Eliot George

Eliot, George, was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century. She was the youngest daughter of Robert Evans, a Warwickshire land agent, by his second wife. The baptismal Christian name of the future novelist was Mary Ann, but she usually signed herself Marian Evans. Her father was a man of unusual strength of character, and many of his distinctive qualities have been depicted in Adam Bede, the hero of the novel of that name. and in Caleb Garth, one of the most striking individualities in Middlemareh. Her mother, whose maiden name was Pearson, was understood to have been the original of Mrs. Hacket in Amos Barton. Miss Evans was born at Arbury Farm, in the parish of Colton, Warwickshire, November 22, 1819. She had a sister and a brother, Christiana and Isaac, the latter being delineated in The Mill on the Floss; he also, in all probability, formed the subject of the notable sonnets entitled Brother and Sister. In the course of a few months, after Mary Ann's birth, the Evans family moved to Griff Farm. At five years of age Miss Evans was sent to school at Attleboro, where she remained for four years. Then she went to a boarding-school at Nuneaton, where she formed a close friendship with the principal governess, Miss Lewis, with whom she subsequently corresponded. Mrs. Evans died in 1836, and, Christiana Evans having married in the following year, Marian Evans now undertook the charge of her father's house. Masters came over from Coventry to instruct her in German, Italian, and music, and she was also an omnivorous reader of works in general literature. In 1841 Mr. Evans and his daughter removed to Foleshill, near Coventry, where Marian Evans established a firm friendship with Charles Bray, a philosophical writer, and his brother-in-law, Charles Hennell, the author of a rationalistic Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity. Her new relationships had a destructive effect upon her religious views. She abandoned evangelicalism for scepticism, and it was with the utmost difficulty that her father persuaded her for a time to conform to the old rules of public worship. For nearly three years she devoted herself to a scholarly and able translation of Strauss's Leben Jesu, which was published in 1846 by her friend, Dr. John Chapman. At a later period she translated Spinoza's Tractatus Theoloejico-Politicus, and later still his Ethics. Losing her father in 1849, to mitigate the blow she went abroad, and resided with the Brays for some months at Geneva. Returning to London in March, 1850, in September of the following year she became assistant-editor of the Westminster Review. About this time she translated Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, the only work to which she appended her real name. Thrown into friendly relations with Herbert Spencer and George Henry Lewes, her intimacy with the latter (who was separated from his wife) grew so rapidly that in 1854 they defied the usages of society by forming a non-legal union, which lasted until the death of Lewes in 1878. That this lamentable step was injurious to George Eliot from many points of view is well known.

When Lewes was contemplating his Life of Goethe, he and George Eliot visited Weimar and Berlin. On their return to England they resided successively at Dover, East Sheen, Richmond, and London. Drawn towards imaginative literature as she had been for some years, it was in 1856 that George Eliot made her first attempt at fiction, being urged thereto by Lewes. The appearance in Blackwood's Magazine of that pathetic sketch, "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton" - the first story in Scenes of Clerical Life - created the deepest interest in literary circles. The volume of which it forms a part was never surpassed by the author in skill and delicacy of workmanship. In 1859 appeared Adam Bede, the most popular and the most human of George Eliot's larger works of fiction. The success of the novel was almost beyond precedent, but the writer suffered extreme annoyance for some time owing to the unfounded claim of a native of the Midlands, named Liggins, to the authorship. The Mill on the Floss, which is marked by tragic scenes and strongly individualised characters, was published in 1860, and Silas Marner, one of the most beautiful and idyllic of the author's works, in 1861. The publication of that remarkable story of Italian life, Romola, marked a new epoch in George Eliot's literary career. Tito, Romola, and Savonarola are among the greatest of her creations. Felix Holt, issued in 1866, was a link between a dying and a coming generation, but, from the artistic, as from other points of view, it was the least successful of the author's works. George Eliot visited France in 1865, and Spain in 1867, and after her return to England she made her first appearance as a poet with The Spanish Gypsy. High as she herself ranked this class of effort, her verse lacked spontaneity and fire to rise to the highest poetic level. The form was perfect, but the afflatus was largely absent. Agatha, The Legend of Jubal, and Armgart - further studies in poetry - appeared at intervals. In 1871-72 was published the novel of Middlemareh, which signalised the third and crowning epoch of George Eliot's career. This fine study of English provincial life stands to its author in the same relation that Hamlet does to Shakespeare. It is distinguished for its literary execution, its philosophy, and its profound studies of character. Daniel Deronda, the last of the brilliant series of novels by this gifted writer, appeared in 1876. It was decidedly inferior to Middlemareh, though it showed a singular grasp of Jewish sentiment and culture. This eloquent apology for the Jews did full justice to their noble aspirations and their unswerving faith. In 1878 Lewes died, and, after the first bitterness of the separation was over, George Eliot set herself to the task of preparing for publication her last work, The Impressions of Theophrastus Such. This volume of miscellaneous essays contained several admirable studies, including one on Debasing the Moral Currency; but, as a whole, the work was somewhat hard and laboured. To the surprise of many of her friends, George Eliot married in May, 1880, Mr. John Walter Cross, a gentleman who had known her for twenty years, and whose devotion and sympathy she warmly appreciated during her brief period of widowhood. The new union was destined to be of short duration. After a few months of foreign travel, Mr. and Mrs. Cross returned to England, to a house which they had taken in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. On the 19th of December, 1880, George Eliot was seized with illness, which soon assumed an alarming character, and the world was startled by the announcement that she had passed away at midnight on December 22. She was buried by the side of Lewes in Highgate Cemetery. In 1883 her essays contributed to the Westminster Review were collected and published, and in 1884 Mr. Cross issued her journals and letters in the form of a biography. George Eliot took a deep interest in the higher education of women and other questions of moment to her sex, but she rarely expressed her views on the public topics of the time. She was passionately enamoured of music, and was constantly to be seen at the popular concerts in St. James's Hall, and she had considerable taste and judgment in art. As to her religion, she had a deep sympathy with Auguste Comte and his system, though she declined to be absolutely bound by the doctrines of Comte or any other religious teacher. Her chief qualities as a novelist were reflectiveness, observation, humour, and pathos. As a story-teller she has been excelled by many of her own sex, but she outdistances them all in culture and intellectual strength. In sheer force and ability she deservedly ranks in close proximity to Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray; and, although it may be doubted whether her popularity will prove as wide as theirs in future generations, she will yet undoubtedly leave a powerful and an indelible impression upon English literature.