The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-01-01 00:00:00

DEATH OF "GEORGE ELIOT."

The intelligence of the death of the popular
novelist who has for so many years added to the
lustre of English literature under the pseudonym of
"George Eliot" will be received with general and
widespread regret. The gifted authoress was seized
with a cold on Sunday 19th, and, the malady develop-
ing into pericarditis, she died on Wednesday night
ensuing, at her house in Cheyne-walk, Chelsea, at the
age of 60.

The Times of Friday gave a biographical notice, of
.the gifted anthoress, •fren4, which take pe follow*
ing extractki: :2- .7

_ .
A great English writer has suddenly passed away. "George
Eliot," to give her the name by which Mrs. Cross was known
wherever the English language is spoken or English litera-
ture is prized, died on Wednesday evening, after only
three days' illness. On the Sunday evening previous she
received the visits of several old friends at the house
in Cheyne-walk, which she and her husband (to whom she
was only married last May) had lately occupied, and when
they left her she was apparently in good health and spirits.
That night, however, she was seized with a sudden
chill, which first attacked the larynx. On.tlip following day,
at Dr. Andrew Clark's request. Dr. G. W. Mackenzie, of
Lowndes-square, saw Mrs. Cross, that he might report olthe
case, and not until Wednesday evening, about six o'clock,
when Dr. Andrew Clarke visited her for the first time with
Dr. Mackenzie, did the case appear to assume an alarming
aspect. It was discovered in the course of their examination
that since the morning inflammation had arisen in the peri-
cardium and heart, and that death was not only inevitable,
but near at hand he heart rapidly losing power, Mrs.
Cross became insensible, and died about ten o'clock, without
either agitation or pain.
For the biography of George Eliot few materials exist.
Many apocryphal stories have been told, not the least re-
markable of which is one concernieg the authorship of
"Adam Bede," to which we shall presently refer, and some
few of these can be corrected; but the time has not yet
come for that full record of her private life and literary
history which, as we may hope, may some day be given to
the world. Marian Evans—whom all the world knew
as "George Eliot" was born in Warwickshire, little
short of sixty years ago. She was not, as has often been
stated, the daughter of a poor clergyman, nor 13 it true that
she was adopted in early life by another clergyman of greater
wealth, who gave her a first-class education. Her father,
Robert Evans, was a land agent and surveyor, who lived in
the neighbourhood of Nuneaton, and served for many years
as agent for the estates of more than one old War-
wickshize family; he is still remembered as a man of rare
worth and character by many nbighbours in the Midlands.
The father of George Eliot' is the prototype of more than
one character in the writings of his daughter. Of these
"Caleb Garth" in " Middlemarch" will be recognized as the
chief example; but the same note of character—the erafte-
man's keen delight in perfect work—is struck in "Adam
Bede' and in the little poem on Stradivarius. George Eliot's
early years were spent in the county of Shakespeare.
The sleepy life of the rural Mitlands before the time
of the Reform Bill, their rich and tranquil
scenery, their homely and old-world inhabitants all
left an indelible impress on her imagmatian—most
strongly felt, perhaps in "Adam Bede" and "The Mill
on the Floss," but reappearing with a difference in " Middle-
march," and inspiring one or two passages as tender and
graceful as anything she ever wrote in " Theophrastus
Such." It is not very clear when she left her father's home,
nor where her education was acquired, but she seems to have
come to London almost as a girl, and to have devoted herself
to serious literature in a manner far more common among
women of the present day than it was nearly forty years ago.
She became associated with many of the writers in the
Westminster Review, with John Stuart Mill, Mr. Herbert
Spencer, George Henry Lewes, Mr. John Chapman,and others.
She was a frequent contributor to the Reviegw, and at one
time, we believe, she edited the section devoted to "Con-
temporary Literature" in that periodical. Her first serious
work was a translation of the celebrated Strauss's "Life of
Jesus," published in 1846, when she must have been barely
25 years of age. Of this almost forgotten effort it was said
at the time that it exhibited an equal knowledge and
mastery of the German and English languages. Seven
years afterwards, in 1853, Miss Evans published a srans-
lation of Fenerbach's "Essence of Christianity," the inter-
vening period being that of her greatest activity as a contri-
butor to the Westminster Review. Soonafter this Miss Evans
began to turn her attention to fiction. It is said that the
manuscript of "Scenes of Clerical Life," her first imaginative
work, was sent anonymously to Blackwood's Magazine by
George Henry Lewes, and was eagerly accepted by the
editor, who discerned in it the premise, since abundantly
fulfilled, of rare and pre-eminent genius. It was not, how-
ever, until "Adam Bede" was published in 1859 that the
world at large discerned that a new novelist of the first rank
had appeared. "Adam Bede" made the name of George
Eliot a household word throughout England, and set
curiosity at work to discover the real name and sex of the
author • .

