The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1881-01-15
THE LATE GEORGE ELIOT.
I Kate Field. |

IN the lake district, entered into Corrcspon-
dence with Walter Savage Lander, then resld'
ing in Bath, who took a deep interest IN her
genius and did much to encourage her, intro
ducing her among other people to Foster,
through which she found access TO The col
umns of the ErdWiner, then power IN the
weekly press She soon attracted by her an
onymous articles the attention of John Chap
man. then the leading radical publisher OF
London, and now established as successful
surgeon IN Paris. Thanks to his enlightened
perception of her abilities, she made her
serious debut as a writer with her admirable
translation of Strauss Life of Jesus" and
became leading contributor to the West
minister Reuie,c, then conducted by MIR. Chap
man. who also published her second work, a
translation of Feurbach's Essence of Chris
tlanity," which appeared in 1853. She had
contributed also to the Leader, to Fraser and
to Blackwood. 1t was IN the latter magazine
that she printed, in 1878, her "Sccnes OF
Clerical Life" which at once captured the
public sense by their vigor and freshness, and
made her pseudonym of George Eliot" then
used for the first time, famous. When, in
1859, she brought ont adam Bede," her place
in the front rank of living novelists was as.
sured. Rarely has great novelist produced
q first at so advanced an age. Rarely, too,
since the days of "Waverly," has any English
novel provoked so much discussion as to It's
authorship, the masculine Nom de plume ana
the vigor of the thought and style throwing
the keenest critics off the scent Thanks to
this 1t became necessary for Mr.. John Black
wood to expose an impos.or. just as WAY
erly" was first attributed to Erskine and then
to Sir Walter SCOTS own brother; as Mac
kenzles "NIan of Feeling" had been claimed
by clergyman of the name of Eccles, and
a. Ill.,,, In, Nntr
one Richard Rold; so an obscure country cur
atc-the oblivion that has long since over
taken whose name it is charitable 10 perpet
uate--announced that he was the Great Tn.
known" of George EliOt's first three-volume
novel A very brief letter from Mr. Black
wood disposed of these pretensions, but not
until the clerical fraud had achieved some
little fame and received not few tributes
from his deluded admirers.
THE Pen
Those persons whose memories OF their OWL
time reach back for Just twenty.one years, car
recall Il romance of authorship uncquaed
since the publication of "WaveIly.' Bril-
liantly successful novels are certainly not an
common things. But a work of fiction which
under the most favorable circumstances, takes
the whole reading public by storm, and, as {
great event of its year. makes eager readers Of
=
triumph that not every generation IS allowed
| to see.
| Who was the author of adam Bede?" The
question babe far to be as popular mystery
as the name of the author OF "Waverly.'
George Eliot was certainly a mans name aac
many readers, finding no trace IN its style OF
that indetnable quality which distinguishes
| the authoress from the author as surely as hel
voice distinguishes the woman from the man
maintained that things were as they seemed
But from the very beginning others were
either keener sighted or fonder of paradox
or in one way or another better informed
Messrs. Blackwood had received the manu-
script of Scenes of Clerical Life" from the
hand of George Henry Lewes under the. belief
that George Eliot was the name of man
as well as a mans name; nor did even n critic
SO experienced and almost unerrlng as the
late John Backwood see through the dis.
guise. Lewes himself seems to have held
with Archbishop Whateley that any direct in.
quiry into the authorship of a book pub.
lshed anonymously or under fictitious name,
is fragrant impertinence which ought, on
principle, to be answered with denial of
knowledge whether the denial be false or
true. When the Ledger was being projected
at the house of w. f. Forster Uhe Secretary
of Ireland, at Rawdon, near Leeds, Lcwes
and Thornton Hunt were both present; and
we are informed by one Of the company that
the former affected ignorance OF even so much
as the sex of the author of adam Bede,"
which had just appeared.
But there is another anecdotc which comes
to us on equally direct authority, and is much
better worth recording IN so far as it proves
the genius of George Eliot to be personal and
natural-part OF herself and of her life, and
not the result, as is sometimes argued and be-
lieved, of laborIOus culture and Of after inter.
course with other minds. A school-tellow Of
hers, who had as little direct knowledge
about the literary question OF the day as the
rest of the world, never felt the least doubt as
to who was the author of adam Bede" As
soon as she had read the book, George Eliot
is Mary Ann Evans" she said, and, as all the
world knows, she was right. 1t Is an extraor
binary piece Of evidence as to what George
Eliot the schoolgirl must have been.
Mary Anne Evans was born in Warwick
shire, in the ncighborhood of Coventry, not
later than the year 1920. Her father was
steward to the Newdegaes of that county
On the influence upon her writings Of the
part of England which she knows the best,
there is no need to dwell. Scott is not more
distinctively of the Border, Tennyson of Lin
cOlnshire nor Kingsley of Devon, than she OF
the mldlands Her genius is the reverse of
cosmopolitan and her strength lessons the
further she goes from home. 1t is always a
happy accident for novelist-though proba
bly, the reverse is true of the pOet-when his
genius is localized Provincial life, as no
body knew better than Balzac himself is of
necessity more intense IN its expression, deep
er in its roots at once more full of self and
more enslaved by limits and circumstances
more characteristic altogether, and more Open
thorough, personal and sympathetic study
than the life of great cities can possibly be,
which no one hand, not even Balzac's own,
has ever been large enough to hold. George
Eliots hand holds the whole OF the time and
of the country which she has made her own,
and every man knows Middlemarch, for ex.
ample, better than he knows his native town.
But her father was not only of the calling Of
Caleb Garth in the novel inst name,i-he WAS