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"The early days of an acquaintance almost always have this importance for us, and fill up a larger space in our memory than longer subsequent periods which have been less filled with discovery and new impressions."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Author

The Mill on the Floss

Place of Publication

Edinburgh and London

Publisher

William Blackwood and Sons

Date

1860

Metaphor

"The early days of an acquaintance almost always have this importance for us, and fill up a larger space in our memory than longer subsequent periods which have been less filled with discovery and new impressions."

Metaphor in Context

Perhaps one had need to be nineteen again to be quite convinced of the feelings that were crowded for Maggie into those twelve days - of the length to which they were stretched for her by the novelty of her experience in them and the varying attitudes of her mind. The early days of an acquaintance almost always have this importance for us, and fill up a larger space in our memory than longer subsequent periods which have been less filled with discovery and new impressions. There were not many hours in those ten days in which Mr Stephen Guest was not seated by Lucy's side, or standing near her at the piano, or accompanying her on some out-door excursion: his attentions were clearly becoming more assiduous, and that was what every one had expected. Lucy was very happy - all the happier because Stephen's society seemed to have become much more interesting and amusing since Maggie had been there. Playful discussions - sometimes serious ones - were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie revealed themselves, to the admiration of the gentle unobtrusive Lucy; and it more than once crossed her mind what a charming quartet they should have through life when Maggie married Philip. Is it an inexplicable thing that a girl should enjoy her lover's society the more for the presence of a third person, and be without the slightest spasm of jealousy that the third person had the conversation habitually directed to her? Not when that girl is as tranquil-hearted as Lucy, thoroughly possessed with a belief that she knows the state of her companions' affections, and not prone to the feelings which shake such a belief in the absence of positive evidence against it. Besides, it was Lucy by whom Stephen sate, to whom he gave his arm, to whom he appealed as the person sure to agree with him; and every day there was the same tender politeness towards her, the same consciousness of her wants and care to supply them. Was there really the same? - it seemed to Lucy that there was more, and it was no wonder that the real significance of the [end page 419] change escaped her. It was a subtle act of conscience in Stephen, that even he himself was not aware of. His personal attentions to Maggie were comparatively slight, and there had even sprung up an apparent distance between them that prevented the renewal of that faint resemblance to gallantry into which he had fallen the first day, in the boat. If Stephen came in when Lucy was out of the room - if Lucy left them together, they never spoke to each other: Stephen, perhaps, seemed to be examining books or music, and Maggie bent her head assiduously over her work. Each was oppressively conscious of the other's presence, even to the finger-ends. Yet each looked and longed for the same thing to happen the next day. Neither of them had begun to reflect on the matter, or silently to ask, 'To what does all this tend?' Maggie only felt that life was revealing something quite new to her, and she was absorbed in the direct, immediate experience, without any energy left for taking account of it, and reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained from self-questioning, and would not admit to himself that he felt an influence which was to have any determining effect on his conduct. And when Lucy came into the room again, they were once more unconstrained: Maggie could contradict Stephen and laugh at him, and he could recommend to her consideration the example of that most charming heroine, Miss Sophia Western, who had a great 'respect for the understandings of men.' Maggie could look at Stephen - which for some reason or other, she always avoided when they were alone, and he could even ask her to play his accompaniment for him, since Lucy's fingers were so busy with that bazaar-work; and lecture her on hurrying the tempo, which was certainly Maggie's weak point. (pp. 419-20)