prompt:
Chapter: ARTHUR DONNITHORNE, you remember, is under an engagement with himself to
go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and dressing
so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of after.
The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the ladies of
the family having a different breakfast-hour; Arthur will have an early
ride over the hill and breakfast with him. One can say everything best
over a meal.

The progress of civilization has made a breakfast or a dinner an
easy and cheerful substitute for more troublesome and disagreeable
ceremonies. We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father
confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee. We are more distinctly
conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in
an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an
appetite for muffins. An assault on our pockets, which in more barbarous
times would have been made in the brusque form of a pistol-shot, is
quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has become a request for
a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between the second and third
glasses of claret.

Still, there was this advantage in the old rigid forms, that they
committed you to the fulfilment of a resolution by some outward deed:
when you have put your mouth to one end of a hole in a stone wall and
are aware that there is an expectant ear at the other end, you are more
likely to say what you came out with the intention of saying than if you
were seated with your legs in an easy attitude under the mahogany with
a companion who will have no reason to be surprised if you have nothing
particular to say.

However, Arthur Donnithorne, as he winds among the pleasant lanes on
horseback in the morning sunshine, has a sincere determination to open
his heart to the rector, and the swirling sound of the scythe as he
passes by the meadow is all the pleasanter to him because of this honest
purpose. He is glad to see the promise of settled weather now, for
getting in the hay, about which the farmers have been fearful; and there
is something so healthful in the sharing of a joy that is general and
not merely personal, that this thought about the hay-harvest reacts on
his state of mind and makes his resolution seem an easier matter. A man
about town might perhaps consider that these influences were not to be
felt out of a child's story-book; but when you are among the fields
and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to
simple natural pleasures.

Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the
Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a
figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to
mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey,
tailless shepherd-dog at his heels. He was striding along at his usual
rapid pace, and Arthur pushed on his horse to overtake him, for he
retained too much of his boyish feeling for Adam to miss an opportunity
of chatting with him. I will not say that his love for that good fellow
did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our friend
Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his
handsome deeds recognized.

Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's
heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head
with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam
would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man
in the world. There was hardly anything he would not rather have lost
than the two-feet ruler which he always carried in his pocket; it was
Arthur's present, bought with his pocket-money when he was a fair-haired
lad of eleven, and when he had profited so well by Adam's lessons in
carpentering and turning as to embarrass every female in the house with
gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes. Adam had quite a
pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling had
only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into
the whiskered young man. Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the
influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to
every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher
or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever
carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined
him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for
questioning them. He had no theories about setting the world to rights,
but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by building with
ill-seasoned timber--by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans for
outhouses and workshops and the like without knowing the bearings of
things--by slovenly joiners' work, and by hasty contracts that could
never be fulfilled without ruining somebody; and he resolved, for his
part, to set his face against such doings. On these points he would
have maintained his opinion against the largest landed proprietor in
Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he felt that beyond these it would
be better for him to defer to people who were more knowing than himself.
He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on the estate were
managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if old Squire
Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would
have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the impulse to a
respectful demeanour towards a "gentleman" would have been strong within
him all the while. The word "gentleman" had a spell for Adam, and, as he
often said, he "couldn't abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine
by being coxy to's betters." I must remind you again that Adam had the
blood of the peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime
half a century ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be
obsolete.

Towards the young squire this instinctive reverence of Adam's was
assisted by boyish memories and personal regard so you may imagine that
he thought far more of Arthur's good qualities, and attached far more
value to very slight actions of his, than if they had been the qualities
and actions of a common workman like himself. He felt sure it would be
a fine day for everybody about Hayslope when the young squire came into
the estate--such a generous open-hearted disposition as he had, and an
"uncommon" notion about improvements and repairs, considering he was
only just coming of age. Thus there was both respect and affection in
the smile with which he raised his paper cap as Arthur Donnithorne rode
up.

"Well, Adam, how are you?" said Arthur, holding out his hand. He never
shook hands with any of the farmers, and Adam felt the honour keenly. "I
could swear to your back a long way off. It's just the same back, only
broader, as when you used to carry me on it. Do you remember?"

"Aye, sir, I remember. It 'ud be a poor look-out if folks didn't
remember what they did and said when they were lads. We should think no
more about old friends than we do about new uns, then."

"You're going to Broxton, I suppose?" said Arthur, putting his horse
on at a slow pace while Adam walked by his side. "Are you going to the
rectory?"

