A Review of Scenes of Clerical Life
Adrian Litvinoff reviews George Eliot's first novel, Scenes of Clerical Life
Adrian worked for 20 years in cultural management in Nuneaton and Bedworth, concluding with six years based at Nuneaton Library. During this time he helped to develop a strategy for conserving the prestigious George Eliot Collection housed at the library and promoting it to a wider audience. He was also instrumental in securing Heritage Lottery funds to celebrate the 150th anniversary of publication of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' in 2007 under the festival title 'Scenes Revisited'.
Summary
George Eliot’s first published works of fiction, ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’, reveal her first steps towards her great novels like ‘Middlemarch’ and ‘Daniel Deronda’.
‘Scenes of Clerical Life’ contains three short miniatures. Despite their size they are packed with substance, rich writing and penetrating observations of life in the small Midlands town of Milby, (in reality Nuneaton, Warwickshire, George Eliot’s place of birth and growing up). She was 38 when she began to write them – old enough to have lived and loved (perhaps more than once), and to have considerable insight and compassion for human affairs.
‘The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton’ describes the trials of the local Curate, caught between the influences of two powerful women; Milly, his wife, and the beautiful but needy Countess Czerlaski. ‘Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story’ is the story of Caterina Sarti, a young Italian woman living at Cheverel Manor (Arbury Hall). She is beloved by the Chaplain, Mr. Gilfil, but seduced by the feckless heir-apparent. It is a telling study of betrayal and fidelity. In ‘Janet’s Repentance’ we see the misery that can lie behind middle-class respectability as the abused wife of a powerful solicitor struggles against alcoholism, and eventually finds strength and salvation aided by a non-conformist preacher.
While all three stories concern clergymen, these are people of their communities, not solely of the church, and their experiences bring us a great sense of the English society of the time. Not only that, but many of the themes are as relevant today as they were in the mid 19th Century - the struggle against poverty, the effects of malicious gossip, dishonesty in love, domestic violence and religious prejudice all feature here.
Full Review
The three short novellas that comprise ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’ encompass a range of experience that belies their size. Spanning decades from the late Eighteenth Century to the mid Nineteenth, we explore diverse communities, seen through the eyes of their inhabitants as well as through the clear-eyed gaze of the author.
In ‘Amos Barton’ we read about a lowly Curate, by George Eliot’s account a worthy man but not exceptional, doing his best to serve his calling. Meanwhile his devoted and adored wife Milly attempts to provide for their large family on a pitifully inadequate income.
As a new incumbent Barton is not altogether in favour with the locals, some of whom resent being prompted to reflect on their sins and the fate of their souls. As Mrs. Patten puts it, ‘If I’m not to be saved, I know a many as are in a bad way.’ But Barton does his best to minister to his flock even though ‘the oratory of the Revd. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway horn, which show praiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled.’
Criss-crossing the Parish to reach people, even those thought of as beyond hope like the inmates of the workhouse, Barton often treks through foul weather poorly clad to do so. It is a difficult living, where ‘over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm labourers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers an acrid Radicalism and Dissent’.
In this simple yet stretched existence the beautiful Countess Czerlaski appears like a graceful visitant. Her friendship offers a mixture of recognition and glamour by association that are gratifying to both Amos and to Milly, whom she claims as a special friend. All is well enough until the Countess’s circumstances change, and she suddenly has to leave the household of her brother. She pleads for refuge at the Bartons, who do not turn her away. Is she blind to the impact of her arrival on their tenuous household economy, or does she simply not care? As time draws on disaster approaches….
‘Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story’ is set at Cheverel Manor, where Mr. Gilfil is the Chaplain. Also growing up at the Manor is Caterina Sarti, an Italian girl of no financial means, who becomes an accepted member of the household ‘above stairs’ because of her remarkable singing voice. She and Gilfil spend much time together, first as adolescents, leading to an attachment that is total but unspoken on Mr. Gilfil’s part, if less conscious on hers.
Another visitor to the Manor is the Baronet’s nephew and intended heir, Captain Wybrow, who takes a lazy fancy to Caterina, making her believe that he loves her, for his own amusement. His uncle meanwhile makes plans for marrying him to the daughter of a wealthy acquaintance.
When the bride-to-be arrives for a long stay at the Manor there is open rivalry between the women. Wybrow is unable to deal honestly with either of them or to make a clean break with Caterina, and the tension builds day by day as denial and counter-denial flow between them. Caterina is overcome with jealousy, but the resolution comes in a shocking and unexpected way….
Finally in ‘Janet’s Repentance’ we are told a more complex tale. The personal and social are closely entwined as Janet’s brutish husband, a major business figure and local bully, acts with equal callousness in his public and private affairs. As it happens, both his wife and her eventual rescuer are the objects of his anger and cruelty.
