The Lifted Veil

“I did not know why it ran; I had perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very beautiful.”

As Latimer recounts his struggle with a scientific education, he makes this statement about not caring to know the physics behind why a river runs downhill. Latimer is more interested in the poetics of the river and its natural beauty than understanding the forces of gravity his tutors attempt to teach him.

“You will think, perhaps, that I must have been a poet, from this early sensibility to Nature. But my lot was not so happy as that.”

Though Latimer displays all the characteristics of a sensitive, idealistic, insightful poet, he is not able to compose poetic or prose works himself. Rather, he can only read them and appreciate their beauty. This quote reflects Latimer’s desire to become one of the poets he admires—a wish that comes true in a twisted way when he develops the omniscience of a writer.

“He knew quite well that my mind was half absent, yet he liked to talk to me in this way; for don’t we talk of our hopes and our projects even to dogs and birds, when they love us?”

Latimer’s friendship with Charles Meunier is based on their shared feelings of isolation rather than shared interests. In this quote, Latimer reflects on their hobby of walking through Geneva’s countryside as Charles recounts his ideas about science and medicine. Though Latimer has no interest in these subjects, he listens to his friend out of love. This relates to the novella’s depiction of sympathy, which Eliot suggests works better when it is incomplete; when we don’t know another person’s mind completely, we can project our own interests and desires onto that person and half-believe they are reciprocal (even if, like Meunier, we know on some level that they aren’t).

“Nothing of this sort has ever occurred in my dreaming experience before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent terrors of nightmares.”

After Latimer’s first vision of Prague, he dismisses the idea that the vision could have been a dream. Latimer’s dreams thus far have not been as detailed or peaceful as his vision of Prague, allowing him to dismiss the idea that the occurrence is an ordinary experience of his consciousness.

“Already I had begun to taste something of the horror that belongs to the lot of human being whose nature is not adjusted to simple human conditions.”

After Latimer experiences the second vision of his father, Mrs. Filmore, and Bertha, he begins to question whether he has developed a new power of consciousness. He begins to fear the isolation that having such a power will inevitably bring, which exacerbates the isolation he has felt for his entire life.

“I shrank from the idea of disclosing to any one what might be regarded as pitiable peculiarity, most of all from betraying it to my father, who would have suspected my sanity ever after.”

Latimer keeps his visions and experiences with double consciousness a secret, fearing that his father would question his sanity if he learned of them. This deepens Latimer’s isolation and loneliness, as he is unable to connect with his family or Bertha without his insight and foresight influencing his relationships with them; ironically, Latimer’s access to the inner worlds of those around him makes him more cut off from them than ever.

“My diseased consciousness was more intensely and continually occupied with his thoughts and emotions, than with those of any other person who came in my way.”

After Alfred joins the group traveling across Europe, Latimer finds himself obsessed with uncovering the thoughts and emotions of his brother. This is partly because of the life-long antipathy each brother holds for the other and partly because they are both in love with Bertha Grant.

“Bertha was the only being who remained for me in the mysterious seclusion of soul that renders such youthful delusion possible.”

Latimer’s power of insight makes him resentful of everyone around him except Bertha, whose mind and emotions he cannot read. Because of this, Latimer becomes enamored with her, as he is able to dream about and idealize her without the truth of her thoughts influencing him. The irony is that Bertha is more or less the person she presents herself as in public, but Latimer allows himself to believe that she is fundamentally different at heart; he remarks, for example, that she “satirise[s] herself in a very graceful way for her vanity and ambition” (30), romanticizing the very qualities he comes to hate when they are married.

“The fear of poison is feeble against the sense of thirst.”

After Latimer’s vision of Bertha as his hateful, spiteful wife, he finds that he cannot dispel his desire for her. Regardless of whether the future brings him a life of domestic unhappiness, Latimer’s present feelings toward Bertha are too strong to deny, and he plans to marry her despite his vision.

“You have known the powerlessness of ideas before the might of impulse; and my visions, when once they had passed into memory, were mere ideas—pale shadows that beckoned in vain, while my hand was grasped by the living and the loved.”

Despite experiencing a vision of Bertha as a hateful and contemptuous wife, Latimer cannot change his present love for her. The vision and its implications do not seem as important as the present affection he can receive (or can fool himself into believing he receives) from Bertha.

“This man needed no pity, no love; those fine influences would have been as little felt by him as the delicate white mist is felt by the rock it caresses.”

On the morning of Alfred’s death, Latimer considers the stubbornness and selfishness that he believes rules his brother’s character. Latimer's animosity toward his brother mirrors Alfred’s low opinion of Latimer.

“A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of life.”

