Felix Holt, the Radical

George Eliot

Description

In the novel Felix Holt, the Radical, George Eliot (the pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans) turns her attention to political affairs. However, although the Reform movement of the early 1800s is an important plot point in the novel, the tale focuses more on the intersection between politics and society, and the myriad ways in which changes in the law can and do affect family and intimate relationships.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776530519
• Langue: English

Extrait

FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL
* * *
GEORGE ELIOT
 
*
Felix Holt, the Radical First published in 1866 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-051-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-052-6 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Felix Holt, the Radical Introduction Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII Chapter XXIX Chapter XXX Chapter XXXI Chapter XXXII Chapter XXXIII Chapter XXXIV Chapter XXXV Chapter XXXVI Chapter XXXVII Chapter XXXVIII Chapter XXXIX Chapter XL Chapter XLI Chapter XLII Chapter XLIII Chapter XLIV Chapter XLV Chapter XLVI Chapter XLVII Chapter XLVIII Chapter XLIX Chapter L Chapter LI Epilogue
Felix Holt, the Radical
*
Upon the midlands now the industrious muse doth fall, The shires which we the heart of England well may call.
My native country thou, which so brave spirits hast bred, If there be virtues yet remaining in the earth, Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth, Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of thee, Of all thy later brood the unworthiest though I be.
—DRAYTON; Polyolbion .
Introduction
*
Five-and-thirty years ago the glory had not yet departed from the oldcoach roads: the great roadside inns were still brilliant withwell-polished tankards, the smiling glances of pretty barmaids, and therepartees of jocose hostlers; the mail still announced itself by themerry notes of the horn; the hedge-cutter or the rick-thatcher mightstill know the exact hour by the unfailing yet otherwise meteoricapparition of the pea-green Tally-ho or the yellow Independent; andelderly gentlemen in pony-chaises, quartering nervously to make way forthe rolling, swinging swiftness, had not ceased to remark that timeswere finely changed since they used to see the pack-horses and hear thetinkling of their bells on this very highway.
In those days there were pocket boroughs, a Birmingham unrepresented inParliament and compelled to make strong representations out of it,unrepealed corn-laws, three-and-sixpenny letters, a brawny andmany-breeding pauperism, and other departed evils; but there were somepleasant things, too, which have also departed. Non omnia grandior ætasquæ fugiamus habet , says the wise goddess: you have not the best of itin all things, O youngsters! the elderly man has his enviable memories,and not the least of them is the memory of a long journey in mid-springor autumn on the outside of a stage coach. Posterity may be shot, like abullet through a tube, by atmospheric pressure, from Winchester toNewcastle: that is a fine result to have among our hopes; but the slow,old fashioned way of getting from one end of our country to the other isthe better thing to have in the memory. The tube-journey can never lendmuch to picture and narrative; it is as barren as an exclamatory O!Whereas, the happy outside passenger, seated on the box from the dawn tothe gloaming, gathered enough stories of English life, enough of Englishlabors in town and country, enough aspects of earth and sky, to makeepisodes for a modern Odyssey. Suppose only that his journey took himthrough that central plain, watered at one extremity by the Avon, at theother by the Trent. As the morning silvered the meadows with their longlines of bushy willows marking the water-courses, or burnished thegolden corn-ricks clustered near the long roofs of some midlandhomestead, he saw the full-uddered cows driven from their pasture to theearly milking. Perhaps it was the shepherd, head-servant of the farm,who drove them, his sheep-dog following with a heedless, unofficial air,as of a beadle in undress. The shepherd, with a slow and slouching walk,timed by the walk of grazing beasts, moved aside, as if unwillingly,throwing out a monosyllabic hint to his cattle; his glance, accustomedto rest on things very near the earth, seemed to lift itself withdifficulty to the coachman. Mail or stage coach for him belonged to themysterious distant system of things called "Gover'ment," which, whateverit might be, was no business of his, any more than the most outlyingnebula or the coal-sacks of the southern hemisphere: his solar systemwas the parish; the master's temper and the casualties of lambing-timewere his region of storms. He cut his bread and bacon with hispocket-knife, and felt no bitterness except in