Felix Holt

by George Eliot

And those who love in age think youth is happy,

  Because it has a life to fill with love.

  The very next May, Felix and Esther were married. Every one in those days was married at the parish church; but Mr Lyon was not satisfied without an additional private solemnity, ‘wherein there was no bondage to questionable forms, so that he might have a more enlarged utterance of joy and supplication’.

  It was a very simple wedding; but no wedding, even the gayest, ever raised so much interest and debate in Treby Magna. Even very great people, like Sir Maximus and his family, went to the church to look at this bride, who had renounced wealth, and chosen to be the wife of a man who said he would always be poor.

  Some few shook their heads; could not quite believe it; and thought there was ‘more behind’. But the majority of honest Trebians were affected somewhat in the same way as happy-looking Mr Wace was, who observed to his wife, as they walked from under the churchyard chestnuts, ‘It’s wonderful how things go through you – you don’t know how. I feel somehow as if I believed more in everything that’s good.’

  Mrs Holt, that day, said she felt herself to be receiving ‘some reward’, implying that justice certainly had much more in reserve. Little Job Tudge had an entirely new suit, of which he fingered every separate brass button in a way that threatened an arithmetical mania; and Mrs Holt had out her best tea-trays and put down her carpet again, with the satisfaction of thinking that there would no more be boys coming in all weathers with dirty shoes.

  For Felix and Esther did not take up their abode in Treby Magna; and after a while Mr Lyon left the town too, and joined them where they dwelt. On his resignation the church in Malthouse Yard chose a successor to him whose doctrine was rather higher.

  There were other departures from Treby. Mr Jermyn’s establishment was broken up, and he was understood to have gone to reside at a great distance: some said ‘abroad’, that large home of ruined reputations. Mr Johnson continued blond and sufficiently prosperous till he got grey and rather more prosperous. Some persons, who did not think highly of him, held that his prosperity was a fact to be kept in the background, as being dangerous to the morals of the young; judging that it was not altogether creditable to the Divine Providence that anything but virtue should be rewarded by a front and back drawing-room in Bedford Row.

  As for Mr Christian, he had no more profitable secrets at his disposal. But he got his thousand pounds from Harold Transome.

  The Transome family were absent for some time from Transome Court. The place was kept up and shown to visitors, but not by Denner, who was away with her mistress. After a while the family came back, and Mrs Transome died there. Sir Maximus was at her funeral, and throughout that neighbourhood there was silence about the past.

  Uncle Lingon continued to watch over the shooting on the Manor and the covers until that event occurred which he had predicted as a part of Church reform sure to come. Little Treby had a new rector, but others were sorry besides the old pointers.

  As to all that wide parish of Treby Magna, it has since prospered as the rest of England has prospered. Doubtless there is more enlightenment now. Whether the farmers are all public-spirited, the shopkeepers nobly independent, the Sproxton men entirely sober and judicious, the Dissenters quite without narrowness or asperity in religion and politics, and the publicans all fit, like Gaius, to be the friends of an apostle1 – these things I have not heard, not having correspondence in those parts. Whether any presumption may be drawn from the fact that North Loamshire does not yet return a Radical candidate, I leave to the all-wise – I mean the newspapers.

  As to the town in which Felix Holt now resides, I will keep that a secret, lest he should be troubled by any visitor having the insufferable motive of curiosity.

  I will only say that Esther has never repented. Felix, however, grumbles a little that she has made his life too easy, and that, if it were not for much walking, he should be a sleek dog.

  There is a young Felix, who has a great deal more science than his father, but not much more money.

