no man or woman, save for the purposes of his calling, or in order to supply himself with necessaries ; and it was soon clear to the 1 Homes of independent landholders, distinguished from the " manor-house," which was the residence of the chief proprietor in the neighborhood. 2 The war with France lasted, with a few interruptions, from 1793 to the battle of Waterloo, 1815, and forced up the price of domestic farm products. See page 28. 3 Whitsunday or Whitsuntide, a church festival commemorated on the seventh Sunday after Easter. "Tide " is an old English expression for "time," or "season," now obsolete. 4 The village inn ; small hotels in England still retain fanciful names, such as "The Cheshire Cheese," "The White Swan," "The Golden Lion," etc. 8 8ILA8 MARNER Raveloe lasses 1 that he would never urge one of them to accept him against her will quite as if he had heard them declare that they would never marry a dead man come to life again. This view of Marner's personality was not without another ground than his pale face and unexam- pled eyes ; for Jem Kodney, the mole-catcher, averred that one evening as he was returning homeward he saw Silas Marner leaning against a stile with a heavy bag on his back, instead of resting the bag on the stile as a man in his senses would have done ; and that, on coming up to him, he saw that Marner's eyes were set like a dead man's, and he spoke to him, and shook him, and his limbs were stiff, and his hands clutched the bag as if they'd been made of iron ; but just as he had made up his mind that the weaver was dead, he came all right again, like, as you might say, in the winking of an eye, and said " Good night," and walked off. All this Jem swore he had seen, more by token 2 that it was the very day he had been mole-catching on Squire 3 Cass's land, down by the old saw-pit. Some said Marner must have been in a " fit," a word which seemed to explain things otherwise incredible ; but the ar- gumentative Mr. Macey, clerk 4 of the parish, shook his head, and asked if anybody was ever known to go off in a fit and not fall down. A fit was a stroke, wasn't it ? and it was in the nature of a stroke to partly 5 take away the use of a man's limbs and throw him on the parish, 6 if he'd got no children to look to. No, no ; it was no stroke that would let a man stand on his legs, like a horse between the shafts, and then walk off as soon as you can say "Gee !" 1 "Lass" is the feminine form for "lad," an old English word in familiar use, now becoming obsolete. 5 Colloquial for " especially as." 3 For a full definition of " squire," see note 2, page 28. 4 The clerk of the parish, or parish clerk, is the layman who leads in reading the responses in the service of the Church of England. 5 Note the position of "partly;" is this grammatical usage estab- lished ? 6 For support. " Parish " in this sense is equivalent to " town." SILAS MARNER 9 But there might be such a thing as a man's soul being loose from his body, and going out and in, like a bird out of its nest and back ; and that was how folks got over- wise, for they went to school in this shell-less state to those Avho could teach them more than their neighbours could learn with their five senses and the parson. And where did Mas- ter Marner get his knowledge of herbs from and charms too, if he liked to give them away ? Jem Rodney's story was no more than what might have been expected by any- body who had seen how Marner had cured Sally Gates, and made her sleep like a baby, when her heart had been beat- ing enough to burst her body, for two months and more, while she had been under the doctor's care. He might cure more folks if he would ; but he was worth speaking fair, 1 if it was only to keep him from doing you a mis- chief. It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was in- debted for protecting him from the persecution that his singularities might have drawn upon him, but still more to the fact that, the old linen-weaver in the neighbouring parish of Tarley being dead, his handicraft made him a highly welcome settler to the richer housewives 2 of the district, and even to the more provident cottagers, who had their little stock of yarn at the year's end. Their sense of his usefulness would have counteracted any repug- nance or suspicion which was not confirmed by a deficiency in the quality or the tale 3 of the cloth he wove for them. And the years had rolled on without producing any change in the impressions of the neighbours concerning Marner, except the change from novelty to habit. At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said just the same things about Silas Marner as at the beginning : they did not say 1 So addressing him as to please, rather than to irritate him. 2 The families in the two or three large brick and stone homesteads already mentioned, distinguished from the laborers and small farmers called cottagers. s Number or amount, a sense of the word now nearly obsolete. 10 SILAS MARNER them quite so often, but they believed them much more strongly when they did say them. There was only one important addition which the years had brought : it was, that Master Marner had laid by a fine sight of money some- where, and that he could buy up " bigger men " 1 than himself. But 2 while opinion concerning him had remained nearly stationary, and his daily habits had presented scarcely any visible change, Marner's inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis, 3 as that of every fervid nature must be when it has fled, or been condemned to solitude. His life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the movement, the mental activity, and the close fellowship, which, in that day as in this, marked the life of an ar- tisan 4 early incorporated in a narrow religious sect, 5 where the poorest layman has the chance of distinguishing him- self by gifts of speech, and has, at the very least, the weight of a silent voter in the government of his commu- nity. Marner was highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to itself as the church assembling in Lantern Yard ; he was believed to be a young man of exemplary life and ardent faith ; and a peculiar interest had been centred in him ever since he had fallen, at a prayer-meet- ing, into a mysterious rigidity and suspension of conscious- ness, 6 which, lasting for an hour or more, had been mis- taken for death. To have sought a medical explanation for this phenomenon would have been held by Silas him- self, as well as by his minister and fellow-members, a wil- ful self -exclusion from the spiritual significance that might 1 To buy up "bigger men," still current slang. 8 Is the use of this conjunction in this place justifiable ? Why ? 3 From what language is this word derived ? 4 Distinguish from artist or laborer. 5 Made a member of one of the many independent churches. See also page 9. 6 " Mysterious rigidity and suspension of consciousness." the signs of a cataleptic fit. Marner's catalepsy affects the development of the story at several vital points. SILAS MARNER H lie therein. Silas was evidently a brother selected for a peculiar discipline ; and though the effort to interpret this discipline was discouraged by the absence, on his part, of any spiritual vision during his outward trance, 1 yet it was believed by himself and others that its effect was seen in an accession of light and fervour. 2 A less truthful man than he might have been tempted into the subsequent creation of a vision in the form of resurgent memory ; a less sane man might have believed in such a creation ; but Silas was both sane and honest, though, as with many honest and fervent men, culture had not defined any chan- nels for his sense of mystery, and so it spread itself over the proper pathway of inquiry and knowledge. He had inherited from his mother some acquaintance with medic- inal herbs and their preparation a little store of wisdom which she had imparted to him as a solemn bequest but of late years he had had doubts about the lawfulness of applying this knowledge, believing that herbs could have no efficacy without prayer, and that prayer might suffice without herbs ; so that his inherited delight to wander through the fields in search of foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot, began to wear to him the character of a tempta- tion. Among the members of his church there was one young man, a little older than himself, with whom he had long lived in such close friendship that it was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to call them David and Jona- than. 3 The real name of the friend was William Dane, and he, too, was regarded as a shining instance of youth- ful piety, though somewhat given to over-severity towards weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled by his own light as to hold himself wiser than his teachers. But whatever blemishes others might discern in William, to his friend's mind he was faultless ; for Marner had one of those im- 1 What is the exact meaning of the word ? * I.e., of spiritual insight and zeal. 3 For the story of David and Jonathan, see I Samuel xviii. 11. 12 SILAS MAKNER pressible ' self -doubting natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness and lean on contradiction. The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner's face, heightened by that absence of special observation, that defenceless, deer-like gaze which belongs to large promi- nent eyes, was strongly contrasted by the self-complacent suppression of inward triumph that lurked in the narrow slanting eyes and compressed lips of William Dane. One of the most frequent topics of conversation between the two friends was Assurance of salvation : 2 Silas confessed that he could never arrive at anything higher than hope mingled with fear, and listened with longing wonder when William declared that he had possessed unshaken assurance ever since, in the period of his conversion, he had dreamed that he saw the words " calling and election sure " stand- ing by themselves on a white page in the open Bible. Such colloquies have occupied many a pair of pale-faced weavers, whose unnurtured souls have been like young winged things, fluttering forsaken in the twilight. It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the friend- ship had suffered no chill even from his formation of an- other attachment of a closer kind. For some months he had been engaged to a young servant-woman, 3 waiting only for a little increase to 4 their mutual savings in order to their marriage ; and it was a great delight to him that Sarah did not object to William's occasional presence in their Sunday interviews. It was at this point in their history that Silas's cataleptic fit occurred during the prayer- meeting ; and amidst the various queries and expressions of interest addressed to him by his fellow-members, Will- iam's suggestion alone jarred with the general sympathy towards a brother thus singled out for special dealings. He observed that, to him, this trance looked more like a 'Better, "impressionable." a Note the correct use of the colon to point forward or specify. 3 Usually, "serving-woman," or "servant." 