New-York tribune., 1885-02-08
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
GEORGE ELIOT.

qhe ditor saws in his preface: With the materials
=, 49,, hands have endeavored to form an dutobi-
ooraphy if the term may be pernitted) OF George
Cliot The life has been allowed to write itself
IN extracts from her letters and journals Free from
the obtruson of any mind but her own, this method
serves think better than any other open to me,
10 show the development OF her intellect and char
aoter, George Eliot herself in of her letters,
declares her repugnance to autobiography. unless
it can be SO written as to involve neither self
rlorifcation nor impeachment of Others" Her nus
band has in these volumes so arranged ana seected
her correspondence as to present vivid and natural
picture of her development. and to avoid oil of the
objections expressed by her to censorlous autobog-
raphy The letters are. as he says, 80 arranged as
to form one connected whole. keeping the order Oh
their dates and with the least possible interruption
of comment o narrative OF day-to-oay hio'
with the play of light and shadewhich only letters
,xrtten IN various moods, can give, and without
which no portrait can be good likeness None OF
the letters are given in full All have been pruned
of irrelevant matter What is retained Is tnat
which will afford help toward knowing the writer
The method is new, and its results approve the
wisdom of it, For it has given the world pne OF the
most genuine possible Of autobographical records
n record wholly free from the self-consciousness
which must color all deliberate self-descIipton,
and enriched by countless little touches which
reveal the character of the writer In the most ariess
and trustworthy way.
And after tie acrid, atrablious biographical
works of late published the abounding charity. the
flowing sympathy manifested throughout these
volumes are not less refreshing and delightful than
Tho intellectual atmosphere of them Is bracng and
eleyating Some recent notwithstanding post-mortem
re'eyations have tended to create dread. among
sensitive minds, of all attempts to exploit the
intimate life of popular authors. But 1t is pleasant
to know that what George Eliot appears In her
books that and better she was In her private lie !
that though she suffered from ill-health continually
Il never soured her temper darkened her views OF
her fellow men and women; that she Kept con
stantly before her high standard of thinking and
living; that she was as feminine to the END as
tboneh she had not possessed intellect SO virile
io its force and grasp-an intellect whose chief
effect upon her inner life seems to have been to
eliminate the petty fobles which the excellence
of smaller natures.
The Introductory chapter deals with her child
hood and sho how she absorbed at that receptive
period very much of the knowledge OF rural lie
and scenery which was reproduced so powerfully
in sAdam Bede." the Scenes of Clerical Lie"
@The Mill on the Floss,' and "Felix Holt" Her
father. peasant who had educated himself and
acquired reputation for various practical knowl-
edge was agent for the estates of several nobemen
and gentlemen and In his constant drives about the
country used to take little Marian with him. to her
great delight. She not exactly precoclous
child, but she early produced the impression that
Ter mind was out of the common. She experienced
in her teens a powerful religious impression, ana
for a time was almost ascetic in her renuneiations
Then, as her reading grew reaction occurred, but
she never was or could have been irrelgious and
even her Positivist leanings in later years were
touched with q reverental feeling which quite
ic aarlu via
of hers upon conformity and lnhoeAty' which
already shows deep thought;
The first impulse of young and singenuous mind
is to withhold the slightest sanction from all that
contains even a mixture OF supposed error; Wheh
the soul is just liberated from the wretcned giant
bed OF dogmas which 1T has been racked ana
stretched ever since it began to think there is a
1eh o. re5 Wben we have the fal use OF our
limbs and the bracng ar OF independeaoe,. anu
we believe that we ishall soon obtain something
nositlye which will not only more than compensate
ms for what we have renounced, but will be so wei
worth offering to others that we may venture 10
proslevIze as fast as zeal for truth may prompt
rs But a wear or two of reflection, and the expert
ence of our own miserable weakness, which will Ill
afford to part with the crutch OF super
sttion must, think, effect change Speculative
truth begins to appear but shadow OF lndNluual
minds Agreement between inteliectS seems uhd. th.
tainabe, and turn TO the truth o. leenng a. the
only universal bond OF union. we hnd that the
intellectual errors which we once fancled were
mere incrustation have grown into the hving BODY
and that we cannot, in the majority OF cases,
wrench them away without destroying vitality
We begin to find that with individuals. as WIN
OF the wants which their own progress has gen
Grated. Ii is the quackery of inideity to suppose
that il has nostrum for all MANKIND aud to say 10
ali and singular, "Swallow my opinions and You
ehall be whole" IT. then, we ere debarred by such
considerations from trying to reorganze opinions u.s.
are we to remain aloof from our fellow creatures on
occasions when we may fully .sympathZe WIN the
feelings exercised, although our own have been
melted into another mould Ought we not on every
1
mony, though not in union with those VINO are
reason. than ourselvesf The results OF noncon-
formity in family are Just AN epltomo OF wnat
happens a larger scale IN the worid. An lnhu-
ental member chooses to omit an observance whlch,
in the minds of all the rest associated with what
is hi CHEST and most venerable. lie cannot make
his reasons intelgble, and so his eondnct .,d Is
had on him previously The rest are injected wth
the disease they imagine In him. All the screws by
which order maintained are Ioosened, ana Ia
mere than one case persons happiness may be
ruined by the confusion OF ideas which took the
form of principles
During the time when her mission was still
obscure to her, yet when her restless Intelligence
was reaching out in all directions for fresh knowl-
edge, she undertook the translation of STRAUSS
Life of Jesusn and finished 1t conscentiously,
though she was heartily tired of it before the end
came She also translated Feuerbach's Essence of
Christianity and this was the only publication the
title-page Of which bore her real name-Marian
Evans. She had not many personal dislikeS, but In
her youth she "could not abide" one popular
writer She Says
am clad Won detest Mrs Hannah More's letters.
/ like neither her letters, her books, nor her
character. She was that most disagreeable of all
moDsIers. s. blue stocking-a monster that can only
exist IN a miseraby false state of society, in which
a woman with but smattering of learning or phi
tosophy is cassed along with singing mice and card
playing pigs
a At this time. too, she rebelled strongly against
Disrae's potraiture of the Jews. and this is inter
esting in view of her later opinions as set forth in
GDaniel Deronda." She saysi