  APPENDIX A

  The Legal Background to Felix Holt

  The highly complex legal plot which often surfaces in both nineteenth-and twentieth-century criticism as one of the chief problems of Felix Holt, the Radical (‘The plot of Felix Holt… is one of George Eliot’s most complex and, as a result, one of her most implausible,’ as Karen B. Mann, for example, declares)* is based on various nuances of the law of entail or, in other words, on the rights of inheritance over a given property. As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, entail deals with ‘the settlement of the succession of a landed estate so that any future possessor cannot bequeath it at will’. Settling the line of descent for the property in question, it thus sets up a prescribed line of inheritance. In the case of Felix Holt, the entail is of Transome Court, and was originally set up by John Justus Transome in 1729, settling the estate upon his son, Thomas Transome, and the male heirs of the Transome line who will in turn succeed him. According to its original terms, John Justus also made provision for the eventuality that the Transome line might itself fail, specifying that in such a circumstance the estate would descend ‘in remainder’ to the family of the Bycliffes, Esther’s real father in the story proving to be Maurice Christian Bycliffe.

  In spite of all the precautions made by John Justus in order to ensure the rightful transmission of his property to his stated heirs, the line of inheritance is, however, to be disturbed and by Thomas Transome, his son. The latter, ‘proving a prodigal’ as Eliot states in Chapter XXIX, in fact sells his rights of inheritance to Transome Court to a ‘lawyer-cousin’ named Durfey, a sale which, by its terms, also alienates all future Transomes from the inheritance. This sale, accomplished without the consent of his father (and during his lifetime), creates what is known as a ‘base fee’ (see Chapter XXI, note 3). A ‘fee’ in this context denotes an estate in land (in English law this is always a heritable estate) and a ‘base fee’ creates the situation in terms of property law in Felix Holt in which the Durfeys, who adopt the name of Transome and from whom Harold Transome is descended (‘these present Durfeys, or Transomes, as they called themselves’, as the Introduction explains), assume the rights to the estate as long as the original grantor (Thomas Transome) or a male heir of his line remains alive. This explains the signal importance of Tommy Trounsem (see Chapters XXXIII and XXXV) in the plot, for with his death the original Transome line does indeed come to an end.

  Thomas Transome had, in other words, sold the rights of the entailed line (the Transomes) to the Durfeys in a sale which remained valid only as long as the original Transome line itself should remain intact. Should the latter fail, however, then legally the estate would pass to the Bycliffes whose rights ‘in remainder’ had been unaffected by the creation of the base fee. The death of Tommy Trounsem in the riot at Treby in December 1832 thus creates precisely the situation in which the property rights revert to the Bycliffes and, in turn, to Esther herself. Harold Transome’s own rights to the property accordingly cease.

  Eliot’s conscientious endeavours to ensure accuracy in these particular legal aspects of her tale have already been mentioned (see editor’s Introduction, pp. viii-ix), and in this the assistance of the barrister Frederick Harrison was to prove invaluable. Sending him a ‘statement of her needs’ in January 1866, Eliot is precise on the circumstances of inheritance which she needs to engineer for her narrative:

  It is required to know the longest possible term of years for the existence of the following conditions:

  1. That an estate, for lack of a direct heir, should have come into the possession of A (or of a series – A, A’, A” – if that were admissible).

  2. That subsequently a claim should have been set up by B, on a valid plea of nearer kinship.

  3. That B should have failed in his suit from inability to prove his identity, over which certain circumstances (already fixed) should have cast a doubt, and should have died soon after.

  4. Th
at B’s daughter, being an infant at the time of his death, should have come to years of discretion and have a legal claim on the estate.

  These are the legal essentials as closely as I can strip them. The last, viz., the legal claim of B’s daughter, might be dispensed with, if the adequate stretching of the time is not to be obtained by any formula of conditions. The moral necessities of the situation might be met with the fact of injustice and foul play towards B; but I should prefer the legal claim, if possible.