"No, sir, I'm going to see about Bradwell's barn. They're afraid of the
roof pushing the walls out, and I'm going to see what can be done with
it before we send the stuff and the workmen."

"Why, Burge trusts almost everything to you now, Adam, doesn't he? I
should think he will make you his partner soon. He will, if he's wise."

"Nay, sir, I don't see as he'd be much the better off for that. A
foreman, if he's got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his
business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for
a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for
it."

"I know that, Adam; I know you work for him as well as if you were
working for yourself. But you would have more power than you have now,
and could turn the business to better account perhaps. The old man must
give up his business sometime, and he has no son; I suppose he'll want a
son-in-law who can take to it. But he has rather grasping fingers of his
own, I fancy. I daresay he wants a man who can put some money into the
business. If I were not as poor as a rat, I would gladly invest some
money in that way, for the sake of having you settled on the estate. I'm
sure I should profit by it in the end. And perhaps I shall be better off
in a year or two. I shall have a larger allowance now I'm of age; and
when I've paid off a debt or two, I shall be able to look about me."

"You're very good to say so, sir, and I'm not unthankful. But"--Adam
continued, in a decided tone--"I shouldn't like to make any offers
to Mr. Burge, or t' have any made for me. I see no clear road to a
partnership. If he should ever want to dispose of the business, that 'ud
be a different matter. I should be glad of some money at a fair interest
then, for I feel sure I could pay it off in time."

"Very well, Adam," said Arthur, remembering what Mr. Irwine had said
about a probable hitch in the love-making between Adam and Mary Burge,
"we'll say no more about it at present. When is your father to be
buried?"

"On Sunday, sir; Mr. Irwine's coming earlier on purpose. I shall be glad
when it's over, for I think my mother 'ull perhaps get easier then. It
cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working
it off, and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered
tree."

"Ah, you've had a good deal of trouble and vexation in your life, Adam.
I don't think you've ever been hare-brained and light-hearted, like
other youngsters. You've always had some care on your mind."

"Why, yes, sir; but that's nothing to make a fuss about. If we're men
and have men's feelings, I reckon we must have men's troubles. We can't
be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they've got their
wings, and never know their kin when they see 'em, and get a fresh lot
every year. I've had enough to be thankful for: I've allays had health
and strength and brains to give me a delight in my work; and I count it
a great thing as I've had Bartle Massey's night-school to go to. He's
helped me to knowledge I could never ha' got by myself."

"What a rare fellow you are, Adam!" said Arthur, after a pause, in which
he had looked musingly at the big fellow walking by his side. "I could
hit out better than most men at Oxford, and yet I believe you would
knock me into next week if I were to have a battle with you."

"God forbid I should ever do that, sir," said Adam, looking round at
Arthur and smiling. "I used to fight for fun, but I've never done that
since I was the cause o' poor Gil Tranter being laid up for a fortnight.
I'll never fight any man again, only when he behaves like a scoundrel.
If you get hold of a chap that's got no shame nor conscience to stop
him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up."

Arthur did not laugh, for he was preoccupied with some thought that
made him say presently, "I should think now, Adam, you never have any
struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had
made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you
would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean,
you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won't do
a thing, and then doing it after all?"

"Well," said Adam, slowly, after a moment's hesitation, "no. I don't
remember ever being see-saw in that way, when I'd made my mind up, as
you say, that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for
things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've
seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never
do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever
see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the
mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to
make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o' better. But there's a
difference between the things folks call wrong. I'm not for making a
sin of every little fool's trick, or bit o' nonsense anybody may be let
into, like some o' them dissenters. And a man may have two minds whether
it isn't worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a bit o' fun.
But it isn't my way to be see-saw about anything: I think my fault lies
th' other way. When I've said a thing, if it's only to myself, it's hard
for me to go back."

"Yes, that's just what I expected of you," said Arthur. "You've got an
iron will, as well as an iron arm. But however strong a man's resolution
may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and then. We may
determine not to gather any cherries and keep our hands sturdily in our
pockets, but we can't prevent our mouths from watering."

"That's true, sir, but there's nothing like settling with ourselves as
there's a deal we must do without i' this life. It's no use looking on
life as if it was Treddles'on Fair, where folks only go to see shows and
get fairings. If we do, we shall find it different. But where's the use
o' me talking to you, sir? You know better than I do."

