George Eliot

Impressions of Theophrastus Such George Eliot

It is my habit to give an account to myself of the characters I meet with: can I give any true accountof my own? I am a bachelor, without domestic distractions of any sort, and have all my life been anattentive companion to myself, flattering my nature agreeably on plausible occasions, reviling itrather bitterly when it mortified me, and in general remembering its doings and sufferings with atenacity which is too apt to raise surprise if not disgust at the careless inaccuracy of myacquaintances, who impute to me opinions I never held, express their desire to convert me to myfavourite ideas, forget whether I have ever been to the East, and are capable of being three severaltimes astonished at my never having told them before of my accident in the Alps, causing me thenervous shock which has ever since notably diminished my digestive powers. Surely I ought to knowmyself better than these indifferent outsiders can know me; nay, better even than my intimatefriends, to whom I have never breathed those items of my inward experience which have chieflyshaped my life. Yet I have often been forced into the reflection that even the acquaintances who are as forgetful ofmy biography and tenets as they would be if I were a dead philosopher, are probably aware ofcertain points in me which may not be included in my most active suspicion. We sing an exquisitepassage out of tune and innocently repeat it for the greater pleasure of our hearers. Who can beaware of what his foreign accent is in the ears of a native? And how can a man be conscious of thatdull perception which causes him to mistake altogether what will make him agreeable to a particularwoman, and to persevere eagerly in a behaviour which she is privately recording against him? I havehad some confidences from my female friends as to their opinion of other men whom I haveobserved trying to make themselves amiable, and it has occurred to me that though I can hardly beso blundering as Lippus and the rest of those mistaken candidates for favour whom I have seenruining their chance by a too elaborate personal canvass, I must still come under the commonfatality of mankind and share the liability to be absurd without knowing that I am absurd. It is in thenature of foolish reasoning to seem good to the foolish reasoner. Hence with all possible study ofmyself, with all possible effort to escape from the pitiable illusion which makes men laugh, shriek, orcurl the lip at Folly's likeness, in total unconsciousness that it resembles themselves, I am obliged torecognise that while there are secrets in me unguessed by others, these others have certain items ofknowledge about the extent of my powers and the figure I make with them, which in turn are secretsunguessed by me.