ABSTRACT
Marian Evans had read Goethe as well as works by Schiller and other German writers. When George Eliot came to write The Mill on the Floss, she had refreshed her memory of her first impressions of the Rhine by a second journey along this route in 1858. Marian's understanding of painting and sculpture at the beginning of the journey was limited to a subjective response to the situations and characters depicted, but a growing knowledge and sophistication in discussing works of art becomes evident as the journey progresses. To Marian, who had defined herself as someone who had rejected Protestant dogma, the city's strongly religious atmosphere must have been repellent. In 1854, when Marian Evans visited Koblenz, a quarter of the local population lived below the poverty line and some two thirds of the rest earned just enough to live on.