"I'm not so sure of that, Adam. You've had four or five years of
experience more than I've had, and I think your life has been a better
school to you than college has been to me."

"Why, sir, you seem to think o' college something like what Bartle
Massey does. He says college mostly makes people like bladders--just
good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured into 'em. But he's
got a tongue like a sharp blade, Bartle has--it never touches anything
but it cuts. Here's the turning, sir. I must bid you good-morning, as
you're going to the rectory."

"Good-bye, Adam, good-bye."

Arthur gave his horse to the groom at the rectory gate, and walked along
the gravel towards the door which opened on the garden. He knew that the
rector always breakfasted in his study, and the study lay on the left
hand of this door, opposite the dining-room. It was a small low room,
belonging to the old part of the house--dark with the sombre covers of
the books that lined the walls; yet it looked very cheery this morning
as Arthur reached the open window. For the morning sun fell aslant on
the great glass globe with gold fish in it, which stood on a scagliola
pillar in front of the ready-spread bachelor breakfast-table, and by the
side of this breakfast-table was a group which would have made any room
enticing. In the crimson damask easy-chair sat Mr. Irwine, with that
radiant freshness which he always had when he came from his morning
toilet; his finely formed plump white hand was playing along Juno's
brown curly back; and close to Juno's tail, which was wagging with calm
matronly pleasure, the two brown pups were rolling over each other in an
ecstatic duet of worrying noises. On a cushion a little removed sat
Pug, with the air of a maiden lady, who looked on these familiarities
as animal weaknesses, which she made as little show as possible of
observing. On the table, at Mr. Irwine's elbow, lay the first volume of
the Foulis AEschylus, which Arthur knew well by sight; and the silver
coffee-pot, which Carroll was bringing in, sent forth a fragrant steam
which completed the delights of a bachelor breakfast.

"Hallo, Arthur, that's a good fellow! You're just in time," said Mr.
Irwine, as Arthur paused and stepped in over the low window-sill.
"Carroll, we shall want more coffee and eggs, and haven't you got some
cold fowl for us to eat with that ham? Why, this is like old days,
Arthur; you haven't been to breakfast with me these five years."

"It was a tempting morning for a ride before breakfast," said Arthur;
"and I used to like breakfasting with you so when I was reading with
you. My grandfather is always a few degrees colder at breakfast than at
any other hour in the day. I think his morning bath doesn't agree with
him."

Arthur was anxious not to imply that he came with any special purpose.
He had no sooner found himself in Mr. Irwine's presence than the
confidence which he had thought quite easy before, suddenly appeared
the most difficult thing in the world to him, and at the very moment of
shaking hands he saw his purpose in quite a new light. How could he make
Irwine understand his position unless he told him those little scenes
in the wood; and how could he tell them without looking like a fool?
And then his weakness in coming back from Gawaine's, and doing the very
opposite of what he intended! Irwine would think him a shilly-shally
fellow ever after. However, it must come out in an unpremeditated way;
the conversation might lead up to it.

"I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day," said
Mr. Irwine. "No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a
clear mirror to the rays of things. I always have a favourite book by
me at breakfast, and I enjoy the bits I pick up then so much, that
regularly every morning it seems to me as if I should certainly become
studious again. But presently Dent brings up a poor fellow who has
killed a hare, and when I've got through my 'justicing,' as Carroll
calls it, I'm inclined for a ride round the glebe, and on my way back
I meet with the master of the workhouse, who has got a long story of a
mutinous pauper to tell me; and so the day goes on, and I'm always the
same lazy fellow before evening sets in. Besides, one wants the
stimulus of sympathy, and I have never had that since poor D'Oyley left
Treddleston. If you had stuck to your books well, you rascal, I should
have had a pleasanter prospect before me. But scholarship doesn't run in
your family blood."

"No indeed. It's well if I can remember a little inapplicable Latin to
adorn my maiden speech in Parliament six or seven years hence. 'Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,' and a few shreds of that sort, will perhaps
stick to me, and I shall arrange my opinions so as to introduce them.
But I don't think a knowledge of the classics is a pressing want to
a country gentleman; as far as I can see, he'd much better have a
knowledge of manures. I've been reading your friend Arthur Young's books
lately, and there's nothing I should like better than to carry out some
of his ideas in putting the farmers on a better management of their
land; and, as he says, making what was a wild country, all of the same
dark hue, bright and variegated with corn and cattle. My grandfather
will never let me have any power while he lives, but there's nothing
I should like better than to undertake the Stonyshire side of the
estate--it's in a dismal condition--and set improvements on foot, and
gallop about from one place to another and overlook them. I should like
to know all the labourers, and see them touching their hats to me with a
look of goodwill."

