Book 7 - Chapter 4

Maggie and Lucy

By the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind that there was
only one way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at
St. Ogg's. Even with his twenty years' experience as a parish priest,
he was aghast at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her
in the face of evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and
appealed to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to
open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice, on
behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as powerless as
he was aware he would have been if he had attempted to influence the
shape of bonnets. Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened
to in silence; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions
among his hearers yielded much the same result as before. Miss
Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr. Kenn did
not deny that; how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put
that favorable interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the
supposition that required the utmost stretch of belief,--namely, that
none of the things said about Miss Tulliver were true,--still, since
they _had_ been said about her, they had cast an odor round her which
must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who had to take care
of her own reputation--and of Society. To have taken Maggie by the
hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall
not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring
mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest
efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater;
let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"--to
have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge,
generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in
evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that
cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have
any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after
perfect truth, justice, and love toward the individual men and women
who come across our own path. The ladies of St. Ogg's were not
beguiled by any wide speculative conceptions; but they had their
favorite abstraction, called Society, which served to make their
consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied their own
egoism,--thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and
turning their backs upon her. It was naturally disappointing to Dr.
Kenn, after two years of superfluous incense from his feminine
parishioners, to find them suddenly maintaining their views in
opposition to his; but then they maintained them in opposition to a
higher