The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot (100 books to read .txt) 📗

The Mill on the Floss

By George Eliot.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Book I: Boy and Girl I: Outside Dorlcote Mill II: Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution About Tom III: Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom IV: Tom Is Expected V: Tom Comes Home VI: The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming VII: Enter the Aunts and Uncles VIII: Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side IX: To Garum Firs X: Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected XI: Maggie Tries to Run Away from Her Shadow XII: Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home XIII: Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life Book II: School-Time I: Tom’s “First Half” II: The Christmas Holidays III: The New Schoolfellow IV: “The Young Idea” V: Maggie’s Second Visit VI: A Love-Scene VII: The Golden Gates Are Passed Book III: The Downfall I: What Had Happened at Home II: Mrs. Tulliver’s Teraphim, or Household Gods III: The Family Council IV: A Vanishing Gleam V: Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster VI: Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice Against the Present of a Pocketknife VII: How a Hen Takes to Stratagem VIII: Daylight on the Wreck IX: An Item Added to the Family Register Book IV: The Valley of Humiliation I: A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet II: The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns III: A Voice from the Past Book V: Wheat and Tares I: In the Red Deeps II: Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob’s Thumb III: The Wavering Balance IV: Another Love-Scene V: The Cloven Tree VI: The Hard-Won Triumph VII: A Day of Reckoning Book VI: The Great Temptation I: A Duet in Paradise II: First Impressions III: Confidential Moments IV: Brother and Sister V: Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster VI: Illustrating the Laws of Attraction VII: Philip Re-Enters VIII: Wakem in a New Light IX: Charity in Full-Dress X: The Spell Seems Broken XI: In the Lane XII: A Family Party XIII: Borne Along by the Tide XIV: Waking Book VII: The Final Rescue I: The Return to the Mill II: St. Ogg’s Passes Judgment III: Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us IV: Maggie and Lucy V: The Last Conflict VI: Conclusion Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Book I Boy and Girl I Outside Dorlcote Mill

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships⁠—laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal⁠—are borne along to the town of St. Ogg’s, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last year’s golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at⁠—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches