36 Silas Marner by George Eliot
Silas Marner
George Eliot’s Silas Marner is the story of an isolated and suffering miser, a weaver named Marner. In the course of the novel, Marner is “saved” from his dismal fate by the arrival of a child. In telling his story, Eliot explores the part of parenthood that transcends a biological connection. She beautifully represents, too, not just the duties parents and children bear toward one another, but also the blessings that flow to each from meeting these obligations.
In a part of the novel not reproduced here, the young Marner, then a religious man, suffers a shattering betrayal that destroys his faith. He moves from Lantern Yard, the scene of the betrayal, to the village of Raveloe. There he works at his loom, his money accumulates, and gradually it becomes his sole reason for living.
After fifteen years Marner’s money is stolen, and this second blow threatens to destroy him altogether. Then one winter night, as he stands stock-still in a trance, a strange woman freezes to death in the snow, and her child, Eppie, wanders into Marner’s home. Rejuvenated by her presence, Marner decides to keep Eppie and to rear her. For the next sixteen years she lives with him as his daughter.
Marner’s dedication to her care returns him to the human family, restoring him to his community and his lost faith. But as Eppie approaches the brink of womanhood, her natural father, the wealthy and childless Godfrey Cass, make himself known and seeks to take her back. Despite his offer of two powerful inducements — wealth and his blood relationship as her biological father — Eppie chooses to stay with Marner.
Two excerpts follow. The first describes Marner’s new life as Eppie’s father and the many ways she broadens his narrow existence. The second relates what happens later, when Cass and his wife, Nancy, appear in Marner’s home and propose adopting Eppie. – Leon Kass
Excerpt 1:
Baby was christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself as clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours. He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify the Raveloe religion with his old faith; if he could at any time in his previous life have done so, it must have been by the aid of a strong feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, rather than by a comparison of phrases and ideas: and now for long years that feeling had been dormant. He had no distinct idea about the baptism and the church-going, except that Dolly had said it was for the good of the child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to months, the child created fresh and fresh links between his life and the lives from which he had hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation. Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude—which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones—Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living movements; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same blank limit—carried them away to the new things that would come with the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her father Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his neighbours. The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie called him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and warming him into joy because she had joy.
And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the buttercups were thick in the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny midday, or in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers, and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the bright petals, calling “Dad-dad’s” attention continually by bringing him the flowers. Then she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note, and Silas learned to please her by making signs of hushed stillness, that they might listen for the note to come again: so that when it came, she set up her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph. Sitting on the banks in this way, Silas began to look for the once familiar herbs again; and as the leaves, with their unchanged outline and markings, lay on his palm, there was a sense of crowding remembrances from which he turned away timidly, taking refuge in Eppie’s little world, that lay lightly on his enfeebled spirit.
As the child’s mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full consciousness.
It was an influence which must gather force with every new year: the tones that stirred Silas’s heart grew articulate, and called for more distinct answers; shapes and sounds grew clearer for Eppie’s eyes and ears, and there was more that “Dad-dad” was imperatively required to notice and account for. Also, by the time Eppie was three years old, she developed a fine capacity for mischief, and for devising ingenious ways of being troublesome, which found much exercise, not only for Silas’s patience, but for his watchfulness and penetration. Sorely was poor Silas puzzled on such occasions by the incompatible demands of love. Dolly Winthrop told him that punishment was good for Eppie, and that, as for rearing a child without making it tingle a little in soft and safe places now and then, it was not to be done.
“To be sure, there’s another thing you might do, Master Marner,” added Dolly, meditatively: “you might shut her up once i’ the coal-hole. That was what I did wi’ Aaron; for I was that silly wi’ the youngest lad, as I could never bear to smack him. Not as I could find i’ my heart to let him stay i’ the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was enough to colly him all over, so as he must be new washed and dressed, and it was as good as a rod to him—that was. But I put it upo’ your conscience, Master Marner, as there’s one of ’em you must choose—ayther smacking or the coal-hole—else she’ll get so masterful, there’ll be no holding her.”
Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth of this last remark; but his force of mind failed before the only two penal methods open to him, not only because it was painful to him to hurt Eppie, but because he trembled at a moment’s contention with her, lest she should love him the less for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be master? It was clear that Eppie, with her short toddling steps, must lead father Silas a pretty dance on any fine morning when circumstances favoured mischief.
