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Scenes of Clerical Life #2
Mr Gilfil’s Love Story
Caterina Sarti is the orphaned daughter of an Italian music master who has been brought up by the aristocratic Cheverel family. In love with the Cheverel heir, Anthony Wybrow, her hopes of marrying him are frustrated by the discovery that not only has Anthony merely been playing with her affections, but his family will never accept her as their equal. Mr. Gilfil, the faithful vicar, rescues Caterina from her despair, but not before she has been irrevocably damaged by her unkind treatment. A masterly evocation of tragic love, Mr. Gilfil's Love Story also reflects George Eliot's deep ambivalence towards the upper classes."Elegant and expressivethis is the most original work of fiction George Eliot ever wrote." (David Lodge). Born Mary Ann Evans, Victorian novelist George Eliot (18191880) is the author of a number of remarkable works, including the masterpiece Middlemarch."
126 pages, Paperback
Published December 6, 2006
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208 people want to read
About the author
George Eliot
3,127 books4,926 followersMary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
September 2, 2016
After reading George Eliot’s First Tale of Clerical Life I thought I knew what to expect of her second; another account of a clergyman’s life in a country parish told with warmth and intelligence. I expected a contrasting story, because Maynard Gifil had been refered to in Amos Barton’s story, as a former parish priest who had understood his parishioners so much better than the new incumbent.
I was wrong.
The opening had me fooled. It introduced Mr. Gilfil as an old man, long established as the vicar of Shepperton, and it illustrated why he had been so popular. He was comfortable in the role of parish priest, he was sensitive to his congregations wishes, he preached short sermons, and he was a man who had no family; he belonged to his congregation.
It was lovely to meet the narrator I knew and loved from the first Tale of Clerical life, I was happy to meet one or two familiar characters again and I settled in for another story of life in Shepperton.
I was charmed by anecdotes like this:
“There’s that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,’ Mrs. Hackit would say; ‘an’ I’m fool enough to give ’em her, though Sally wants ’em all the while to sweep the floors with!’
Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt.
‘Why, Mrs. Fripp,’ said the Vicar, ‘I didn’t know you had such a fine pig. You’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas!’
‘Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two ‘ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me iver sin’. I couldn’t find i’ my heart to part wi’m, if I niver knowed the taste o’ bacon-fat again.’
‘Why, he’ll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?’
‘O, he picks a bit hisself wi’ rootin’, and I dooant mind doing wi’out to gi’ him summat. A bit o’ company’s meat an’ drink too, an’ he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to’m, just like a Christian.’
Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-bye to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again.”
It wasn’t long though before the story moved into the past, quite naturally; to tell Mr. Gilfil’ love story, and to explain how he had come to be alone.
Maynard Gilfil had been chaplain at Cheverel Manor, and it was there that he fell in love with Caterina Sarti. Caterina, who was always known as ‘Tina’, was an Italian orphan and the ward of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel, who took her into their care following the death of her father.
Sadly, Mr. Gilfil’s love for Tina was not returned. She liked him well enough, but she was utterly besotted with Captain Anthony Wybrow, nephew and heir of Sir Christopher Cheverel. And she thought it was her destiny to be the next lady of the manor.
That would never be. The Cheverels were prompting a match between their nephew and Miss Beatrice Assher, the daughter of a very dear friend; and they hoped that Tina would marry Mr. Gilfil. Wybrow, but he flirted with Tina, and she was quite convinced that he loved her as much as she loved him.
Mr. Gilfil saw all of this, and he realised that there was nothing he do to save Tina from heartbreak.
I saw the influence of earlier women writers – Jane Austen in particular – in the beginning of this story. And then I began to think that George Eliot was testing her literary wings, deciding what kind of author she might like to be, because then there was a dash of sensation novel.
Tina learned the truth.
There was a terrible tragedy.
There was a serious misunderstanding.
And all of that led to high drama.
I can’t fault the storytelling. the psychology, or the writing. I just have to complain that the author was a little judgemental when she wrote of Tina, who was no more that a foolish girl blinded by love.
