# Daughters of Genius/Chapter 7

VII.
GEORGE ELIOT.
The illustrious author of Adam Bede and Middlemarch was born November 22, 1819, at South Farm, in the parish of Colton, Warwickshire. To this county, the birthplace of the greatest man who ever wrote, and of the greatest woman who ever wrote, we might well apply the words of Charlotte Brontë when she speaks of her heroine as having been reared in "the healthy heart of England." Warwickshire is a small county in the center of the island, hemmed in by such English shires as Oxford, Leicester, and Stafford; but whatever in England is most English, whether men, nature, towns, homes, traditions, relics, usages; whether we seek the England of romance, the England of history, or the England of industry, we find it in Warwickshire. Birmingham is there, but Kenilworth also. There are Warwick Castle, and Alcester, the seat of the needle manufacture. Dr. Arnold's Rugby is there. It is a land of ancient forest and broad meadows, where the beeves of Justice Shallow fattened. Rosalind wandered in its forest of Arden, and melancholy Jaques soliloquized, and one of his merry companions sang:
​Above all other distinctions, this is the county of the softly-flowing Avon, and of that Stratford which is upon it, and of Shakespeare who was born there.
Near one of the towns of this county, a railroad junction now, called Nuneaton, an obscure country place then, containing an ancient Gothic church, an ancient grammar-school, and the ruins of an abbey connecting it with the life and sentiment of the Middle Ages, was born the writer nearest akin to Shakespeare in the qualities of her mind, Mary Anne Evans, who gave herself the name of George Eliot. I prefer the name by which she was known in her father's house; and the more, as she assumed the masculine appellative merely to serve a transient convenience. She was a plain English country lass, a carpenter's daughter, whose father called her his "Little Wench," and one of whose hands remained larger than the other to her dying day from making and shaping with it so many pounds and pats of butter. She was the youngest of the children of Robert Evans, who was twice married, and who had by the first marriage two children, and by the second three.
This stalwart and right worthy Robert Evans began his active life, like Adam Bede, as a carpenter, rising in due time to master carpenter, becoming afterwards forester, land-surveyor, land-agent, steward of estates, holding positions similar to those which his gifted daughter afterwards assigned to Caleb Garth, one of the noblest of her creations. Although Caleb Garth was by no means intended for an exact delineation of her father, we know that his most prominent characteristics, notably his veneration for "business," and his instinct to perform all tasks thoroughly, were marked traits of Robert Evans. It would be difficult, after reading Middlemarch, for us to think otherwise of him than that, like Caleb,
​"He thought very well of all ranks, but would not himself have liked to be of any rank in which he had not such close contact with 'business' as to get often honorably decorated with marks of dust and mortar, the damp of the engine, or the sweet soil of the woods and fields. Though he had never regarded himself as other than an orthodox Christian, and would argue on prevenient grace if the subject were proposed to him, I think his virtual divinities were good practical schemes, accurate work, and the faithful completion of undertakings; his prince of darkness was a slack workman."
The mother of the authoress was chiefly noted for her qualities as a vigorous and punctual housekeeper. Miss Mathilde Blind describes her as much resembling Mrs. Hackit in Amos Barton, "a thin woman with a chronic liver complaint, of indefatigable industry and epigrammatic speech; who, 'in the utmost enjoyment of spoiling a friend's self-satisfaction, was never known to spoil a stocking.' A notable housewife, whose clock-work regularity in all domestic affairs was such that all her farm work was done by nine o'clock in the morning, when she would sit down to her loom."
Of the special incidents of the childhood of Mary Anne Evans we know little; but many of the experiences of Tom and Maggie Tulliver are drawn from her own early life, and the sonnets entitled Brother and Sister are still more plainly autobiographical. Her early wanderings with her brother through the lovely country scenes about Nuneaton were always cherished as among the dearest memories of her life; indeed, she tells us they
Many of the scenes with which she then became familiar were reproduced with the most perfect fidelity in her ​novels. The Red Deeps which figure so prominently in the Mill on the Floss were a favorite resort of hers close to her own home. Cheveril Manor, so beautifully depicted in Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, was Arbury Hall, the seat of the Newdegate family, her father's early employers. Knebley, described in the same story, was Astley Church. The Shepperton of Amos Barton was Chilvers Coton, and Milby, in Janet's Repentance, was Nuneaton itself.