4 "Addition to " or " increase in " would be the customary idiom. SILAS MANNER 13 visitation of Satan than a proof of divine favour, and ex- horted his friend to see that he hid no accursed thing within his soul. Silas, feeling bound to accept rebuke and admonition as a brotherly office, felt no resentment, but only pain, at his friend's doubts concerning him ; and to this was soon added some anxiety at the perception that Sarah's manner towards him began to exhibit a strange fluctuation between an effort at an increased manifestation of regard and involuntary signs of shrinking and dislike. He asked her if she wished to break off their engagement ; but she denied this : their engagement was known to the church, and had been recognized in the prayer-meetings ; it could not be broken off without strict investigation, and Sarah could render no reason that would be sanctioned by the feeling of the community. At this time the senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and, being a childless widower, he was tended night and day by some of the younger brethren or sisters. Silas frequently took his turn in the night- watching with William, the one relieving the other at two in the morning. The old man, contrary to expectation, seemed to be on the way to recovery, when one night Silas, sitting up by his bedside, observed that his usual audible breathing had ceased. The candle was burning low, and he had to lift it to see the patient's face distinctly. Examination convinced him that the deacon was dead had been dead some time, for the limbs were rigid. Silas asked himself if he had been asleep, and looked at the clock : it was already four in the morning. How was it that William had not come ? In much anx- iety he went to seek for help, and soon there were several friends assembled in the house, the minister among them, while Silas went away to his work, wishing he could have met William to know the reason of his non-appearance. But at six o'clock, as he was thinking of going to seek his friend, William came, and with him the minister. They came to summon him to Lantern Yard, to meet the church members there ; and to his inquiry concerning the 14 SILAS MARNER cause of the summons the only reply was, "You will hear." Nothing further was said until Silas was seated in the ves- try, in front of the minister, with the eyes of those who to him represented God's people fixed solemnly upon him. Then the minister, taking out a pocket-knife, showed it to Silas, and asked him if he knew where he had left that knife ? Silas said, he did not know that he had left it anywhere out of his own pocket but he was trembling at this strange interrogation. He was then exhorted not to hide his sin, but to confess and repent. The knife had been found in the bureau by the departed deacon's bed- side found in the place where the little bag of church money had lain, which the minister himself had seen the day before. Some hand had removed that bag ; and whose hand could it be, if not that of the man to whom the knife belonged ? For some time Silas was mute with astonishment : then he said, "God will clear me: I know nothing about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me and my dwelling ; you will find nothing but three pound five l of my own savings, which William Dane knows I have had these six months." At this Will- iam groaned, but the minister said, " The proof is heavy against you, brother Marner. The money was taken in the night last past, and no man was with our departed brother but you, for William Dane declares to us that he was hindered by sudden sickness from going to take his place as usual, and you yourself said that he had not come ; and, moreover, you neglected the dead body." " I must have slept," said Silas. Then after a pause, he added, "Or I must have had another vjsitation like that which you have all seen me under, so that the thief must have come and gone while I was not in the body, but out of the body. But, I say again, search me and my dwelling, for I have been nowhere else." The search was made, and it ended in William Dane's finding the well-known bag, empty, tucked behind the 1 Three pounds and five shillings about sixteen dollars. SILAS MARNER 15 chest of drawers in Silas's chamber ! On this William ex- horted his friend to confess, and not to hide his sin any longer. Silas turned a look of keen reproach on him, and said, " William, for nine years that we have gone in and out together, have you ever known me tell a lie ? But God will clear me." " Brother," said William, " how do I know what yon may have done in the secret chambers of your heart, to give Satan an advantage over you ? " Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly a deep flush came over his face, and he was about to speak impet- uously, when he seemed checked again by some inward shock, that sent the flush back and made him tremble. But at last he spoke feebly, looking at William. " I remember now the knife wasn't in my pocket." William said, " I know nothing of what you mean/' The other persons present, however, began to inquire where Silas meant to say that the knife was, but he would give no further explanation : he only said, " I am sore stricken j 1 I can say nothing. God will clear me." On their return to the vestry there was further delibera- tion. Any resort to legal measures for ascertaining the culprit was contrary to the principles of the church in Lantern Yard, according to which prosecution was forbid- den to Christians, even had the case held less scandal to the community. But the members were bound to take other measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground of surprise only to those who are unacquainted with that obscure religious life which has gone on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with his brethren, relying on his own innocence being certified by immediate divine 1 Note the Biblical words and phrases used by members of the sect, and also the appeal to lots. The aim in such religious communities is to adopt as far as possible the life and customs indicated in the Bible. The casting of lots was customary in pagan times as well as among primitive Christians. 1C SILAS MARNER interference, but feeling that there was sorrow and mourn= ing behind for him even then that his trust in man had been cruelly bruised. The lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty. He was solemnly suspended from church- membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money : only on confession, as the sign of repentance, could he be received once more within the folds of the church. Marner listened in silence. At last, when every one rose to depart, he went towards William Dane and said, in a voice shaken by agitation " The last time I remember using my knife, was when I took it out to cut a strap for you. I don't remember put- ting it in my pocket again. You stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my door. But you may prosper, for all that : there is no just God that governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness against the innocent. " There was a general shudder at this blasphemy. William said meekly, " I leave our brethren to judge whether this is the voice of Satan or not. I can do noth- ing but pray for you, Silas." Poor Marner went out with that despair in his soul that shaken trust in God and man, which is little short of madness to a loving nature. In the bitterness of his wounded spirit, he said to himself, " She will cast me off too." And he reflected that, if she did not believe the testimony against him, her whole faith must be upset as his was. To people accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious feeling has incorporated itself, 1 it is difficult to enter into that simple, untaught state of mind in which the form and the feeling have never been severed by an act of reflection. We are apt to think it in- evitable that a man in Marner's position should have be- gun to question the validity of an appeal to the divine judgment by drawing lots ; but to him this would have '"The forms in which their religious feeling has incorporated it- self," i.e., questions of church ritual and worship. SILAS MARNER 17 been an effort of independent thought such as he had never known ; and he must have made the effort at a moment when all his energies were turned into the anguish of dis- appointed faith. If there is an angel who records the sor- rows of men as well as their sins, he knows how many and deep are the sorrows that spring from false ideas for which no man is culpable. Marner went home, and for a whole day sat alone, stunned by despair, without any impulse to go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in his innocence. The sec- ond day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief, by get- ting into his loom and working away as usual ; and before many hours were past, the minister and one of the dea- cons came to him with the message from Sarah, that she held her engagement to him at an end. Silas received the message mutely, and then turned away from the messen- gers to work at his loom again. In little more than a month from that time, Sarah was married to William Dane ; and not long afterwards it was known to the brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had departed from the town. 1 1 The novelist first describes the scene of the story, then introduces the chief character, Silas Marner, as seen by the community, and con- cludes by an account of his previous history and an explanation of his moral condition on his appearance at Raveloe. Would the introduction to the story be less effective, if the betrayal of Silas Marner by his friend had been told first ? Why ? What are the chief outlines of Marner' s character as developed in the preliminary chapter ? Good examples of George Eliot's methods in story-telling may be found in this chapter : the descriptive (pages 3-5, 6-1 1) ; the purely narrative (pages 11-14 and the final paragraph) ; the dramatic (pages 14-16) ; and the analytical or reflective (page 6, and especially page 16, beginning, " To people accustomed," etc.). CHAPTER II EVEN people whose lives have been made various 1 by learn- ing, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their ha- bitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real expe- rience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their his- tory, and share none of their ideas where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Mmdfthat have been unhinged from their old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean 2 influence of exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories. But even their experience may hardly enable them thoroughly to imagine what was the effect on a simple weaver like Silas Marner, when he left his own country and people and came to settle in Eaveloe. Nothing could be more unlike his native town, set within sight of the widespread hillsides, than this low, wooded region, where he felt hidden even from the heavens by the screening trees and hedgerows. 8 There was nothing here, when he rose in the deep morning quiet and looked out on the dewy brambles and rank tufted grass, that seemed to have any relation with that life centring in Lantern Yard, which had once been to him the altar-place of high dis- 1 Given various interests, diversified. 2 The waters of Lethe, the river of oblivion, one of the streams of Hades, caused those who drank of it to forget their past existence. 3 In England the fields are commonly divided from each other and from the highways by rows of shrubs or trees, often of great age. SILAS MARNER 19 pensations. 