How does this book exist
I am, unbelievably, almost finished scoring the exponential growth number for MELISANDE. Tomorrow I'm going to do the polish, typing in the bits of dialogue and noting which measures are "grand pause" and so on. This means I may get both "Exponential" and "Enter the Princes" scored in January (you remember what I wrote about the prince number, right?), which only leaves me with the Act I closer – and I may not write that until after I draft and score Act II, since it may want to incorporate and/or foreshadow musical elements that will be fully articulated in the second act.
At any rate, and especially at this rate, the work is working.
Meanwhile, Middlemarch.
I have to confess that I was wrong about Offenbach, and I even more embarrassingly have to confess that I was right about it before I started writing it down.
This is going to confuse you until I tell you what I mean, so here we go, with the passage in question:
How could there be any commonness in a man so well-bred, so ambitious of social distinction, so generous and unusual in his views of social duty? As easily as there may be stupidity in a man of genius if you take him unawares on the wrong subject, or as many a man who has the best will to advance the social millennium might be ill-inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures; unable to go beyond Offenbach’s music, or the brilliant punning in the last burlesque.
The man in the first sentence is Lydgate. The man in the first half of the second sentence is an abstraction. The man in the second half of the second sentence (after the semicolon) could be either Lydgate or the abstraction, and on my first reading I assumed it was the abstract man, in part because Offenbach seemed a bit anachronistic for the time period, but then I wondered if the specific example was in fact designed to demonstrate the specific character, and plus it was funnier if you imagined Lydgate grinning at the can-can, and so that was how I wrote it when I wrote it up yesterday.
But it kept bothering me, and so I checked to see if Offenbach was even alive during the events of Middlemarch (he was ten years old, as it turns out), and then I checked to see how other scholars had interpreted this passage, and it turns out that Eliot was in fact referencing not only the abstract man but also giving an at-the-time contemporary example of Lydgate's poor taste in entertainment. A man like Lydgate, living in 1871 when this book was published and not in 1829 when this book takes place, would think the can-can was spectacular-spectacular.
Which, admittedly, takes a lot of parsing and a bit of background knowledge in music history – and of course I've already corrected yesterday's blog post to reflect what I learned, but the point is that my instinct was correct and I ignored it to do what seemed like it would please more readers (the you, two paragraphs above, being literal).
Which is –
and always is –
(I am waiting for one of you to tell me that Eve does not precisely want to please the serpent; that she wants to be wise and/or to be like God, and that the serpent only facilitated her access to that desire, and that this metaphor is actually about discovering rationality or whatever. There's no evidence that Eve was unhappy with herself prior to the serpent's interference, however [both she and Adam are naked and unashamed, suggesting a strong self-integration], and the serpent is the one who tells her that it would be better if she followed his advice instead of trusting her own good judgment. Why does she do this? The answer may be in the phrase "when she saw [...] that the tree was to be desired to make one wise," which suggests the desire is still not her own but someone else's, and that she is choosing to accommodate their desire, i.e. pleasing the serpent.)
At this point in my reading of Middlemarch both Lydgate and I have been introduced to Rev. Farebrother, a natural philosopher who appears to be the book's moral center. By the end of Chapter XVII we learn that Farebrother values free trade –
"But”—Mr. Farebrother broke off a moment, and then added, “you are eying that glass vase again. Do you want to make an exchange? You shall not have it without a fair barter.”
“I have some sea-mice—fine specimens—in spirits. And I will throw in Robert Brown’s new thing—‘Microscopic Observations on the Pollen of Plants’—if you don’t happen to have it already.”
“Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higher price."
and keeping oneself independent by providing value –
“Don’t you think men overrate the necessity for humoring everybody’s nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humor?” said Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother’s side, and looking rather absently at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in exquisite writing. “The shortest way is to make your value felt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not.”
“With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellows pull you. But do look at these delicate orthoptera!”
and integrating one's life with a partner and family, if one wants –
“Yes—well—you have got a good start; you are in the right profession, the work you feel yourself most fit for. Some people miss that, and repent too late. But you must not be too sure of keeping your independence.”
“You mean of family ties?” said Lydgate, conceiving that these might press rather tightly on Mr. Farebrother.
“Not altogether. Of course they make many things more difficult. But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent."
and refusing to impose a duty on any other person –
"If you vote for me you will offend Bulstrode.”
“What is there against Bulstrode?” said Lydgate, emphatically.
“I did not say there was anything against him except that. If you vote against him you will make him your enemy.”
“I don’t know that I need mind about that,” said Lydgate, rather proudly; “but he seems to have good ideas about hospitals, and he spends large sums on useful public objects. He might help me a good deal in carrying out my ideas. As to his religious notions—why, as Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man who will bring the arsenic, and don’t mind about his incantations.”
“Very good. But then you must not offend your arsenic-man. You will not offend me, you know,” said Mr. Farebrother, quite unaffectedly. “I don’t translate my own convenience into other people’s duties. I am opposed to Bulstrode in many ways. I don’t like the set he belongs to: they are a narrow ignorant set, and do more to make their neighbors uncomfortable than to make them better. Their system is a sort of worldly-spiritual cliqueism: they really look on the rest of mankind as a doomed carcass which is to nourish them for heaven. But,” he added, smilingly, “I don’t say that Bulstrode’s new hospital is a bad thing; and as to his wanting to oust me from the old one—why, if he thinks me a mischievous fellow, he is only returning a compliment. And I am not a model clergyman—only a decent makeshift.”
Read that last paragraph again. It contains not only "I don't translate my own convenience into other people's duties," which is beautiful, but also "they really look on the rest of mankind as a doomed carcass which is to nourish them for heaven," which is –
well –
I mean, Eliot means for it to be true, right?
Every time George Eliot writes about philanthropists and altruists, including the tiny moment in which Miss Noble pours sugar into her purse instead of her cup of tea so that she can give it to the poor later, she specifically says this is not the way to live, as follows:
Pray think no ill of Miss Noble. That basket held small savings from her more portable food, destined for the children of her poor friends among whom she trotted on fine mornings; fostering and petting all needy creatures being so spontaneous a delight to her, that she regarded it much as if it had been a pleasant vice that she was addicted to. Perhaps she was conscious of being tempted to steal from those who had much that she might give to those who had nothing, and carried in her conscience the guilt of that repressed desire. One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!
Altruism turns people into creatures that you can pet and give sugar to, in other words – and note carefully that even silly Miss Noble understands this is a vice.
Mr. Bulstrode, who I assume will become the book's villain, gets even harsher treatment:
His private minor loans were numerous, but he would inquire strictly into the circumstances both before and after. In this way a man gathers a domain in his neighbors’ hope and fear as well as gratitude; and power, when once it has got into that subtle region, propagates itself, spreading out of all proportion to its external means. It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as possible, that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and make clear to himself what God’s glory required. But, as we have seen, his motives were not always rightly appreciated. There were many crass minds in Middlemarch whose reflective scales could only weigh things in the lump; and they had a strong suspicion that since Mr. Bulstrode could not enjoy life in their fashion, eating and drinking so little as he did, and worreting himself about everything, he must have a sort of vampire’s feast in the sense of mastery.
And yet Lydgate still believes, at this point in the story, that all of this is still some kind of social good, and that Bulstrode's irrational principles can be forgiven if he is a net positive to the community:
“What is his religious doctrine to me, if he carries some good notions along with it?”
This will doom him, I am sure of it.
Also, how does this book exist without everyone knowing what is in it?
And why did George Eliot know it herself?