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The Essays of "George Eliot", Complete.
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From the Note-Book of an Eccentric,
and Other Essays,
by George Eliot.
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Leaves from a Note-Book
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One has to wonder if this was meant to be the second half of From the Note-Book of an Eccentric, and other pieces weren't really a part thereof; but it could be either way.
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"Authorship.
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"To lay down in the shape of practical moral rules courses of conduct only to be made real by the rarest states of motive and disposition, tends not to elevate, but to degrade the general standard, by turning that rare attainment from an object of admiration into an impossible prescription, against which the average nature first rebels and then flings out ridicule. It is for art to present images of a lovelier order than the actual, gently winning the affections, and so determining the taste. But in any rational criticism of the time which is meant to guide a practical reform, it is idle to insist that action ought to be this or that, without considering how far the outward conditions of such change are present, even supposing the inward disposition towards it. Practically, we must be satisfied to aim at something short of perfection—and at something very much further off it in one case than in another. While the fundamental conceptions of morality seem as stationary through ages as the laws of life, so that a moral manual written eighteen centuries ago still admonishes us that we are low in our attainments, it is quite otherwise with the degree to which moral conceptions have penetrated the various forms of social activity, and made what may be called the special conscience of each calling, art, or industry. ... "
"moral manual written eighteen centuries ago"?? Wasn't crossing over from Egypt far older? Or does George Eliot consider her people perfect about following ten commandments?
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Seriously, was she German?
"Among those callings which have not yet acquired anything near a full-grown conscience in the public mind is Authorship. Yet the changes brought about by the spread of instruction and the consequent struggles of an uneasy ambition, are, or at least might well be, forcing on many minds the need of some regulating principle with regard to the publication of intellectual products, which would override the rule of the market: a principle, that is, which should be derived from a fixing of the author’s vocation according to those characteristics in which it differs from the other bread-winning professions. Let this be done, if possible, without any cant, which would carry the subject into Utopia, away from existing needs. The guidance wanted is a clear notion of what should justify men and women in assuming public authorship, and of the way in which they should be determined by what is usually called success. But the forms of authorship must be distinguished; journalism, for example, carrying a necessity for that continuous production which in other kinds of writing is precisely the evil to be fought against, and judicious careful compilation, which is a great public service, holding in its modest diligence a guarantee against those deductions of vanity and idleness which draw many a young gentleman into reviewing, instead of the sorting and copying which his small talents could not rise to with any vigor and completeness."
It's not about the specific criteria she sets out, it's about the notion of society, state, setting out rules of authorship!
In Germany, we were told we cannot call ourselves Dr without permission of the government. Our doctorates, from reputed universities in U.S., we're of no consequence whatsoever. We responded say I g those laws don't apply to non citizens. But then we found out that not only setting up any trade - baking bread at home for sale, tailoring, ... required a government licence in Germany, it required a vocational school course certificate; and as to flying a small plane, you needed such rigmarole to go through to ride in one, not just flying one.
And here George Eliot suggests controlling authors!
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"A manufacturer goes on producing calicoes as long and as fast as he can find a market for them; and in obeying this indication of demand he gives his factory its utmost usefulness to the world in general and to himself in particular. Another manufacturer buys a new invention of some light kind likely to attract the public fancy, is successful in finding a multitude who will give their testers for the transiently desirable commodity, and before the fashion is out, pockets a considerable sum: the commodity was colored with a green which had arsenic in it that damaged the factory workers and the purchasers. What then? These, he contends (or does not know or care to contend), are superficial effects, which it is folly to dwell upon while we have epidemic diseases and bad government.
"The first manufacturer we will suppose blameless. Is an author simply on a par with him, as to the rules of production?"
When George Eliot prescribes control, she doesn't see the problems resulting, from authors - or anyone speaking against government- being sent to concentration camps by nazis, to their being sent to Siberia by another regime, to their being murdered and never heard of again, by yet others. Simplest was the complex network in U.S., "a free country", described by Upton Sinclair in his various works, including The Brass Check.