When Miss Evans was fifteen her mother died, and the family removed to Foleshill, near Coventry, where she remained until the death of her father in 1849. Her education had been commenced at Nuneaton under the charge of Mrs. Wallingford, an excellent teacher, to whom she probably owed much of her beauty of intonation in reading poetry. It was continued at Coventry, where she received instruction from Miss Franklin, a lady of whom she always spoke with deep gratitude and respect, and from Mr. Sheepshanks, the head-master of the grammar-school, who taught her Greek and Latin. She also received lessons in French, German, and Italian, and acquired through her own unaided efforts a considerable knowledge of Hebrew, and studied music, of which she was passionately fond, with the organist of a neighboring church. Later in life she played well upon the piano.
It is a satisfaction to be assured by her biographer that her education was not merely an affair of the brain. Her hands acquired skill, and she learned in early life the priceless art of laboring with patient cheerfulness at homely tasks. Miss Blind tells us, that,
"For some years after her mother's death, Miss Evans and her father remained alone together at Griff House. He offered to get a housekeeper, as not the house only, but farm matters, had to be looked after, and he was ​always tenderly considerate of 'the little wench,' as he called her. But his daughter preferred taking the whole management of the place into her own hands, and she was as conscientious and diligent in the discharge of her domestic duties as in the prosecution of the studies she carried on at the same time. One of her chief beauties was in her large, finely shaped, feminine hands—hands which she has, indeed, described as characteristic of several of her heroines; but she once pointed out to a friend at Foleshill that one of them was broader across than the other, saying, with some pride, that it was due to the quantity of butter and cheese she had made during her housekeeping days at Griff."
Her appearance at this time is thus described:
"She had a quantity of soft pale-brown hair, worn in ringlets. Her head was massive, her features powerful and rugged, her mouth large, but shapely, the jaw singularly square for a woman, yet having a certain delicacy of outline. A neutral tone of coloring did not help to relieve this general heaviness of structure, the complexion being pale, but not fair. Nevertheless, the play of expression and the wonderful mobility of the mouth, which increased with age, gave a womanly softness to the countenance in curious contrast with its framework. Her eyes, of a gray blue, constantly varying in color, striking some as intensely blue, others as of a pale, washed out gray, were small and not beautiful in themselves, but, when she grew animated in conversation, those eyes lit up the whole face, seeming in a manner to transfigure it. So much was this the case that a young lady, who had once enjoyed an hour's conversation with her, came away under its spell with the impression that she was beautiful, but afterward, on seeing George Eliot again when she was not talking, she could hardly believe her to be the same person. The charm of her nature dis​closed itself in her manner and in her voice, the latter recalling that of Dorothea, in being like the voice of a soul that has once lived in an Æolian harp. It was low and deep, vibrating with sympathy."
At this period of her life, she was known among the residents of the vicinity as a quiet and retiring young lady of unusual learning, who was also an excellent housekeeper for her father. Her ability in conversation was also recognized, for, although she did not talk much, she never failed to say something worth hearing when she spoke, whether discussing profound topics of science or politics, or the simple affairs of her neighbors, in which she took an unaffected interest.
Among the more intimate friends whom she made at Coventry were Mr. and Mrs. Bray, of Rosehill, and at their house she met many distinguished people, all of whom soon learned to listen with attention and respect when she joined in the conversation. Sometimes it was very amusing to observe the astonishment displayed by authors and scientists who met her for the first time, when some incidental remark betrayed her unexpected knowledge of profound subjects. Upon one occasion an eminent doctor, venturing to quote Epictetus in the presence of this pale, gray-eyed, pensive young lady, was dazed at having her turn towards him and promptly, although with the utmost modesty and politeness, correct him in his Greek.
It was at Rosehill, too, that she made the acquaintance of Emerson, of whose essays she had been a frequent and appreciative reader. They had talked together but a short time when Emerson asked abruptly:
"What one book do you like best?"
"Rousseau's Confessions," she replied without hesitation.
"So do I," said he with a start of pleased surprise. "There is a point of sympathy between us."
