"Maggie Tulliver, you perceive was by no means that well-trained, well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days: she had only been to school a year at St Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge."
— Eliot, George (1819-1880)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Edinburgh and London
Publisher
William Blackwood and Sons
Date
1860
Metaphor
"Maggie Tulliver, you perceive was by no means that well-trained, well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days: she had only been to school a year at St Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge."
Metaphor in Context
Maggie Tulliver, you perceive was by no means that well-trained, well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days: she had only been to school a year at St Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge. She could have informed you that there was such a word as 'polygamy' and being also acquainted with 'polysyllable,' she had deduced the conclusion that 'poly' meant 'many;' but she had had no idea that gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts generally were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind dreams.
(pp. 118-9)
Categories
Provenance
Reading A.S. Byatt's edition for Penguin Classics and searching at <http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/eliot/mill/>
Citation
See The Mill on the Floss (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860). <Vol. I in Google Books><Vol. II><Vol. III>
Date of Entry
06/21/2007
