Paragraphs two to five

A Series of Plot Summaries. The follow¬ing summaries of the story of two of George Eliot's novels will serve as models for paragraphs two to five of the theme-model in section 225: "The Mill on the Floss' is largely autobiographical. It presents a vivid picture of child life and girlhood and it solves a moral problem. Maggie Tulliver is a real girl ; she plays in the mud, tips her dresses, and in her mischievous moments mangles her hair ; but when she grows older and reads The Imitation of Christ her soul opens and she knows the beauty of moral ideals. A crisis comes. After having given her word to one man she falls passionately in love with another ; but he is pledged to her dearest friend. In a moment of weak¬ness Maggie yields to selfish impulse, but before it is too late, repentance comes, and the crisis is followed by the heroic tragedy of self-renunciation_ Self-renun ciation ! this is the Christian solution of the unchurched author, "Roma/a' is the result, not of observation and experi¬ence, but of reading and research. It takes us to Flor¬ence and the golden days of the Renaissance, the court of the Medici, and the convent of Savonarola. . . . . Tito Melema, the central figure, is the author's most profound study in psychology. He is a young man gifted with all the graces and qualities that bring suc¬cess, but he loves pleasure above all things, and avoids any painful self-sacrifice. One mistake, a slight impul¬sive act of selfishness, leads to another and then an¬other, and before the man is aware he is caught in the toils of fate and dragged to destruction. The slow, subtle degradation of this brilliant youth is an awful expression of the vindictive power of Nemesis. Once Tito's real character is known, Romola, his pure, noble, yet essentially pagan wife, would flee from him and from the wickedness of Florence, but Savonarola and an awakened conscience christianize her, showing her the path of duty, and by ministering, amid a sinful populace, to the needs of others, her troubled soul finds peace. 'Romola' was a tremendous effort, and it was written under clouds of depression and fears of failure."