  The letter shows Eliot as already having a clear idea of many of the essentials of the plot which she will unfold in Volumes II and III of Felix Holt, the disputed claims to Transome Court, together with the problems of identity which will surround Maurice Bycliffe (in the event attended by both ‘injustice’ and ‘foul play’ as well as difficulties in establishing a valid ‘legal claim’) both making prominent appearance. Nevertheless, though Harrison states in a letter to Eliot that he saw his task as to ‘put into legal language the story as I understand it from the MS and from your own relation’, his contributions could be seen as more decisive at times. It was Harrison, for example, who first seems to have suggested considering the case not as one of simple inheritance (as in Eliot’s original summary) but as one of settlement or, in other words, of entail. His letter of 11 January contains the proposal of the base fee which Eliot was in fact to adopt and, after reading the manuscript to the end of Volume I (and following further discussion with Eliot herself), he offers more precise details in a letter on 27 January:

  Towards the middle of the 18th Century a certain Transome of Transome Court duly settled the ancestral estate by his will in the following manner.

  To John Transome during his life, then to his only son Thomas Transome in tail general (as the lawyers call it) i.e. to the male and female descendants of his body, and subject to these estates or (as the law says) ‘with remainder’ to Henry Bycliffe (his cousin) and his heirs and assigns for ever.

  Upon the death of this testator, John Transome only entered upon the estates and enjoyed them during his life. Thomas Transome the heir in tail proved a dissolute spendthrift, whose necessities forced him to improvident dealings with money lenders. In the course of these dealings he fell into the hands of one Durfey, a distant connexion of the Transome family, a lawyer who speculated upon the follies of expectant heirs. By him Transome was induced for a small sum in hand to sell his interest under the settlement. To this end he ‘levied a fine’ as it is technically called and effectually cut off the estate of his own heirs and sold his and their prospects to Durfey. John Transome the father who was still in possession of the property refused to concur in the son’s schemes or to assist him in raising money by the sale of the family property. The effect of these transactions was this – that Durfey became entitled on the death of John Transome to the whole interest of Thomas Transome and his issue so long as any of them might survive – but for want of the cooperation in levying the fine of John Transome, the interests of the Bycliffes were not prejudiced and the heir of Bycliffe would rightly succeed as soon as the issue of Thomas Transome was extinct.

  This the law called the creation of a base fee by the tenant in tail without the consent of the tenant for life in possession, by which the tenant in tail and his issue were effectively barred, but the remainder-men were not barred.

  Further aspects of this letter amplify the situation in which successive claims on the estate by the Bycliffes impair the fortunes of the erstwhile Durfeys, as well as hinting at the questionable means used by Jermyn to secure their continued possession of Transome Court (and his own prosperity). Harrison, however, makes Esther the true legal heir of the Transomes and not the Bycliffes, a situation firmly rejected by Eliot (as were a number of other details).

  ‘It seems to me that you have fitted my phenomena with a rationale quite beautifully,’ wrote Eliot to Harrison at the end of January after receiving a further ‘legal skeleton’. Their correspondence was to continue through the very last stages of Felix Holt as Eliot sought to verify further details of the plot from a legal point of view. It was, however, in the consolidation and working-out of the original inheritance plot on which a major part of the novel turns that Harrison’s input was so vital – and not least in these initial suggestions about the law of entail.

  APPENDIX B

  Address to Working Men, by Felix Holt

  ‘Do you never think of writing miscellaneous papers for the Magazine?’ wrote John Blackwood to Eliot on 29 October 1867. ‘It strikes me that you could do a first rate address to the Working Men on their new responsibilities. It might be signed Felix Holt.’ Blackwood’s words were inspired by his own attendance on the same day at a speech given by Benjamin Disraeli in Edinburgh where, addressing ‘Working Men’, Disraeli had provided a clear and reasoned justification of the Second Reform Bill of 1867 by which the franchise had been further extended, adding almost one million men to the electoral roll. Felix Holt’s own eloquence on the First Reform Bill and its consequences had been amply displayed in Eliot’s novel; clearly here was an opportunity for a similar discourse on the further stages of ‘reform’ in English political life.

