Novelists have always told stories, but in the nineteenth century, they also sometimes took a step outside the narrative to make more general observations about human nature and experience. In these aphorisms, the writer commented on the action, but also served up delicious philosophical treats. There’s something very modern about that. A novel was not just an impersonal recounting, but an intimate conversation between the writer and the reader, with engaging side comments.
There’s probably no fiction writer better at these asides than George Eliot.
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| George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, 1819–1880) |
Here are some of my favorites of George Eliot’s aphorisms in her masterpiece, in the order in which they appear. I’ve also included a few lines of dialogue that I particular love:
“…very little achievement is required in order to pity another man’s shortcomings.”
“A sense of contributing to form the world’s opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful...”
“I have a hyperbolical tongue: it catches fire as it goes.”
“A man may, from various motives, decline to give his company, but perhaps not even a sage would be gratified that nobody missed him.”
“...our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.”
“...the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.”
“...we hear with the more keenness what we wish others not to hear.”
“...what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”
“…it is a little too trying to human flesh to be conscious of expressing one’s self better than others and never to have it noticed…”
“…it is one thing to like defiance, and another thing to like its consequences.”
[That impractical scheme] “…was as free from interruption as a plan for threading the stars together.”
“But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors.”
“‘I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion.’”
“Life would be no better than candlelight tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy.”
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.”
“…to most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable—else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?”
“…we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary.”
“It’s no use being wise for other people.”
“It’s rather a strong check to one’s self-complacency to find out how much of one’s right doing depends on not being in want of money.”
“A man vows, and yet will not cast away the means of breaking his vow.”
“I have always loved him. I should never like scolding anyone else so well, and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.”
“…husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.”
One of my very favorite George Eliot aphorism is the closing sentence of Middlemarch. I won’t spoil the surprise by quoting it.
It’s interesting that novelists, for the most part, no longer break away from the story to make these parenthetical, general comments. For a writer to tell us these days what to conclude from the events of the plot would feel too directive, almost manipulative—not to mention quaint. In some ways, that’s a loss, because those asides were more than just generalizations, they were a chance for an author to let another facet of their talent shine, the ability to sum up human nature and life beyond the specifics of one individual story.
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