​He had the pleasure of visiting Stratford in her company and that of the Brays, going, as he said, "to see Shakespeare." Later they met again in London, where she played for him upon the piano, being unaware that his ear was what he described as "marble to such music."
The impression which she retained of him was in every way agreeable, while he expressed his opinion of her to Mr. Charles Bray in these words:
"That young lady has a calm, serious soul!"
Miss Evans' first literary work was a translation of Strauss's Life of Jesus, undertaken at the request of Mr. Charles Hennell, a brother of Mrs. Bray. This work had been first entrusted to the lady to whom he was engaged. She had accomplished about a fourth of it, and now wished to relinquish the task on account of her impending marriage. Miss Evans took it up and completed it, and received for her careful and accurate labor of three years the sum of twenty pounds.
After the death of her father she went abroad with the Brays, and remained for some time at Geneva for purposes of study. On her return to England she removed to London and boarded with Dr. Chapman, the editor of the Westminster Review. She assisted him for several years in the editorship of this periodical, although the articles, always anonymous, which she contributed to its pages are not very numerous. The most important among them are entitled: "Woman in France—Madame De Sable;" "Evangelical Teaching," "The Natural History of German Life," "German Wit" (on Heine), "Worldliness and Other Worldliness" (on Young and Cowper). Her literary work in London brought her into acquaintance with many eminent men, including Herbert Spencer, always her warm friend, and George Henry Lewes, whom she afterwards married.
It was Mr. Lewes who induced her to attempt fiction, ​and it was he who sent her first story, "The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton," to Mr. Blackwood, editor of Blackwood's Magazine, as the work of an anonymous friend. The editor at once perceived the merit of the tale; but as it was offered as the first of a series, he requested to see the others before coming to a decision. His letter to Mr. Lewes concluded with the words:
"If the author is a new writer, I beg to congratulate him on being worthy of the honors of print and pay. I shall be very glad to hear from him or you soon."
The first half of the story occupied the place of honor in Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1857, and it was concluded in the following number. By that time "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story" was completed. It had not been even begun when the editor desired to see the rest of the series, and the "Scenes of Clerical Life" appeared regularly each month until they concluded in the November number for the same year, with "Janet's Repentance."
As they proceeded, Mr. Blackwood became more and more firmly convinced of the genius of his new contributor. He did not know her sex or name, and during the earlier portion of their connection she had not even assumed a nom-de-plume.
In one letter, referring to her first story, he addresses her, for lack of any more definite title, as "My dear Amos."
"I forgot," he writes, "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 first-class 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 afterwards that he would have liked to read more, which I thought a good sign."
Dickens, less guarded in his praise, had the perception to discover the sex of the new author, which was then much discussed, the prevailing idea being that she was a clergyman. He wrote a letter which he knew would be read to her, in which he gave her the generous welcome which he never failed to bestow upon merit, whether known or not yet known.
Adam Bede was begun as soon as the "Scenes" were finished, and it was hailed by Mr. Blackwood with delight.
"Tell George Eliot," he wrote to Mr. Lewes, "that I think 'Adam Bede' all right—most lifelike and real. I shall read the MS. quietly over again before writing in detail about it. . . . For the first reading, it did not signify how many things I had to think of; I would have hurried through it with eager pleasure. I write this note to allay all anxiety on the part of George Eliot as to my appreciation of the merits of this most promising opening of a picture of life. In spite of all injunctions, I began 'Adam Bede' in the railway, and felt very savage when the waning light stopped me as we neared the Scottish border."
The book was published in January, 1859, the greater part of the second volume being sent from Munich, George Eliot being in Germany at that time. Its power was at once recognized, and public curiosity about the author grew more and more intense. She had, in her previous work, described with close accuracy many of the scenes around Nuneaton and Coventry; moreover, she had not contented herself with painting merely the background of her scenes from life, but, in "Amos Barton," had chosen as her theme a story well known in the neighborhood. ​Amos, Milly, and the Countess, under their real names, were a familiar tradition of the place, and Milly's grave is still pointed out in the quiet country churchyard. These portraits of places and people were soon recognized, and the only question remaining to be solved was, who among the residents of the regions described was capable of writing such a story?