"Bravo, Arthur! A man who has no feeling for the classics couldn't
make a better apology for coming into the world than by increasing
the quantity of food to maintain scholars--and rectors who appreciate
scholars. And whenever you enter on your career of model landlord may
I be there to see. You'll want a portly rector to complete the picture,
and take his tithe of all the respect and honour you get by your hard
work. Only don't set your heart too strongly on the goodwill you are to
get in consequence. I'm not sure that men are the fondest of those who
try to be useful to them. You know Gawaine has got the curses of the
whole neighbourhood upon him about that enclosure. You must make
it quite clear to your mind which you are most bent upon, old
boy--popularity or usefulness--else you may happen to miss both."

"Oh! Gawaine is harsh in his manners; he doesn't make himself personally
agreeable to his tenants. I don't believe there's anything you can't
prevail on people to do with kindness. For my part, I couldn't live in
a neighbourhood where I was not respected and beloved. And it's very
pleasant to go among the tenants here--they seem all so well inclined
to me I suppose it seems only the other day to them since I was a little
lad, riding on a pony about as big as a sheep. And if fair allowances
were made to them, and their buildings attended to, one could persuade
them to farm on a better plan, stupid as they are."

"Then mind you fall in love in the right place, and don't get a wife who
will drain your purse and make you niggardly in spite of yourself. My
mother and I have a little discussion about you sometimes: she says, 'I'll
never risk a single prophecy on Arthur until I see the woman he falls
in love with.' She thinks your lady-love will rule you as the moon rules
the tides. But I feel bound to stand up for you, as my pupil you know,
and I maintain that you're not of that watery quality. So mind you don't
disgrace my judgment."

Arthur winced under this speech, for keen old Mrs. Irwine's opinion
about him had the disagreeable effect of a sinister omen. This, to be
sure, was only another reason for persevering in his intention, and
getting an additional security against himself. Nevertheless, at this
point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination
to tell his story about Hetty. He was of an impressible nature, and
lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning
himself; and the mere fact that he was in the presence of an intimate
friend, who had not the slightest notion that he had had any such
serious internal struggle as he came to confide, rather shook his own
belief in the seriousness of the struggle. It was not, after all, a
thing to make a fuss about; and what could Irwine do for him that he
could not do for himself? He would go to Eagledale in spite of Meg's
lameness--go on Rattler, and let Pym follow as well as he could on the
old hack. That was his thought as he sugared his coffee; but the
next minute, as he was lifting the cup to his lips, he remembered how
thoroughly he had made up his mind last night to tell Irwine. No! He
would not be vacillating again--he WOULD do what he had meant to do,
this time. So it would be well not to let the personal tone of the
conversation altogether drop. If they went to quite indifferent topics,
his difficulty would be heightened. It had required no noticeable pause
for this rush and rebound of feeling, before he answered, "But I think
it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character
that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution
doesn't insure one against smallpox or any other of those inevitable
diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters and yet be under a
sort of witchery from a woman."

"Yes; but there's this difference between love and smallpox, or
bewitchment either--that if you detect the disease at an early stage and
try change of air, there is every chance of complete escape without any
further development of symptoms. And there are certain alternative doses
which a man may administer to himself by keeping unpleasant consequences
before his mind: this gives you a sort of smoked glass through which
you may look at the resplendent fair one and discern her true outline;
though I'm afraid, by the by, the smoked glass is apt to be missing just
at the moment it is most wanted. I daresay, now, even a man fortified
with a knowledge of the classics might be lured into an imprudent
marriage, in spite of the warning given him by the chorus in the
Prometheus."

The smile that flitted across Arthur's face was a faint one, and instead
of following Mr. Irwine's playful lead, he said, quite seriously--"Yes,
that's the worst of it. It's a desperately vexatious thing, that after
all one's reflections and quiet determinations, we should be ruled by
moods that one can't calculate on beforehand. I don't think a man ought
to be blamed so much if he is betrayed into doing things in that way, in
spite of his resolutions."

"Ah, but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his
reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with
his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional
action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any
particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we
carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom."

"Well, but one may be betrayed into doing things by a combination of
circumstances, which one might never have done otherwise."

