Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (917 page)
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Authors: George Eliot
Eating and drinking is the mystery of the Lord’s Supper; — eating and drinking is in fact in itself a religious act; at least, ought to be so.
Think, therefore, with every morsel of bread which relieves thee from the pain of hunger, with every draught of wine which cheers thy heart, of the God, who confers these beneficent gifts upon thee, — think of Man! But in thy gratitude towards man forget not gratitude towards holy Nature! Forget not that wine is the blood of plants, and flour the flesh of plants, which are sacrificed for thy well-being! Forget not that the plant typifies to thee the essence of Nature, which lovingly surrenders itself for thy enjoyment! Therefore forget not the gratitude which thou owest to the natural qualities of bread and wine! And if thou art inclined to smile that I call eating and drinking religious acts, because they are common every-day acts, and are therefore performed by multitudes without thought, without emotion; reflect, that the Lord’s Supper is to multitudes a thoughtless, emotionless act, because it takes place often; and, for the sake of comprehending the religious significance of bread and wine, place thyself in a position where the daily act is unnaturally, violently interrupted. Hunger and thirst destroy not only the physical but also the mental and moral powers of man; they rob him of his humanity — of understanding, of consciousness. Oh! if thou shouldst ever experience such want, how wouldst thou bless and praise the natural qualities of bread and wine, which restore to thee thy humanity, thy intellect! It needs only that the ordinary course of things be interrupted in order to vindicate to common things an uncommon significance,
to life, as such, a religious import
. Therefore let bread be sacred for us, let wine be sacred, and also let water be sacred! Amen.
George Willis Cooke (1848-1923), born in Comstock, Michigan, was a Unitarian minister, writer, editor, and lecturer best known now for his landmark history of the Unitarian movement in the 19th century and for his work on transcendentalist writers and publications. An insatiable reader throughout his life, Cooke was largely self-taught. He studied at the Meadville Theological School in 1872, but never received an academic degree. Ordained in June, 1872, he served in the parish ministry for the next 28 years, though he was actively engaged in writing and editorial work as well.
In 1883 Cooke published this biographical study of Eliot’s life and works.
CONTENTS
LITERARY TRAITS AND TENDENCIES.
THE SPANISH GYPSY AND OTHER POEMS.
THE LIMITATIONS OF HER THOUGHT.
The poet and the novelist write largely out of personal experience, and must give expression to the effects of their own history. What they have seen and felt, gives shape and tone to what they write; that which is nearest their own hearts is poured forth in their books. To ignore these influences is to overlook a better part of what they write, and is often to lose the explanation of many features of their work. Shakspere is one of those who are of no time or place, whose words gain no added meaning in view of what he was and how he lived; but it is not so with a great number of the best and most inspiring writers. The era in which they lived, the intellectual surroundings afforded them by their country and generation, the subtle phases of sentiment and aspiration of their immediate time and place, are all essential to a true appreciation of their books. It is so of Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Hugo, Wordsworth, Emerson, and how many more!
As we must know the eighteenth century in its social spirit, literary tendencies, revolutionary aims, romantic aspirations, philosophy and science, to know Goethe, so must we know the nineteenth century in its scientific attainments, agnostic philosophy, realistic spirit and humanitarian aims, in order to know George Eliot. She is a product of her time, as Lessing, Goethe, Wordsworth and Byron were of theirs; a voice to utter its purpose and meaning, as well as a trumpet-call to lead it on. As Goethe came after Lessing, Herder and Kant, so George Eliot came after Comte, Mill and Spencer. Her books are to be read in the light of their speculations, and she embodied in literary forms what they uttered as science or philosophy.
Not only is a poet’s mind affected by the tone of thought about him, but his personal experiences and surroundings are likely to have a large influence on what he writes. Scott was deeply affected by the romantic atmosphere of his native land. Her birthplace and youthful surroundings had a like effect on George Eliot. The Midland home, the plain village life, the humble, toiling country folk, shaped for her the scenes and characters about which she was to write. Some knowledge of her early home and the influences amidst which her mind was formed, help largely to an appreciation of her books and the views of life which she presents in them.