1 The whitewashed walls ; 2 the little pews where well-known figures entered with a subdued rustling, and where first one well-known voice and then another, pitched in a peculiar key of petition, uttered phrases at once oc- cult 3 and familiar, like the amulet 4 worn on the heart; the pulpit where the minister delivered unquestioned doc- trine, and swayed to and fro, and handled the book in a long-accustomed manner ; the very pauses between the couplets of the hymn, as it was given out, and the recur- rent swell of voices in song : these things had been the channel of divine influences to Marner they were the fostering home of his religious emotions they were Chris- tianity and God's kingdom upon earth. A weaver who finds hard words in his hymn-book knows nothing of ab- stractions ; as the little child knows nothing of parental love, but only knows one face and one lap towards which it stretches its arms for refuge and nurture. And what could be more unlike that Lantern Yard world than the world in Raveloe ? orchards looking lazy with neglected plenty ; 5 the large church in the wide church- yard, which men gazed at lounging at their own doors in service-time; the purple-faced farmers jogging along the lanes or turning in at the Rainbow ; homesteads, where men supped heavily and slept in the light of the evening 1 " The altar-place of high dispensations, " i.e., the source of author- ity in his religious and moral life. 2 This sentence contains a description of the distinguishing features of worship among the religious bodies outside the Established Church, such as the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, etc. These sects were called in common the Non-conformist churches (because they did not conform to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, demanding " assent and consent " to everything contained in the Book of Common Prayer) or Dissenters. 3 Hidden, from the Latin occultns, "concealed." 4 An object superstitiously worn as a remedy for disease, witchcraft, bad luck, or accidents. Amulets consist of certain stones, or plants, or bits of metal or parchment, witli or without mystic characters. 5 The abundance at Raveloe is in contrast with the pinched life of the manufacturing town from which Marner had come. 20 SILAS MARNER hearth, and where women seemed to be laying up a stock of linen for the life to come. There were no lips in Raveloe from which a word could fall that would stir Silas Marner's benumbed faith to a sense of pain. In the early ages of the world, we know, it was believed that each territory was inhabited and ruled by its own divinities, 1 so that a man could cross the bordering heights and be out of the reach of his native gods, whose presence was confined to the streams and the groves and the hills among which he had lived from his birth. And poor Silas was vaguely con- scious of something not unlike the feeling of primitive men, when they fled thus, in fear or in sullenness, from the face of an unpropitious deity. It seemed to him that the Power he had vainly trusted in among the streets and at the prayer-meetings, was very far away from this land in which he had taken refuge, where men lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to bitterness. The little light he possessed spread its beams so narrowly, that frus- trated belief was a curtain broad enough to create for him the blackness of night. His first movement after the shock had been to work in his loom ; 2 and he went on with this unremittingly, never asking himself why, now he was come to Raveloe, he worked far on into the night to finish the tale 3 of Mrs. Os- good's table-linen sooner than she expected without con- templating beforehand the money she would put into his hand for the work. He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and 1 The territorial gods of the classical mythology, such as the Nymphs, the Dryads, and the Naiads. 3 For a description of the old-fashioned hand-loom for weaving any fabric from wool, see the Century Dictionary. 3 See note 3, page 9. SILAS MARNER 21 his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort. Then there were the calls of hunger ; and Silas, in his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper, to fetch his own water from the well, and put his own kettle on the fire ; and all these immediate promptings helped, along with the weaving, to reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated the thought of the past ; there was nothing that called out his love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst ; and the future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him. Thought was arrested by utter bewilderment, now its old narrow pathway was closed, and affection seemed to have died under the bruise that had fallen on its keenest nerves. But at last Mrs. Osgood's table-linen was finished, and Silas was paid in gold. His earnings in his native town, where he worked for a wholesale dealer, had been after 1 a lower rate ; he had been paid weekly, and of his weekly earnings a large proportion had gone to objects of piety and charity. Now, for the first time in his life, he had five bright guineas 2 put into his hand ; no man expected a share of them, and he loved no man that he should offer him a share. But what were the guineas to him who saw no vista beyond countless days of weaving ? It was need- less for him to ask that, for it was pleasant to him to feel them in his palm, and look at their bright faces, which were all his own : it was another element of life, like the weaving and the satisfaction of hunger, subsisting quite aloof from the life of belief and love from which he had been cut off. The weaver's hand had known the touch of hard- won money even before the palm had grown to its full breadth ; for twenty years, mysterious money had 1 Colloquial for "according to or at." 8 English gold pieces (so called because coined of gold brought from Guinea in Africa) of the value of twenty-one shillings, issued from 1663 to 1813. Although guineas are no longer issued, the term is still used in England for reckoning. 22 SILAS MARNER stood to him as the symbol of earthly good, and the im- mediate object of toil. He had seemed to love it little in the years when every penny had its purpose for him ; for he loved the purpose then. But now, when all purpose was gone, that habit of looking towards the money and grasping it with a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that was deep enough for the seeds of desire ; and as Silas walked homeward across the fields in the twilight, he drew out the money and thought it was brighter in the gather- ing gloom. About this time an incident happened which seemed to open a possibility of some fellowship with his neighbours. One day, taking a pair of shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler's wife seated by the fire, suffering from the terrible symptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which he had wit- nessed as the precursors of his mother's death. He felt a rush of pity at the mingled sight and remembrance, and, recalling the relief his mother had found from a simple preparation of foxglove, he promised Sally Gates to bring her something that would ease her, since the doctor did her no good. In this office of charity, Silas felt, for the first time since he had come to Eaveloe, a sense of unity between his past and present life, which might have been the beginning of his rescue from the insect-like existence into which his nature had shrunk. But Sally Oates's disease had raised her into a personage of much interest and importance among the neighbours, and the fact of her having found relief from drinking Silas Marner's " stuff " became a matter of general discourse. AVhen Doctor Kimble gave physic, it was natural that it should have an effect ; but when a weaver, who came from nobody knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of brown waters, the occult character of the process was evident. Such a sort of thing had not been known since the AVise Woman at Tarley died ; and she had charms as well as " stuff : " everybody went to her when their children had fits. Silas Marner must be a person of the same sort, for how did he 8ILA8 MARNER 23 know what would bring back Sally Oates's breath, if he didn't know a fine sight * more than that ? The Wise Woman had words that she muttered to herself, so that you couldn't hear what they were, and if she tied a bit of red thread round the child's toe the while, it would keep off the water in the head. There were women in Kaveloe, at that present time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags round their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann Coulter had. Silas Marner could very likely do as much, and more ; and now it was all clear how he should have come from unknown parts, and be so " comical-looking." But Sally Gates must mind and not tell the doctor, for he would be sure to set his face against Marner : he was always angry about the Wise Woman, and used to threaten those who went to her that they should have none of his help any more. Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by mothers who wanted him to charm away the hooping- cough, or bring back the milk, and by men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the knots in the hands ; and, to secure themselves against a refusal, the applicants brought silver 2 in their palms. Silas might have driven a profitable trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs ; but money on this condition was no temptation to him : he had never known an impulse towards falsity, and he drove one after another away with growing irritation, for the news of him as a wise man had spread even to Tarley, and it was long before people ceased to take long Avalks for the sake of asking his aid. But the hope in his wisdom was at length changed into dread, for no one believed him when he said he knew no charms and could work no cures, and every man and woman who had an ac- cident or a new attack after applying to him, set the mis- fortune down to Master Maruer's ill-will and irritated 1 I.e., a great deal. The customary method of treating with people who are supposed to have magic powers, e.g. , the gypsies. 24 SILAS MARNER glances. Thus it came to pass that his movement of pity towards Sally Gates, which had given him a transient sense of brotherhood, heightened the repulsion between him and his neighbours, and made his isolation more complete. Gradually the guineas, the crowns, 1 and the half- crowns, grew to a heap, and Marner drew less and less for his own wants, trying to solve the problem of keeping him- self strong enough to work sixteen hours a day on as small an outlay as possible. Have not men, shut up in solitary imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of the sum of straight strokes, arranged, in triangles, has become a mastering purpose ? Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by re- peating some trivial movement or sound, until the rep- etition has bred a want, which is incipient habit ? That will help us to understand how the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men whose imagina- tions, even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed them no purpose beyond it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a square, and then into a larger square ; and every added guinea, while it was itself a satisfaction, bred a new desire. In this strange world, made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense nature, have sat weaving, weaving looking towards the end of his pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and everything else but his immediate sensations ; but the money had come to mark off his weaving into periods, and the money not only grew, but it remained with him. He began to think it was conscious of him, as his loom was, and he would on no account have exchanged those coins, which had become his familiars, for other coins with unknown faces. He handled them, he counted 1 Silver coins generally bearing a crown or a crowned head on one side ; the English crown is worth five shillings, or $1.22; hence the half-crown is a little larger than the two shilling piece, and worth sixpence more. SILAS MARNER 25 them, till their form and colour were like the satisfaction of a thirst to him ; but it was only in the night, when his work was done, that he drew them out to enjoy their companionship. He had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom, and here he had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that contained his guineas and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he replaced them. Not that the idea of being robbed presented itself often or strongly to his mind : hoarding was common in country districts in those days ; there were old labourers in the parish of Raveloe who were known to have their savings by them, probably inside their flock-beds ; 1 but their rustic neighbours, though not all of them as honest as their an- cestors in the days of King Alfred, 2 had not imaginations bold enough to lay a plan of burglary. How could they have spent the money in their own village without betray- ing themselves ? They would be obliged to " run away " a course as dark and dubious as a balloon journey. So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this soli- tude, his guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life nar- rowing and hardening itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself to the func- tions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off from faith and love only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas, they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some well-knit theory. Strangely Marner's face and figure shrank and bent themselves into a constant mechanical re- lation to the objects of his life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a crooked tube, 1 Beds filled with small pieces of wool ; from the Latin floccus, " wool." 2 When it was said that a purse of money might lie untouched on the highway 26 SILAS MARKER which has no meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they had been made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny grain, for which they hunted every- where : and he was so withered and yellow, that, though he was not yet forty, the children always called him " Old Master Marner." Yet even in this stage of withering a little incident hap- pened, which showed that the sap of affection was not all gone. It was one of his daily tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of fields off, and for this purpose, ever since he came to Raveloe, he had had a brown earth- enware pot, which he held as his most precious utensil among the very few conveniences he had granted himself. It had been his companion for twelve years, always stand- ing on the same spot, always lending its handle to him in the early morning, so that its form had an expression for him of willing helpfulness, and the impress of its handle on his palm gave a satisfaction mingled with that of hav- ing the fresh clear water. One day as he was returning from the well, he stumbled against the step of the stile, and his brown pot, falling with force against the stones that overarched the ditch below him, was broken in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces and carried them home with grief in his heart. The brown pot could never be of use to him any more, but he stuck the bits together and propped the ruin in its old place for a memorial. This is the history of Silas Marner, until the fifteenth year after he came to Eaveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow growth of sameness in the brown- ish web, 1 his muscles moving with such even repetition that their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the holding of his breath. But at night came his revelry : at night he closed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his gold. Long ago the heap of coins had 1 " Brownish web," i.e., of the spun-cloth before bleaching. SILAS MARNER 27 become too large for the iron pot to hold them, and he had made for them two thick leather bags, which wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent themselves flexibly to every corner. How the guineas shone as they came pour- ing out of the dark leather mouths ! The silver bore no large proportion in amount to the gold, because the long pieces of linen which formed his chief work were always partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver he supplied his own bodily wants, choosing always the shillings and sixpences to spend in this way. He loved the guineas best, but he would not change the silver the crowns and half-crowns that were his own earnings, begotten by his labour ; he loved them all. He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them ; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded out- line between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children thought of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quite hidden by countless days of weaving. No won- der his thoughts were still with his loom and his money when he made his journeys through the fields and the lanes to fetch and carry home his work, so that his steps never wandered to the hedge-banks and the lane-side in search erf the once familiar herbs : these too belonged to the past, from which his life had shrunk away, like a riv- ulet that has sunk far down from the grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little shivering thread, that cuts a groove for itself in the barren sand. But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year, a second great change came over Marner's life, and his history be- came blent in a singular manner with the life of his neigh- bours. 1 1 In this chapter George Eliot develops the character of Silas Mar ner, chiefly by description and analysis ; note especially pages 18, 20, and 26. CHAPTER III THE greatest man in Raveloe was Squire * Cass, who lived in the large red house with the handsome flight of stone steps in front and the high stables behind it, nearly oppo- site the church. He was only one among several landed parishioners, 2 but he alone was honoured with the title of Squire ; for though Mr. Osgood's family was also under- stood to be of timeless origin the Eaveloe imagination having never ventured back to that fearful blank when there were no Osgoods still, he merely owned the farm he occupied ; whereas Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who complained of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord. It was still that glorious war-time which was felt to be a peculiar favour of Providence towards the landed interest, and the fall of prices 3 had not yet come to carry the race of small squires and yeomen 4 down that road to ruin for 1 From esquire, an attendant on a knight ; hence a person not noble who has received a grant of arms. In England the squire is generally a justice of the peace and the owner of considerable land, a person of importance in the neighborhood. 2 " Landed parishioners," owners of land in the parish, in Great Britain a small district nearly equivalent to the American township. Originally a parish was an ecclesiastical district under the charge of a single pastor. 3 At the close of the foreign war prices of breadstuffs in England de- clined because the home markets were thrown open to foreign compe- tition ; consequently land became less valuable. 4 In old English law, a yeoman (more properly spelled yoman) was one holding free land of the value of forty shillings a year, who was thereby qualified to serve on juries, etc., and thus distinguished from a serf or chattel. In recent usage a yeoman is one owning, and usu- ally cultivating, a small farm, roughly, an independent farmer, not a tenant. SILAS MARNER 29 which extravagant habits and bad husbandry were plenti- fully anointing their wheels. I am speaking now in rela- tion to Eaveloe and the parishes that resembled it ; for our old-fashioned country life had many different aspects, as all life must have when it is spread over a various surface, and breathed on variously by multitudinous currents, from the winds of heaven to the thoughts of men, which are for ever moving and crossing each other with incalculable re- sults. Kaveloe lay low among the bushy trees and the rut- ted lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan earnestness r 1 the rich ate and drank freely, ac- cepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life ; besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, 2 which were the heirlooms of the poor. Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass's hams, but her longing was arrested by the unctuous liquor in which they were boiled ; and when the seasons brought round the great merry-makings, they were regarded on all hands as a fine thing for the poor. For the Raveloe feasts were like the rounds of beef and the barrels of ale they were on a large scale, and lasted a good while, especially in the winter-time. After ladies had packed up their best gowns and top-knots in bandboxes, and had in- curred the risk of fording streams on pillions * with the precious burden in rainy or snowy weather, when there was no knowing how high the water would rise, it was not to be supposed that they looked forward to a brief pleasure. On this ground it was always contrived in the dark seasons, when there was little work to be done, and the hours were long, that several neighbours should keep open house in succession. So soon as Squire Cass's standing dishes di- 1 Allusion here is made to the new manufacturing towns, such as Manchester and Birmingham, then coming into prominence. 2 Scraps, refuse ; used by Shakspere. 3 Pads or cushions placed behind the saddle of a horse for a second person, usually a woman. 30 SILAS MARNER minished in plenty and freshness, his gnests had nothing to do but to walk a little higher up the village to Mr. Os- good's, at the Orchards, and they found hams and chines l uncut, pork-pies with the scent of the fire in them, spun butter in all its freshness everything, in fact, that appe- tites at leisure could desire, in perhaps greater perfection, though not in greater abundance, than at Squire Cass's. For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and the Red House was without that presence of the wife and mother which is the fountain of wholesome love and fear in parlour and kitchen ; and this helped to account not only for there being more profusion than finished excellence in the holi- day provisions, but also for the frequency with which the proud Squire condescended to preside in the parlour of the Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his own dark wainscot ; 2 perhaps, also, for the fact that his sons had turned out rather ill. Raveloe was not a place where moral censure was severe, but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that he had kept all his sons at home in idleness ; and though some licence was to be allowed to young men whose fathers could afford it, people shook their heads at the courses of the second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey Cass, whose taste for swopping and betting might turn out to be a sowing of something worse than wild oats. To be sure, the neighbours said, it was no matter what be- came of Dunsey a spiteful jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink the more when other people went dry al- ways provided that his doings did not bring trouble on a family like Squire Cass's, with a monument in the church, 3 and tankards 4 older than King George. 