Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (929 page)

She made her younger admirers feel the deeper influence of her great personality by inspiring them with the largest moral purposes. To awaken and to arouse the moral nature seems always to have been her purpose, and to lead it to the highest attainable results. Earnest young minds never “failed to feel in her presence that they were for the time, at all events, raised into a higher moral level, and none ever left her without feeling inspired with a stronger sense of duty, and positively under the obligation of striving to live up to a higher standard of life.” Hence her personal influence was considerable, though she led the close life of a student, and did not go into general society at all. This high moral earnestness made her a prophet to her friends, as in her books it made her a great moral teacher to the world at large. Those who had the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with Mrs. Lewes have pronounced the woman greater than her books. She was not only a great writer but a great woman. Human nature in its largest capacities was represented in her, for she rose above the limitations of sex; and she is thought of less as a great woman than as a large human personality. Hers was a massive nature, emphatic, individual, many-sided. Genius of a very high order, though not the highest, was hers, while she was possessed of a broad culture and great learning. Seldom does genius carry with it talents so varied and well-trained or a culture so full and thorough. And her culture was of that kind which entered into every fibre of her nature and became a part of her own personality. It was thoroughly digested and absorbed into good healthy red blood, and became a quickened, sustained motive to the largest efforts. How vital this love of culture was, may be seen when we are told that “she possessed in an eminent degree that power which has led to success in so many directions, of keeping her mind unceasingly at the stretch without conscious fatigue. She would cease to ponder or to read when other duties called her, but never because she herself felt tired. Even in so complex an effort as a visit to a picture gallery implies, she could continue for hours at the same pitch of earnest interest, and outweary strong men. Nor was this a mere habit of passive reception. In the intervals between her successive compositions her mind was always fusing and combining its fresh stores.”

She had culture, moral power and earnestness in a high degree, warmth of sympathy and sensitiveness to all beauty, but she had no saintliness. Profound as was her reverence for moral purity, and lofty as was her moral purpose, she was not a saint, and holiness was not a characteristic of her nature. This clear and high sense of moral truth everywhere appears in her life and thought. “For the lessons most imperatively needed by the mass of men, the lessons of deliberate kindness, of careful truth, of unwavering endeavor, — for these plain themes one could not ask a more convincing teacher than she. Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul. The deeply lined face, the too marked and massive features, were united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way was the more impressive because it seemed to proceed entirely from within. Nay, the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the external harshness; there would be moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave appeal, — all these seemed the transparent symbols that showed the presence of a wise, benignant soul. But it was the voice which best revealed her, a voice whose subdued intensity and tremulous richness seemed to environ her uttered words with the mystery of a world that must remain untold. And then again, when in moments of more intimate converse some current of emotion would set strongly through her soul, when she would raise her head in unconscious absorption and look out into the unseen, her expression was not one to be soon forgotten. It has not, indeed, the serene felicity of souls to whose childlike confidence all heaven and earth are fair. Rather it was the look of a strenuous Demiurge, of a soul on which high tasks are laid, and which finds in their accomplishment its only imagination of joy.”

Another side of her influence on persons is expressed by the representative of that publishing house which gave her books to the world. “In addition to the spell which bound the world to her by her genius, she had a personal power of drawing to herself, in ties of sympathy and kindly feeling, all who came under her influence. She never oppressed any one by her talents; she never allowed any one to be sensible of the depth and variety of her scholarship; she knew, as few know, how to draw forth the views and feelings of her visitors, and to make their sympathies her own. There was a charm in her personal character which of itself was sufficient to conciliate deep and lasting regard. Every one who entered her society left it impressed with the conviction that they had been under the influence of a sympathy and tenderness not less remarkable than the force of her mental power…. Her deep and catholic love for humanity in its broadest and best sense, which was in itself the strongest quickening motive of her genius, will maintain her influence in the future as in the present.”

Hers was a somewhat sensitive, shrinking nature, with no self-assumption, and without the taint of egotism. She had a modest estimate of her own great literary creations, and shrank from all mention of them and from the homage paid to her as an author. After the publication of
Romola
she was one day reading French to a girl companion in the garden of a Swiss hotel, when a lady drew near to listen to the silvery tones of her voice. Noticing this, she said, “Do you understand?” The lady answered, “I do not care for the matter; I only came to listen to your voice.” “Do you like it?” was then inquired. When the lady expressed the pleasure it gave her, Mrs. Lewes took her hand and warmly said, “I thank you. I would rather you would compliment my voice than my
Romola
.” [Footnote: This story is not authenticated; it may be taken for what it is worth, though it appears to be characteristic.]

It has been truly said of her that above all novelists, with the exception of Goethe, she was supreme in culture. She had a passion for knowledge, and zeal in the pursuit of learning. She was a lover of books, but not a scholar in the technical and exact sense. Delighting in literature, art, music, and all that appeals to the imagination, rather than in mere information, yet she was a thinker of original powers, with a keen appreciation of philosophy, and ability to tread its most difficult paths with firm step. She had an intimate acquaintance with the literatures of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and she was well read in the classics of Greece and Rome. She was “competently acquainted” with the different systems of philosophy, and she had mastered their problems while thinking out her own conclusions. Having no professional knowledge of the sciences, she was a diligent reader of scientific books, and was familiar with all the bearings of science on philosophy and religion. Her books show an intimate knowledge of modern thought in many of its phases, as it bears upon physical, economic, historical and intellectual science. With all her learning, however, she retained a woman’s sympathy with life, beauty and poetry. Her knowledge was never dry and technical, but warm and imaginative with genius and poetry. [Footnote: Her scholarly habits, and her realistic tendencies, usually made George Eliot very painstaking and accurate, but an occasional slip of pen or memory is to be noted in her books. In Theophrastus Such she credited to the Apologia of Plato what is really contained in the Phaedo. The motto to chapter seventeen of Daniel Deronda was quoted, in the first edition, as from In Memoriam instead of Locksley Hall. In an early chapter of Felix Holt she made the parson preach from the words, “Break up the fallow ground of your hearts.” The words of scripture are, “Break up your fallow ground.” In Adam Bede a clergyman is made to take the words of the Prayer Book, “In the midst of life we are in death,” for his text.]

Her culture may be compared with Mrs. Browning’s, who was also an extensive reader and widely informed. The poet as well as the novelist acquired her learning because of her thirst for knowledge, and mainly by her own efforts; but she preferred the classics to science, and literature to philosophy. Mrs. Browning was the wiser, George Eliot the more learned. The writings of Mrs. Browning are less affected by her information than George Eliot’s; and this is true because she was of a more poetical temperament, because her imagination was more brilliant and creative.

Mrs. Lewes was an enthusiastic lover of art, and especially of music. She never tired in her interest in beholding fine paintings, and music was the continual delight of her life. She was a tireless frequenter of picture galleries, and every fine musical entertainment in London was sure to find her, in company with Mr. Lewes, an enthusiastic listener. Good acting also claimed not a little of her interest, and she carefully studied even the details of the dramatic art, so that she was able to give a critical appreciation to the acting she enjoyed. Indeed, she had given to her mind that rounded fulness of attainment, and developed all her faculties with that due proportion, which Fichte so earnestly preached as the characteristic of true culture. “Her character,” says Edith Simcox, “seemed to include every possibility of action and emotion; no human passion was wanting in her nature, there were no blanks or negations; and the marvellous thing was to see how, in this wealth of impulses and desires, there was no crash of internal discord, no painful collisions with other human interests outside; how, in all her life, passions of volcanic strength were harnessed in the service of those nearest her, and so inspired by the permanent instinct of devotion to her kind, that it seemed as if it were by her own choice they spent themselves there only where their force was welcome. Her very being was a protest against the opposing and yet cognate heresies that half the normal human passions must be strangled in the quest of virtue, and that the attainment of virtue is a dull and undesirable end, seeing that it implies the sacrifice of most that makes life interesting.” She had her own temptations and her imperfections. With these she struggled bravely, and set herself to the hard task of correction and discipline. Her culture was not merely one of books, but it was also one of moral discipline and of strenuous spiritual subjection. It was one of stern moral requirements and duties, as well as one of large sympathy with all that is natural and beautiful.

It was a quiet life of continuous study and authorship which Mrs. Lewes led in The Priory, and it was varied from year to year only by her visits to the continent and by her summer residence in Surrey. One of her summer retreats, at the village of Shotter Mill, has been described, as well as her life there. The most picturesque house in the place is known as Brookbank, and here she spent a summer, that of 1871. It is described as “an old two-storied cottage, the front of the house being half-covered with trailing rose-trees. The rooms are low but pleasant, and furnished in a simple, comfortable manner. We have often endeavored,” says the writer of this account, “to glean some information regarding George Eliot’s life at Shotter Mill, but she and Mr. Lewes lived in such seclusion that there was very little to be told. They seldom crossed their threshold during the day, but wandered over the commons and hills after sundown. They were very anxious to lodge at the picturesque old farm, ten minutes’ walk beyond Brookbank, but all available room was then occupied. However, George Eliot would often visit the farmer’s wife, and, sitting on a grassy bank just beside the kitchen door, would discuss the growth of fruit and the quality of butter in a manner so quiet and simple the good country folks were astonished, expecting very different conversation from the great novelist. The farmer was employed to drive them two or three times a week. They occasionally visited Tennyson, whose home is only three miles distant, though a rather tedious drive, since it is up hill nearly all the way. George Eliot did not enjoy the ride much, for the farmer told us that, ‘withal her being such a mighty clever body, — she were very nervous in a carriage — allays wanted to go on a smooth road, and seemed dreadful feared of being thrown out.’ George Eliot was writing
Middlemarch
during her summer at Brookbank, and the term for which they had the cottage expired before they wished to return to London. The Squire was away at the time, so they procured permission to use his house during the remainder of the visit. In speaking of them he said, ‘I visited Mr. and Mrs. Lewes several times before they went back to town, and found the authoress a very agreeable woman, both in manner and appearance; but her mind was evidently completely absorbed in her work; she seemed to have no time for anything but writing from morning till night. Her hand could hardly convey her thoughts to paper fast enough. It was an exceptionally hot summer, and yet through it all Mrs. Lewes would have artificial heat placed at her feet to keep up the circulation. Why, one broiling day I came home worn out, longing for a gray sky and a cool breeze, and on going into the garden I found her sitting there, her head just shaded by a deodara on the lawn, writing away as usual. I expostulated with her for letting the midday sun pour down on her like that. ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I like it. To-day is the first time I have felt warm this summer.’ So I said no more, and went my way.’ And thus nearly all we could learn about George Eliot was that she loved to bask in the sun and liked green peas. She visited some of the cottagers, but only those living in secluded places, who knew nothing of her. Just such people as these she used in her graphic and realistic sketches of peasant life. With regard to the surrounding country, George Eliot said that it pleased her more than any she knew of in England.”