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

“What! because experience must have told me that I’m universally pleasing? I admit the law, but there’s some disturbing force here.”

“I am going,” said Philip, rising abruptly.

“So am I⁠—to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. I think I have done suit and service long enough.”

The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking. Philip turned through the outer door into the courtyard; but Stephen, saying, “Oh, by the by, I must call in here,” went on along the passage to one of the rooms at the other end of the building, which were appropriated to the town library. He had the room all to himself, and a man requires nothing less than this when he wants to dash his cap on the table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a high brick wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the occasion if he had been slaying “the giant Python.” The conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice that the distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a mere comparison of actions. It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite⁠—capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end; and yet his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the systematic concealment of it might have made a good case in support of Philip’s accusation.

Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with that painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressed tears. Was her life to be always like this⁠—always bringing some new source of inward strife? She heard confusedly the busy, indifferent voices around her, and wished her mind could flow into that easy babbling current. It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quite lately come into the hall, and was now walking down the middle with his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his eyes on Maggie for the first time, and was struck with the expression of pain on her beautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for the stream of customers had lessened at this late hour in the afternoon; the gentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of the day, and Maggie’s stall was looking rather bare. This, with her absent, pained expression, finished the contrast between her and her companions, who were all bright, eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her face had naturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at church, and he had been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr. Deane’s, but he had never spoken more than three words to her. He walked toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving someone approaching, roused herself to look up and be prepared to speak. She felt a childlike, instinctive relief from the sense of uneasiness in this exertion, when she saw it was Dr. Kenn’s face that was looking at her; that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe strand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers still tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was afterward remembered by her as if it had been a promise. The middle-aged, who have lived through their strongest emotions, but are yet in the time when memory is still half passionate and not merely contemplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at some moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to scramble upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely without such aid, as Maggie did.

“You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss Tulliver,” said Dr. Kenn.

“It is, rather,” said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to simpler amiable denials of obvious facts.

“But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of her goods very quickly,” he added; “she will be very much obliged to you.”

“Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very fast to buy the dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I think any of the other ladies would have sold more; I didn’t know what to say about them.”

Dr. Kenn smiled. “I hope I’m going to have you as a permanent parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance from us hitherto.”

“I have been a teacher in a school, and I’m going into another situation of the same kind very soon.”

“Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in this neighbourhood, I believe.”

“Oh, I must go,” said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite transiently⁠—on a mile’s journey, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.

Dr. Kenn’s ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief confidence of Maggie’s was charged with meaning.

“I understand,” he said; “you feel it right to go. But that will not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you better, if I can be of any service to you.”

He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away.

“She has some trouble or other at heart,” he thought. “Poor child! she looks as if she might turn out to be one of

‘The souls by nature pitched too high,
By suffering plunged too low.’

“There’s something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes.”

It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections an excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not absent now,