5 But it would be a thousand pities if Mr. Godfrey, the eldest, a fine open- 1 Pieces of meat from the backbones. * A wooden lining inside of rooms, usually made in panels of English oak, which grows gradually dark with age. 3 Usually one or more such memorials to dead members of important families may be found in an English church. 4 Among the family silver. King George the Third. SILAS MARNER 31 faced good-natured young man who was to come into the land some day, should take to going along the same road with his brother, as he had seemed to do of late. If he went on in that way, he would lose Miss Nancy Lammeter ; for it was well known that she had looked very shyly on him ever since last Whitsuntide twelvemonth, 1 when there was so much talk about his being away from home days and days together. There was something wrong, more than common that was quite clear ; for Mr. Godfrey didn't look half so fresh-coloured and open as he used to do. At one time everybody was saying, What a handsome couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter would make ! and if she could come to be mistress at the Ked House, there would be a fine change, for the Lammeters had been brought up in that way, that they never suffered a pinch of salt to be wasted, and yet everybody in their household had of the best, according to his place. Such a daughter-in-law would be a saving to the old Squire, if she never brought a penny to a her fortune ; for it was to be feared that, not- withstanding his incomings, there were more holes in his pocket than the one where he put his own hand in. But if Mr. Godfrey didn't turn over a new leaf, he might say " Good-bye " to Miss Nancy Lammeter. It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was standing, with his hands in his side-pockets and his back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted parlour, one late November afternoon in that fifteenth year of Silas Marner's life at Raveloe. The fading grey light fell dimly on the walls decorated with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes, 3 on coats and hats flung on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flat 4 ale, and on a half -choked fire, with pipes propped up in the chimney-corners : signs of a domestic life destitute of any hallowing charm, with which the look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey's blond face was in sad accordance. He seemed to be waiting and listening for some one's ap- 1 A year ago last Whitsunday. a Colloquial for " for." 3 Tails. Stale. 32 SILAS MARNER proach, and presently the sound of a heavy step, with an accompanying whistle, was heard across the large empty entrance-hall. The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking young man entered, with the flushed face and the gratuitously elated bearing which mark the first stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the sight of him Godfrey's face parted with some of its gloom to take on the more active expression of hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay on the hearth retreated under the chair in the chim- ney-corner. " Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with me ? " said Dunsey, in a mocking tone. " You're my elders and betters, 1 you know ; I was obliged to come when you sent for me." " Why, this is what I want and just shake yourself sober and listen, will you ?" said Godfrey, savagely. He had himself been drinking more than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom into uncalculating anger. " I want to tell you, I must hand over that rent of Fowler's to the Squire, or else tell him I gave it you ; for he's threaten- ing to distrain 2 for it, and it'll all be out soon, whether I tell him or not. He said, just now, before he went out, he should send word to Cox to distrain, if Fowler didn't come and pay up his arrears 3 this week. The Squire's short o' cash, and in no humour to stand any nonsense ; and you know what he threatened, if ever he found you making away with his money again. So, see and get the money, and pretty quickly, will you ? " " Oh ! " said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his brother and looking in his face. " Suppose, now, you get the money yourself, and save me the trouble, eh ? Since 1 ' ' Obey my elders and betters ; " from the Catechism in the English Prayer Book. * A legal term meaning to take possession of property in order to obtain rent due. 3 Back rent. SILAS MARNER 33 you was so kind as to hand it over to me, you'll not refuse me the kindness to pay it back for me : it was your broth- erly love made you do it, you know." Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. ' ' Don't come near me with that look, else I'll knock you down." " Oh no, you won't," said Dunsey, turning away on his heel, however. " Because I'm such a good-natured brother, you know. I might get you turned out of house and home, and cut off with a shilling any day. I might tell the Squire how his handsome son was married to that nice young woman, Molly Farren, and was very unhappy be- cause he couldn't live with his drunken wife, and I should slip into your place as comfortable as could be. But you see, I don't do it I'm so easy and good-natured. You'll take any trouble for me. You'll get the hundred pounds for me I know you will." " How can I get the money ? " said Godfrey, quiver- ing. "I haven't a shilling to bless myself with. And it's a lie that you'd slip into my place : you'd get your- self turned out too, that's all. For if you begin telling tales, I'll follow. Bob's my father's favourite you know that very well. He'd only think himself well rid of you." " Never mind," said Dunsey, nodding his head sideways as he looked out of the window. " It 'ud 1 be very pleas- ant to me to go in your company you're such a handsome brother, and we've always been so fond of quarrelling with one another, I shouldn't know what to do without you. But you'd like better for us both to stay at home together ; I know you would. So you'll manage to get that little sum o' money, and I'll bid you good-bye, though I'm sorry to part." Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after him and seized him by the arm, saying, with an oath " I tell you, I have no money : I can get no money." " Borrow of old Kimble." Would. 8 34 SILAS MARNER " I tell you, he won't lend me any more, and I shan't ask him." " Well, then, sell Wildfire." " Yes, that's easy talking. I must have the money di- rectly." "Well, you've only got to ride him to the hunt 1 to- morrow. There'll be Bryce and Keating there, for sure. You'll get more bids than one." " I daresay, and get back home at eight o'clock, splashed up to the chin. I'm going to Mrs. Osgood's birth- day dance." " Oho ! " said Dunsey, turning his head on one side, and trying to speak in a small mincing treble. " And there's sweet Miss Nancy coming ; and we shall dance with her, and promise never to be naughty again, and be taken into favour, and " " Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool," said Godfrey, turning red, " else I'll throttle you." " What for ? " said Dunsey, still in an artificial tone, but taking a whip from the table and beating the butt-end of it on his palm. " You've a very good chance. I'd ad- vise you to creep up her sleeve 2 again : it 'ud be saving time, if Molly should happen to take a drop too much lau- danum some day, and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy wouldn't mind being a second, if she didn't know it. And you've got a good-natured brother, who'll keep your secret well, because you'll be so very obliging to him." " I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quivering, and pale again, "my patience is pretty near at an end. If you'd a little more sharpness in you, you might know that you may urge a man a bit too far, and make one leap as easy as another. I don't know but what it is so now : I may as well tell the Squire everything myself I should get you off my back, if I got nothing else. And, after 1 The fox-hunt, the favorite sport of English country gentlemen. * " To creep up her sleeve," to get into her favor. SILAS MAKNER 35 all, he'll know some time. She's been threatening to come herself and tell him. So, don't flatter yourself that your secrecy's worth any price you choose to ask. You drain me of money till I have got nothing to pacify her with, and she'll do as she threatens some day. It's all one. I'll tell my father everything myself, and you may go to the devil." Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that there was a point at which even the hesitating God- frey might be driven into decision. But he said, with an air of unconcern " As you please ; but I'll have a draught of ale first." And ringing the bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and began to rap the window-seat with the handle of his whip. Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily moving his fingers among the contents of his side-pockets, and looking at the floor. That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no de- cision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. His natural ir- resolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a po- sition in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on all sides, and his irritation had no sooner pro- voked him to defy Dunstan and anticipate all possible be- trayals, than the miseries he must bring on himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to him than the present evil. The results of confession were not contin- gent, 1 they were certain ; whereas betrayal was not cer- tain. From the near vision of that certainty he fell back, on suspense and vacillation with a sense of repose. The disinherited son of a small squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward. Perhaps it would have been possible to think of digging 1 Depending on an uncertainty ; accidental or problematical. 