Some time later, Mr. Gilfil met Tina again. She was a little older and a little wiser, she came to appreciate his love and devotion, and she came to love him too. They married, but there would be no happy ending. Tina’s health had been compromised by those dramatic events that she so wanted to put behind her, and she died in childbirth.
That left Mr. Gilfil to live out the rest of his life alone.
This wasn’t Geroge Eliot at the height of her powers; but it was an engaging story very well told.
She might have become a very good sensation novelist; but I’m glad that she didn’t, because the road that she chose was much more interesting.
I was wrong.
The opening had me fooled. It introduced Mr. Gilfil as an old man, long established as the vicar of Shepperton, and it illustrated why he had been so popular. He was comfortable in the role of parish priest, he was sensitive to his congregations wishes, he preached short sermons, and he was a man who had no family; he belonged to his congregation.
It was lovely to meet the narrator I knew and loved from the first Tale of Clerical life, I was happy to meet one or two familiar characters again and I settled in for another story of life in Shepperton.
I was charmed by anecdotes like this:
“There’s that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,’ Mrs. Hackit would say; ‘an’ I’m fool enough to give ’em her, though Sally wants ’em all the while to sweep the floors with!’
Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt.
‘Why, Mrs. Fripp,’ said the Vicar, ‘I didn’t know you had such a fine pig. You’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas!’
‘Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two ‘ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me iver sin’. I couldn’t find i’ my heart to part wi’m, if I niver knowed the taste o’ bacon-fat again.’
‘Why, he’ll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?’
‘O, he picks a bit hisself wi’ rootin’, and I dooant mind doing wi’out to gi’ him summat. A bit o’ company’s meat an’ drink too, an’ he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to’m, just like a Christian.’
Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-bye to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again.”
It wasn’t long though before the story moved into the past, quite naturally; to tell Mr. Gilfil’ love story, and to explain how he had come to be alone.
Maynard Gilfil had been chaplain at Cheverel Manor, and it was there that he fell in love with Caterina Sarti. Caterina, who was always known as ‘Tina’, was an Italian orphan and the ward of Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel, who took her into their care following the death of her father.
Sadly, Mr. Gilfil’s love for Tina was not returned. She liked him well enough, but she was utterly besotted with Captain Anthony Wybrow, nephew and heir of Sir Christopher Cheverel. And she thought it was her destiny to be the next lady of the manor.
That would never be. The Cheverels were prompting a match between their nephew and Miss Beatrice Assher, the daughter of a very dear friend; and they hoped that Tina would marry Mr. Gilfil. Wybrow, but he flirted with Tina, and she was quite convinced that he loved her as much as she loved him.
Mr. Gilfil saw all of this, and he realised that there was nothing he do to save Tina from heartbreak.
I saw the influence of earlier women writers – Jane Austen in particular – in the beginning of this story. And then I began to think that George Eliot was testing her literary wings, deciding what kind of author she might like to be, because then there was a dash of sensation novel.
Tina learned the truth.
There was a terrible tragedy.
There was a serious misunderstanding.
And all of that led to high drama.
I can’t fault the storytelling. the psychology, or the writing. I just have to complain that the author was a little judgemental when she wrote of Tina, who was no more that a foolish girl blinded by love.
Some time later, Mr. Gilfil met Tina again. She was a little older and a little wiser, she came to appreciate his love and devotion, and she came to love him too. They married, but there would be no happy ending. Tina’s health had been compromised by those dramatic events that she so wanted to put behind her, and she died in childbirth.
That left Mr. Gilfil to live out the rest of his life alone.
This wasn’t Geroge Eliot at the height of her powers; but it was an engaging story very well told.
She might have become a very good sensation novelist; but I’m glad that she didn’t, because the road that she chose was much more interesting.
November 19, 2017
Having previously read Amos Barton in which Mr. Gilfil had been referred to, I was not expecting a quasi-Gothic melodrama. I liked Caterina and I loathed f**k-boy Captain Wybrow.
November 9, 2017
What a sad and tragic love story.... Don't be fooled by the beautiful cover, guys. And the story unfolded in a way that I'd never expected after reading the plot. I love how George Eliot portrayed her characters and their personalities as well as their psychological development, especially that of Caterina. She had a mixture of innocence and violence in her personality, which added more layers and flavors to the story. Mr. Gilfil's devotion and selfless love to Caterina was the final touch that won me over. And just when I thought it would end well, the story brought its final blow to the tragedy that had already befallen them all...
Regret, ache, and overall admiration for Mr. Gilfil. What more can I say than quoting this final sentence of the novella:
This is the first George Eliot's work that I've read, and it was easy for me to understand why she was hailed "England's finest living novelist" of her time.
Regret, ache, and overall admiration for Mr. Gilfil. What more can I say than quoting this final sentence of the novella:
"The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest; and in the grey-haired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children, whose most biting words were directed against the evil doing of the rich man, and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the highest level of his parishioners’ respect, there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first and only love — the love of Tina."
This is the first George Eliot's work that I've read, and it was easy for me to understand why she was hailed "England's finest living novelist" of her time.
April 16, 2020
Sad, melodramatic short love story. This was an early work of one of my favorite authors.
Merged review:
Sad, melodramatic love story. This is an early work (from 1857) by one of my favorite authors.
Merged review:
Sad, melodramatic love story. This is an early work (from 1857) by one of my favorite authors.
June 17, 2024
[i did not forget] the interval of wrong and jealousy and hatred- all his cruelty, and all her thoughts of revenge- as the exile forgets the stormy passage that lay between home and happiness, and the dreary land in which he finds himself desolate.
captain eyebrow deserved it.
captain eyebrow deserved it.
April 22, 2024
El libro “Escenas de la vida parroquial” fue la primera obra narrativa publicada en 1858 por George Elliot. Esta novela es tan sólo una de las tres escenas, más concretamente la segunda de ellas, algo que desconocía cuando comencé a leerlo.
La historia comienza con la vida de Maynard Gilfill, conocido como el Señor Gilfill, un vicario en un pueblo de la campiña inglesa. Vemos los típicos enredos de pueblo, con vecinas chismosas que acuden a la iglesia y varias anécdotas cómicas que les ocurren en su día a día… parecía una novela muy costumbrista, una crónica de la vida rural alrededor de la figura del párroco, algo que me encantaba conforme leía, pero la novela da un giro, nos traslada al pasado del Sr.Gilfill, y es ahí cuando la protagonista pasa a ser, Caterina Sarti, la hija adoptiva de una familia aristocrática, de la que el Señor Gilfill se enamora, pero que parece no ser correspondido, ya que ella se fija en el heredero de la familia. A partir de aquí, no esperaba encontrarme lo que fue todo un melodrama, sobre el amor trágico, con tintes góticos, en el que la protagonista, me resultó un tanto insufrible.
La historia comienza con la vida de Maynard Gilfill, conocido como el Señor Gilfill, un vicario en un pueblo de la campiña inglesa. Vemos los típicos enredos de pueblo, con vecinas chismosas que acuden a la iglesia y varias anécdotas cómicas que les ocurren en su día a día… parecía una novela muy costumbrista, una crónica de la vida rural alrededor de la figura del párroco, algo que me encantaba conforme leía, pero la novela da un giro, nos traslada al pasado del Sr.Gilfill, y es ahí cuando la protagonista pasa a ser, Caterina Sarti, la hija adoptiva de una familia aristocrática, de la que el Señor Gilfill se enamora, pero que parece no ser correspondido, ya que ella se fija en el heredero de la familia. A partir de aquí, no esperaba encontrarme lo que fue todo un melodrama, sobre el amor trágico, con tintes góticos, en el que la protagonista, me resultó un tanto insufrible.
January 19, 2022
manifesting your own death over a man who manipulated you has got to be one of the top ten worst ways to die
February 11, 2021
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
............
" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
............
"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
............
"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
............
" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
............
"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
............
" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
............
............
................................................
................................................
February 07, 2021 - February 11, 2021.
................................................
................................................
Merged review:
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
............
" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
............
