After reading three books from Eliot's catalogue, I'm starting to really fall in love with her work. I love the warmth she evidently feels towards the peole she writes about, the gently sarcastic ribbing of country life that is contained within her stories. Her novels are didactic - but, unlike Dickens, the moral lesson never comes at the expense of her characters. The people in her novels and - most notably - in this collection of short stories are well-rounded, believable, real. In 'Scenes of Clerical Life' that's even kind of the point. Through three stories of everyday human life Eliot takes lead characters that, on the surface, seem ordinary to the point of dullness. By following these characters through tragedy and loss, the book encourages the reader to think about their fellow human beings and what may be going on under the surface with regards to suffering or pain. Simply brilliant.