86 SILAS MARNER with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be won on those terms ; but, since he must irrevocably lose her aa well as the inheritance, and must break every tie but the one that degraded him and left him without motive for trying to recover his better self, he could imagine no fut- ure for himself on the other side of confession but that of " 'listing 1 for a soldier" the most desperate step, short of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families. No ! he would rather trust to casualties than to his own resolve rather go on sitting at the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with the sword hanging over him and terror in his heart, than rush away into the cold darkness where there was no pleasure left. The utmost concession to Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, compared with the fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not let him recommence the conversation other- wise than by continuing the quarrel. Dunstan was wait- ing for this, and took his ale in shorter draughts than usual. " It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, " to talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way the last thing I've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my life. And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd be ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it. But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of making somebody feel he'd got a bad bargain." "Ay, ay," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice, I see. You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains. For which reason I advise you to let me sell Wildfire. I'd ride him to the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I shouldn't look so handsome as you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll bid for, and not the rider." " Yes, I daresay trust my horse to you ! " " As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window- seat again with an air of great unconcern. " It s you have 1 Enlisting. SILAS MARNER 37 got to pay Fowler's money ; it's none of my business. You received the money from him when you went to Bramcote, and you told the Squire it wasn't paid. I'd nothing to do with that ; you chose to be so obliging as to give it me, that was all. If you don't want to pay the money, let it alone ; it's all one to me. But I was willing to accommo- date you by undertaking to sell the horse, seeing it's not convenient to you to go so far to-morrow." Godfrey v/as silent for some moments. He would have liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench the whip from his hand, and flog him to within an inch of his life ; and no bodily fear could have deterred him ; but he was mastered by another sort of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger even than his resentment. When he spoke again it was in a half -conciliatory tone. " Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, eh ? You'll sell him all fair, and hand" over the money ? If you don't, you know, everything 'ull go to smash, for I've got nothing else to trust to. And you'll have less pleasure in pulling the house over my head, when your own skull's to be broken too." " Ay, ay," said Dunstan, rising ; " all right. I thought you'd come round. I'm the fellow to bring old Bryce up to the scratch. I'll get you a hundred and twenty 1 for him, if I get you a penny." " But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, as it did yesterday, and then you can't go," said Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he wished for that obstacle or not. " Not it," said Dunstan. ' ' I'm always lucky in my weather. It might rain if you wanted to go yourself. You never hold trumps, you know I always do. You've got the beauty, you see, and I've got the luck, so you must keep me by you for your crooked sixpence ; 2 you'll ne-ver get along without me." " Confound you, hold your tongue ! " said Godfrey, im- petuously. " And take care to keep sober to-morrow, else 1 Pounds ; about six hundred dollars. a Carried for luck. 38 SILAS MA.UNER you'll get pitched on your head coming home, and Wild- fire might be the worse for it." " Make your tender heart easy/' said Dunstan, opening the door. " You never knew me see double when I'd got a bargain to make ; it 'ud spoil the fun. Besides, when- ever I fall, I'm warranted to fall on my legs." "With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind him, and left Godfrey to that bitter rumination on his personal cir- cumstances which was now unbroken from day to day save by the excitement of sporting, drinking, card-playing, or the rarer and less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss Nancy Lammeter. The subtle and varied pains springing from the higher sensibility that accompanies higher culture, are perhaps less pitiable than that dreary absence of imper- sonal enjoyment and consolation which leaves ruder minds to the perpetual urgent companionship of their own griefs and discontents. The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we are apt to think very prosaic figures men whose only work was to ride round their land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who passed the rest of their days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony had a certain pathos in them nevertheless. Calamities came to them too, and their early errors carried hard consequences : perhaps the love of some sweet maid- en, the image of purity, order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a life in which the days would not seem too long, even without rioting ; but the maiden was lost, and the vision passed away, and then what was left to them, especially when they had become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety, and say over again with eager emphasis the things they had said already any time that twelvemonth ? Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed men there were some whom thanks to their native human kindness even riot could never drive into brutality ; men who, when their cheeks were fresh, had 8ILA3 MARNER 39 felt the keen point of sorrow or remorse, had been pierced by the reeds they leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fetters from which no struggle could loose them ; and under these sad circumstances, common to us all, their thoughts could find no resting-place outside the ever trod- den round of their own petty history. That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass in this six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of com- punction, helped by those small indefinable influences which every personal relation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secret marriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to be dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long known that the delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by Dunstan, who saw in his brother's degrading marriage the means of gratifying at once his jealous hate and his cupidity. And if Godfrey could have felt himself simply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had put into his mouth would have chafed him less intolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud when he was alone had had no other object than Dunstan's diabolical cunning, he might have shrunk less from the consequences of avowal. But he had something else to curse his own vicious folly, which now seemed as mad and unaccountable to him as almost all our follies and vices do when their promptings have long passed away. For four years he had thought of Nancy Lammeter, and wooed her with tacit patient wor- ship, as the woman who made him think of the future with joy : she would be his wife, and would make home lovely to him, as his father's home had never been ; and it would be easy, when she was always near, to shake off those fool- ish habits that were no pleasures, but only a feverish way of annulling vacancy. Godfrey's was an essentially domes- tic nature, bred up in a home where the hearth had no smiles, and where the daily habits were not chastised by th CARLYLE'S ' BURNS.' " Permit me to express the pleasure I have found in reading your Farrand's edition of Carlyle's 'Burns.' It is a remarkable example of editing, exactly adapted to its purpose." ROBERT H. NICHOLS, Ph.D., The Hill School, Pottstown, Pa. " Enough is given to make the study of Burns a delight to the right- minded pupil, and to open the door for the teacher into a new and broader appreciation of the two great Scotchmen." ALBERT EDWARD BAILEY, A. B., Worcester Academy, Worcester, Mass. " It seems to me the edition of Carlyle's ' Burns,' edited by Mr. Farrand, is the best for school use. I am particularly pleased with the specimen topics for written exercises and examination papers." HELEN MARSHALL, Norwich Female Academy, Norwich, Conn. " It pleases me decidedly better than any other edition that I have seen. The introduction is suggestive and the ' Notes ' are what they profess to be ' explanatory.' " CAROLINE CARPENTER, Lasell Seminary for Young Ladies, Auburndale, Mass. LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS IRVING'S ' TALES OF A TRAVELLER.' " I feel bound to say that, if the series of ENGLISH CLASSICS is carried out after the plan of this initial volume, it will contribute much toward making the study of literature a pure delight." Prof. A. G. NEWCOMER, Leland Stanford Jr. University. " I have looked through the first volume of your ENGLISH CLASSICS, Irving's ' Tales of a Traveller,' and do not see how literature could be made more attractive to the secondary schools." Prof. EDWARD A. ALLEN, University of Missouri ; Member of the English Conference of the National Committee of Ten. " I have received your Irving's 'Tales of a Traveller' and examined it with much pleasure. The helpful suggestions to teachers, the judicious notes, the careful editing, and the substantial binding make it the most desirable volume for class use on the subject, that has come to my notice." EDWIN CORNELL, Principal of Central Valley Union School, N. Y. GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARNER.' ' ' This book is really attractive and inviting. The introduction, particularly the suggestions to pupils and teachers, is a piece of real helpfulness and wisdom." D. E. BOWMAN, Principal of High School, Waterville, Me. "The edition of 'Silas Marner' recently sent out by you leaves nothing undone. I find the book handsome, the notes sensible and clear. I'm glad to see a book so well adapted to High School needs, and I shall recommend it, without reserve, as a safe and clean book to put before our pupils." JAMES W. McLANE, Central High School, Cleveland, O. SCOTT'S ' WOODSTOCK.' " Scott's ' Woodstock,' edited by Professor Bliss Perry, deepens the impression made by the earlier numbers that this series, LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS, is one of unusual excellence in the editing, and will prove a valuable auxiliary in the reform of English teaching now generally in progress. . . . We have, in addition to the unabridged text of the novel, a careful editorial introduction ; the author's intro- duction, preface and notes ; a reprint of ' The Just Devil of Woodstock'; and such foot-notes as the student will need as he turns from page to page. Besides all this apparatus, many of the chapters have appended a few suggestive hints for character-study, collateral reading and dis- cussions of the art of fiction. All this matter is so skillfully distributed that it does not weigh upon the conscience, and is not likely to make the LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 13 student forget that he is, after all, reading a novel chiefly for the pleasure it affords. The entire aim of this volume and its companions is literary rather than historical or linguistic, and in this fact their chief value is to be found." The Dial. "I heartily approve of the manner in which the editor's work has been done. This book, if properly used by the teacher and supple- mented by the work so clearly suggested in the notes, may be made of great value to students, not only as literature but as affording oppor- tunity for historical research and exercise in composition." LILLIAN G. KIMBALL, State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis. DEFOE'S 'HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.' "He gives an interesting biography of Defoe, an account of his works, a discussion of their ethical influence (including that of this 'somewhat sensational' novel), some suggestions to teachers and students, and a list of references for future study. This is all valuable and sugges- tive. The reader wishes that there were more of it. Indeed, the criticism I was about to offer on this series is perhaps their chief excellence. One wishes that the introductions were longer and more exhaustive. For, contrary to custom, as expressed in Gratiano's query, 'Who riseth from a feast with that keen appetite that he sits down ? ' the young student will doubtless finish these introductions hungering for more. And this, perhaps, was the editor's object in view, viz., that the intro- ductory and explanatory matter should be suggestive and stimulating rather than complete and exhaustive ! " Educational Review. " I have taken great pleasure in examining