Among the many clearly defined and vividly drawn portraits in this great
work, it would be easy, did space permit, to select others well worthy of
detailed examination, and illustrative of the salient aim and tendency of
all George Eliot's works. The homely yet beautiful family groups of the
Garths, Celia and Sir James Chettam, the Bulstrodes, {97} even the
wretched old Featherstone, and the crowd of vultures "waiting for death
around him," all more or less illustrate the fundamental principle of the
highest ethics--that self-abnegation is life, elevation, purity,
uplifting our humanity toward the Divine; that self-seeking and
self-isolation tend surely toward moral and spiritual death. Two,
however, stand out so delicately yet clearly defined and contrasting,
that they claim brief consideration before passing from this great
work--Lydgate and Farebrother.
The whole character and career of Lydgate are brought before us with the
skill of the consummate artist. At first he appears as a man of massive
and energetic proportions, of high professional impulses and aims,
resolute to carry these through against all difficulty and amid all
indifference and opposition, and apparently seeking through these aims
the general good of humanity--the alleviation of suffering, and the
arrestment, it may be, of death.
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