. 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 favourable 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 odour 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 towards 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 favourite 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 Authority, which they had venerated
longer. That Authority had furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might
inquire where their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide
views as to the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good
of Society, but on »a certain man« who was found in trouble by the wayside.
    Not that St Ogg's was empty of women with some tenderness of heart and
conscience: probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness in it as any
other small trading town of that day. But until every good man is
