“Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.”

Mary Ann Evans, a Victorian English novelist and critic, wrote under the male pseudonym George Eliot. She is best known for her psychologically nuanced novels exploring human complexity, particularly *Middlemarch* and *Adam Bede*. Her work remains influential for its realistic portrayal of rural and social life.