The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (best beach reads of all time .txt) 📕

you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise surprise you; namely, Tom’s accumulation of a fund, unknown to his father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to make the most of it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire it⁠—partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the delirium of a too sudden elation.

At the time of Maggie’s first meeting with Philip, Tom had already nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father’s name, and perhaps⁠—for he should be twenty-one⁠—have got a new start for himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He was quite sure that he did.

III The Wavering Balance

I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky; and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was pitiable⁠—clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service; perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without some width of knowledge; must she always live in this resigned imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning came again and again⁠—that she was losing the simplicity and clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that, by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said, which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as well as sad.

“Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without concealment⁠—stay, I know what you are going to say⁠—it is other people’s wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered, there would be nothing but misery⁠—dreadful anger; and then we must part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing each other.”

Philip’s face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all his might.

But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: “Well, Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour; let us talk together a little while, for the last time.”

He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked together hand in hand in silence.

“Let us sit down in the hollow,” said Philip, “where we stood the last time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their opal petals over it.”

They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.

“I’ve begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie,” said Philip, “so you must let me study your face a little, while you stay⁠—since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this way.”

This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up to it.

“I shall be sitting for my second portrait then,” she said, smiling. “Will