Daniel Deronda (post 5) by George Eliot (post 8): Talking “behind your own back” — two minor characters, unknowingly, make a multiple personality joke.

“Oh me, Hans!” said Mab, impatiently, “if you must talk of yourself, let it be behind your own back” (1, p. 727).

To talk behind someone’s back is to say something about them without their knowing about it. This is easy to do when three people are involved: B and C gossip about A when A is not present.

But how can a person talk behind his own back? The only way is for that person to have multiple personality: Personality B, who is well aware of (co-conscious with) Personality A, tells another person something about A, but A does not know what B said, because A is not aware of (co-conscious with) B.

Did George Eliot have the experience of saying things behind her own back? That is, did people tell her that she had told them something about herself that she had no memory of having told them?

1. George Eliot. Daniel Deronda. London, Penguin Books, 1876/2003.