George Eliot - ProfilesArchive

About Me

My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.

I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven â€” the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it â€” it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition â€” make haste â€” oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations.

My Interests

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

I'd like to meet:

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

View my page on Pen and Ink

My Blog

Silas Marner

1861"A child, more than all other giftsThat earth can offer to declining man,Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts."--WORDSWORTH.PART ONECHAPTER IIn the days when the spinning-wheels humme...
Posted by George Eliot on Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:35:00 PST

I Grant You Ample Leave

I grant you ample leave To use the hoary f...
Posted by George Eliot on Mon, 12 May 2008 10:07:00 PST

In a London Drawingroom

The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke. For view there are the houses opposite Cutting the sky with one long line of wall Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch Monotony of surface & of for...
Posted by George Eliot on Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:45:00 PST

Two Lovers

Two lovers by a moss-grown spring:They leaned soft cheeks together there,Mingled the dark and sunny hair,And heard the wooing thrushes sing.O budding time!O love's blest prime! Two wedded from the por...
Posted by George Eliot on Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:55:00 PST

The Lifted Veil

The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be p...
Posted by George Eliot on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:09:00 PST

Virginia’s View of Mary Ann

"George Eliot" by Virginia Woolf To read George Eliot attentively is to become aware how little one knows about her. It is also to become aware of the credulity, not very creditable to one's insight, ...
Posted by George Eliot on Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:53:00 PST

Sweet Endings Come and Go, Love (1865)

"La noche buena se viene,La noche buena se va,Y nosotros nos iremosY no volveremos mas." ~ Old Villancico. Sweet evenings come and go, love,They came and went of yore:This evening of our life, love,S...
Posted by George Eliot on Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:24:00 PST

How Lisa Loved the King (1884)

Six hundred years ago, in Dante's time,Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,Was like a garden tangled with the gloryOf flowers hand-planted and of flo...
Posted by George Eliot on Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:48:00 PST

Count That Day Lost

If you sit down at set of sunAnd count the acts that you have done,And, counting, findOne self-denying deed, one wordThat eased the heart of him who heard,One glance most kindThat fell like sunshine w...
Posted by George Eliot on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:50:00 PST

Hearsay

She is magnificently ugly deliciously hideous... in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth and charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in fa...
Posted by George Eliot on Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:14:00 PST