Spoken by Bertha in response to Latimer’s confusion as to how she can love Alfred, this quote reflects Bertha’s attitude toward marriage and domesticity. Rather than involve herself with a man that she loves and would therefore be emotionally invested in, Bertha prefers to keep her distance from emotions such as love and jealousy by marrying a man she does not admire. Her choice of words is also significant; Bertha’s focus is on “elegance”—the outer forms and conventions of society that the novella satirizes.

“My softened feelings towards my father made this the happiest time I had known since childhood—these last months in which I retained the delicious illusion of loving Bertha, of longing and doubting and hoping that she might love me.”

Following his brother’s death, Latimer experiences a brief period of happiness in which good intentions and respect characterize his relationships with both his father and with Bertha. Latimer knows that this period will inevitably end, as his power of foresight has shown him the hateful marriage he and Bertha will have.

“Our impulses, our spiritual activities, no more adjust themselves to the idea of their future nullity, than the beating of our heart, or the irritability of our muscles.”

Even though Latimer’s power of foresight shows him a depressing future with Bertha as his wife, he cannot control the present love and longing he has for her. He pursues their relationship with the knowledge that it will one day lead to his ability to read Bertha’s thoughts and emotions and discover the contempt she holds for him. Latimer likens this to the human capacity to disbelieve in our own mortality, linking the novella’s examinations of consciousness and death.

“The nervous fatigue of this existence, the insecurities and platitudes which I had to live through twice over—through my inner and outward sense—would have been maddening to me, if I had not that sort of intoxicated callousness which came from the delights of a first passion.”

Following their marriage, Bertha and Latimer visit the other society families in their neighborhood in a display of wealth and privilege. Latimer resents these visits, as it exposes him to the thoughts of an increasing number of people. His only solace during this time is his love for Bertha.

“In the first moments when we come away from the presence of death, every other relation to the living is merged, to our feeling, in the great relation of a common nature and a common destiny.”

Latimer is present at the moment of his father’s death, prompting him to consider how the event of death coincides with greater insight into and emotional sympathy with other living people. The next scene corroborates this theory, as Latimer approaches Bertha and finds that he is finally able to perceive her thoughts and emotions. However, as with Latimer’s experience of insight in general, this heightened “sympathy” in the face of death torments rather than comforts him.

“She had believed that my wild poet’s passion for her would make me her slave; and that, being her slave, I should execute her will in all things.”

Following Latimer’s sudden insight into Bertha’s thoughts and feelings, he discovers that Bertha’s intent in marrying him was to gain a companion that she could control and emotionally manipulate. Latimer’s insight prevents this from happening.

“Towards my own destiny I had become entirely passive; for my one ardent desire had spent itself, and impulse no longer predominated over knowledge.”

Latimer’s insight reveals the extent of Bertha’s dislike of him. Now that Latimer has reached the point where his vision of Bertha is likely close at hand, he accepts his fate as unchangeable and loses interest in repairing his relationship with Bertha. This raises the question of whether Latimer’s ability is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy—that is, whether he actually provokes the thoughts and feelings he finds intolerable in others through his own coldness and isolation.

“The rich find it easy to live married and apart.”

Latimer is grateful for his wealth and social status as it allows him to avoid involving himself in Bertha’s daily life. This quote reflects the privilege of the landed upper-middle class in mid-19th-century England, who could conduct leisurely lives without the pressures of financial dependency.

“All that was personal in me seemed to be suffering a gradual death, so that I was losing the organ through which the personal agitations and projects of others could affect me.”

Latimer’s depression over his relationship with Bertha causes him to care less about the thoughts and emotions he perceives with his insight. This in turn leads his powers to become fitful and then retreat altogether, suggesting that his powers depended upon his interest in what others thought of him.

“And beyond all these, and continually recurring, was the vision of my death—the pangs, the suffocation, the last struggle, when life would be grasped at in vain.”

Latimer experiences an increase in his power of foresight, including the recurring vision of his own death. Latimer’s purpose in writing this account of his own life is to confront this vision directly and leave some memento of himself before his inevitable death occurs.

“The horror I had of again breaking in on the privacy of another soul, made me, by an irrational instinct, draw the shroud of concealment more closely around my own, as we automatically perform the gesture we feel to be wanting in another.”

During Charles Meunier’s visit, Latimer considers telling his friend about his experience with double consciousness. He decides not to risk arousing his latent insight by telling Meunier and instead remains silent.

“I felt that Bertha had been watching for the moment of death as the sealing of her secret: I thanked Heaven it could remain sealed for me.”

At the moment of Mrs. Archer’s first death, Latimer perceives that Bertha is relieved. She believes that the secret of her intent to poison Latimer will remain hidden, unaware of Meunier’s plan to resuscitate Mrs. Archer through a transfusion of his blood.