''George Eliot's Gothic story . . . continues her preoccupation with human communication and sympathy through the figure of the telepathic narrator. Latimer, one of her least likeable characters, suffers tremendously under his heightened awareness of others' petty and selfish thoughts. Latimer chooses to tell the story of his abilities as a tale of disability, a kind of pathography about his gift . . . . The vehemence of his disgust for human frailties suggests that Latimer's pain derives at least in part from his failure of empathy for others . . . Thus, his uncanny hearing unmasks a kind of sympathetic deafness to others, and his progressive heart disease indexes the shriveling of his capacity for human love and friendship.'' --Literature Arts Medicine Database