The Midland region of England she has pictured with something of that accuracy with which Scott described the Border. It is a country of historic memories. Near by her childhood home was the forest of Arden and Astly Castle, the home of Sir John Grey, whose widow, Elizabeth Woodville, became the queen of Edward IV. This was also one of the homes of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who was found in a hollow tree near by after his rebellion; and the home, likewise, of his daughter, Lady Jane Grey. In another direction was Bosworth Field; and within twenty miles was Stratford-upon-Avon. The ancient city of Coventry was not far distant. It was not these historic regions which attracted her, however, so much as the pleasant country, the common people, the quiet villages. With observant eyes she saw the world about her as it was and she entered into the heart of its life, and has painted it for us in a most sympathetic, appreciative spirit. The simple, homely, unromantic life of middle England she has made immortal with her wit, her satire, her fine description, and her keen love of all that is human. She herself recognized the importance of her early surroundings. In one of her letters she used these words:
It is interesting, I think, to know whether a writer was born in a central or border district — a condition which always has a strongly determining influence. I was born in Warwickshire, but certain family traditions connected with more northerly districts made these districts a region of poetry to me in my early childhood. I was brought up in the Church of England, and have never joined any other religious society, but I have had close acquaintance with many Dissenters of various sects, from Calvinistic Anabaptists to Unitarians.
The influence of the surroundings of childhood upon character she has more than once touched upon in her books. In the second chapter of
Theophrastus Such
, she says, —
I cherish my childish loves — the memory of that warm little nest where my affections were fledged.
In the same essay she says, —
Our Midland plains have never lost their familiar expression and conservative spirit for me.
In
Daniel Deronda
she most tenderly expresses the same deep conviction concerning the soul’s need of anchorage in some familiar and inspiring scene, with which the memories of childhood may be delightfully associated. Her own fond recollections lent force to whatever philosophical significance such a theory may have had for her.
A human life should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge; a spot where the definiteness of early knowledge may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and monkeys, may spread, not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.
Mary Ann Evans was born at South Farm, a mile from Griff, in the parish of Colton, Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. In after years she adopted the abbreviated form of her name, and was known by her friends as Marian. When she was six months old the family moved to Griff House, which was situated half-way between Bedworth, a mining village, and the manufacturing town of Nuneaton. In approaching Griff from Nuneaton, a little valley, known as Griff Hollows, is passed, much resembling the “Red Deeps” of
The Mill on the Floss
. On the right, a little beyond, is Griff House, a comfortable and substantial dwelling surrounded by pleasant gardens and lawns.
Robert Evans, her father, was born at Ellaston, Staffordshire, of a substantial family of mechanics and craftsmen. He was of massive build, tall, wide-shouldered and strong, and his features were of a marked, emphatic cast. He began life as a master carpenter, then became a forester, and finally a land agent. He was induced to settle in Warwickshire by Sir Roger Newdigate, his principal employer, and for the remainder of his life he had charge of five large estates in the neighborhood. In this employment he was successful, being respected and trusted to the fullest extent by his employers, his name becoming a synonym for trustworthiness. Marian many times sketched the main traits of her father’s character, as in the love of perfect work in “Stradivarius.” He had Adam Bede’s stalwart figure and robust manhood. Caleb Garth, in
Middlemarch
, is in many ways a fine portrait of him as to the nature of his employment, his delight in the soil, and his honest, rugged character.
Caleb was wont to say that “it’s a fine thing to have the chance of getting a bit of the country into good fettle, and putting men into the right way with their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving and solid building done — that those who are living and those who come after will be the better for. I’d sooner have it than a fortune. I hold it the most honorable work that is.” Robert Evans, like Caleb Garth, “while faithfully serving his employers enjoyed great popularity among their tenants. He was gentle but of indomitable firmness; and while stern to the idle and unthrifty, he did not press heavily on those who might be behindhand with their rent, owing to ill luck or misfortune, on quarter days.”
While still living in Staffordshire, Robert Evans lost his first wife, by whom he had a son and a daughter. His second wife, the mother of Marian, was a Miss Pearson, a gentle, loving woman, and a notable housewife. She is described in the Mrs. Hackit of “Amos Barton,” whose industry, sharp tongue, epigrammatic speech and marked character were taken from life. Something of Mrs. Poyser also entered into her nature. She had three children, Christiana, Isaac and Mary Ann. The house at Griff was situated in a rich landscape, and was a large, commodious farm-house of red brick, ivy-covered, and of two stories’ height. At the back was a large garden, and a farm-yard with barns and sheds.