Long before "The Mill on the Floss," the second great
novel of the series which has immortalized the name of
Geerge Eliot, was published in 1880, it was well known, in
literary circles at least, that George Eliot was none other
than Marian Evans, the Westminster Reviewer and
translator of Strauss, better known to her intimates as
Mrs. Lewes; for by this time was established that close
association and literary friendship with the gifted
George Henry Lewes; which terminated only with the
death Of the latter a little more than two years ago.
"The Mill on the Floss," in which seine critics discerned a,
falling-off from "Adam Bede," and others the richer ma-
turity of a splendid genius, was followed, in 1881, by "Silas
Marner " the shortest, but as many think, the most perfect,
of all deorge Eliot's novels. " Romola "—that marvellous
tale of Florence in the time of Savonarola, in which the
author essayed. a task harder by far than that of Thackeray
in "Esmond," and accomplished it triumphantly—followed
in 1863. In "Felix Holt, published in 1866, George Eliot
returned to English life, but somehow failed torecover that
sureness of touch and blitheness of humour which gave Mrs.
Poyser and Mrs. Tolliver to the world. After a silence of
five years, broiken only by several poems, not, indeed, un-
worthy of her genius, but still deriving more repute from her
name than they conferred upon it, George Eliot returned
to fiction with " Middlemarch," which was published in
numbers during 1871 and 1872 " Middlemarch' carried the
rean,r beck coaae more t., the and gave us the
family portrait of Caleb Garth, and perhaps a sketch in his
daughter of the early life of the author herself; but the
satire was more copious and less kindly than in the earlier
novels, and the humour, though still abundant, was not so
genial as it had been. "The Legend of Jubal," with other
poems, followed in 1874, and "Daniel Deronda," the author's
last novel, was published in 1876
The life of George Eliot is, as we have said, little more
than the hiatnry of her literary activity. A mere catalogue
us ner writings will stir man), memories, and far better
than a critical estimate of their value will remind her in-
numerable readers of the keen and innocent pleasure she
has afforded thorn, of the stirring and elevated thoughts she
has lavished on their entertainment. Those who only knew
her books will deplore an irreparable loss to English letters,
while those who also knew the waiter will feel that a
great and noble spirit, supreme In intellect as in culture,
as tender as. it was strong, has passed away from the
world. The friends of George Eliot have long recognized
her rare and commanding gifts both of intellect and charac-
ter, and it was impossible even for casual acquaintances to
pass a few minutes in her society without falling under the
spell of a strangely fascinating and sympathetic personality.
Her gracious manner, condescending as became her genius,
but never either patronizing or indifferent, overcame at once
the diffidence of any who approached her, and her winning
smile irradiated and softened features that were too
strongly marked for feminine beauty. Those who
have seen her either in private or in public, as at the
Popular Concerts, at which she was a constant attendant,
cannot but have been struck with her resemblance to
Savonarola as he appears in the portrait by Fra Bartolommea
at Florence. She is gone, and the pen which drew Savona-
rola with all the strength of a man, and Romola With all
the tend-rnese of a woman, which has produced rgallery of
English portraits almost unrivalled in fiction, is laid aside
for ever. But her memory lives in the gratitude of count-
less thousands of readers, and the thought of the life of a
great and noble woman eaddenly cut off in the promise of
renewed happiness will sadden many a household in the
midst of Christmas rejoicings.