"Why, yes, a man can't very well steal a bank-note unless the bank-note
lies within convenient reach; but he won't make us think him an honest
man because he begins to howl at the bank-note for falling in his way."

"But surely you don't think a man who struggles against a temptation
into which he falls at last as bad as the man who never struggles at
all?"

"No, certainly; I pity him in proportion to his struggles, for they
foreshadow the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis.
Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences,
quite apart from any fluctuations that went before--consequences that
are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds
on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of
excuse for us. But I never knew you so inclined for moral discussion,
Arthur? Is it some danger of your own that you are considering in this
philosophical, general way?"

In asking this question, Mr. Irwine pushed his plate away, threw himself
back in his chair, and looked straight at Arthur. He really suspected
that Arthur wanted to tell him something, and thought of smoothing
the way for him by this direct question. But he was mistaken. Brought
suddenly and involuntarily to the brink of confession, Arthur shrank
back and felt less disposed towards it than ever. The conversation had
taken a more serious tone than he had intended--it would quite mislead
Irwine--he would imagine there was a deep passion for Hetty, while there
was no such thing. He was conscious of colouring, and was annoyed at his
boyishness.

"Oh no, no danger," he said as indifferently as he could. "I don't know
that I am more liable to irresolution than other people; only there are
little incidents now and then that set one speculating on what might
happen in the future."

Was there a motive at work under this strange reluctance of Arthur's
which had a sort of backstairs influence, not admitted to himself? Our
mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business
of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not
acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a
small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of
the large obvious ones. Possibly there was some such unrecognized agent
secretly busy in Arthur's mind at this moment--possibly it was the fear
lest he might hereafter find the fact of having made a confession to the
rector a serious annoyance, in case he should NOT be able quite to carry
out his good resolutions? I dare not assert that it was not so. The
human soul is a very complex thing.

The idea of Hetty had just crossed Mr. Irwine's mind as he looked
inquiringly at Arthur, but his disclaiming indifferent answer confirmed
the thought which had quickly followed--that there could be nothing
serious in that direction. There was no probability that Arthur ever saw
her except at church, and at her own home under the eye of Mrs. Poyser;
and the hint he had given Arthur about her the other day had no more
serious meaning than to prevent him from noticing her so as to rouse the
little chit's vanity, and in this way perturb the rustic drama of her
life. Arthur would soon join his regiment, and be far away: no, there
could be no danger in that quarter, even if Arthur's character had not
been a strong security against it. His honest, patronizing pride in
the good-will and respect of everybody about him was a safeguard even
against foolish romance, still more against a lower kind of folly.
If there had been anything special on Arthur's mind in the previous
conversation, it was clear he was not inclined to enter into details,
and Mr. Irwine was too delicate to imply even a friendly curiosity. He
perceived a change of subject would be welcome, and said, "By the way,
Arthur, at your colonel's birthday fete there were some transparencies
that made a great effect in honour of Britannia, and Pitt, and the
Loamshire Militia, and, above all, the 'generous youth,' the hero of
the day. Don't you think you should get up something of the same sort to
astonish our weak minds?"

The opportunity was gone. While Arthur was hesitating, the rope to
which he might have clung had drifted away--he must trust now to his own
swimming.

In ten minutes from that time, Mr. Irwine was called for on business,
and Arthur, bidding him good-bye, mounted his horse again with a sense
of dissatisfaction, which he tried to quell by determining to set off
for Eagledale without an hour's delay.

Book Two

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Captain sets out to see the vicar early in the morning, so that he can discuss the affair of Hetty with him over breakfast. He knows that the vicar takes his breakfast alone. He runs into Adam Bede along the way, and he makes Adam very happy by shaking his hand. Adam taught the Captain some carpentry when he was a boy, which made him love the older man very much. He, too, advises Adam to enter into a partnership with Mr. Burge, but Adam makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with Mary Burge. They part ways. When the Captain arrives at the vicar's house, he finds it harder than he thought it would be to bring up the subject of Hetty. He resolves to do it, however, especially because he performed his last resolution so poorly. When he turns the conversation to the question of love, the vicar asks him directly if he is infatuated with someone. The Captain denies it, and soon the possibility to talk about Hetty passes; the breakfast is over


prompt:
Chapter: "THIS Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!" I hear one of my
readers exclaim. "How much more edifying it would have been if you had
made him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice! You might have put
into his mouth the most beautiful things--quite as good as reading a
sermon."

Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist
to represent things as they never have been and never will be. Then,
of course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my own
liking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman and
put my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions. But it
happens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any such
arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things
as they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is doubtless
defective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection
faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely
as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box,
narrating my experience on oath.

Sixty years ago--it is a long time, so no wonder things have
changed--all clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason to
believe that the number of zealous clergymen was small, and it is
probable that if one among the small minority had owned the livings
of Broxton and Hayslope in the year 1799, you would have liked him no
better than you like Mr. Irwine. Ten to one, you would have thought him
a tasteless, indiscreet, methodistical man. It is so very rarely that
facts hit that nice medium required by our own enlightened opinions and
refined taste! Perhaps you will say, "Do improve the facts a little,
then; make them more accordant with those correct views which it is our
privilege to possess. The world is not just what we like; do touch it
up with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed
entangled affair. Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions act
unexceptionably. Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrong
side, and your virtuous ones on the right. Then we shall see at a glance
whom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve. Then we shall be able
to admire, without the slightest disturbance of our prepossessions: we
shall hate and despise with that true ruminant relish which belongs to
undoubting confidence."

But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishioner
who opposes your husband in the vestry? With your newly appointed vicar,
whose style of preaching you find painfully below that of his regretted
predecessor? With the honest servant who worries your soul with her one
failing? With your neighbour, Mrs. Green, who was really kind to you
in your last illness, but has said several ill-natured things about you
since your convalescence? Nay, with your excellent husband himself, who
has other irritating habits besides that of not wiping his shoes? These
fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither
straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their
dispositions; and it is these people--amongst whom your life is
passed--that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is
these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements of
goodness you should be able to admire--for whom you should cherish all
possible hopes, all possible patience. And I would not, even if I had
the choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so much
better than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our daily
work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on the
dusty streets and the common green fields--on the real breathing men
and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your
prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling,
your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.

So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things
seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity,
which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread.
Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a
delightful facility in drawing a griffin--the longer the claws, and
the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which
we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real
unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even
when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the
exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings--much harder than to
say something fine about them which is NOT the exact truth.

It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in
many Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise. I find a source
of delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonous
homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my
fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic
suffering or of world-stirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, from
cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an
old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner,
while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls
on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, and
her stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious
necessaries of life to her--or I turn to that village wedding, kept
between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance
with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-aged
friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probably
with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakable
contentment and goodwill. "Foh!" says my idealistic friend, "what vulgar
details! What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exact
likeness of old women and clowns? What a low phase of life! What clumsy,
ugly people!"

But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I
hope? I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have
not been ugly, and even among those "lords of their kind," the British,
squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not
startling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst
us. I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the
Apollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yet
to my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and their
miniatures--flattering, but still not lovely--are kissed in secret by
motherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron, who could have
never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet of
yellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered
kisses on her sallow cheeks. And I believe there have been plenty of
young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite
sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, and
yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife who
waddles. Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that
bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty--it flows with resistless
force and brings beauty with it.

All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate
it to the utmost in men, women, and children--in our gardens and in our
houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret
of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy. Paint us an
angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the
celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face
upward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not
impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of
Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those
heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs
and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done
the rough work of the world--those homes with their tin pans, their
brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In
this world there are so many of these common coarse people, who have
no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should
remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of
our religion and philosophy and frame lofty theories which only fit
a world of extremes. Therefore, let Art always remind us of them;
therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a
life to the faithful representing of commonplace things--men who see
beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly
the light of heaven falls on them. There are few prophets in the world;
few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I can't afford to give all
my love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of those
feelings for my every-day fellow-men, especially for the few in the
foreground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, whose hands I
touch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy. Neither are
picturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as your
common labourer, who gets his own bread and eats it vulgarly but
creditably with his own pocket-knife. It is more needful that I should
have a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who
weighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than with
the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers--more needful that
my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentle
goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or in
the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent and
in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deeds
of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimest
abstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived by an able
novelist.