Janet’s attempts to bear this abuse, and her turning to drink as a means to do so, are among the bravest of George Eliot’s themes, and believed to be her creation alone at this time. Even then, the sickening progress of Janet’s oppression and degradation does not prepare us for the shock of complete domestic break-down when it arrives.
We are now in what has become more familiar territory, as Janet struggles to put her life together without her old certainties, both the welcome and unwelcome. She emerges from personal collapse supported by friends, but none more than the preacher Edgar Tryan, whose works she dismissed in ignorance at the start of the story. Her restoration to life intersects his own declining health, as despite failing strength he guides her to the point of self-respect and self-reliance.
So what do these stories indicate about George Eliot’s future writing? She is at all times a wonderful teller of stories about people. She cares about her subjects, and makes the significance of each individual tale plain. She neither favours nor neglects people on the basis of their place in life, their conduct or her liking for them as people.
In this she demonstrates an unusually clear-eyed view of human nature. She talks frankly about human vice and frailty, and can distinguish between them, without losing essential human sympathy for her characters. Some such as Countess Czerlaski or Captain Wybrow bring misfortune to others as much through folly as vice. Eliot does not deny their actions or minimise their impact, remaining clear about this without becoming judgemental. As readers we may reflect that ‘There too, but for the grace of God, go I’. Even as she charts the decline of lawyer Dempster, the most villainous figure in ‘Scenes’ by a considerable way, Eliot reminds us that he is yet a man, and one who bore some kind of duty to his mother, virtually to the end of his angry and abusive days.
Minor characters in ‘Scenes’ allow George Eliot scope for another key facet of her writing – her sense of humour. Her marginal characters often become important as commentators on the action, and she exploits this in many amusing ways, investing them with funny or caustic comments, then adding her own comments on theirs. She seems to be someone who would have enjoyed gossip and who understood its role in small town communities.
Indeed in Milby in the early 19th Century, barely connected to the greater world (of which Eliot knew so much), local networks are highly influential in determining the success in life of individuals and in sustaining social norms. The dining circles, the cronies in the pub, or the congregation at church, are all important arenas for maintaining social approval and status. This is at times benign or stultifying, and can be damaging in time of crisis, as it is both in ‘Amos Barton’ and ‘Janet’s Repentance’.
This brings us to a facet of George Eliot’s writing that distinguishes her from most other 19th Century English female novelists – the breadth and confidence of her social view. Her focus is not just the life of the landed gentry, with their occasional trips to ‘town’, or the few inhabitants of sparsely-populated northern moorlands. Her worldliness lends her an unusual ease with which she moves from one social class to then another, and among many diverse communities.
The lives of the wealthy and the poor are all open to her view, and she relays them with candour and insight. Business and Church affairs are also hers to explore, providing the wider context for her characters. She is keenly interested in the growth of ideas and changes in social conventions. Architecture too has significance as an indicator of social trends, like the alterations to the appearance of Shepperton Church (‘Amos Barton’), or to Cheverel Manor (‘Mr. Gilfil’).
Finally in the matter of religion George Eliot’s power as an original thinker really comes to the fore, especially in ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’. Writing about an epoch of notable turbulence in religion, she weighs each incumbent as a source and reflection of the shifting patterns and fashions of religious thought in Milby,. The much-loved Mr. Gilfil performs his clerical duties ‘with undeviating attention to brevity and dispatch’, rotating his sermons ‘without reference to topics’.
Nonetheless ‘the christening dinners were none the less merry for the presence of the parson.’ Amos Barton is engaged in the struggle against Dissent. ‘He preached Low Church doctrine – as evangelical as anything to be heard in the Independent Chapel; and he made a High-Church assertion of ecclesiastical powers and functions. Clearly, the Dissenters would feel ‘the parson’ is too many for them.’
But in ‘Janet’s Repentance’ the tensions between religious movements become central, as Milby encounters its first Evangelical pastor. Revd. Tryan’s arrival challenges the comfortable apathy of feeling there, among Dissenters and Anglicans alike. When he proposes to lecture at the Parish Church, he sparks hostility and protest (much exploited and fuelled by lawyer Dempster). Eliot, a non-conformist before she gave up her faith, is affronted by this response, driven as it is by venal rather than spiritual motives. She appears to retain her respect for spiritual conviction and action, irrespective of its place within the religious spectrum, especially when it ultimately proves itself in the relief of human suffering.
These are outstanding stories in themselves, and offer a strong foretaste of what is to come in George Eliot’s later work. They are remarkable for their truthfulness, and for their power to entertain despite the seriousness of their themes. In the course of these three stories, George Eliot’s writing opens out from limited beginnings, like a newly formed river exploring its growing breadth. What is more, after 150 years they still resonate powerfully with many of the concerns we face today.
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| "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." George Eliot
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Scenes Revisited |