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" ... The calico scarcely varies in appropriateness of quality, no consumer is in danger of getting too much of it, and neglecting his boots, hats, and flannel shirts in consequence. That there should be large quantities of the same sort in the calico manufacture is an advantage: the sameness is desirable, and nobody is likely to roll his person in so many folds of calico as to become a mere bale of cotton goods, and nullify his senses of hearing and touch, while his morbid passion for Manchester shirtings makes him still cry “More!” The wise manufacturer gets richer and richer, and the consumers he supplies have their real wants satisfied and no more."
George Eliot never thought of fashion industry, artificially raised prices of - not calico, but - synthetic fabrics, and bullying if female customers in West, to buy tons of "season's fashion" and discard them next season, all ruinous for pockets, especially of women; all this, before accessories and cosmetics!
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"For a man who has a certain gift of writing to say, “I will make the most of it while the public likes my wares, as long as the market is open and I am able to supply it at a money profit—such profit being the sign of liking”—he should have a belief that his wares have nothing akin to the arsenic green in them, and also that his continuous supply is secure from a degradation in quality which the habit of consumption encouraged in the buyers may hinder them from marking their sense of by rejection; so that they complain, but pay, and read while they complain. Unless he has that belief, he is on a level with the manufacturer who gets rich by fancy-wares colored with arsenic green. He really cares for nothing but his income. He carries on authorship on the principle of the gin-palace."
Not only prohibition of alcohol has never succeeded, but even tobacco isn't banned yet, it's only smoking in public that's banned in most of West; one should see Westerners smoking arrogantly across Asia, even in airports, despite bans! Then there are cigarette sales outside schools, and police protecting them from protesters, in South East Asia - getting children of countrues other than U.S. addicted early. Afghanistan farmers were discouraged from sowing food crops, encouraged to sow opium crops, during two decades of Western occupation - just as British did to India. And we haven't discussed HFCS yet, which not only us addictive, but damages body; no legislation to ban it has even been thought of, it proliferated through U.S. almost unavoidable via all processed food including most bread, and of course, all "cola"s. Dieting industry benefits, as does medical industry.
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"It is in the highest sense lawful for him to get as good a price as he honorably can for the best work he is capable of; but not for him to force or hurry his production, or even do over again what has already been done, either by himself or others, so as to render his work no real contribution, for the sake of bringing up his income to the fancy pitch. An author who would keep a pure and noble conscience, and with that a developing instead of degenerating intellect and taste, must cast out of his aims the aim to be rich. And therefore he must keep his expenditure low—he must make for himself no dire necessity to earn sums in order to pay bills."
"It is in the highest sense lawful for him to get as good a price as he honorably can for the best work he is capable of; but not for him to force or hurry his production, or even do over again what has already been done, either by himself or others, so as to render his work no real contribution, for the sake of bringing up his income to the fancy pitch. An author who would keep a pure and noble conscience, and with that a developing instead of degenerating intellect and taste, must cast out of his aims the aim to be rich. And therefore he must keep his expenditure low—he must make for himself no dire necessity to earn sums in order to pay bills."
So says George Eliot with a severe piety, and yet, she proclaims rights of Anglican invasions around the world in Impressions of Theophrastus Such, as a heaven sanctioned right, to loot and massacre others, to chop off hands of weavers in India so British can sell substandard manufactured cloth of Britain to India, to starve millions of Indians to death by stealing India's harvest, and yes, to war against China to force China to buy opium from Brits so Chinese can get addicted. And if India or China don't want any of it, George Eliot thumps her fist and glories with satisfaction about having punished them.
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"But after the restraints and rules which must guide the acknowledged author, whose power of making a real contribution is ascertained, comes the consideration, how or on what principle are we to find a check for that troublesome disposition to authorship arising from the spread of what is called Education, which turns a growing rush of vanity and ambition into this current? The well-taught, an increasing number, are almost all able to write essays on given themes, which demand new periodicals to save them from lying in cold obstruction. The ill-taught—also an increasing number—read many books, seem to themselves able to write others surprisingly like what they read, and probably superior, since the variations are such as please their own fancy, and such as they would have recommended to their favorite authors: these ill-taught persons are perhaps idle and want to give themselves “an object;” or they are short of money, and feel disinclined to get it by a commoner kind of work; or they find a facility in putting sentences together which gives them more than a suspicion that they have genius, which, if not very cordially believed in by private confidants, will be recognized by an impartial public; or, finally, they observe that writing is sometimes well paid, and sometimes a ground of fame or distinction, and without any use of punctilious logic, they conclude to become writers themselves."
