{Negative Multiplication}[13th October 1990]

[Redbook8:24][19901013:1100b]{Negative Multiplication}[13th October 1990]

19901013.1100 (Sat)

[continued]

‘Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could never wear sleeves not less bare of style* than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible — or from one of our elder poets, — in a paragraph of to-day’s newspaper.’**

The underlined section, if I have got it right, says that she always had to wear clothes more ornate then the B[lessed] V[irgin] (M[ary]) in Italian paintings; but the sense of the whole piece is that she wore plain garments and looked more beautiful and dignified for doing so. What one would expect is that her clothes always had to be at least as plain as the B[lessed] V[irgin Mary]’s, in order that her beauty should be properly displayed; otherwise she would be trying to hide her personal beauty by ostentatious dress, which is possible but seems uncharacteristic of her (ie out of line with the rest of the piece). In other words, ‘she could never wear sleeves less bare of style*** that the B[lessed] V[irgin Mary], etc.

But then, I haven’t read Middlemarch.

*[Underlining added in ts]

**George Eliot, ‘Middlemarch’[Chapter 1, opening words;]

cited in Gill, ‘Mastering English Literature’, [Macmillan, 1985] p91 [Chapter 7.2]

{Perhaps misquoted?

[Yes; ‘never’ is not in the published texts, but has been inserted in Gill’s text, which should read as follows: ‘Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible, – or from one of our elder poets, – in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper.’] ’}

***(ie more ornate)

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