SOURCE: "Intelligence as Deception: The Mill on the Floss," in PMLA, Vol. LXXX, September, 1965, pp. 402-09.

In the essay below, Levine explores unity of intellect and emotion as the theme of The Mill on the Floss.

The Mill on the Floss, indeed, considered simply as a story, obviously suffers from the disproportionate development of the earlier part; but I do not think that any reader could wish for a change which would sacrifice the revelation of character to the requirements of the plot. Taken by itself, the first part of The Mill represents to my mind the culmination of George Eliot's power. Maggie is one example of the feminine type which occurs with important modifications in most of the other stories. But George Eliot throws herself so frankly into Maggie's position, gives her "double" such reality by the wayward foibles associated with her nobler impulses, and dwells so...