Felix Holt

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER XXVI

  1 (p. 251). the wild beasts: George Wombwell (1178–1850) first began his animal shows in London in 1804 with two boa-constrictors. It was in time to become the largest menagerie in Britain, regularly touring the country in the early nineteenth century, and undoubtedly contained the ‘wild beasts’ which Esther’s pupils go to see. Further confirmation of this comes in the specific reference to Wombwell in Chapter XXVIII, note 2.

  2 (p. 251). Alleyne’s ‘Alarm’: the Puritan theologian, Joseph Alleine, wrote his Alarme to Unconverted Sinners … Whereunto are Annexed Divers Practical Cases of Conscience Judiciously Resolved in 1672. Selling 20,000 copies on its first publication, and a further 50,000 three years later when it was republished as the Sure Guide to Heaven, it remained a highly popular text, being often reprinted throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  1 (p. 255). sadly: in bad health, ill. Another use of dialectal lexis and further evidence of Eliot’s precise linguistic characterization of her speakers from the biblical discourse of Mr Lyon, to the Latin tags of Jermyn.

  2 (p. 257). the wynds of Glasgow, narrow streets or passages leading off from a main thoroughfare.

  3 (p. 260). ‘necessity is laid upon me’: 1 Corinthians 9:16: ‘For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel.’ Both Felix’s ‘gospel’ and his preaching are, however, of a somewhat different order.

  4 (p. 263). Saint Theresas or Elizabeth Frys: both were celebrated reformers, the former of religious life in the convent she founded at Avila where she instituted a more rigorous way of religious life, and the latter of prison conditions in the nineteenth century. Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845) was a Quaker and from 1817 (when she saw the condition of female prisoners at Newgate) she worked tirelessly for improvement in prison conditions, her efforts contributing to the successful implementation of a number of important reforms such as the need for regular inspections of prisons, and the introduction of women prison officers for women prisoners.

  5 (p. 264). Root-and-branch man: the allusion here is to the seventeenth-century Puritans who gave their support to the Root and Branch Bill of 1641 proposing the abolition of episcopacy or Church government by bishops. The phrase itself (based on Malachi 4:1) derives from the London Petition of 11 December 1640 (later known as the ‘Root and Branch Petition’) with its demand that ‘the said government [i.e. the episcopal system] with all its dependencies, roots, and branches, be abolished’. In its wider sense, the term has come to signify the performing of any action without any exceptions and omissions. Eliot’s notes for Felix Holt contain a reference to the ‘Root and Branch Petition, 1640’, taken from her reading of Neal’s History of the Puritans.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  1 (p. 266). the Revising Barrister: see Chapter XX, note 10. The recent introduction of this office explains the further reference on p. 266 to the ‘fact of a public functionary with an unfamiliar title’.

  2 (p. 266). the young giraffe which Wombwell had lately brought into those parts: see Chapter XXVI, note 1. This particular reference is in fact another of Eliot’s minor anachronisms since giraffes were not to appear in Wombwell’s travelling menagerie until 1836, four years after these events are being narrated in Felix Holt.

  3 (p. 267). value of a people’s property … below a certain sum: the extension of the franchise after the Reform Bill of 1832 depended on various types of property qualification (see Chapter X, note 1). A statement of reduced value for property would therefore, in a number of circumstances, also lead to loss of the vote itself.

  4 (p. 268). lungeour: awkward; clumsy; rough-mannered. Another dialect word, characteristic of the Midlands, including the Leicestershire of Eliot’s youth.

  5 (p. 269). Astræa: Astræa was the goddess of Justice who, according to legend, lived on earth among mankind during the Golden Age, an era characterized by innocent happiness, justice, peace and harmony when Cronus or Saturn ruled the world. Once sin began to spread with the end of the Golden Age, she fled to the skies, being metamorphosed into the constellation Virgo.

  6 (p. 269). narrative bagmen or boxmen: commercial travellers, so called because of the bags or boxes of goods which they carried.

  7 (p. 272). Jacky Lantern … the wrong way. a Jack o’Lantern, alternatively known as the ignis fatuus or will-o’-the-wisp, is, in its literal sense, the flame-like phosphorescence produced by the combustion of gases from decaying vegetable matter in marshy ground. It appears to flit from place to place, deluding those who attempt to follow its flickering light. Its figurative sense (and the one intended here) is someone or something which deludes or misleads.

  8 (p. 275). a understrapper at Jermyn’s: an assistant or a subordinate agent.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  1 (p. 282). the whole history of the settlement of those estates: the following sections contain the essence of the legal plot and the ramifications of the laws of inheritance relating to Transome Court, setting out the original creation of the entail ((OFr.) taillé, taillié, past participle of taillier, ‘to shape, cut, fix the precise form of’) which left Transome Court to Thomas Transome, the sale of those rights to the Durfeys thus creating the ‘base fee’ (see Chapter XXI, note 3), and the existence of the Bycliffes’ claim on the estate in remainder, i.e. in the case of the original male line failing, the estate would pass ‘in remainder’ to the Bycliffes. See also Appendix A.

  2 (p. 283). Thomas who played his Esau part a century before. Esau, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and twin brother of Jacob, sold both his inheritance and his father’s blessing to Jacob in exchange for a mess of potage. Jacob, rather than Esau, Isaac’s preferred son, in this way later became the father of Israel. Like Esau, Thomas Transome sells his birthright (here in the form of the inheritance of Transome Court). Both, in this sense, prove to be prodigal sons.

  CHAPTER XXX

  1 (p. 284). pressed him daily … soul was vexed: Judges 16:16: ‘And it came to pass, when [Delilah] pressed [Samson] with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death.’ Delilah’s urging refers to the pressure she places upon Samson to prove his love by revealing the source of his strength to her. It is at this point (Judges 16:17) that Samson does indeed give way, and his revelation leads ultimately to his death. Mrs Holt’s ‘urging’ takes a less dramatic form, based rather in Felix’s choice of occupation and her repeated wishes for him to abandon it.

  2 (p. 285). Lucretius and Lord Bacon: Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, II, ll. 1–4: ‘When over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, it is pleasant to gaze from the land at the great distress of another: not because any man’s troubles form a delectable joy, but because it is pleasant to perceive from what misfortune you yourself are free.’ This passage is quoted by Bacon in his essay ‘Of Truth’, where it is followed by the additional comment that ‘no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth … and to see the errors and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale below’.

  3 (p. 286). Johnson’s calculations … with Chubb: see Chapter XI, and note 6.

  4 (p. 287). opodeldoc: a soothing liniment, usually containing soap, camphor and rosemary, though the term was applied to various kinds of soap liniment.

  5 (p. 290). universal suffrage, and annual Parliaments,… electoral districts: these were all to be popular rallying cries in the ‘People’s Charter’ of 1838, constituting some of the ‘Six Points’ demanded as appropriate measures of further parliamentary reform. They were, however, all radical political issues even before the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, representing, for example, some of Sir Francis Burdett’s early demands; his 1818 bill for parliamentary reform included all four of these recommendations. It is probably the latter which Eliot had in mind, indicated by Felix’s own reference to Sir Francis Burdett on the same page, as well as by Eliot’s notes for Felix Holt in the Quarry. ‘Sir F. Burdett brought in a bi
ll for Parliamentary Reform – universal suffrage, electoral districts, vote by ballot, annual parl[iament]s in 1818.’ Felix’s emphatic ‘No! – something else before all that’ signifies his distrust of political measures in isolation against considerations of a wider ‘reform’ in human nature and in education. See editor’s Introduction, pp. xiii–xv.

  6 (p. 291). the human face divine. Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk III, 1. 44.