your edition of Defoe's ' Plague in London.' The introduction and notes are beyond reproach, and the binding and typography are ideal. The American school-boy is to be congratulated that he at length may study his English from books in so attractive a dress." GEORGE N. MCKNIGHT, Instructor in English, Cornell University. " I am greatly obliged to you for the copy of the 'Journal of the Plague.' I am particularly pleased with Professor Carpenter's intro- duction and his handling of the difficult points in Defoe's life." HAM- MOND LAMONT, A.B., Associate Professor of Composition and Rhetoric in Brown University. MACAULAY'S ' ESSAY ON MILTON.' " I have examined the Milton and am much pleased with it ; it fully sustains the high standard of the other works of this series ; the intro- duction, the suggestions to teachers, and the notes are admirable." WILLIAM NICHOLS, The Nichols School, Buffalo, N. Y. I 4 LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS " I have never seen notes on a text that were more admirable than these. They contain just the information proper to impart, and are unusually well expressed." CHARLES C. RAMSAY, Principal of Fall River High School. COLERIDGE'S 'ANCIENT MARINER.' "It is the best edition of the poem that I know of. The editor points out precisely the things that a class should observe; the questions are searching and suggestive; the notes lucid and literary." Professor MARTIN W. SAMPSON, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind. " If your series of ENGLISH CLASSICS is to be judged by this volume, I do not hesitate to pronounce it superior to any other with which I am familiar. Mr. Bates' edition is the best annotation of the ' Ancient Mariner ' I have yet seen." L. L. RICE, Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn. " I am especially pleased with the brevity, pointedness and suggest- iveness of the notes." WILLIAM J. HARRINGTON, S.J., Detroit College, Detroit, Mich. " Does more than any school edition we know, to help the young student to an appreciation of the poem." Journal of Pedagogy, MILTON'S ' L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO,' ETC. " Professor Trent's sympathetic treatment on the literary side of the subject matter, makes the introductions and notes of more than usual interest and profit; and I think that it is just such editing as this that our younger students need in approaching the works of the great poets." J. RUSSELL HAYES, Assistant Professor of English, Swarthmore College, Pa. " I have given this book a thorough class-room test and am much pleased with it. I would lay stress upon the fact that it gives the student accurate and judicious aid." Principal W. D. MOONEY, Franklin, Tenn. SHAKSPERE'S ' MERCHANT OF VENICE.' " The book . . . is a model of thorough scholarship." Principal MARGARET J. EVANS, Carleton College, Northfield, Minn. " Its superior point of excellence is, that it insists, in all proper places, upon finding out what the poet meant to say rather than what, in a hidden way, he intended to darkly hint. I know of no other edition that brings out this valuable 'point' so well." Professor ENOCH PERRINE, A.M., Litt. D., Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa. LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 15 SHAKSPERE'S ' As You LIKE IT.' " Professor Wendell's Introduction is written in a charming and interesting style and is marked by discriminating judgment and the presentation of just the facts needed for an intelligent study of the play. The same good sense also marks Professor Phelps' notes and comments." C. C. RAMSAY, Prin. Durfee High School, Fall River, Mass. WEBSTER'S ' BUNKER HILL ORATION.' " The introduction is very good, and the criticism of Webster's style is excellent." Boston Pilot. " We have seen no better school edition of this work, which is now included in the preparatory reading required by all the leading colleges of the country." The Critic, New York. MACAULAY'S -LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.' " A remarkable school edition. I have seen nothing more satisfac- tory in the editing of any classic." JOHN C. GRANT, The Harvard School, Chicago. " Of all the numerous editions which have been recently published I consider yours the best that I have seen. The entire make-up is unusually good, while the price is noticeably cheap." Prof. ELMER JAMES BAILEY, State Normal School, New Paltz, N. Y. MILTON'S 'PARADISE LOST.' " Allow me to say that Mr. Hale's essay is a creditable addition to the immense bulk now existing of writing on Miltonic themes." SAMUEL THURBER, Master in Girls' High School, Boston, Mass. DE QUINCEY'S ' REVOLT OF A TARTAR TRIBE.' " I have gone over the Introduction and notes with great care and with yet greater pleasure. Dr. Baldwin shows the greatest felicity in the selection of matter and the deft expression of salient points in De Quincey's strange life and character." M. H. TURK, Professor of English, Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. " The Suggestions for Teachers are likely to be of great value, not only because many teachers need assistance in such work, but also because they must tend to introduce the uniformity of method that is hardly less valuable than the uniformity of the courses themselves." The Educational Review, February, 1896. 16 LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS It has been the aim of the publishers to secure editors of high reputation for scholarship, experience, and skill, and to provide a series thoroughly adapted, by uniformity of plan and thoroughness of execution, to present educa- tional needs. The chief distinguishing features of the series are the following: 1. Each volume contains full "Suggestions for Teach- ers and Students," with bibliographies, and, in many cases, lists of topics recommended for further reading or study, subjects for themes and compositions, specimen examina- tion papers, etc. It is therefore hoped that the series will contribute largely to the working out of sound methods in teaching English. 2. The works prescribed for reading are treated, in every case, as literature, not as texts for narrow linguistic study, and edited with a view to interesting the student in the book in question both in itself and as representative of a literary type or of a period of literature, and of leading him on to read other standard works of the same age or kind understandingly and appreciatively. 3. These editions are in every case specially prepared, and they represent original work of scholars and men of letters who are conversant with the topics of which they treat. Great care has been taken to ensure accuracy in the reproduction of the most authoritative text of each author. 4. Colleges and preparatory schools are both repre- sented in the list of editors, and it is intended that the series shall exemplify the ripest methods of American scholars for the teaching of English the result in some cases of years of actual experience in secondary school work, and, in others, the formulation of the experience acquired by professors who observe carefully the needs of students who present themselves for admission to college. 5. The volumes are uniform in size and style, are well printed and bound, and constitute a well-edited set of standard works, fit for permanent use and possession a nucleus for a library of English literature. ENGLISH HISTORY FOR AMERICANS. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, Author of " Young Folks' His. tory of the United States," etc., and EDWARD CHANNING, Assistant Professor of History in Harvard University. With 77 Illustra- tions, 6 colored Maps, Bibliography, a Chronological Table of Contents, and Index. I2mo. Pp. xxxii-334. Teachers' price, $1.20. The name " English History for Americans," which suggests the key-note of this book, is based on the simple fact that it is not the practice of American readers, old or young, to give to English history more than a limited portion of their hours of study. ... It seems clear that such readers will use their time to the best advantage if they devote it mainly to those events in English annals which have had the most direct influences on the history and institutions of their own land. . . . The authors of this book have therefore boldly ventured to modify in their narrative the accustomed scale of proportion ; while it has been their wish, in the treatment of every detail, to accept the best result of modern English investigation, and especially to avoid all unfair or one-sided judgments. . . . Extracts from Authors Preface. DR. W. T. HARRIS, U. S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. " I take great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of the book, and believe l to be the best introduction to English history hitherto made for the use of schools. It is just what is needed in the school and in the family. It. is the first history of England that I have seen which gives proper attention to sociol- ogy and the evolution of political ideas, without neglecting what is picturesque and interesting to the popular taste. The device of placing the four historicaf maps at the beginning and end deserves special mention for its convenience. Allow me to congratulate you on the publication of so excellent a text-book." ENGLISH HISTORY IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. By BEVERLEY E. WARNER, M.A. With Bibliography, Chronological Tables, and Index. Crown 8vo, 331 pages- $1.75. This volume had its origin in a course of lectures on the study of history as illustrated in the plays of Shakespeare. The lectures have been recast, pruned, and amplified, and much machinery has been added in the way of tables of contents, bibliography, chronological tables, and index. With such helps it is hoped that this book may effect a working partnership between the chronicle of the formal historian and the epic of the dramatic poet. They are addressed especially to those readers and students of English History who may not have discovered what an aid to the understanding of certain important phases of England's national development lies in these historical plays, which cover a period of three hundred years from King John and Magna Charta to Henry VIII. and the Reformation. 11 This unique book should be generally and carefully read. As a commen- tary upon the history in Shakespeare's plays, it is highly interesting ; while the views of English History, shown through the medium of the great poet, are admirable. 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The second volume of the EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY aims to follow out the principles laid down for " THE COLONIES" the study of causes rather than of events, the development of the American nation out of scattered and inharmonious colonies. The throwing off of English control, the growth out of narrow political conditions, the struggle against foreign domination, and the extension of popular government, are all parts of the uninterrupted process of the Formation of the Union. LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. "The large and sweeping treatment of the subject, which shows the true relations of the events preceding and following the revolution, to the revolution itself, is a real addition to the literature of the subject ; while the bibliography prefixed to each chapter adds incalculably to the value of the work." MARY SHELDON BARNES, Palo Alto, Cal. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91 and 93 Fifth Avenue, New York. EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. III. DIVISION AND RE-UNION, 1829-1889. 