As a reader, to reach the end of any book you have lived alongside for months can be somewhat unbearable. Where do those characters, those people, go? Why can they not stay with you? Though I suppose one must get on with one’s life and read other books, or do such things as laundry. I usually cry at the end of long novels, sometimes because the ending is sad and, worst case scenario, the characters are dead, or sometimes it’s because the book itself is ending and the process of reading it is over.
In continuing my love fest for Middlemarch, I wanted to write briefly about the ending, which is one of my favorite endings out of any book. First off, it’s sad, of course, it has to be, the point when, in the final chapter, you realize you will need to say goodbye to the town and, more tragically, the characters you’ve grown to love (oh Lydgate). I was listening to the last hour of the book during a long run and I realized afterwards that one should not listen to books that will make you sad while running (hard to breathe there!).
The ending is a compassionate one at least, Eliot allowing you to say goodbye gently as she gradually increases the distance between the reader and Dorothea, the character who she ends the book upon, mentioning first Sir James opinion of Dorthea’s marriage to Ladislaw, then the town’s opinion, then stepping further back to an even grander view of Dorthea’s life. I love how the voice stretches here to become somewhat epic and oracle-like (“For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it”) then circles back to include St. Theresa of Avila, who opens the book. I also love how the narrator’s voice continues to expand even further to include the reader. “But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas…” And “for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been…” There is irony to me in the final sentence, the talk of “hidden lives” and “unvisited tombs,” as Dorothea’s own life, through the act of the novel, has become extraordinary to us readers, and who wouldn’t lay a wreath of flowers at her grave if given the opportunity.
Below are the last three paragraphs of the ending. Pay attention to the second sentence of the second paragraph, as Eliot revised this extensively over the span of several years.
“Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea’s second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin– young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed that she could not have been ‘a nice woman,’ else she would not have married either the one or the other.
Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone* will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother’s burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is for ever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.
Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
A useful footnote in my edition of Middmemarch mentioned that sentence in the second to last paragraph had undergone intensive revisions to get to its current and final state (“They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.”). To me, Eliot’s edits demonstrate how powerful the removal of entire sentences can be during the revision process.
From the original manuscript:
“struggling with imperfect conditions. Among the many criticisms which were passed on her first marriage, nobody remarked that it could not have happened if she had not been born into a society which smiled on propositions of marriage from a sickly man to a girl less than half his own age, and, in general, encouraged the view that to renounce an advantage to oneself which might be got from the folly or ignorance of others is a sign of mental weakness. While this tone of opinion is part of the social medium in which young creatures begin to breathe there will be collisions such as those in Dorothea’s life, where great feelings . . . ’
From the first edition:
“struggling under prosaic conditions. Among the many remarks passed on her mistakes, it was never said in the neighbourhood of Middlemarch that such mistakes could not have happened if the society into which she was born had not smiled on propositions of marriage from a sickly man to a girl less than half his own age—– on modes of education which make a woman’s knowledge another name for motley ignorance–— on rules of conduct which are in flat contradiction with its own loudly-asserted beliefs. While this is the social air in which morals begin to breathe, there will be collisions such as those in Dorothea’s life, where great feelings . . . “