Latimer, the narrator of The Lifted Veil, possesses an uncanny ability to see into the minds of others and to divine the future, including the moment of his own death. The gift of being able to read the private thoughts and emotions of his fellow men soon becomes a curse to Latimer, for he is horrified by what he discovers. Afflicted by his burden of knowledge, he is driven to marry the cold-hearted coquette Bertha - the only person whose mind seems closed to him, until it is too late. This volume also includes George Eliot's only other short fictional work; the satirical fable Brother Jacob, in which the mercenary schemes of a devious confectioner are unconsciously thwarted by the childlike innocence of his 'idiot' brother.