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Maggie Tulliver
Protagonist and eventual amateur English musician from the 1860 novel The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans), originally published in three volumes in 1860. She lives in the fictional village of St Ogg's in Lincolnshire, England.
Her cousin and friend Lucy Deane invites her to stay and cheers her by bringing music into her life, and encouraging her to play piano. But it eventually leads to a love triangle between Maggie, Philip Wakem, and Lucy's suitor, Stephen Guest.
"I think we people who have not been galloping," she said to Stephen, " are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have some music. We ought to take advantage of having Philip and you together. Give us the duet in Masaniello: Maggie has not heard that, and I know it will suit her."
"Come then," said Stephen, going towards the piano, and giving a foretaste of the tune in his deep "brum-brum," very pleasant to hear.
"You, please, Philip, you play the accompaniment," said Lucy, " and then I can go on with my work. You will like to play, sha'n't you ? " she added, with a pretty inquiring look, anxious, as usual, lest she should have proposed what was not pleasant to another, but with yearnings towards her unfinished embroidery.
Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music, that does not make a man sing or play the better; and Philip had an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as complex as any trio or quartet that was ever meant to express love and jealousy, and resignation and fierce suspicion, all at the same time.