The popular voice soon fixed upon a gentleman by the name of Liggins, who had once run through a fortune at Cambridge and was accordingly considered a person of marked accomplishments. Mr. Liggins at first denied the authorship imputed to him, but he was not believed, and made no very earnest endeavors to convince his admiring neighbors of their mistake. At last, indeed, he ceased altogether to make denials, and a claim was put forward in the Times in his behalf. It ran as follows:
"Sir,—The author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede,' is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. You may easily satisfy yourself of my correctness by inquiring of any one in that neighborhood. Mr. Liggins himself and the characters whom he paints are as familiar there as the twin spires of Coventry. Yours obediently, H. Anders, Rector of Kirkby."
The next day, appeared George Eliot's reply:
"Sir,—The Rev. H. Anders has with questionable delicacy and unquestionable inaccuracy assured the world through your columns that the author of Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede' is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton. I beg distinctly to deny that statement. I declare on my honor that that gentleman never saw a line of those works until they were printed, nor had he any knowledge of them whatever. Allow me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen? If not, the attempt to pry into what is obviously meant to be withheld—my ​name—and to publish the rumors which such prying may give rise to, seems to me quite indefensible, still mere so to state these rumors as ascertained truths. I am Sir, yours, etc., George Eliot."
This very gentleman-like letter carried conviction to most minds, although there were still a few who continued to place their faith in Liggins. Gradually, however, it came to be known in literary circles, and later to the public, that George Eliot was no other than Mrs. Lewes, formerly Mary Anne Evans.
Most readers are aware that the circumstances attending the marriage of this gifted lady to Mr. Lewes were peculiar. Miss Evans, as I have been told by one of her neighbors, lived for some years within a short distance of the house of Mr. Lewes, and was thus drawn into an intimacy with his family. She became, of necessity, a confidante of its fatal secret. His wife had been false to him. She had left his house, and had lived for some time in dishonorable relations with another. She had returned to him penitent, as he believed; he had forgiven her, and she had resumed her place at the head of his household, and her duties as the mother of his children. During this interval, Miss Evans became warmly attached to the children of the house, who were very young, and often needed the tender care and aid which mothers alone usually know how to render, but which in this instance the mother not unfrequently left to another to bestow. More than once, I have been credibly assured, when their mother was absent from her home in quest of pleasure, her duties were performed by Miss Evans, hastily summoned for the purpose.
Time passed. Late one afternoon, Miss Evans was sent for again, and, on reaching the house, she learned that Mrs. Lewes had once more abandoned her home, her children, her duties, and had rejoined her paramour. ​The household, as we may readily conceive, was thrown into confusion. The husband, overwhelmed, was unable to lend his usual helping hand to the indispensable routine, and, in particular, there was no one competent to put little children to bed, and attend to them during the night. Miss Evans, quite as a matter of course, took the place of the absent mother, as she had done before, and remained an inmate of the house until the affairs of the family were again in some orderly train. She continued to watch over them, as any affectionate woman would who saw little children left worse than motherless.
These things had their natural effect upon the feelings of the injured husband. In due time he proposed to her, and she accepted him, both assuming that, in so plain a case, there could be neither difficulty nor delay in completing the requisite divorce. The wife, who was living in open defiance of law, it was well known would offer no opposition to the formal severance of a tie already rudely broken by her. Nevertheless, an obstacle arose. An ancient and originally well-meant provision of English law debars an injured husband from obtaining a divorce if he has once forgiven an erring wife and resumed cohabitation with her.
The discovery of this statute threw the parties concerned into painful embarrassment. They thought at first of marrying abroad, but no foreign marriage is valid in England against English law; nor indeed can a lawful marriage be contracted in the continent of Europe unless the authorities of the country are legally notified that no obstacle exists in the laws of the country to which the couple belong. In these circumstances, Mr. Lewes invited a number of his friends to his house, in whose presence and with whose sanction they contracted matrimony, deeming it within their right, both as human beings and as citizens, to disregard a law so manifestly ​unjust. It may have been an error of judgment on their part; but, so far as appears, no inconveniences resulted from their action. Even those who disapproved made charitable allowance for the peculiarities of the case, and others felt that what George Eliot deliberately concluded to be right could not be wrong.