  According to Eliot’s letter in reply, Felix’s immediate response was favourable though G. H. Lewes seemed to have had some reservations: ‘Felix Holt is immensely tempted by your suggestion, but George Eliot is severely admonished by his domestic critic not to scatter his energies.’ The idea was not dropped, however, and on 14 November Blackwood writes again, this time in a tone which is more pressing – and persuasive: ‘I am excessively anxious that you should do an Address to Working Men as I am thoroughly convinced that no one could do it so well. When the new Reform Bill comes into operation the working man will be on his trial and if he misconducts himself it will go hard with the country, but at all events his class would be the greatest sufferers … Do consider the matter and I shall be really obliged if you can give me an Address to the Working Man with which to begin the January number.’ The proposal was accepted, and Eliot began work on 22 November, sending off the completed manuscript on 4 December.

  The ‘Address’ bears the distinctive voice of Felix in his role as ‘demagogue’ once more, his political beliefs, as expected, likewise displaying remarkable continuity with those expressed in the course of Felix Holt, the Radical. As John Blackwood (a Tory) had written of Felix in his earlier guise, ‘I suspect I am a radical of the Felix Holt breed, and so was my father before me’, and his response to Felix’s new address was equally favourable. Just as he had stressed the pertinence of Eliot’s words when first reading the novel in April 1866 (‘Her politics are excellent and will attract all parties. Her sayings will be invaluable in the present debate’), so was he to advocate the utility of this additional manifestation of Felix’s political views: ‘I am satisfied that what you propose to say and have said to the Working Men will hit the nail on the head and may possibly be of great service. Your doubts are better than other men’s certainties … You have the knowledge of what the working men ought to do and the real feeling toward them which will give a force to your words which no ordinary address could possibly possess.’ The address was ‘noble’ indeed, he wrote to Eliot while reading the proofs on 6 December: ‘I wish the poor fellows were capable of appreciating it. If they were we should be all right, but it will do great good.’

  Felix again warns of the dangers of ignorant power and of political change in isolation: ‘the danger hanging over change is great, just in proportion as it tends to produce such disorder by giving any large number of ignorant men, whose notions of what is good are of a low and brutal sort, the belief that they have got power into their hands, and may do pretty much as they like’. The address he gives is inherently conservative, extolling the responsibility conferred upon the working classes by this new extension of the franchise. Order, obedience to the legal conditions which prevail, patience, and education are all commended as virtues to be held and maintained, and it is clear that individual as
well as communal responsibility takes on a cultural sense too in the emphasis placed on the ‘treasure of knowledge, science, poetry, refinement of thought, feeling, and manners … carried on from the minds of one generation to the minds of another’. The latter moreover infringes upon the attitudes and behaviour to be adopted towards those classes who have hitherto dominated in the spheres of political power: ‘Do anything which will throw the classes who hold the treasures of knowledge – nay, I may say the treasure of refined needs – into the background, cause them to withdraw from public affairs, stop too suddenly any of the sources by which their leisure and ease are furnished, rob them of the chances by which they may be influential and pre-eminent and … you injure your own inheritance and the inheritance of your children.’ Felix’s text is instead that men should strive to gain a share within this inheritance and its benefits, rather than aiding in its destruction. Ignorance, as in Felix Holt the novel, remains the besetting evil, and true reform becomes the preserve of the hearts and minds of men, in those endeavours towards a better life which depend on selfless industry not selfish gain, and public duty more than private advantage.

  The ‘Address’ was published as the leading article in Blackwood s Edinburgh Magazine in January 1868.

  FELLOW-WORKMEN, – I am not going to take up your time by complimenting you. It has been the fashion to compliment kings and other authorities when they have come into power, and to tell them that, under their wise and beneficent rule, happiness would certainly overflow the land. But the end has not always corresponded to that beginning. If it were true that we who work for wages had more of the wisdom and virtue necessary to the right use of power than has been shown by the aristocratic and mercantile classes, we should not glory much in that fact, or consider that it carried with it any near approach to infallibility.