Project Gutenberg's Impressions of Theophrastus Such, by George Eliot

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Title: Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Author: George Eliot

Release Date: January 26, 2007 [EBook #10762]
[This file was first posted on January 21, 2004]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH

GEORGE ELIOT

Second Edition

William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
MDCCCLXXIX

"Suspicione si quis errabit sua,
Et rapiet ad se, quod erit commune omnium,
Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam
Huic excusatum me velim nihilominus
Neque enim notare singulos mens est mihi,
Verum ipsam vitam et mores hominum ostendere"

--Phaedrus

CONTENTS

I. LOOKING INWARD

II. LOOKING BACKWARD

III. HOW WE ENCOURAGE RESEARCH

IV. A MAN SURPRISED AT HIS ORIGINALITY

V. A TOO DEFERENTIAL MAN

VI. ONLY TEMPER

VII. A POLITICAL MOLECULE

VIII. THE WATCH-DOG OF KNOWLEDGE

IX. A HALF-BREED

X. DEBASING THE MORAL CURRENCY

XI. THE WASP CREDITED WITH THE HONEYCOMB

XII. "SO YOUNG!"

XIII. HOW WE COME TO GIVE OURSELVES FALSE
TESTIMONIALS, AND BELIEVE IN THEM

XIV. THE TOO READY WRITER

XV. DISEASES OF SMALL AUTHORSHIP

XVI. MORAL SWINDLERS

XVII. SHADOWS OF THE COMING RACE

XVIII. THE MODERN HEP! HEP! HEP!

I.

LOOKING INWARD.

It is my habit to give an account to myself of the characters I meet
with: can I give any true account of my own? I am a bachelor, without
domestic distractions of any sort, and have all my life been an
attentive companion to myself, flattering my nature agreeably on
plausible occasions, reviling it rather bitterly when it mortified me,
and in general remembering its doings and sufferings with a tenacity
which is too apt to raise surprise if not disgust at the careless
inaccuracy of my acquaintances, who impute to me opinions I never held,
express their desire to convert me to my favourite ideas, forget whether
I have ever been to th