In Adam Bede, her first long novel, George Eliot had left Warwickshire, and sought her scene in Derbyshire, the ancient home of her ancestors. In Adam himself, as in Caleb Garth, she depicts some of her father's traits of character, while Dinah Morris, though by no means, as has been claimed, an exact portrait, was undoubtedly suggested by her aunt, Elizabeth Evans. This lady was a Methodist, and had been a preacher; she was sweet and gentle in manner, and possessed the clear grey eyes and pleasant voice attributed by the great novelist to Dinah. She used to hold long conversations with her niece, and on one occasion related how she had converted a young woman who was in prison for the crime of child-murder. The woman was hardened, ordinary, and uninteresting, she said, and she entered into no details regarding the matter. From this simple incident arose Hetty and Dinah, and that marvelous scene in the prison. Other portions of the book have also their foundation in life—the death of Adam's father, for example—but in all a mere hint has sufficed, and she has not sought to retain the actual details. Many people, however, insisted that she was much more indebted to her aunt than this; and, of one of their most frequent assertions, she writes to her friend, Miss Hennell:
"How curious it seems to me that people should think Dinah's sermon, prayers, and speeches were copied, when they were written, with hot tears, as they surged up in my own mind!"
Her next book, issued in April, 1860, was "The Mill ​on the Floss." It sustained the reputation which Adam Bede had won for her, but did not enhance it. The title first given to the work was "Sister Maggie," but this was afterwards discarded as not being sufficiently distinctive, and the title which it now bears was suggested by the editor of Blackwood.
In the description of Maggie Tulliver, and, more especially, in the awakening and development of her religious nature, George Eliot spoke from the heart. Many of Maggie's struggles, failures, and triumphs were her own. It is well known that, in her early youth, she was deeply religious, perhaps even morbidly so. She spent much of her time in prayer and tears; and she did not escape into a healthy clearness of view until she came under the influence of her friends, the Brays. The "Imitation of Christ" of Thomas à Kempis, which plays so important a part in the novel, was one of her own favorite books; and she has given us few more touching pictures than that of poor, untaught, passionate Maggie Tulliver poring over the little worn volume with the faded pen marks running along its leaves, where some one else before her had sought and found comfort; she now reading "where the quiet hand pointed."
"Silas Marner," which many consider the most perfect of all her works, and the noblest of all fictions, came after "The Mill on the Floss." Romola, that wonderful living picture of ancient Florence, followed; then, after three years, "Felix Holt;" then, after a longer pause of five years, "Middlemarch;" then Daniel Deronda, her last novel, and finally the little volume of sketches, entitled, "Theophrastus Such." The Spanish Gypsy and other poems, beside one or two short stories, formed an interlude between the periods of her more extended labors.
Among the few letters of George Eliot which have been printed since her death, there are two or three ​addressed to a German critic, Professor Kaufmann, who had written a generous review of Daniel Deronda, and sent the authoress a copy of it. Her acknowledgment of the courtesy led to a correspondence, which was continued to near the close of her life. The letters were furnished by Professor Kaufmann to an English periodical:
I.
"The Priory, 21 North Bank, May 31, ’77.
"My Dear Sir.—Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction, I may say a more heartfelt joy, than you have given me in your estimate of 'Daniel Deronda.'
"I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.
"My husband reads any notices of me that comes before him, and reports to me (or else refrains from reporting) the general character of the notice or something in particular which strikes him as showing either an exceptional insight or an obtuseness that is gross enough to be amusing. Very rarely, when he has read a critique of me, he has handed it to me, saying, "You must read this." And your estimate of 'Daniel Deronda' made one of these rare instances.
Certainly, if I had been asked to choose what should be written about my book and who should write it, I should have sketched—well, not anything as good as you have written, but an article which must be written by a ​Jew who showed not merely sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind. Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions. Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is,” but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative, narrow perception of what one has been intending and professedly feeling in one's work, impresses one with the sense that it must be poor, perishable stuff, without roots to take any lasting hold in the minds of men; while any instance of complete comprehension encourages me to hope that the creative prompting has foreshadowed, and will continue to satisfy, a need in other minds.