And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be in
perfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on the
clerical character. Perhaps you think he was not--as he ought to have
been--a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a national
church? But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the people
in Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with their
clergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until it
can be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love,
I must believe that Mr. Irwine's influence in his parish was a more
wholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twenty
years afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers. It
is true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the Reformation,
visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was severe
in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh--put a stop, indeed, to the
Christmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness and
too light a handling of sacred things. But I gathered from Adam Bede, to
whom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few clergymen could
be less successful in winning the hearts of their parishioners than Mr.
Ryde. They learned a great many notions about doctrine from him, so
that almost every church-goer under fifty began to distinguish as well
between the genuine gospel and what did not come precisely up to that
standard, as if he had been born and bred a Dissenter; and for some time
after his arrival there seemed to be quite a religious movement in that
quiet rural district. "But," said Adam, "I've seen pretty clear, ever
since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. It
isn't notions sets people doing the right thing--it's feelings. It's the
same with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man may
be able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fire
and smokes his pipe, but if he has to make a machine or a building, he
must have a will and a resolution and love something else better than
his own ease. Somehow, the congregation began to fall off, and people
began to speak light o' Mr. Ryde. I believe he meant right at bottom;
but, you see, he was sourish-tempered, and was for beating down prices
with the people as worked for him; and his preaching wouldn't go down
well with that sauce. And he wanted to be like my lord judge i' the
parish, punishing folks for doing wrong; and he scolded 'em from
the pulpit as if he'd been a Ranter, and yet he couldn't abide the
Dissenters, and was a deal more set against 'em than Mr. Irwine was. And
then he didn't keep within his income, for he seemed to think at first
go-off that six hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr.
Donnithorne. That's a sore mischief I've often seen with the poor
curates jumping into a bit of a living all of a sudden. Mr. Ryde was a
deal thought on at a distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as for
math'matics and the natur o' things, he was as ignorant as a woman. He
was very knowing about doctrines, and used to call 'em the bulwarks of
the Reformation; but I've always mistrusted that sort o' learning as
leaves folks foolish and unreasonable about business. Now Mester Irwine
was as different as could be: as quick!--he understood what you meant in
a minute, and he knew all about building, and could see when you'd made
a good job. And he behaved as much like a gentleman to the farmers, and
th' old women, and the labourers, as he did to the gentry. You never saw
HIM interfering and scolding, and trying to play th' emperor. Ah, he was
a fine man as ever you set eyes on; and so kind to's mother and sisters.
That poor sickly Miss Anne--he seemed to think more of her than of
anybody else in the world. There wasn't a soul in the parish had a word
to say against him; and his servants stayed with him till they were so
old and pottering, he had to hire other folks to do their work."

"Well," I said, "that was an excellent way of preaching in the weekdays;
but I daresay, if your old friend Mr. Irwine were to come to life again,
and get into the pulpit next Sunday, you would be rather ashamed that he
didn't preach better after all your praise of him."

"Nay, nay," said Adam, broadening his chest and throwing himself back in
his chair, as if he were ready to meet all inferences, "nobody has ever
heard me say Mr. Irwine was much of a preacher. He didn't go into deep
speritial experience; and I know there s a deal in a man's inward life
as you can't measure by the square, and say, 'Do this and that 'll
follow,' and, 'Do that and this 'll follow.' There's things go on in the
soul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty wind,
as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a'most, so you look
back on yourself as if you was somebody else. Those are things as you
can't bottle up in a 'do this' and 'do that'; and I'll go so far with
the strongest Methodist ever you'll find. That shows me there's deep
speritial things in religion. You can't make much out wi' talking about
it, but you feel it. Mr. Irwine didn't go into those things--he preached
short moral sermons, and that was all. But then he acted pretty much
up to what he said; he didn't set up for being so different from other
folks one day, and then be as like 'em as two peas the next. And he
made folks love him and respect him, and that was better nor stirring
up their gall wi' being overbusy. Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she
would have her word about everything--she said, Mr. Irwine was like a
good meal o' victual, you were the better for him without thinking on
it, and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o' physic, he gripped you and worreted
you, and after all he left you much the same."

"But didn't Mr. Ryde preach a great deal more about that spiritual part
of religion that you talk of, Adam? Couldn't you get more out of his
sermons than out of Mr. Irwine's?"