For example. He had wisely chosen a broad strip of linen as a means of fastening her to his loom when he was busy: it made a broad belt round her waist, and was long enough to allow of her reaching the truckle-bed and sitting down on it, but not long enough for her to attempt any dangerous climbing. One bright summer’s morning Silas had been more engrossed than usual in “setting up” a new piece of work, an occasion on which his scissors were in requisition. These scissors, owing to an especial warning of Dolly’s, had been kept carefully out of Eppie’s reach; but the click of them had had a peculiar attraction for her ear, and watching the results of that click, she had derived the philosophic lesson that the same cause would produce the same effect. Silas had seated himself in his loom, and the noise of weaving had begun; but he had left his scissors on a ledge which Eppie’s arm was long enough to reach; and now, like a small mouse, watching her opportunity, she stole quietly from her corner, secured the scissors, and toddled to the bed again, setting up her back as a mode of concealing the fact. She had a distinct intention as to the use of the scissors; and having cut the linen strip in a jagged but effectual manner, in two moments she had run out at the open door where the sunshine was inviting her, while poor Silas believed her to be a better child than usual. It was not until he happened to need his scissors that the terrible fact burst upon him: Eppie had run out by herself—had perhaps fallen into the Stone-pit. Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have befallen him, rushed out, calling “Eppie!” and ran eagerly about the unenclosed space, exploring the dry cavities into which she might have fallen, and then gazing with questioning dread at the smooth red surface of the water. The cold drops stood on his brow. How long had she been out? There was one hope—that she had crept through the stile and got into the fields, where he habitually took her to stroll. But the grass was high in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she were there, except by a close search that would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood’s crop. Still, that misdemeanour must be committed; and poor Silas, after peering all round the hedgerows, traversed the grass, beginning with perturbed vision to see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and to see her moving always farther off as he approached. The meadow was searched in vain; and he got over the stile into the next field, looking with dying hope towards a small pond which was now reduced to its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide margin of good adhesive mud. Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey the water into a deep hoof-mark, while her little naked foot was planted comfortably on a cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was observing her with alarmed doubt through the opposite hedge.
Here was clearly a case of aberration in a christened child which demanded severe treatment; but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy at finding his treasure again, could do nothing but snatch her up, and cover her with half-sobbing kisses. It was not until he had carried her home, and had begun to think of the necessary washing, that he recollected the need that he should punish Eppie, and “make her remember”. The idea that she might run away again and come to harm, gave him unusual resolution, and for the first time he determined to try the coal-hole—a small closet near the hearth.
“Naughty, naughty Eppie,” he suddenly began, holding her on his knee, and pointing to her muddy feet and clothes—“naughty to cut with the scissors and run away. Eppie must go into the coal-hole for being naughty. Daddy must put her in the coal-hole.”
He half-expected that this would be shock enough, and that Eppie would begin to cry. But instead of that, she began to shake herself on his knee, as if the proposition opened a pleasing novelty. Seeing that he must proceed to extremities, he put her into the coal-hole, and held the door closed, with a trembling sense that he was using a strong measure. For a moment there was silence, but then came a little cry, “Opy, opy!” and Silas let her out again, saying, “Now Eppie ’ull never be naughty again, else she must go in the coal-hole—a black naughty place.”
The weaving must stand still a long while this morning, for now Eppie must be washed, and have clean clothes on; but it was to be hoped that this punishment would have a lasting effect, and save time in future—though, perhaps, it would have been better if Eppie had cried more.
In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas having turned his back to see what he could do with the linen band, threw it down again, with the reflection that Eppie would be good without fastening for the rest of the morning. He turned round again, and was going to place her in her little chair near the loom, when she peeped out at him with black face and hands again, and said, “Eppie in de toal-hole!”
This total failure of the coal-hole discipline shook Silas’s belief in the efficacy of punishment. “She’d take it all for fun,” he observed to Dolly, “if I didn’t hurt her, and that I can’t do, Mrs. Winthrop. If she makes me a bit o’ trouble, I can bear it. And she’s got no tricks but what she’ll grow out of.”
“Well, that’s partly true, Master Marner,” said Dolly, sympathetically; “and if you can’t bring your mind to frighten her off touching things, you must do what you can to keep ’em out of her way. That’s what I do wi’ the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw—worry and gnaw they will, if it was one’s Sunday cap as hung anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no difference, God help ’em: it’s the pushing o’ the teeth as sets ’em on, that’s what it is.”
So Eppie was reared without punishment, the burden of her misdeeds being borne vicariously by father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft nest for her, lined with downy patience: and also in the world that lay beyond the stone hut she knew nothing of frowns and denials.
Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying her and his yarn or linen at the same time, Silas took her with him in most of his journeys to the farmhouses, unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly Winthrop’s, who was always ready to take care of her; and little curly-headed Eppie, the weaver’s child, became an object of interest at several outlying homesteads, as well as in the village. Hitherto he had been treated very much as if he had been a useful gnome or brownie—a queer and unaccountable creature, who must necessarily be looked at with wondering curiosity and repulsion, and with whom one would be glad to make all greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but who must be dealt with in a propitiatory way, and occasionally have a present of pork or garden stuff to carry home with him, seeing that without him there was no getting the yarn woven. But now Silas met with open smiling faces and cheerful questioning, as a person whose satisfactions and difficulties could be understood. Everywhere he must sit a little and talk about the child, and words of interest were always ready for him: “Ah, Master Marner, you’ll be lucky if she takes the measles soon and easy!”—or, “Why, there isn’t many lone men ’ud ha’ been wishing to take up with a little un like that: but I reckon the weaving makes you handier than men as do out-door work—you’re partly as handy as a woman, for weaving comes next to spinning.” Elderly masters and mistresses, seated observantly in large kitchen arm-chairs, shook their heads over the difficulties attendant on rearing children, felt Eppie’s round arms and legs, and pronounced them remarkably firm, and told Silas that, if she turned out well (which, however, there was no telling), it would be a fine thing for him to have a steady lass to do for him when he got helpless. Servant maidens were fond of carrying her out to look at the hens and chickens, or to see if any cherries could be shaken down in the orchard; and the small boys and girls approached her slowly, with cautious movement and steady gaze, like little dogs face to face with one of their own kind, till attraction had reached the point at which the soft lips were put out for a kiss. No child was afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near him: there was no repulsion around him now, either for young or old; for the little child had come to link him once more with the whole world. There was love between him and the child that blent them into one, and there was love between the child and the world—from men and women with parental looks and tones, to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.
Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie: she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was, from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from a strange thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child’s.
Excerpt 2
Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie’s answer, from the dread lest his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the spirit of resistance in him set free, not without a touch of parental fierceness. “Then, sir,” he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in him since the memorable day when his youthful hope had perished—“then, sir, why didn’t you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I’d come to love her, i’stead o’ coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out o’ my body? God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you’ve no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it falls to them as take it in.”
“I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I’ve repented of my conduct in that matter,” said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of Silas’s words.
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Marner, with gathering excitement; “but repentance doesn’t alter what’s been going on for sixteen year. Your coming now and saying “I’m her father” doesn’t alter the feelings inside us. It’s me she’s been calling her father ever since she could say the word.”
“But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner,” said Godfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaver’s direct truth-speaking. “It isn’t as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that you’d never see her again. She’ll be very near you, and come to see you very often. She’ll feel just the same towards you.”
“Just the same?” said Marner, more bitterly than ever. “How’ll she feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o’ the same bit, and drink o’ the same cup, and think o’ the same things from one day’s end to another? Just the same? that’s idle talk. You’d cut us i’ two.”
Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of Marner’s simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him that the weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was undoubtedly for Eppie’s welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for her sake, to assert his authority.
“I should have thought, Marner,” he said, severely—“I should have thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You ought to remember your own life’s uncertain, and she’s at an age now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from what it would be in her father’s home: she may marry some low working-man, and then, whatever I might do for her, I couldn’t make her well-off. You’re putting yourself in the way of her welfare; and though I’m sorry to hurt you after what you’ve done, and what I’ve left undone, I feel now it’s my duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty.”
It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that was more deeply stirred by this last speech of Godfrey’s. Thought had been very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her old long-loved father and this new unfamiliar father who had suddenly come to fill the place of that black featureless shadow which had held the ring and placed it on her mother’s finger. Her imagination had darted backward in conjectures, and forward in previsions, of what this revealed fatherhood implied; and there were words in Godfrey’s last speech which helped to make the previsions especially definite. Not that these thoughts, either of past or future, determined her resolution—that was determined by the feelings which vibrated to every word Silas had uttered; but they raised, even apart from these feelings, a repulsion towards the offered lot and the newly-revealed father.
Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, and alarmed lest Godfrey’s accusation should be true—lest he should be raising his own will as an obstacle to Eppie’s good. For many moments he was mute, struggling for the self-conquest necessary to the uttering of the difficult words. They came out tremulously.
“I’ll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak to the child. I’ll hinder nothing.”
Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of her own affections, shared her husband’s view, that Marner was not justifiable in his wish to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed himself. She felt that it was a very hard trial for the poor weaver, but her code allowed no question that a father by blood must have a claim above that of any foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life to plenteous circumstances and the privileges of “respectability”, could not enter into the pleasures which early nurture and habit connect with all the little aims and efforts of the poor who are born poor: to her mind, Eppie, in being restored to her birthright, was entering on a too long withheld but unquestionable good. Hence she heard Silas’s last words with relief, and thought, as Godfrey did, that their wish was achieved.
“Eppie, my dear,” said Godfrey, looking at his daughter, not without some embarrassment, under the sense that she was old enough to judge him, “it’ll always be our wish that you should show your love and gratitude to one who’s been a father to you so many years, and we shall want to help you to make him comfortable in every way. But we hope you’ll come to love us as well; and though I haven’t been what a father should ha’ been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my power for you for the rest of my life, and provide for you as my only child. And you’ll have the best of mothers in my wife—that’ll be a blessing you haven’t known since you were old enough to know it.”
“My dear, you’ll be a treasure to me,” said Nancy, in her gentle voice. “We shall want for nothing when we have our daughter.”
Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she had done before. She held Silas’s hand in hers, and grasped it firmly—it was a weaver’s hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to such pressure—while she spoke with colder decision than before.
“Thank you, ma’am—thank you, sir, for your offers—they’re very great, and far above my wish. For I should have no delight i’ life any more if I was forced to go away from my father, and knew he was sitting at home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We’ve been used to be happy together every day, and I can’t think o’ no happiness without him. And he says he’d nobody i’ the world till I was sent to him, and he’d have nothing when I was gone. And he’s took care of me and loved me from the first, and I’ll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me.”
“But you must make sure, Eppie,” said Silas, in a low voice—“you must make sure as you won’t ever be sorry, because you’ve made your choice to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes and things, when you might ha’ had everything o’ the best.”
His sensitiveness on this point had increased as he listened to Eppie’s words of faithful affection.
“I can never be sorry, father,” said Eppie. “I shouldn’t know what to think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as I haven’t been used to. And it ’ud be poor work for me to put on things, and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as ’ud make them as I’m fond of think me unfitting company for ’em. What could I care for then?”
Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained questioning glance. But his eyes were fixed on the floor, where he was moving the end of his stick, as if he were pondering on something absently. She thought there was a word which might perhaps come better from her lips than from his.
“What you say is natural, my dear child—it’s natural you should cling to those who’ve brought you up,” she said, mildly; “but there’s a duty you owe to your lawful father. There’s perhaps something to be given up on more sides than one. When your father opens his home to you, I think it’s right you shouldn’t turn your back on it.”
“I can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one,” said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. “I’ve always thought of a little home where he’d sit i’ the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I can’t think o’ no other home. I wasn’t brought up to be a lady, and I can’t turn my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their victuals, and their ways. And,” she ended passionately, while the tears fell, “I’m promised to marry a working-man, as’ll live with father, and help me to take care of him.”
Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face and smarting dilated eyes. This frustration of a purpose towards which he had set out under the exalted consciousness that he was about to compensate in some degree for the greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the air of the room stifling.
“Let us go,” he said, in an under-tone.
“We won’t talk of this any longer now,” said Nancy, rising. “We’re your well-wishers, my dear—and yours too, Marner. We shall come and see you again. It’s getting late now.”
In this way she covered her husband’s abrupt departure, for Godfrey had gone straight to the door, unable to say more.
Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the starlight in silence. When they entered the oaken parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his chair, while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood on the hearth near her husband, unwilling to leave him even for a few minutes, and yet fearing to utter any word lest it might jar on his feeling. At last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their eyes met, dwelling in that meeting without any movement on either side. That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger—not to be interfered with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the fresh enjoyment of repose.
But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy placed hers within it, he drew her towards him, and said—
“That’s ended!”
She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she stood by his side, “Yes, I’m afraid we must give up the hope of having her for a daughter. It wouldn’t be right to want to force her to come to us against her will. We can’t alter her bringing up and what’s come of it.”
“No,” said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast with his usually careless and unemphatic speech—“there’s debts we can’t pay like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by. While I’ve been putting off and putting off, the trees have been growing—it’s too late now. Marner was in the right in what he said about a man’s turning away a blessing from his door: it falls to somebody else. I wanted to pass for childless once, Nancy—I shall pass for childless now against my wish.”
Consider this:
- What does it mean — or what does it really take — to be a parent? How important are biological bonds in the relations between children and their parents? How do those relations link adults — “men and women with parental looks and tones” — to each other?
- Why is Marner not placated by the prospect that Eppie, if taken from his home, would visit him? What decision would you have counseled Eppie to make? What, if anything, does Eppie owe to her biological father?