"Excuse me that I write but imperfectly, and perhaps dimly, what I have felt in reading your article. It has affected me deeply, and though the prejudice and ignorant obtuseness which has met my effort to contribute something to the ennobling of Judaism in the conception of the Christian community, and in the consciousness of the Jewish community has never for a moment made me repent my choice, but rather has been added proof to me that the effort was needed—yet I confess that I had an unsatisfied hunger for certain signs of sympathetic discernment, which you only have given. I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish element and those of English social life.
"I work under the pressure of small hurries; for we are just moving into the country for the summer, and all ​things are in a vagrant condition around me. But I wished not to defer answering your letter to an uncertain opportunity. . . . .
"My husband has said more than once that he feels grateful to you. For he is more sensitive on my behalf than on his own.
"Always yours faithfully,
"M. E. Lewes."
II.
"October 12, ’77.
"My Dear Sir,—I trust it will not be otherwise than gratifying to you to know that your stirring article on Daniel Deronda' is now translated into English by a son of Professor Ferrier, who was a philosophical writer of considerable mark. It will be issued in a handsomer form than that of the pamphlet, and will appear within this autumnal publishing season, Messrs. Blackwood having already advertised it. Whenever a copy is ready we shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. There is often something to be borne with in reading one's own writing in a translation, but I hope that in this case you will not be made to wince severely.
"In waiting to send you this news I seem to have deferred too long the expression of my warm thanks for your kindness in sending me the Hebrew translations of Lessing and the collection of Hebrew poems, a kindness which I felt myself rather presumptuous in asking for, since your time must be filled with more important demands. Yet I must further beg you, when you have an opportunity, to assure Herr Bacher that I was most gratefully touched by the sympathetic verses with which he enriched the gift of his work.
"I see by your last letter to my husband that your Theological Seminary was to open on the 4th of this ​month, so that this too retrospective letter of mine will reach you in the midst of your new duties. I trust that this new Institution will be a great good to professor and students, and that your position is of a kind that you contemplate as permanent. To teach the young personally has always seemed to me the most satisfactory supplement to teaching the world through books, and I have often wished that I had such a means of having fresh, living, spiritual children within sight.
"One can hardly turn one's thought toward Eastern Europe just now without a mingling of pain and dread; but we masş together distant scenes and events in an unreal way, and one would like to believe that the present troubles will not at any time press on you in Hungary with more external misfortune than on us in England.
"Mr. Lewes is happily occupied in his psychological studies. We both look forward to the reception of the work you kindly promised uș, and he begs me to offer you his best regards.
"Believe me, my dear sir,
"Yours with much esteem,
"M. E. LEWES."Lewes."
Apart from her works George Eliot was little known to the public. She was always in delicate health, and led a retired life, visiting but little, and caring nothing for general society, although delighting to receive and entertain her chosen friends.
An American lady, who enjoyed the privilege of attending one of her receptions, describes her as the most charming of hostesses, her conversation simple yet often profound, and often "when you least looked for it taking an odd, quaint turn that produced the effect of wit." Not only did she talk herself, but she possessed the gift of making others talk, and of drawing from each the best that was in him. Her voice was beautiful, and ​reminded the hearer, as before remarked, of Caleb Garth's description of Dorothea Brooke:
"She speaks in such plain words, and a voice like music. Bless me, it reminds me of bits in the 'Messiah!'—'and straightway there appeared a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying;' it has a tone with it which satisfies your ear."
George Eliot's features, as is well known, remained to the last imposing rather than pleasing, bearing a striking resemblance to those of Savonarola. But she retained her abundant hair, and her clear, expressive grey eyes, and her face continued to lighten up so beautifully when she smiled or became interested, that no one who knew her well could think of her as plain. Her head, although very massive, did seem out of proportion to her small and fragile figure. She wore, as her American visitor reports, a high-bodied black velvet dress, with rich lace in the neck and sleeves. At her throat was a fine cameo set in pearls. Her hair was brought low upon her forehead and around her ears, and coiled at the back; and a square of lace, matching that in her dress, was pinned lightly upon the top of her head.
