behind the tub, and stay there all night; and then they would all be
frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride
of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to
cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she
went down again to Tom now--would he forgive her?--perhaps her father
would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to
forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No,
she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This
resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the
tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in poor
Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it.
She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but
just then she heard a quick footstep on the stairs.

"Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the
round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and
whittling sticks without any particular reason, except that he didn't
whittle sticks at school, to think of Maggie, and the effect his anger
had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having
been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a
practical person."--

And so on. It is only after four hundred words more of this sort of
analysis that the author tells us: "It was Tom's step, then, that
Maggie heard on the stairs." This is George Eliot's way of portraying
the characters of two children who have quarreled.

Much is to be said in favor of this expedient of depicting character
by analysis. It is the only means by which the reader may be informed
directly of those thoughts and emotions of a character which are the
mainsprings of his acts. And since we cannot feel that we know a
person intimately unless we understand the workings of his mind at
characteristic moments, we derive a great advantage from this
immediate presentation of his mental processes. On the other hand, the
use of the expedient destroys the very desirable illusion that the
reader is an observer actually looking at the action, since the
details depicted do not happen to the eye but rather to the analytic
understanding. The expedient has the disadvantages of being
exceedingly abstract, and of halting happenings while the author tells
us why they happened. It is certainly unfortunate, for instance, that
it should take Tom a