- cence of the connection between effort and achievement
leads to the fatuous complacency from which Gwendolen Harleth was aroused by the cruel shock of being told the truth about her musical abilities:[1]
"She had moved in a society where everything, from low
arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind politely supposed
to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies
are not obliged to do more than they like—otherwise they would
probably give forth abler writings and show themselves more
commanding artists than any the world is at present obliged to
put up with."
Another busy circle had made two important discoveries:
the superiority of the probable over the actual; and
the advantage of a well-chosen nomenclature, whereby a
taste for cruelty may be gratified by the simple device
of calling it kindness. The first was made over the gossip
about Bulstrode:[2]
"Everbody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than
simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more confident
than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible."
The second developed in a later phase of the same
affair:[3]
"To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use
an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did
not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or
their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked
for its opinion."
It was because of this understanding of the limitless
possibilities and universal prevalence of self-deception