"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
............
"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
............
" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
............
"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
............
" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
............
............
................................................
................................................
February 07, 2021 - February 11, 2021.
................................................
................................................
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
............
" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
............
"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
............
"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
............
" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
............
"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
............
" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
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February 07, 2021 - February 11, 2021.
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Merged review:
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
The first part had begun after departure of the earlier pastor, Mr Gilfil; the second retreats to begin the story of the earlier pastor by recounting his parish's feelings about wearing black in honour of his departure.
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" ... To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs. Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, 'Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better.' An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs. Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"'Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours,' she remarked; 'but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs. Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!'
"'Ah,' said Mrs. Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, 'there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs. Higgins.'
"Mrs. Higgins, who was an elderly widow, 'well left', reflected with complacency that Mrs. Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs. Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of."
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"Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'"
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"'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?'
"'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doing wi'out to gi' him summat. A bit o' company's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian.'"
............
" ... Alas, alas! we poor mortals are often little better than wood-ashes—there is small sign of the sap, and the leafy freshness, and the bursting buds that were once there; but wherever we see wood-ashes, we know that all that early fullness of life must have been. I, at least, hardly ever look at a bent old man, or a wizened old woman, but I see also, with my mind's eye, that Past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor soul, like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes and fair perspectives overturned and thrust out of sight."
............
"And a charming picture Cheverel Manor would have made that evening, if some English Watteau had been there to paint it: the castellated house of grey-tinted stone, with the flickering sunbeams sending dashes of golden light across the many-shaped panes in the mullioned windows, and a great beech leaning athwart one of the flanking towers, and breaking, with its dark flattened boughs, the too formal symmetry of the front; the broad gravel-walk winding on the right, by a row of tall pines, alongside the pool—on the left branching out among swelling grassy mounds, surmounted by clumps of trees, where the red trunk of the Scotch fir glows in the descending sunlight against the bright green of limes and acacias; the great pool, where a pair of swans are swimming lazily with one leg tucked under a wing, and where the open water-lilies lie calmly accepting the kisses of the fluttering light-sparkles; the lawn, with its smooth emerald greenness, sloping down to the rougher and browner herbage of the park, from which it is invisibly fenced by a little stream that winds away from the pool, and disappears under a wooden bridge in the distant pleasure-ground; and on this lawn our two ladies, whose part in the landscape the painter, standing at a favourable point of view in the park, would represent with a few little dabs of red and white and blue."
............
" ... But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! the child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegee, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim."
" ... After those first years in which little girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady after all."
............
"This was Mr. Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat, worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks, passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant quiescence of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais."
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............
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February 07, 2021 - February 11, 2021.
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October 19, 2025
The delicate-tendrilled plant must have something to cling to.
While this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening onward. The astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were labouring over the waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our little Tina and her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering life in the water-drop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty.
But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is withered.
And so the dear old Vicar, though he had something of the knotted whimsical character of the poor lopped oak, had yet been sketched out by nature as a noble tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest, and in the grey-haired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children, whose most biting words were directed against the evil-doing of the rich man, and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the highest level of his parishioners' respect, there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first and only love—the love of Tina.
While this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening onward. The astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were labouring over the waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our little Tina and her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering life in the water-drop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest with the long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty.
But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is withered.
And so the dear old Vicar, though he had something of the knotted whimsical character of the poor lopped oak, had yet been sketched out by nature as a noble tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest, and in the grey-haired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children, whose most biting words were directed against the evil-doing of the rich man, and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the highest level of his parishioners' respect, there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first and only love—the love of Tina.
October 14, 2022
I enjoyed this novella. There were a few sections in the beginning that were a little tough to get through, but once the story really gets going around chapter 3, it is smooth sailing.
The story opens with a framing story of Mr. Gilful, a pastor in the English countryside and what his parishioners think of him. It is revealed that Mr. Gilful had a secret, tragic love. At this point, we are transported 30 years into the past to a manor house that gives off strong Downton Abbey vibes and the story becomes Caterina’s. Caterina is an Italian orphan adopted by an aristocratic English couple. She experiences intense emotions, which we feel as she interacts with her adopted family and Mr. Gilful. However, these intense emotions are her downfall….
