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                            THE LIFTED VEIL 



THE LIFTED VEIL 



     by George Eliot 'Mary Anne Evans' 



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                                       THE LIFTED VEIL 



                                 CHAPTER I 



     The time of my end approaches。             I have lately been subject to attacks 

of angina pectoris; and in the ordinary course of things; my physician tells 

me;  I   may   fairly  hope   that   my  life   will   not   be   protracted   many   months。 

Unless; then; I am cursed with an exceptional physical constitution; as   I 

am cursed with an exceptional mental character; I shall not much longer 

groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence。                  If it were to 

be otherwiseif I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide 

forI   should    for   once   have    known     whether     the  miseries    of   delusive 

expectation   can   outweigh   the   miseries   of   true   provision。   For   I   foresee 

when I shall die; and everything that will happen in my last moments。 

     Just a month from this day; on September 20; 1850; I shall be sitting in 

this   chair;   in   this   study;  at   ten   o'clock   at   night; longing   to   die;   weary  of 

incessant insight and foresight; without delusions and without hope。                    Just 

as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire; and my lamp is 

burning low; the horrible contraction will begin at my chest。                  I shall only 

have   time   to   reach   the   bell;   and   pull   it   violently;   before   the   sense   of 

suffocation will come。          No one will answer my bell。             I know why。 My 

two servants are lovers; and will have quarrelled。                My housekeeper will 

have rushed out of the house in a fury; two hours before; hoping that Perry 

will believe she has gone to drown herself。              Perry is alarmed at last; and 

is gone out after her。       The little scullery…maid is asleep on a bench:              she 

never answers   the bell; it   does   not   wake   her。      The sense of   suffocation 

increases: my lamp goes out with a horrible stench:                I make a great effort; 

and   snatch   at   the   bell   again。  I   long   for   life;   and   there   is   no   help。 I 

thirsted   for   the unknown:       the   thirst   is gone。  O  God;  let   me   stay  with 

the   known;     and   be   weary    of  it:  I   am   content。    Agony      of  pain   and 

suffocationand all the while the earth; the fields; the pebbly brook at the 

bottom   of    the   rookery;   the   fresh   scent  after   the  rain;  the   light  of  the 

morning through my chamber…window; the warmth of the hearth after the 

frosty airwill darkness close over them for ever? 

     Darknessdarknessno painnothing but darkness:                 but I am passing 



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                                         THE LIFTED VEIL 



on and on through the darkness:               my thought stays in the darkness;  but 

always with a sense of moving onward 。 。 。 

     Before   that   time   comes;   I   wish   to   use   my   last   hours   of   ease   and 

strength in telling the strange story of my experience。                  I have never fully 

unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to 

trust much in the sympathy of my fellow…men。                   But we have all a chance 

of meeting with some pity; some   tenderness; some charity;  when we   are 

dead:     it is the living only who cannot be forgiventhe living only from 

whom   men's   indulgence   and   reverence   are   held   off;   like   the   rain   by  the 

hard     east   wind。     While      the   heart    beats;   bruise    itit  is  your    only 

opportunity;   while   the   eye   can   still   turn   towards   you   with   moist;   timid 

entreaty;     freeze   it  with   an   icy   unanswering       gaze;   while    the   ear;  that 

delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul; can still take in the 

tones of kindness; put it off with hard civility; or sneering compliment; or 

envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb 

with   the  sense  of   injustice;  with the   yearning   for brotherly  recognition 

make hasteoppress it with your ill… considered judgements; your trivial 

comparisons; your careless misrepresentations。                  The heart will by and by 

be   still〃ubi   saeva   indignatio   ulterius   cor   lacerare   nequit〃;   the   eye   will 

cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all 

wants as well as from all work。             Then your charitable speeches may find 

vent; then   you   may remember   and   pity the toil and the struggle   and the 

failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may 

find extenuation for errors; and may consent to bury them。 

     That   is   a   trivial   schoolboy   text;   why   do   I   dwell   on   it? It   has   little 

reference to me; for I shall leave no works behind me for men to honour。 

I have no near relatives who will make up; by weeping over my grave; for 

the wounds they inflicted on me when I was among them。                         It is only the 

story    of   my    life  that  will   perhaps     win   a   little  more    sympathy      from 

strangers when I am dead; than I ever believed it would obtain from my 

friends while I was living。 

     My   childhood   perhaps   seems   happier   to   me   than   it   really   was;   by 

contrast with all the after…years。          For then the curtain of the future was as 

impenetrable   to   me   as   to   other   children:      I   had   all   their   delight   in   the 



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                                        THE LIFTED VEIL 



present   hour;   their   sweet   indefinite   hopes   for   the   morrow;   and   I   had   a 

tender   mother:      even   now;   after   the   dreary  lapse   of   long   years;   a   slight 

trace of sensation accompanies the remembrance of her caress as she held 

me on her kneeher arms round my little body; her cheek pressed on mine。 

I had a complaint of the eyes that made me blind for a little while; and she 

kept me on her knee from morning till night。                That unequalled love soon 

vanished out of my life; and even to my childish consciousness it was as if 

that life had become more chill I rode my little white pony with the groom 

by  my   side   as   before;   but   there   were  no   loving   eyes   looking   at   me   as   I 

mounted;   no   glad   arms   opened   to   me   when   I   came   back。         Perhaps   I 

missed my mother's love more than most children of seven or eight would 

have done; to whom the other pleasures of life remained as before; for I 

was     certainly    a  very   sensitive    child。    I   remember      still  the   mingled 

trepidation   and   delicious   excitement   with   which   I   was   affected   by   the 

tramping of the horses on the pavement in the echoing stables; by the loud 

resonance of the groom's voices; by the booming bark of the dogs as my 

father's carriage thundered under the archway of the courtyard; by the din 

of the gong as it gave notice of luncheon and dinner。 The measured tramp 

of   soldiery   which   I   sometimes   heardfor   my   father's   house   lay   near   a 

county town where there were large barracksmade me sob and tremble; 

and yet when they were gone past; I longed for them to come back again。 

     I fancy my father thought me an odd child; and had little fondness for 

me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's 

duties。    But he was already past the middle of life; and I was not his only 

son。    My   mother   had   been   his   second   wife;   and   he   was   five…and…forty 

when he married her。          He was a firm; unbending; intensely orderly man; 

in   root   and   stem   a  banker;    but   with   a  flourishing    graft   of  the  active 

landholder;   aspiring   to   county   influence:       one   of   those   people   who   are 

always   like   themselves   from   day   to   day;   who   are   uninfluenced   by   the 

weather;   and   neither   know   melancholy   nor   high   spirits。        I   held   him   in 

great awe; and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at 

other times; a circumstance which; perhaps; helped to confirm him in the 

intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with 

which he had complied in the case of my elder brother; already a tall youth 



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                                         THE LIFTED VEIL 



at Eton。     My brother was to be his representative and s

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