the matter of pauperlaborers and the bad-luck that sent contrarious seasons and thesheep-rot. He and his cows were soon left behind, and the homestead,too, with its pond overhung by elder-trees, its untidy kitchen-gardenand cone-shaped yew-tree arbor. But everywhere the bushy hedgerowswasted the land with their straggling beauty, shrouded the grassyborders of the pastures with catkined hazels, and tossed their longblackberry branches on the corn-fields. Perhaps they were white withMay, or starred with pale pink dog-roses; perhaps the urchins werealready nutting among them, or gathering the plenteous crabs. It wasworth the journey only to see those hedgerows, the liberal homes ofunmarketable beauty—of the purple blossomed, ruby-berried nightshade,of the wild convolvulus climbing and spreading in tendriled strengthtill it made a great curtain of pale-green hearts and white trumpets, ofthe many-tubed honey-suckle which, in its most delicate fragrance, hid acharm more subtle and penetrating than beauty. Even if it were winter,the hedgerows showed their coral, the scarlet haws, the deep-crimsonhips, with lingering brown leaves to make a resting-place for the jewelsof the hoar-frost. Such hedgerows were often as tall as the laborers'cottages dotted along the lanes, or clustered into a small hamlet, theirlittle dingy windows telling, like thick-filmed eyes, of nothing but thedarkness within. The passenger on the coach-box, bowled along abovesuch a hamlet, saw chiefly the roofs of it: probably it turned its backon the road, and seemed to lie away from everything but its own patch ofearth and sky, away from the parish church by long fields and greenlanes, away from all intercourse except that of tramps. If its facecould be seen, it was most likely dirty; but the dirt was Protestantdirt, and the big, bold, gin-breathing tramps were Protestant tramps.There was no sign of superstition near, no crucifix or image to indicatea misguided reverence: the inhabitants were probably so free fromsuperstition that they were in much less awe of the parson than of theoverseer. Yet they were saved from the excess of Protestantism by notknowing how to read, and by the absence of handlooms and mines to be thepioneers of Dissent: they were kept safely in the via media ofindifference, and could have registered themselves in the census by abig black mark as members of the Church of England.
But there were trim cheerful villages too, with a neat or handsomeparsonage and gray church set in the midst; there was the pleasanttinkle of the blacksmith's anvil, the patient cart horses waiting at hisdoor; the basket-maker peeling his willow wands in the sunshine; thewheelwright putting his last touch to a blue cart with red wheels; hereand there a cottage with bright transparent windows showing pots full ofblooming balsams or geraniums, and little gardens in front all doubledaisies or dark wallflowers; at the well, clean and comely womencarrying yoked buckets, and toward the free school small Britonsdawdling on, and handling their marbles in the pockets of unpatchedcorduroys adorned with brass buttons. The land around was rich andmarly, great corn-stacks stood in the rick-yards—for the rick-burnershad not found their way hither; the homesteads were those of richfarmers who paid no rent, or had the rare advantage of a lease, andcould afford to keep the corn till prices had risen. The coach would besure to overtake some of them on their way to their outlying fields orto the market-town, sitting heavily on their well-groomed horses, orweighing down one side of an olive-green gig. They probably thought ofthe coach with some contempt, as an accommodation for people who had nottheir own gigs, or who, wanting to travel to London and such distantplaces, belonged to the trading and less solid part of the nation. Thepassenger on the box could see that this was the district of protuberantoptimists, sure that old England was the best of all possible countries,and that if there were any facts which had not fallen under their ownobservation, they were facts not worth observing: the district of cleanlittle market-towns without manufactures, of fat livings, anaristocratic clergy, and low poor-rates. But as the day wore on thescene would change: the land would begin to be blackened with coal-pits,the rattle of handlooms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here werepowerful men walking queerly with knees bent outward from squatting inthe mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flanneland sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their highwages at the ale-house with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here thepale eager faces of the handloom-weavers, men and women, haggard fromsitting up late at night to finish the week's work, hardly begun tillthe Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small children weredirty, for