a dissective delineation in the women of George Eliot
unequalled in the pages of fiction.

And then woman's lot, as respects her "social promotion" in matrimony, so
much sought, and so necessary for her to seek, even in spite of her
conscience, and at the expense of her happiness--the unravelling of that
lot would also come very natural to this expert unraveller. And never
have we had the causes of woman's "blunders" in match-making, and man's
blunders in love-making, told with such analytic acumen, or with such
pathetic and sarcastic eloquence. It is not far from the question of
woman's social lot to the question of questions of human life, the
question which has so tremendous an influence upon the fortunes of
mankind and womankind, the question which it is so easy for one party to
"pop" and so difficult for the other party to answer intelligently or
sagaciously.

Why does the young man fall in love with the young woman who is most
unfit for him of all the young women of his acquaintance, and why does
the young woman accept the young man, or the old man, who is better
adapted to making her life unendurable than any other man of her circle
of acquaintances? Why does the stalwart Adam Bede fall in love with
Hetty Sorrel, "who had nothing more than her beauty to recommend her?"
The delineator of his motives "respects him none the less." She thinks
that "the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, dark-eyed Hetty, of
whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came out of the very
strength of his nature, and not out of any inconsistent weakness. Is it
any weakness, pray, to be wrought upon by exquisite music? To feel its
wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings of your soul, the
delicate fibres of life which no memory can penetrate, and binding
together your whole being, past and present, in one unspeakable
vibration? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon
by the exquisite curves of a woman's cheek, and neck, and arms; by the
liquid depth of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet girlish pout of her
lips. For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music--what can one say
more?" And so "the noblest nature is often blinded to the character of
the woman's soul that beauty clothes." Hence "the tragedy of human life
is likely to continue for a long time to come, in spite of mental
philosophers who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all
mistakes of the kind."

How simple the m