In the series of sonnets entitled “Brother and Sister,” Marian has given some account of her early life. She had the attachment there described for her brother Isaac, and followed him about with the same persistence and affection. The whole of that poem is autobiographical. The account of the mother gives a delightful glimpse into Marian’s child-life:
Our mother bade us keep the trodden ways,
Stroked down my tippet, set my brother’s frill,
Then with the benediction of her gaze
Clung to us lessening, and pursued us still
Across the homestead to the rookery elms,
Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound,
So rich for us, we counted them as realms
With varied products.
The early life of Marian Evans has, in many features of it, been very fully described in the story of Maggie Tulliver. How far her own life is that of Maggie may be seen by comparing the earlier chapters in
The Mill on the Floss
with the “Brother and Sister.” The incident described in the poem, of her brother leaving her in charge of the fishing-rod, is repeated in all its main features in the experiences of Maggie. In the poem she describes an encounter with a gipsy, which again recalls Maggie’s encounter with some persons of that race. The whole account of her childhood life with her brother, her trust in him, their delight in the common pleasures of childhood, and the impression made on her by the beauties of nature, reappears in striking similarity in the description of the child-life of Maggie and Tom. These elements of her early experience and observation of life have been well described by one who knew her personally. This person says that “Maggie Tulliver’s childhood is clearly full of the most accurate personal recollections.”
Marian Evans very early became an enthusiastic reader of the best books. In an almanac she found a portion of one of the essays of Charles Lamb, and remembered reading it with great delight. In her seventh year a copy of
Waverley
was loaned to her older sister. She became herself intensely fascinated by it, and when it was returned before she had completed it she was thrown into much distress. The story so possessed her that she began to complete it in writing, according to her own conception. When this was discovered, the book was again secured for her perusal. This incident she has described in a sonnet, which appears as the motto to the fifty-seventh chapter of
Middlemarch
.
They numbered scarce eight summers when a name
Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there
As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame
At penetration of the quickening air:
His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu,
Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,
Making the little world their childhood knew
Large with a land of mountain, lake and scaur,
And larger yet with wonder, love, belief,
Toward Walter Scott, who living far away
Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief.
The book and they must part, but day by day,
In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran,
They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan.
Not only was she a great reader, but she was also a diligent and even a precocious student, learning easily and rapidly whatever she undertook to acquire in the way of knowledge.
She was first sent, with her brother Isaac, to a free school in the village of Griff. Among her mates was William Jacques, the original of Bob Jakins in
The Mill on the Floss
. When seven years old she went to a girls’ school at Nuneaton. Her schoolmates describe her as being then a “quiet, reserved girl, with strongly lined, almost masculine features, and a profusion of light hair worn in curls round her head.” The abundance of her curling hair caused her much trouble, and she once cut it off, as Maggie Tulliver did, because it would not “lie straight.” “One of her school-fellows,” we are told, “recalls that the first time she sat down to the piano she astonished her companions by the knowledge of music she had already acquired. She mastered her lessons with an ease which excited wonder. She read with avidity. She joined very rarely in the sports of her companions, and her diffidence and shrinking sensibility prevented her from forming any close friendship among her school-fellows. When she stood up in the class, her features, heavy in repose, were lighted by eager excitement, which found further vent in nervous movements of her hands. At this school Marian was well taught in English, with drawing, music, and some little French.”
Leaving this school at the age of twelve, she went to that of the Misses Franklin in Coventry, a large town a few miles distant. To the careful training received there she was much indebted, and in after years often spoke of it with the heartiest appreciation. One of her friends, Edith Simcox, has given an account of this school and of Marian’s studies there. “Almost on the outskirts of the old town of Coventry, towards the railway station, the house may still be seen, itself an old-fashioned five-windowed, Queen Anne sort of dwelling, with a shell-shaped cornice over the door, with an old timbered cottage facing it, and near adjoining a quaint brick and timber building, with an oriel window thrown out upon oak pillars. Between forty and fifty years ago, Methodist ladies kept the school, and the name of ‘little mamma,’ given by her school-fellows, is a proof that already something was to be seen of the maternal air which characterized her in later years, and perhaps more especially in intercourse with her own sex. Prayer meetings were in vogue among the girls, following the example of their elders; and while taking, no doubt, a leading part in them, she used to suffer much self-reproach about her coldness and inability to be carried away with the same enthusiasm as others. At the same time, nothing was farther from her nature than any sceptical inclination, and she used to pounce with avidity upon any approach to argumentative theology within her reach, carrying Paley’s
Evidences
up to her bedroom, and devouring it as she lay upon the floor alone.”