ts do not appear in any outward and
palpable results, necessarily; her method is often unknown to men, hidden
even from the keenest eyes. Evil causes produce evil results, that is all;
and these are shown in the most subtle and secret results of what life is.
One of her methods is indicated in _Adam Bede_.

Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences--
out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused; there
is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon. Our moral
sense learns the manners of good society, and smiles when others smile;
but when some rude person gives rough names to our actions, she is apt
to take part against us.

_The Mill on the Floss_ reflects this thought.

Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, crudest most imbruted
urchin at the street-corner can inflict it.

More effective still is that punishment which comes of our own inward sense
of wrong-doing. George Eliot makes Parson Irwine say that "the inward
suffering is the worst form of Nemesis." This is well illustrated in the
experience of Gwendolen, who, after the death of her husband at Geneva, is
anxious to leave that place.

For what place, though it were the flowery vale of Enna, may not the
inward sense turn into a circle of punishment where the flowers are no
better than a crop of flame-tongues burning the soles of our feet?

Even before this, Gwendolen had come to realize the dire effects of selfish
conduct in that dread and bitterness of spirit which subdued her and mocked
all her hopes and joys.

Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending
to a predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and
makes the whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is
that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into
a constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the
deserted object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with
which the persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed
their suffering into dumbness. Such hidden rites went on in the
secrecy of Gwendolen's mind, but not with soothing effect--rather with
the effect of a struggling terror. Side by side with the dread of her
husband had grown the self-dread which urged her to flee from the
pursuing images wrought by her pent-up impulse