Are the dreamlike musings of a sensitive intellectual truly predictive, or merely the result of an overactive imagination? George Eliot, today on The Classic Tales Podcast. Welcome to The Classic Tales Podcast. Thank you for listening. Many, many thanks to our 340 members who support us regularly. Each episode of The Classic Tales Podcast is initially downloaded over 10,000 times in the course of a week from the time it’s released, and we are so grateful for all of our supporters who have stepped up and helped to sustain us. 2020 marks the beginning of our 14th season, and we’d love to keep on going. If you enjoy listening to The Classic Tales, please consider becoming a supporting member. It helps support the podcast, and it’s a great way to build out your library of classics. By making a monthly donation of just $5, you’ll receive a corresponding thank-you code for an $8 discount off any audiobook order. Donate $10 a month or more, and you get a $17 discount. You win, and we get to keep going strong. Go now to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a member today. We’d like to thank Spotify for being a partnering sponsor. I am working on an initiative to make The Classic Tales audiobooks free for public schools. Thank you to everyone who has visited the website, purchased audiobooks, or recommended or reviewed us. It goes a long way! Anything you can do to help us to grow and sustain ourselves will help us put the classics into the ears of the next generation. Thank you. This week we are showcasing the amazing work of George Eliot, the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans. A good friend of mine, Morag Kawasaki, did a recent research project showcasing the role of women in romantic and Victorian literature. George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans came up time and time again as the most important female author at this time. Some key takeaways were: women weren’t judged against the published men of the time, they were only reviewed against each other. They were also held to a much higher standard than the male writers of the time. Also, Eliot not only spoke but translated four languages: English, German, Greek and Hebrew. Henry James, when writing about her novel Middlemarch, pointed to the ‘constant presence of thought, of generalizing instinct, of brain’ and he paid passionate tribute to Eliot’s ‘intellectual vigor, her immense facility, her exemption of cerebral lassitude’”. Today’s story is about an intellectual, who, after suffering an illness, realizes he has gained the ability to read the thoughts of those around him. His name is Latimer, which means ‘one who interprets Latin’. Even this person’s name is indicative of understanding that which is hidden to most others. The command of the language, and this ability of Eliot’s to see what others don’t are elegantly evident. I hope you like it. App users can read Morag’s entire research project, The Journey of the Romantic & Victorian Female Author in their special features for this week’s episode. And now, The Lifted Veil, Part 1 of 2, by George Eliot. Tap here to go to www.classictalesaudiobooks.com and become a financial supporter! Tap here to become an Erudite Troglodyte - The Classic Tales Merchandise store! Tap here to purchase Huckleberry Finn – the first Hybrid Audiobook