  7 (p. 292). votes would never give you political power … power sooner without votes: this and the following sections reveal the heart of Felix’s own radicalism with its rejection of political change as an end in itself and a stress instead on ‘human nature’ and its own needful reform in the direction of selflessness not selfishness, and on education (and understanding) in place of ignorance. His ideal rests in the hope that, given these conditions, political change and the further extension of the franchise, once effected, can indeed work and be used responsibly. Felix’s political ideas contrast sharply with those of Johnson, evident particularly in the re-working of the industrial metaphors which both choose in order to represent their views to the men who listen to them, Johnson in his discourse to the working men at Sproxton (see Chapter XI, p. 136), and Felix here on pp. 292–3.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  1 (p. 298). The rain … on the side of quiet and Conservatism: a still prevalent item of popular political mythology. There was equally a strong belief in an increased tendency for riots when the weather was hot.

  2 (p. 299). the mazarine of the Whig: a deep and rich blue colour.

  3 (p. 299). ‘O whistle and I will come to thee, my lad’: one of the songs of Robert Burns, himself a strong believer in the equality of men.

  4 (p. 300). Cicero’s authority … legitimate ground for ridicule: Cicero, in the second book of De Oratore, states that ‘the things most easily ridiculed are those which call for neither strong disgust nor the deepest sympathy. That is why all laughing matters are found among those blemishes noticeable in the conduct of people who are neither objects of general esteem nor yet full of misery … In ugliness too and in physical blemishes there is good enough matter for jesting, but here as elsewhere the limits of licence are the main question.’

  5 (p. 302). treating … once ‘the writs were out’: this appears in George Eliot’s Quarry for Felix Holt, in the notes taken from the Reports from Select Committee on Bribery at Elections (London, 1835), 4116. The writ referred to is that from the Lord Chancellor announcing that a parliament is to be called and inviting the constituency to make a return. As Charles Seymour notes in Electoral Reform in England and Wales (New Haven, 1915), p. 189, ‘Treating before the test of the writ was not illegal, and it often went on for months.’

  6 (p. 302). Falstaff’s proportion of bread: in Henry IV, Part 1, II, iv, Prince Henry and Poins search the pockets of the sleeping Falstaff and find a sheaf of papers, some of which detail Falstaff’s consumption of various items during the day, leading Prince Henry to exclaim: ‘O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack.’

  CHAPTER XXXII

  1 (p. 306). Chapter XXXII: this chapter division was added somewhat later in the manuscript, a line being drawn half-way down the page with ‘Chapter XXXII’ being added in the margin with the instruction, in Eliot’s hand, ‘See Back’. The verso bears the long motto from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  1 (p. 312). read the Riot Act: the Riot Act was a statute of English law passed in 1714. Clarifying the law of riots, it was originally instituted to maintain law and order during the Jacobite rebellion, and it sets out the principles by which, should more than twelve people assemble in a riotous or unlawful manner and fail to disperse within one hour after being commanded to do so by a proclamation in the king’s name (in the form set out in the Act itself), they were to be considered as felons. It was this procedure which gave rise to the phrase ‘reading the Riot Act’.

  2 (p. 312). special constables: volunteer constables who were specially sworn in during periods of disturbance in order to aid regular constables.

  3 (p. 312). Mr Crow said prophetically … mob was past caring for constables: the account of the riot which follows was inspired, at least in part, by the election riot at Nuneaton in December 1832 which Eliot herself witnessed as a schoolgirl. This, as Cross notes in his biography, ‘subsequently furnished her with the incidents for the riot in Felix Holt’. It does indeed reveal a number of similarities, from the employment of a mob (by the Whigs) accompanied by conspicuous amounts of treating of non-electors, to the death of an elderly elector, an incident which in Felix Holt receives its own literary parallels in the death of Tommy Trounsem. As in the election at Treby, it is the undisciplined role of the mob which gives rise to the ensuing chaos. Cross (Vol. I, pp. 28–9) quotes an extensive section from the local newspaper of 29 December 1832:

