As painful as writing this dissertation is, I can't say it's completely an exercise in masochism. Reading George Eliot's last three novels for my chapter on her epigraphs has been a pleasure. I wouldn't want to spend 800+ pages (x3) with any other writer.
It's a good measure of the changes in one's life to re-read sprawling, multi-character Victorian novels every few years and see how one's allegiances to characters evolve. Is it any surprise that this time I read Daniel Deronda, I felt for the deliciously despicable Mr. Lush?—
Mr. Lush had passed for a scholar once, and still had a sense of scholarship when he was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelors' and other arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present comfortable provision was as good as a sinecure in not requiring more than the odour of departed learning. (129)
The plain but precise Catherine Arrowpoint, second fiddle to the glamorous Gwendolen, remains my favorite, though. Here is Eliot on Catherine and her music teacher's dawning love for each other:
Outsiders might have been more apt to think that Klesmer's position was dangerous for himself if Miss Arrowpoint had been an acknowledged beauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is that which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. There is a charm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that certifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every unostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no sweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which enters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on whom no intention will be lost. (239)
Reminds me of my favorite quote from Henry James, and one of my favorite quotes about writing: "A writer is someone upon whom nothing is lost."
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