The story opens with a framing story of Mr. Gilful, a pastor in the English countryside and what his parishioners think of him. It is revealed that Mr. Gilful had a secret, tragic love. At this point, we are transported 30 years into the past to a manor house that gives off strong Downton Abbey vibes and the story becomes Caterina’s. Caterina is an Italian orphan adopted by an aristocratic English couple. She experiences intense emotions, which we feel as she interacts with her adopted family and Mr. Gilful. However, these intense emotions are her downfall….
March 23, 2017
While nominally about the reverend Mr. Gilfil's youthful love, this story actually centers around Caterina Sarti, a young Italian adoptee of a wealthy family who has always been raised comfortably but explicitly of a lower class than her family members. Caterina falls for Anthony, her adopted father's choice of heir, and must suffer with his unattainability even as Maynard Gilfil pines for her.
The story is a bit slow to pick up, but once I hit the halfway point I was very engaged. I like Eliot's writing style, and though the characters frustrated me, they were well-drawn. Not my favorite but worth the read.
The story is a bit slow to pick up, but once I hit the halfway point I was very engaged. I like Eliot's writing style, and though the characters frustrated me, they were well-drawn. Not my favorite but worth the read.
May 12, 2020
A short story, published in 1858 as one of the Scenes from Clerical life. A very accessible story with Eliot’s brilliant reading of people and emotions. Quite a bit written in dialect. Short and bitter-sweet.
This was a 1907 edition which I think my Grandfather must have bought second hand quite late in life maybe to compliment his collection of George Eliot novels.
This was a 1907 edition which I think my Grandfather must have bought second hand quite late in life maybe to compliment his collection of George Eliot novels.
July 9, 2024
Clearly alone here, pero a mí esta no me parece una obra propia de la calidad de George Eliot. Es una novella afectadísima con una protagonista femenina impostada que parece la típica mujer escrita por un hombre en el siglo XIX: sufriente por amor, de mejillas arreboladas, delicada y al borde de la muerte porque el chico que le gusta no la quiere y resulta ser un bribón (who would have known). En un momento hasta se desmaya. I mean, Mary Ann, are you feeling well? Sus personajes son planos y su trama absurdamente melodramática. Y esta es la misma persona que escribió Middlemarch, que baje dios y lo vea.
August 16, 2022
Same church as the Amos Barton jawn. Teenage girl gets jealous of an impending marriage, tries to kill the guy, but he dies from the fright of the surprise of it. Told from the point of view of some other older guy in the background who eventually marries her... and then she dies in childbirth.
Read
February 7, 2020Not what I'd call a fun read, but I have some respect yet for Georgie Eliot and what she was trying to do.
October 22, 2021
First three chapters were a mess with a heavy info dump of characters but after I got through that it was pleasantly enjoyable! Similar to Pride & Prejudice.
January 20, 2022
textbook gaslighting (18th century edition)
March 11, 2022
this one hurt like a bitch
January 5, 2023
A good short love story with a mystery twist didn’t expect that ending at all
February 6, 2024
like 3 & 1/2… good for a school book
February 21, 2020
The second of three novellas contained in Scenes of A Clerical Life. It is set at an earlier time in the same location as its predecessor. I wish I had read this one just after Amos Barton, the first novella, because Mr Gilfil is mentioned in it. I feel that Mr Gilfil is a minor character in his own love story even though it likely shaped the man he ultimately became.
April 15, 2012
This is a touching love story with a bittersweet ending which almost had me in tears. In comparison to some of George Eliot's longer works, this is a short and easy read focusing on the theme of unrequited love and the damage it can do to one individual in particular. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and the wonderful characters that Eliot has created.
February 12, 2016
Lovely unpredictable old fashioned story. Enjoyable more of a short story.
March 31, 2016
Whimsically melodramatic. Silas Marner had more to it.
December 2, 2013
This story was much better developed than Amos Barton.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews