GEORGE ELIOT: A PERSONAL SKETCH. and unaffected regret. From the time THE last sheets of the January magazine had just passed through the press when we were informed of the death of the great and gifted author whose name stands at the head of this notice. The loss of George Eliot in the full tide of her fame and the ripe maturity of her brilliant genius, calls for something more in these pages than an echo of the unanimous expression of sorrow which her unexpected death has drawn from the press. It is now nearly a quarter of a century since George Eliot came forward, an unknown and diffident writer, to strive for literary distinction in our columns, and the relationship which then commenced ripened into a mutual regard, to which she gave an affecting expression in one of the last letters written by her before her fatal illness. George Eliot has not long survived the Editor, whose proudest literary success was the recognition and promotion of her genius, and whose death she mourned with deep NEW SERIES-VOL. XXXIII., No. 4 To sketch the life of George Eliot, except in so far as it is connected with her work, does not enter into the object of this memorial. The remembrance of her private life, her lofty nature, her selfsacrificing disposition, and rare affection, is a precious legacy to the loving circle of friends by whom she was surrounded which we would not willingly impair by dwelling upon. It was as George Eliot that she appeared before the public, and 28 it is as George Eliot that we wish to regard her in this notice, believing that such a mode of commemorating her is the one that would have been most congenial to her own feelings. Happily we have in her works, and in our private correspondence relating to them, all that is requisite for constructing a brief history of her genius. From these we can form a fairly accurate idea of how the genius of George Eliot was moulded, and whence she drew the materials for her marvellous creations of character. In "Daniel Deronda" George Eliot writes thus: "A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowl edge; a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection but as a sweet habit of the blood." In it so deeply in her imagination. We are most conscious of her strength, most sensible that her feelings are stirred, when she is drawing for our delight from the storehouse of her fresh young impressions. When she leaves the English Midlands and its folk, we may still be impressed by her genius; but we are conscious of an admixture of art, which we never detect so long as she is within her own special province. Of her early ability we can judge for ourselves by observing how she could take hold of the minutest details of country life, even in matters that lie beyond the usual ken of girls and women. When the 'Scenes of Clerical Life" appeared, excellent critics maintained that only a clergyman could have written the book; while to our knowledge a practical cabinetmaker. who had got an early copy of "Adam Bede," felt certain that it could be the work only of one who had been bred as a carpenter. In the sonnets entitled 'Brother and Sister" we have a more direct reminiscence of these early days. The hours of her childish rambles with her brother, she tells us, 66 touch, * * * * 66 * Took easily as warmth a various food When we two wandered toward the far-off It was this tender love of kinship with the face of the earth, and acquaintance with all neighbors, even to the dogs and "Were seed to all my after good. donkeys," that first leavened George My infant gladness, through eye, ear, and Eliot's mind, and taught her what poetry and romance lie imbedded in our commonest surroundings. Not the depth of her self-acquired culture-not even her subsequent association with persons of the highest intellect and experience of the world-did for her what her country nurture in the Midlands had done. Maggie of Dorlcote Mill, we find revealed many of the feelings and stages of thought and temperament through which George Eliot herself must undoubtedly have passed. The imaginative girl, seeking for a more refined sympathy than that which she found around her; disposed to quarrel with surface conventionalities; full of love to all, but too sensitive to show it; happy in her own world, but still striving after a more ideal life, of which she gets fitful glimpses through the few books that come to her hand-Maggie Tulliver must surely have been of kindred blood to the girl that was to be one day George Eliot. Only an intense love for the face of the country-for the work-a-day people, and for the leisurely life that was going on about her-could have printed the pictures of It was well that a great genius arose to save for us pictures of a state of society that has now passed away. The Midlands in George Eliot's childhood still retained the quiet, old-fashioned, easy-going life of the last century. Railroads were unknown; newspapers had not reached the masses; politics commanded little general interest; the affairs of each small community were to itself all in all; and people cared little what went on in the next county, and still less what was happening in other countries. Such spirit of inquiry as was abroad found expression in religious dissent, which was then sufficiently uncommon to scandalize the well-to-do among the people, and sometimes to attract persecution, as in the case of poor Mr. Tryan. If the people grumbled, it was at some thing that directly affected their own interests-such as tithes or taxes; and they cared little for the improvement of their political position. Squires were squires in those days, and rectors were rectors great local magnates whose personal dispositions were everything to the people with whom they came in contact, and whose rights and privileges, however arbitrarily they might be exercised, were not to be called in question. Steam factories and machinery had not yet tended to extinguish individuality among the working classes, and a clever handicraftsman was a person of general consideration. The inn landlord and the parish clerk were people of social standing, and the mailcoachman a great public character. Education