Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. II, 1872.djvu/330

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MIDDLEMARCH.

oughly, namely, the slovenly habits of farming, and the awkwardness of weather, stock and crops, at Freeman's End—so called apparently by way of sarcasm, to imply that a man was free to quit it if he chose, but that there was no earthly "beyond" open to him.