"Eh, I knowna. He preached a deal about doctrines. But I've seen pretty
clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besides
doctrines and notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was like finding
names for your feelings, so as you can talk of 'em when you've never
known 'em, just as a man may talk o' tools when he knows their names,
though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less handled 'em. I've
heard a deal o' doctrine i' my time, for I used to go after the
Dissenting preachers along wi' Seth, when I was a lad o' seventeen, and
got puzzling myself a deal about th' Arminians and the Calvinists. The
Wesleyans, you know, are strong Arminians; and Seth, who could never
abide anything harsh and was always for hoping the best, held fast by
the Wesleyans from the very first; but I thought I could pick a hole or
two in their notions, and I got disputing wi' one o' the class leaders
down at Treddles'on, and harassed him so, first o' this side and then
o' that, till at last he said, 'Young man, it's the devil making use o'
your pride and conceit as a weapon to war against the simplicity o'
the truth.' I couldn't help laughing then, but as I was going home, I
thought the man wasn't far wrong. I began to see as all this weighing
and sifting what this text means and that text means, and whether folks
are saved all by God's grace, or whether there goes an ounce o' their
own will to't, was no part o' real religion at all. You may talk o'
these things for hours on end, and you'll only be all the more coxy and
conceited for't. So I took to going nowhere but to church, and hearing
nobody but Mr. Irwine, for he said nothing but what was good and what
you'd be the wiser for remembering. And I found it better for my soul
to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making
a clatter about what I could never understand. And they're poor foolish
questions after all; for what have we got either inside or outside of us
but what comes from God? If we've got a resolution to do right, He gave
it us, I reckon, first or last; but I see plain enough we shall never do
it without a resolution, and that's enough for me."

Adam, you perceive, was a warm admirer, perhaps a partial judge, of Mr.
Irwine, as, happily, some of us still are of the people we have known
familiarly. Doubtless it will be despised as a weakness by that lofty
order of minds who pant after the ideal, and are oppressed by a general
sense that their emotions are of too exquisite a character to find fit
objects among their everyday fellowmen. I have often been favoured with
the confidence of these select natures, and find them to concur in
the experience that great men are overestimated and small men are
insupportable; that if you would love a woman without ever looking back
on your love as a folly, she must die while you are courting her; and if
you would maintain the slightest belief in human heroism, you must never
make a pilgrimage to see the hero. I confess I have often meanly shrunk
from confessing to these accomplished and acute gentlemen what my own
experience has been. I am afraid I have often smiled with hypocritical
assent, and gratified them with an epigram on the fleeting nature of our
illusions, which any one moderately acquainted with French literature
can command at a moment's notice. Human converse, I think some wise
man has remarked, is not rigidly sincere. But I herewith discharge my
conscience, and declare that I have had quite enthusiastic movements of
admiration towards old gentlemen who spoke the worst English, who were
occasionally fretful in their temper, and who had never moved in a
higher sphere of influence than that of parish overseer; and that
the way in which I have come to the conclusion that human nature is
lovable--the way I have learnt something of its deep pathos, its sublime
mysteries--has been by living a great deal among people more or less
commonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps hear nothing very
surprising if you were to inquire about them in the neighbourhoods where
they dwelt. Ten to one most of the small shopkeepers in their vicinity
saw nothing at all in them. For I have observed this remarkable
coincidence, that the select natures who pant after the ideal, and
find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their
reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and
pettiest. For example, I have often heard Mr. Gedge, the landlord of
the Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye on his neighbours in
the village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of the people in his own
parish--and they were all the people he knew--in these emphatic words:
"Aye, sir, I've said it often, and I'll say it again, they're a poor lot
i' this parish--a poor lot, sir, big and little." I think he had a
dim idea that if he could migrate to a distant parish, he might find
neighbours worthy of him; and indeed he did subsequently transfer
himself to the Saracen's Head, which was doing a thriving business in
the back street of a neighbouring market-town. But, oddly enough, he has
found the people up that back street of precisely the same stamp as the
inhabitants of Shepperton--"a poor lot, sir, big and little, and them
as comes for a go o' gin are no better than them as comes for a pint o'
twopenny--a poor lot."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Eliot anticipates that her reader will be shocked by the dullness of the vicar, perhaps hoping that the vicar would be given a fine sermon to offer. She reminds the reader that her goal, however, is a faithful reprint of life as it actually is. Eliot does not want to represent people as more clearly good and evil than is the norm in real life. She admires the Dutch painters who are realists more than those who paint angels. She believes in beauty of form, but she also thinks that realism has its own type of beauty and that there are so few true heroes and heroines in the world that it would be a waste of time to devote too much written material to them. Besides, it does not matter so much that the vicar is sound in terms of his doctrine as that he is loved. So the vicar is better, although he is not a very good preacher. Eliot observes that heroes are often not what they are built up to be