"But after the restraints and rules which must guide the acknowledged author, whose power of making a real contribution is ascertained, comes the consideration, how or on what principle are we to find a check for that troublesome disposition to authorship arising from the spread of what is called Education, which turns a growing rush of vanity and ambition into this current? The well-taught, an increasing number, are almost all able to write essays on given themes, which demand new periodicals to save them from lying in cold obstruction. The ill-taught—also an increasing number—read many books, seem to themselves able to write others surprisingly like what they read, and probably superior, since the variations are such as please their own fancy, and such as they would have recommended to their favorite authors: these ill-taught persons are perhaps idle and want to give themselves “an object;” or they are short of money, and feel disinclined to get it by a commoner kind of work; or they find a facility in putting sentences together which gives them more than a suspicion that they have genius, which, if not very cordially believed in by private confidants, will be recognized by an impartial public; or, finally, they observe that writing is sometimes well paid, and sometimes a ground of fame or distinction, and without any use of punctilious logic, they conclude to become writers themselves."
Did she ever think of looking at a mirror, as she wrote that?
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Judgments on Authors.
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"In endeavoring to estimate a remarkable writer who aimed at more than temporary influence, we have first to consider what was his individual contribution to the spiritual wealth of mankind? Had he a new conception? Did he animate long-known but neglected truths with new vigor, and cast fresh light on their relation to other admitted truths? Did he impregnate any ideas with a fresh store of emotion, and in this way enlarge the area of moral sentiment? Did he, by a wise emphasis here, and a wise disregard there, give a more useful or beautiful proportion to aims or motives? And even where his thinking was most mixed with the sort of mistake which is obvious to the majority, as well as that which can only be discerned by the instructed, or made manifest by the progress of things, has it that salt of a noble enthusiasm which should rebuke our critical discrimination if its correctness is inspired with a less admirable habit of feeling?"
Why not judge them, to begin with, as one would a baker? If it's healthy, attractive, tastes good, good enough. Modern art was born because painters found no takers for good work.
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Story-Telling.
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"What is the best way of telling a story? Since the standard must be the interest of the audience, there must be several or many good ways rather than one best. ... "
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"The modes of telling a story founded on these processes of outward and inward life derive their effectiveness from the superior mastery of images and pictures in grasping the attention—or, one might say with more fundamental accuracy, from the fact that our earliest, strongest impressions, our most intimate convictions, are simply images added to more or less of sensation. These are the primitive instruments of thought. Hence it is not surprising that early poetry took this way—telling a daring deed, a glorious achievement, without caring for what went before. The desire for orderly narration is a later, more reflective birth. The presence of the Jack in the box affects every child: it is the more reflective lad, the miniature philosopher, who wants to know how he got there."
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Historic Imagination.
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"What really took place in and around Constantine before, upon, and immediately after his declared conversion?"
Constantine had no intention of converting; he imposed his will, about monotheism, but the God was Sun, and church accepted - and when he died, they simply claimed he was converted. Such lies go on ever since.
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Value in Originality.
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"The supremacy given in European cultures to the literatures of Greece and Rome has had an effect almost equal to that of a common religion in binding the Western nations together. It is foolish to be forever complaining of the consequent uniformity, as if there were an endless power of originality in the human mind. Great and precious origination must always be comparatively rare, and can only exist on condition of a wide, massive uniformity. When a multitude of men have learned to use the same language in speech and writing, then and then only can the greatest masters of language arise. For in what does their mastery consist? They use words which are already a familiar medium of understanding and sympathy in such a way as greatly to enlarge the understanding and sympathy. Originality of this order changes the wild grasses into world-feeding grain. Idiosyncrasies are pepper and spices of questionable aroma."
Didn't the author pontificate exactly opposite, in 'Authorship'?