  On Friday the 21st December, at Nuneaton, from the commencement of the poll till nearly half-past two, the Hemingites (i.e. those supporting Dempster Heming, the Radical candidate) occupied the poll; the numerous plumpers for Sir Eardley Wilmot and the adherents of Mr Dugdale being constantly interrupted in their endeavours to go to the hustings to give an honest and conscientious vote. The magistrates were consequently applied to, and from the representation they received from all parties, they were at length induced to call in aid a military force. A detachment of the Scots Greys accordingly arrived; but it appearing that that gallant body was not sufficiently strong to put down the turbulent spirit of the mob, a reinforcement was considered by the constituted authorities as absolutely necessary. The tumult increasing, as the detachment of the Scots Greys were called in, the Riot Act was read from the windows of the Newdigate Arms; and we regret to add that both W. P. Inge, Esq., and Colonel Newdigate, in the discharge of their magisterial duties, received personal injuries. On Saturday the mob presented an appalling appearance, and but for the forbearance of the soldiery, numerous lives would have fallen a sacrifice. Several of the officers of the Scots Greys were materially hurt in their attempt to quell the riotous proceedings of the mob. During the day the sub-sheriffs at the different booths received several letters from the friends of Mr Dugdale, stating that they were outside the town, and anxious to vote for that gentleman, but were deterred from entering it from fear of personal violence. Two or three unlucky individuals, drawn from the files of the military on their approach to the poll, were cruelly beaten and stripped literally naked. We regret to add that one life has been sacrificed during the contest, and that several misguided individuals have been seriously injured.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  1 (p. 325). eight or nine thousand: elections were expensive affairs, not least because of the widespread practice of treating and bribery of various forms, and Harold Transome’s liberality in the form of drink and refreshment tickets, dinners, and other expenditure of this order clearly plays its part in the total bill with which he is faced. The figure is by no means out of line with contemporary evidence from the 1830s on the cost of elections. See N. Gash, Politics in the Age of Peel (1953), Chapter 5: ‘The Price of Politics’. Eliot’s own knowledge of the election at Coventry in December (see Chapter XXXIII, note 3) would have provided another effective precedent in this context: the election cost Mr Dugdale, the Tory candidate, nearly £12,000, with £400 being owed for ‘treating’ at the Newdigate Arms alone.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  1 (p. 332). robust title of occupancy: this phrase appears in Eliot’s notes in the Quarry for Felix Holt, being taken from William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. Eliot read the 1830 edition edited by Joseph Chitty, and the citation given here appears in Volume I, Book 2, Chapter 1, p. 8, in a discussion of the legal significance of occupancy which was often considered to constitute a right or title to that which was occupied.

  2 (p. 332). the right of remainder accrues to the heir in question: carefully maintaining the male terms of reference which he has used throu
ghout and selecting heir rather than heiress, Jermyn here and in the following pages outlines the consequences of Tommy Trounsem’s death in the riot of Treby. The original line of the eighteenth-century John Justus Transome now having come to an end, the rights which gave possession of Transome Court to Harold’s own forebears have also ceased according to the terms of the original agreement made by Thomas Transome and the lawyer-cousin Durfey (see Appendix A). The rights to the estate now revert to the Bycliffe line, the family specified ‘in remainder’ as inheritors of the estate in the eventuality that the Transome line might fail.

  3 (p. 333). It is the opinion … of the day. this reveals the close attention which Eliot paid to the suggestions made by the barrister Frederick Harrison whom she consulted over the legal details of Felix Holt. Harrison wrote to Eliot on 16 May 1866, answering some of her queries on the problem of inheritance, and offering his advice: ‘I do not feel quite sure as to the years in which the famous conveyancers were practising … I believe if you use the “opinion” and say it was given by the Attorney General and the leading conveyancer of the day …’ Eliot adopts his solution almost word for word in this section of the text.

  4 (p. 333). statute of limitation: i.e. any statutory specification of a time limit before which the rights to the estate must be claimed in order for the rights to be valid in the eyes of the law.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  1 (p. 339). the temptation … scruples looked minute by the side of it: another use of the imagery of temptation and the fall which recurs through Felix Holt (see editor’s Introduction, pp. xxi–xxiii), here used to explore the choices facing Harold in his dilemma over the inheritance of Transome Court, and further amplified when Christian arrives with his own information: ‘Harold listened as if he had been a legendary hero, selected for peculiar solicitation by the Evil One. Here was temptation in a more alluring form than before, because it was sweetened by the prospect of eluding Jermyn.’