Her reception room was both home-like and elegant. Over the piano hung a fine engraving of Guido's Aurora, water-color paintings of bright flowers adorned the corners of the wall, and small tables standing upon soft Persian rugs supported vases filled with flowers, easel pictures, and small casts of antique statues. Books were everywhere.
This is surely a pleasant picture of her winter home. Her summers were passed sometimes in visiting the continent, and later at Witley, among the lovely hills of Surrey.
Her married life was one of great happiness. Miss Blind tells us that "it seemed to those who saw them ​after their union that they could never be apart. Each seemed to gain strength by contact with the other. Mr. Lewes' mercurial disposition now assumed a stability greatly enhancing his brilliant talents, and for the first time facilitating that concentration of intellect so necessary for the production of really lasting philosophic work. On the other hand, George Eliot's still dormant faculties were roused and stimulated to the utmost by the man to whom this union with her formed the most memorable year of his life. By his enthusiastic belief in her he gave her the only thing she wanted—a thorough belief in herself. Indeed, he was more than a husband; he was, as an intimate friend once pithily remarked, a very mother to her. Tenderly watching over her delicate health, cheering the grave tenor of her thoughts by his inexhaustible buoyancy, jealously shielding her from every adverse breath of criticism, Mr. Lewes in a manner created the spiritual atmosphere in which George Eliot could best put forth all the flowers and fruits of her genius."
He died in 1878. Among the many letters of sympathy which she received after her loss, was one from Professor Kaufmann, her reply to which has been published since her death.
"My dear Sir," she writes, "your kind letter has touched me very deeply. I confess that my mind had more than once gone out to you as one from whom I should like to have some sign of sympathy with my loss. But you were rightly inspired in waiting until now, for during many weeks I was unable even to listen to the letters which my generous friends were continually sending me. Now, at last, I am eagerly interested in every communication that springs out of an acquaintance with my husband and his works.
"I thank you for telling me about the Hungarian translation of his 'History of Philosophy,' but what would ​I not have given if the volumes could have come a few days before his death; for his mind was perfectly clear, and he would have felt some joy in that sign of his work being effective. I do not know whether you enter into the comfort I feel that he never knew he was dying, and fell gently asleep after ten days of illness, in which the suffering was comparatively mild.
"One of the last things he did at his desk was to despatch a manuscript of mine to the publishers. The book (not a story and not bulky) is to appear near the end of May, and as it contains some words I wanted to say about the Jews, I will order a copy to be sent to you.
"I hope that your labors have gone on uninterruptedly for the benefit of others, in spite of public troubles. The aspect of affairs with us is grievous—industry languishing and the best part of our nation indignant at our having been betrayed into an unjustifiable war (in South Africa).
"I have been occupied in editing my husband's MSS., so far as they are left in sufficient completeness to be prepared for publication without the obtrusion of another mind instead of his. A brief volume on 'The Study of Psychology' will appear immediately, and a further volume of psychological studies will follow in the autumn. But his work was cut short while he still thought of it as the happy occupation of far-reaching months. Once more let me thank you for remembering me in my sorrow, and believe me,
"Yours with high regard,
"M. E. Lewes."
In 1880, George Eliot again married, becoming the wife of Mr. John Walter Cross, long the friend of herself and her husband. Her second union gave every promise of happiness, and a wedding tour in Italy appeared to restore her health, which had been drooping since the ​death of Mr. Lewes. But the winter which followed her return to England was unusually rigorous, and she was unable to bear its severity. She died only two weeks after removing to her new home at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
She lies buried in Highgate Cemetery, beside the grave of George Henry Lewes. Her funeral took place on a day of mist and rain; yet, in addition to the numerous friends, distinguished, most of them, in science, art, or philanthropy, who came to do her honor, there was gathered a crowd, quiet, orderly, and sorrowful, of people, friends also, who had never known her face or voice. All stood silent while the Unitarian service was concluded by her grave; then they slowly dispersed, each pausing a moment to look down upon the coffin covered with flowers.
If George Eliot's work in literature is of the highest, so, too, is her place as a friend and helper among men. No one reading her works can think of her as an artist merely, high and honorable although that title is. She is much more; she is that which she longed to be when she wrote the aspiration that closes her volume of poems :