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To the Prosaic all Things are Prosaic.
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“Is the time we live in prosaic?” “That depends: it must certainly be prosaic to one whose mind takes a prosaic stand in contemplating it.” “But it is precisely the most poetic minds that most groan over the vulgarity of the present, its degenerate sensibility to beauty, eagerness for materialistic explanation, noisy triviality.” “Perhaps they would have had the same complaint to make about the age of Elizabeth, if, living then, they had fixed their attention on its more sordid elements, or had been subject to the grating influence of its everyday meannesses, and had sought refuge from them in the contemplation of whatever suited their taste in a former age.”
Wordplay?
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“Dear Religious Love”
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"We get our knowledge of perfect Love by glimpses and in fragments chiefly—the rarest only among us knowing what it is to worship and caress, reverence and cherish, divide our bread and mingle our thoughts at one and the same time, under inspiration of the same object. Finest aromas will so often leave the fruits to which they are native and cling elsewhere, leaving the fruit empty of all but its coarser structure!"
That last sentence is telling. Come to think of it, there isn't a love story in all her work.
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We Make our Own Precedents.
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"In the times of national mixture when modern Europe was, as one may say, a-brewing, it was open to a man who did not like to be judged by the Roman law to choose which of certain other codes he would be tried by. So, in our own times, they who openly adopt a higher rule than their neighbors do thereby make act of choice as to the laws and precedents by which they shall be approved or condemned, and thus it may happen that we see a man morally pilloried for a very customary deed, and yet having no right to complain, inasmuch as in his foregoing deliberative course of life he had referred himself to the tribunal of those higher conceptions, before which such a deed is without quetion condemnable."
What about the cheats?
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Birth of Tolerance.
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"Tolerance first comes through equality of struggle, as in the case of Arianism and Catholicism in the early times—Valens, Eastern and Arian, Valentinian, Western and Catholic, alike publishing edicts of tolerance; or it comes from a common need of relief from an oppressive predominance, as when James II. published his Act of Tolerance towards non-Anglicans, being forced into liberality towards the Dissenters by the need to get it for the Catholics. Community of interest is the root of justice; community of suffering, the root of pity; community of joy, the root of love."
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Felix qui non potuit.
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"Many feel themselves very confidently on safe ground when they say: It must be good for man to know the Truth. But it is clearly not good for a particular man to know some particular truth, as irremediable treachery in one whom he cherishes—better that he should die without knowing it.
"Of scientific truth, is it not conceivable that some facts as to the tendency of things affecting the final destination of the race might be more hurtful when they had entered into the human consciousness than they would have been if they had remained purely external in their activity?"
Such as?
Darwin's realisation about evolution?
Bible belt has gone from claiming equality to banning teaching evolution.
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Divine Grace a Real Emanation.
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"There is no such thing as an impotent or neutral deity, if the deity be really believed in, and contemplated either in prayer or meditation. Every object of thought reacts on the mind that conceives it, still more on that which habitually contemplates it. ... "
Reminds one of various internet debates - one, where a Jewish debater balked at importance of perception and claimed idea was important; another where a muslim female questioned why india nade up different Gods, why not just make up one for all purposes!
Are those, or any other monotheistic, really different from atheists? "Idea", "make up gods"???? If that's all there is to it, why bother converting?
As to faith, isn't Perception of Reality the real McCoy?
And while it's widely assumed that monotheism is superior, there's no reason in its support, much less evidence of Reality, on any level.
It's just domination by power of having conquered, massacred, looted. By which logic they can force people to chant "one is two", just as well.
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“A Fine Excess.”
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"Feeling is Energy. One can hardly insist too much, in the present stage of thinking, on the efficacy of feeling in stimulating to ardent co-operation, quite apart from the conviction that such co-operation is needed for the achievement of the end in view. Just as hatred will vent itself in private curses no longer believed to have any potency, and joy, in private singing far out among the woods and fields, so sympathetic feeling can only be satisfied by joining in the action which expresses it, though the added “Bravo!” the added push, the added penny is no more than a grain of dust on a rolling mass."
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September 28, 2021 - September 28, 2021.
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