the simple line of her black stuff dress. The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and mount the cart-surprise, not so much for the feminine delicacy of her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanor. He had made 5 up his mind to see her advance with a measured step, and a demure solemnity of countenance; he had felt sure that her face would be mantled with a smile of conscious saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He knew but two types of Methodist― 10 the ecstatic and the bilious. But Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy: there was no blush, no tremulousness, which said, “I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to 15 preach;" no casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms, that said, “But you must think of me as a saint." held no book in her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly crossed before her, as she stood 20 and turned her gray eyes on the people. There was no keenness in her eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations; they had the liquid look which tells that the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by external 25 objects. She stood with her left hand towards the descending sun; and leafy boughs screened her from its rays; but in this sober light the delicate coloring of her face seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening. It was a small oval face, of a 3c uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate She nostril, and a low perpendicular brow, surmounted by a rising arch of parting, between smooth locks of pale reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears and covered, except for an inch or two 5 above the brow, by a net quaker cap. The eye brows, of the same color as the hair, were perfectly horizontal and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and abundant; nothing was left blurred or unfinished.' It was one of those faces that Io make one think of white flowers with light touches of color on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar beauty, beyond that of expression; they looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer, could help melting away before 15 their glance. Joshua Rann gave a long cough, as if he were clearing his throat in order to come to a new understanding with himself; Chad Cranage lifted up his leather skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben wondered how Seth had the pluck to think of 20 courting her. 66 "A sweet woman," the stranger said to himself, but surely Nature never meant her for a preacher." 1 Technically, the description at this point is not of the best. It would be impossible for a stranger on horseback, at the outskirts of the crowd, to notice such details as are here given. In fact, the reader will notice that, while the whole produces a complete impression, the mechanism is faulty, in that it deals (1) with the general appearance of Dinah, (2) her effect on the stranger, (3) the details of her face and head, (4) her expression, (5) the effect on the men, and (6) finally reverts to the effect which she produced on the stranger. See the introduction to Dr. C. S. Baldwin's Specimens of Description (Holt: 1895). FROM Silas Marner, PART I., CHAPTER VIII. [Analysis is illustrated in the following passage from Silas Marner. The passage is particularly well adapted for study in that the principal character appears in two contrasted lights, and is represented as influenced by the time of day and by his knowledge of his father's humors. On the other hand, the passage lacks a statement of the large human generalization from which individual analyses often proceed, such as are well illustrated in other portions of George Eliot's novels, for example, in Chapter XXIX. of Adam Bede. The passages, and many others in George Eliot, should be compared as a study of the essentially narrative structure of the diagnosis, the time progression, and of the place which the method occupies in the development of character. The situation is this: Godfrey Cass, tricked into a low marriage by his brother Dunstan, had been repeatedly bled by the latter, but finally, having nothing to pay and having already diverted a hundred pounds from a tenant of his father's, gave his horse to his brother to sell. The latter promptly killed him in a steeple-chase, and left Godfrey no resource but to tell his father everything.] THROUGH the remainder of this day Godfrey, with only occasional fluctuations, kept his will bent in the direction of a complete avowal to his father, and he withheld the story of Wildfire's loss till the next morning, that it might serve him as an introduction to 5 heavier matter. The old Squire was accustomed to his son's frequent absence from home, and thought neither Dunstan's nor Wildfire's nonappearance a matter calling for remark. Godfrey said to himself again and again that if he let slip this one opportunity 10 of confession, he might never have another; the revelation might be made even in a more odious way than by Dunstan's malignity: she might come as she had threatened to do. And then he tried to make the scene easier to himself by rehearsal: he made up his mind how he would pass from the admission of his weakness in letting Dunstan have the money to the fact that Dunstan had a hold on him which he had 5 been unable to shake off, and how he would work up his father to expect something very bad before he told him the fact. The old Squire was an implacable man : he made resolutions in violent anger, but he was not to be moved from them after his anger had subsided 10-as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to grow under favor of his own heedlessness till they pressed upon him with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity and became 15 unrelentingly hard. This was his system with his tenants he allowed them to get into arrears, neglect their fences, reduce their stock, sell their straw, and otherwise go the wrong way-and then, when he became short of money in consequence of this indul20 gence, he took the hardest measures and would listen to no appeal. Godfrey knew all this, and felt it with. greater force because he had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolu25 tion deprived him of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which preceded these fits; that seemed to him natural enough.) Still there was just the chance, Godfrey thought, that his father's pride might see this marriage in a light that would 30 induce him to hush it up, rather than turn his son out and make the family the talk of the country for ten miles round. This was the view of the case that Godfrey managed to keep before him pretty closely till midnight, and he went to sleep thinking that he had done with inward debating. But when he awoke in the still morning darkness he found it impossible to reawaken 5 his evening thoughts; it was as if they had been tired out and were not to be roused to further work. Instead of arguments for confession, he could now feel the presence of nothing but its evil consequences. The old dread of disgrace came back: the old shrink- 10 ing from the thought of raising a hopeless barrier between himself and Nancy; the old disposition to rely on chances which might be favorable to him, and save him from betrayal. Why, after all, should he cut off the hope of them by his own act? He had seen the 15 matter in a wrong light yesterday. He had been in a rage with Dunstan, and had thought of nothing but a thorough break-up of their mutual understanding; but what it would be really wisest for him to do, was to try and soften his father's anger against Dunsey, and keep 20 things as nearly as possible in their old condition. If Dunsey did not come back for a few days (and Godfrey did not know but that the rascal had enough money in his pocket to enable him to keep away still longer), everything might blow over. 2. Tbomas bardy. Born 1840. FROM Far from the Madding Crowd, CHAPTER 1. 25 [The following passage shows a character in action. sheba Everdene, left alone and, as she thinks, unobserved, acts in Bath |