Elevated
If you've read Adam Bede, you've probably had to spend a fair amount of time trudging through sentences like:
Desire is chastened into submission, and we are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence and act as I we were not suffering. (508.50)
Yeeeks.
The advanced, almost philosophical vocabulary. The royal "we." The freaky-calm voice that (in our heads at least) sounds like Glenn Close or Doctor Spock, or a bit of both. People, if writing like this could get any more elevated, they'd need a crane to get it down.
But that isn't a totally bad thing. Adam Bede is a story of idealism, betrayal, and a "love that had brought hope and comfort in the hour of despair" (55.7). Can you tell a story like this without an elevated style? What else would work? Haiku? Stream-of-consciousness? Sketch comedy?
We'd love to see somebody try telling Adam Bede using the last one. But for now, face it: as vertigo-inducingly elevated as Eliot's style is, it works.