SOURCE: Knoepflmacher, U. C. “Escape through Fantasy: ‘The Lifted Veil.’” In George Eliot's Early Novels: The Limits of Realism, pp. 128-61. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.

In the following essay, Knoepflmacher investigates the origins of “The Lifted Veil” and considers the story essential to Eliot's development as a philosophical novelist.

Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. I knew one who had lifted it—he sought, For his heart was tender, things to love, But found them not, alas! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. Through the unheeding many did he move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Among this gloomy...