was confined to the few, and general knowledge was far from being either accurate or extensive. From the height of our own enlightenment, we are apt to look back with a species of contempt upon so primitive a state of society; and yet it was its quaintness and simplicity that fascinated George Eliot's mind and gave a color to her genius. It is noteworthy that in "Adam Bede" and in the "Mill on the Floss," where she is dealing with the older condition of the country, she is much more successful than in "Felix Holt," which belongs to the era of the Reform upheaval; and this would almost justify us in believing that she had seen less that was beautiful and lovable in the latter than in the former stage, though her sympathies were unmistakably with the newer epoch. The reality of her convictions never altogether gets the better of her sentimental liking for the England of her own early life; and she presents the singular case of one who is at once an advanced advocate of progress and an enthusiastic laudator temporis acti. "Mine," she playfully says, "I fear, is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors." In the introduction of "Felix Holt," in the exquisite description of a stage-coach journey in the days before railways, the same key-note is struck. And who can forget the beautiful lament over the death of "Fine Old Leisure," who "read only one newspaper, innocent of leaders, and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call post-time? He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent digestion of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis: happy in his inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things themselves." There was much quiet humor and sometimes a good deal of easy banter mixed in her records of old country recollections; but we cannot mistake the kindly and genial associations which in her after-life were mingled with the retrospect of the society in which her youth was passed. It would be a nice point to determine the exact degree in which George Eliot's genius was influenced by the scholarship and culture of her after - life. No amount of metaphysical study or scientific research could have led to the creation of Mrs. Poyser. ation of Mrs. Poyser. The majority of the most powerful characters in her earlier novels had been seen and grasped by her before leaving Nuneaton; and the strict lines of study which she delighted to follow are, justly or not, believed to fetter rather than expand the imagination. It has often been objected that her fondness for scientific illustration was a blemish on the style of her novels; and though we do not share this view, we like her most when she is most natural. Yet the culture and scholarship which she possessed in a greater degree than usually falls to the lot of her sex, and of most writers of fiction, make themselves manifest all through her writings, and form a fitting complement of the great gifts with which nature had endowed her. It would also be interesting, were it possible, to trace the revolution which George Eliot's views of religion and social ethics underwent between the time of her departure from Nuneaton and her arrival in London to take up a literary career. On this point we turn in vain to her novels for enlightenment, and we respect the feelings which restrained her from laying before the public any indications of her own mental struggles. The young woman who could sketch with precision the various shades of doctrine in the Church, who could define with nicety the theological positions of Tryan and Dinah Morris, must have thought much, and deeply, about the various phases of religion that were to be met with in her neighborhood. Be that as it may, we find in her novels the highest ideals of Christian life and character, and the purest exposition of Christian ethics. Some portion of the Bible was daily read by her; and Thomas à Kempis on the "Imitation of Christ" continued always to be one of her favorite books. Her first literary undertakings were the translation of Strauss's Leben Jesu" and "Feuerbach's" Essence of Christianity," and her labor on these volumes showed even then the same fidelity and thoroughness which characterized her later works. It was in keeping with the judgment which directed every step of George Eliot's literary career, that she never sought to connect these books or her contributions to the Westminster Review with the great name by which the world knew her. After a short residence on the Continent, whither she had been taken by some of her kind country friends, George Eliot commenced literary work in London in 1851. At this time her strength of intellect, her scholarship and varied accomplishments, and the personal charm of her manner and conversation, made a deep impression on all who were thrown into her society. She contributed several papers to the Westminster Review, which were chiefly notable for their careful workmanship, and the extent and variety of the reading visible in them. About this period George Eliot's acquaintances would probably have predicted for her a great career as a philosopher or a social essayist; but the bent of her special genius was apparent only to one of her friends, through whose counsels and agency she was soon to turn it to a practical account. It was in the autumn of 1856 that the late Mr. George Henry Lewes, who himself was a contributor to "Maga," sent to the Editor, the late Mr. John Blackwood, "The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton" as the work of an anonymous friend. The story was offered as the first instalment of a series; and though the Editor pronounced that "Amos" would "do," he wished to satisfy himself that it was no chance hit, and requested a sight of the other tales before coming to a decision. Criticisms on the plot and studies of character in "Amos Barton" were frankly put forward, and the Editor wound up his letter by saying, "If the author is a new writer, I beg to congratulate him on being worthy of the honors of print and pay. be very glad to hear from him or you soon. At this time the remaining "Scenes of Clerical Life" were unwritten, and the criticisms upon "Amos" had rather a disheartening effect upon the author, which the Editor hastened to remove as soon as he became sensible of them, by offering to accept the tale. He wrote to Mr. Lewes, "If you think it would stimulate the author to go on with the other tales, I shall publish "Amos" at once;" expressing also his "sanguineness" that he would be able to approve of the contributions to follow, as "Amos" gave indications of great freshness of style. Some natural curiosity had been expressed as to the unknown writer, and a hint had been thrown out that he was "a clergyman'' -a device which, since it has the great sanction of Sir Walter Scott, we must regard as perfectly consistent with the ethics of anonymous literature. "Amos Barton" occupied the first place in the magazine for January, 1857, and was completed in the following number. By that time "Mr. Gilfil's LoveStory" was ready, and the "Scenes of Clerical Life" appeared month by month until they ended with "Janet's Repentance" in November of that year. As fresh instalments of the manuscript were received, the Editor's conviction of the power, and even genius, of his new contributor, steadily increased. In his first letter to the author after the appearance of "Amos Barton," he wrote: "It is a long time since I have read anything so fresh, so humorous, and so touching. The style is capital, conveying so much in so few words. In another letter, addressed "My dear Amos," for lack of any more distinct appellation, the Editor remarks: "I forgot whether I told you or Lewes that I had shown part of the MS. to Thackeray. He was staying with me, and having been out at dinner, came in about eleven o'clock, when I had just finished reading it. I said to him, 'Do you know that I think I have lighted upon a new author who is uncommonly like a firstclass passenger.' I showed him a page or two--I think the passage where the curate returns home and Milly is first introduced. He would not pronounce whether it came up to my ideas, but remarked afterward that he would have liked to have read more, which I thought a good sign." 64 From the first the Scenes of Clerical Life" arrested public attention. Critics were, however, by no means unanimous as to their merits. They had so much individuality-stood so far apart from the standards of contemporary fiction that there was considerable difficulty in applying the usual tests in their case. The terse, condensed style, the exactitude of expression, and the constant use of illustration, naturally suggested to some the notion that the new writer must be a man of science relaxing himself in the walks of fiction. The Editor's own suspicions had once been directed toward Professor Owen by a similarity of handwriting. Guesses were freely hazarded as to the author's personality, and among other conjectures was one that Lord Lytton, whose "Caxton" novels were about the same period delighting the readers of this magazine, had again struck a new vein of fiction. Probably Dickens was among the first to divine that the author must be a woman; but the reasons upon which he based this opinion might readily have been met by equally cogent deductions from the "Scenes" that the writer must be of the mile sex. Dickens, on the conclusion of the Scenes," wrote a letter of inost generous appreciation, which, when sent through the Editor, afforded the unknown author very hearty gratification. While Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" was passing through the magazine, the Editor was informed that he was to know the author as George Eliot." It was at this time, then, that a name so famous in our literature was invented. We have no reason to suppose that it had been thought of when the series was commenced. It was probably assumed from the impossibility of a nameless shadow maintaining frequent communication with the editor of a magazine; possibly the recollection of George Sand entered into the idea; but the designation was euphonious and impressive. 66 Before the conclusion of the " Scenes" Mr. Blackwood felt satisfied that he had to do with a master-mind, and that a great career as a novelist lay open to George Eliot; and his frequent communications urge her warmly to persevere in her efforts. When Janet's Repentance" was drawing to a close, and arrangements were being made for reissuing the sketches as a separate publication, he wrote to Mr. Lewes : "George Eliot is too diffident of his own powers and prospects of success. Very few men, indeed, have more reason to be satisfied as far as the experiment has gone. The following should be a practical cheerer;" and then he proceeded to say how the Messrs. Blackwood had seen reason to make a large increase in the forthcoming reprint of the "Scenes." The volumes did not appear until after the New Year of 1858; and their success was such that the Editor was able, before the end of the month, to write as follows to Lewes : 64 George Eliot has fairly achieved a literary reputation among judges, and the public must follow, although it may take time. Dickens's letter was very handsome, and truly kind. I sent him an extract from George Eliot's letter to me, and I have a note from him saying that he has been much interested by it,' and that it has given him the greatest pleasure.' Dickens adheres to his theory that the writer must be a woman." To George Eliot herself he wrote in February, 1858: "You will recollect, when we proposed to reprint, my impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in the magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long enough to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, a very long time often elapses between the two stages of reputation-the literary and the public. Your progress will be sure if not so quick as we could wish." It is interesting now to look back and recall the impression then made by the "Scenes of Clerical Life" upon the higher order of readers, and the extent to which they foreshadowed the recognition of George Eliot's power and genius. Though only sketches, they bore the stamp of an author who was not only a finished master of English style, but a creator of no ordinary orig |