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Brown, John Crombie, -1879?

"The Ethics of George Eliot's Works"


{29} Perhaps no finer and more subtle illustration of this "instinct of
the gentleman" can be found in literature than when, at the moment of
Harold Transome's deepest humiliation, where Jermyn claims him as his
son, good old Sir Marmaduke, not only his political opponent but
personally disliking him, for the first and only time in all their
intercourse addresses him by his Christian name, "Come, _Harold_."
{97} In connection with Bulstrode occurs one of those delicate
indications of character, condensed into a few words, which others would
expand into pages, peculiar to George Eliot. It occurs in the depth of
his humiliation, when his wife, hitherto comparatively characterless, in
full token of her acceptance of their fallen lot, "takes off all her
ornaments, and puts on a plain gown, and instead of wearing her much
adorned-cap and large bows of hair, brushes down her hair, and puts on a
plain bonnet-cap, which makes her look like an early Methodist."
{103} Does all poetry ancient or modern, so-called sacred or profane,
contain an image more impressive and majestic than that in the "doom of
Babylon," as the great incarnation of pride and luxury descends to its
place: "Hades from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming:
it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth;
it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.


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