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" Considered as a general history of the United States from 1829 to 1889, his book is marked by excellent sense of proportion, extensive knowledge, im- partiality of judgment, unusual power of summarizing, and an acute political sense. Few writers can more vividly set forth the views of parties." Atlantic Monthly. " Students of United States history may thank Mr. Wilson for an extreme- ly clear and careful rendering of a period very difficult to handle . . . they will find themselves materially aided in easy comprehension of the political situation of the country by the excellent maps.'' New York Times. EPOCH MAPS, Illustrating American History. By A. B. HART, Ph.D., Professor of History in Harvard University. Fourteen colored Maps. Oblong 410, limp cloth. 50 cents net. LIST OF MAPS. 1. Physical Features of the United States of America. 2. North America. 1650. 3. English Colonies. 1700. 4. North America. 1750. 5. English Colonies. 1763-1775. 6. The United States. 1783. 7. 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With Full Index. 260 pages. $1.25 In use as a text-book in Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, and other lead- ing institutions. " I cannot resist telling you that ' Briefs for Debate' has proved itself to be one of the most useful books in the library. We use it constantly in con- nection with the High School work." C. K. BOLTON, Librarian, Public Library, Brookline, Mass. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Phi- losophy. By WILLIAM JAMES, LL.D., Professor of Psychology in Harvard Uni- versity. Large crown 8vo. Pp. xvii-332. Cloth, gilt top. $2.00 Pre-Christian Education. By S. S. LAURIE, A.M., LL.D., of the University of Edinburg. 444 pages. $3. 50 This book is an attempt to survey the education of ancient nations in relation to those factors in civilization which govern the thought and life of communities the political and the ethical. The nations specially considered are the Egyptians, Chinese, Jews, Babylonians and Assyrians, Persians and Hindus. The education of Greece, and Rome receives fuller consideration than that of other nations. Recently adopted as a text-book for Radcliffe College, Columbia University, and Teachers' College, New York, and in use in other leading Institutions. Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co. will be happy to send their Catalogue, describing more than 1,000 text-books and works of reference, to any teacher on request. LONGMANS, GREEN, &* CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Earliest Times to 1885. By SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, M.A., LL.D., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, etc.; Author of "The History of England from the Accession of James I. to 1642," etc. Illustrated under the superintend- ence of Mr. W. H. ST. JOHN HOPE, Assistant Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, and with the assistance in the choice of Portraits of Mr. GEORGE SCHARF, C.B., F.S.A., who is recognized as the highest authority on the subject. In one Volume, with 378 Illustrations and full Index. Crown 8vo, cloth, plain, $3.00. The book is also published in three Volumes (each -with Index and Table of Contents') as follows : VOLUME I. B.C. 55-A.D. 1509. 410 pp. With 173 Illustrations and Index. Crown 8vo, $1.30. VOLUME II. A.D. 1509-1689. 332 pp. With 96 Illustrations and Index. Crown 8vo, $1.20. VOLUME III. A.D. 1689-1885. 374 pp. With 109 Illustrations and Index. Crown 8vo, $1.20. V Gardiner's "Student's History of England," through Part IX. (to 1789), is recommended by HAEVAKD UNIVERSITY as indicating the requirements for admission in this subject ; and the ENTIfiE work is made the basis for English history study in the University. YALE UNIVERSITY. . "Gardiner's 'Student's History of England' seems to me an admirable short history. 1 ' Prof. C. H. SMITH, New Haven, Conn. TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD. "It is, in my opinion, by far the best advanced school history of England that I have ever seen. It is clear, concise, and scientific, and, at the same time, attractive and interesting. The illustrations are very good and a valuable addition to the book, as they are not mere pretty pictures, but of real historical and archaeological interest." Prof. HENRY FERGUSON. "A unique feature consists of the very numerous illustrations. They throw light on almost every phase of English life in all ages. . . . Never, perhaps, in such a treatise has pictorial illustration been used with so good effect. The alert teacher will find here ample material for useful lessons by leading the pupil to draw the proper inferences and make the proper interpre- tations and comparisons. . . . The style is compact, vigorous, and inter- esting. There is no lack of precision ; and, in the selection of the details, the hand of the scholar thoroughly conversant with the source and with the results of recent criticism is plainly revealed." The Nation, N. Y. ". . . It is illustrated by pictures of real value; and when accompanied by the companion ' Atlas of English History' is all that need be desired for its special purpose." The Churchman, N. Y. "**-^ prospectus and specimen pages of Gardiner's " Student" 1 s History of England" will be sent free on application to the publishers. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91 and 93 Fifth Ave., New York. Longmans' School Geography By GEORGE G. CHISHOLM, M.A., B.Sc., author of "Handbook of Commercial Geography," " A Smaller Commercial Geography," etc., etc., and C. H. LEETE, A.M., Ph.D., Fellow of the American Geo- graphical Society. Fourth edition, revised. Large i2mo, with 70 Illustrations. 466 pages. $1.25 " The closing paragraph of the prospectus is much closer to the opinion of the reviewer than such paragraphs usually are : ' This text-book adapts itself to pupils of intelligence, and will be highly appreciated by all teachers imbued with a spirit for teaching real geography, not attempting to supersede their functions by dictating the length of the daily tasks or the questions that shall be asked, but furnishing a body of material so selected, arranged, and presented that its perusal is at once pleasurable, suggestive, and of substantial value.' This is perfectly true. ... On the whole the book is remarkably success- ful." Nation, New York. " This book is the forerunner of a change which must speedily be effected in geographical teaching, and is itself a product of the movement for reform in England, which originated with the Geographical Society." Wisconsin Journal of Education. " . . . Probably the best book of the kind ever published in our lan- guage, and ought to help in improving the instruction of our schools in geogra- phy. Messrs. Chisholm and Leete's book is valuable for its method, and it is this fact which entitles it to the attention of teachers." Boston Beacon. Longmans' New School Atlas Consisting of 28 quarto and 10 octavo Colored Maps (and 20 Insets). Edited by G. G. CHISHOLM, M.A., B.Sc., and C. H. LEETE, A.M., Ph.D. Engraved by EDWARD STANFORD. With a very full Index of over 100,000 names. Imp. 8vo. $i-5o " Much the best Atlas to be had for a dollar and a half that has ever come to our notice. . . . The maps are clear, the physical features being re- markably well defined.' 1 Journal of Pedagogy. " The maps furnish just the facts needed, with no superfluous matter. The classification, arrangement, and marginal index are all features that add to the value of the atlas, rendering it possible to make easy reference to the several maps, and thus aiding in the comparative study of various countries." CLARA M. RUSSELL, State Normal College, Albany, N. Y. " A commendable piece of work. The maps are not covered with a mass of detail or blackened with the names of insignificant towns. In addition to the usual geographical details there are maps to illustrate the ocean currents, mag- netic variation, density of population, and geological structure. No atlas of equal practical value has been issued. " Prof. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Educational Review, New York. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Ave., New York LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS STUDIES IN AMERICAN EDUCATION. By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Ph.D. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25. CONTENTS : Has the Teacher a Profession ? Reform in the Grammar Schools University Participation, a Substitute for University Extension How to Study History How to Teach History in Secondary Schools The Status of Athletics in American Colleges Index. " This volume consists of six essays, each one excellent in its way." Public Opinion, New York. " Prof. Hart is a keen observer and a profound thinker ; he knows what American education is, and he knows what it ought to be . . . his whole treatment of the subject is vigorous and original. . . . He has a most helpful article on the study of history, and another equally significant on the teaching of history in the secondary schools." Beacon, Boston. " The essays on ' How to Study and Teach History ' are admirable. As education is a unit, the same methods can be applied in all grades. The relation of college curriculums to secondary schools is the underlying subject of the book, but it is still an open question whether secondary schools should justify their methods because they prepare for college, or whether they should assume the independent position, that they furnish such knowledge as is most requisite for boys and girls who can study till they are eighteen, but are not going to college. It is easily possible to take this attitude and yet have a preparatory class for Harvard in the same high school." Literary World, Boston. " As for the essays themselves, however, only words of praise ought to be spoken. The style is clear, concise, active, enlivened by apt illustrations ; ' breezy ' may perhaps be the word. The thought is practical and clear-headed, as Professor Hart always is, and the essays themselves have been ' brought down to date.' " School Review, Hamilton, N. Y. " This new volume from the experience and pen of Professor Hart is one of practical interest, and a valuable addition to the rapidly increasing collection of works on pedagogy. . . . While all the chapters are interesting, perhaps the one most interesting to the general reader is that on ' How to Study History,' and here Mr. Hart shows his decided preferences for the topical method of study. This chapter should be read by all students of history and especially by those members of private classes, of which so many are to be found in our villages and clubs all through the country." Transcript, Boston. " His studies have a decidedly practical tendency, and together constitute an addition to our steadily growing stock of good educational literature." Dial, Chicago. " The author is especially fitted to write a volume which has the rare merit of treating current educational ideas not only from the standpoint of the teacher, but also of the pupil, the board of education and the public at large. The book will prove specially interesting and instructive to the general reader." Post Graduate, Wooster, Ohio. "Whatever Dr. Hart contributes to educational or historical literature is. always worth reading, and teachers will find these essays very suggestive." School Review, Monroe, La. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York,, University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. " 0^ 7 036 University of ( Southern Re Library Fa