George Eliot and the Art of the Epigraph

Abstract

ly, but quite emotively, Blake sketches an altruistic love, which lives wholly for others and builds an order and stability from chaos, and an egotistic love, which must receive, for it cannot give. When Fred Vincy tells Mary Garth that he cannot meet his note and that her father, his co-signer, must pay it, George Eliot particularizes these abstract loves in the reaction of her characters to the financial crisis. In her willingness to give the money she had saved to help her father out of his difficulty, Mary resembles the altruistic love of the clod. Acts such as these she has come to expect as she has grown accustomed to the demands of others. Like the pebble, Fred loves only himself. Washed by the stream of life, he has been swept along without cares by the Vincy money and expectations of gaining the Featherstone estate. He has never known trouble; he has bound others to his problems, and now must watch them suffer. His actions have been directed only toward pleasing himself. The idea presented in the epigraph is not confined to the chapter, for the conflict between Mary and Fred is mirrored in three other couples-the Bulstrodes, the Lydgates, and, to an extent, the Casaubons. In each, George Eliot pairs an altruistic clod with an egotistic pebble. Numerous epigraphs, written expressly for the chapters by George Eliot herself, pointedly underline the abstract values and conflicts in her material. The conflicts experienced by Lydgate in chapter 67 of Middlemarch are typical. After much emotional turmoil, Lydgate approaches Bulstrode for a loan even though he had earlier said that he would remain independent of the man. But the debts he incurred furnishing his house for Rosamond demand payment, and he swallows his pride. The chapter's epigraph presents a violent civil war waged between the abstract forces given concrete body in Lydgate's action: Now is there civil war within the soul; Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier Makes humble compact, plays the supple part Of envoy and deft-tongued apologist For hungry rebels. (496) The confrontation between the two men is measured and almost brittle in its delicacy. Bulstrode and Lydgate understand each other: Bulstrode knows Lydgate desperately needs money, and This content downloaded from 207.46.13.114 on Thu, 26 May 2016 05:55:30 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 142 Nineteenth-Century Fiction Lydgate suspects that Bulstrode will not lend it at this time. During the discussion of the funds needed for the hospital, especially the additional funds required if the cholera threat materializes, they skillfully sound out each other. The atmosphere, tense and charged, little resembles the violent action of the epigraph where the action is presented in terms worthy of an heroic drama with the rightful king's throne being usurped by rebellious subjects led by a traitor within the court. The juxtaposition of violence and uneasy calm creates a tension between the reader's expectations and the denouement. The battle within Lydgate's mind occupies the reader on one level; the cholera hospital engages him