Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1885-02-12
GEORGE ELIOT'S GRAVE.
She Rests Where The Sounds Of Care
less Life Sweep over the Dead.
The rl1rrnnt
The Current.


The Current.
The other day iourneyed to High
gate to visit the grave Of George
Eliot. Highga!e is SO near the habi
tations of men that sounds of careless
life sweep over the heads of the dead
with every movement of the air, and
in my heart incurred that this grave,
Mecca of so many pilgrimages, mag
net of so many thoughts. could not be
Americanized with the dignity of the
seclusion of loves planted vine, shrub,
and flower.
The whole monumental character
of the place is very monotonous, altar
tombs with the everlasting and con
ventional and flaming urn, meeting
the eye on every hand. Not the
slightest taste Ia sculptural design
| breaks the perpetual sameness, and
one would almost think that the erect
memorial statues of ancient days or
the recumbeHt ones of medieval
times were forbidden by the Anglican
church.
George Elot's grave lies upon high
ground, below which the mighty city
throbs beneath a perpetual veil of
/ sllvery or leaden mist. 1t is enclosed
by narrow granite coping, and has
not an inch of space to itself more
than is necessary to hold and cover
the body The grave is fat, not round
| ed, and upon it short, tender young
grass spreads thin shroud. A sodden
wreath, evidently just thawed out
/ from ha1a1afh fha
at the feet, while at the head were the
remnants of two common bead crowns
black, inscribed in white--one Asleep
in jesus" the other, SIN Memoriam. ="
1t is natural to suppose that those
crowns were deposited by persons who
however reverential, We're not closely
acquainted with George Eliot's spirit
ual complexion and character, for,
aside from the artistic blunder of all
such cheap and artificial offerings,
none of her spiritual conferers would
be likely to solve with an arrangement
in beads, a mystery with which her
mighty spirit travelled for lifetime
unsatisfied.
The monument at the head of the
grave, tall obelisque of highly pol
ished granite bearing in gold letters
the inscription "a portion selected
from one of her own poems):
OF those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence.
HERE LIES THE BODY OF GEORGE
ELIOT,
MARY ANN CROSS.
Born % NOVEMBER, 1919. DIED
% nmNUnfpnp 1000
George Eliot's grave is tightly
wedged between two others, not of
any kindred acquaintance. But q
little step away, slightly down the
declivitY from where she sleeps, is
another flat grave, enclosed within
iron railing a foot or so high.
This stone, although oily a little
over four years old, is already gray
and discolored with the incessant
dampness of England, and in streaks
and blotches of general grayness, is
like stone which might have wealth
cred fifty American years. 1t is in
scribed
GEORGE HENRY LEWIS,
BORN is APRIL, 1917. DIED 80 NovEM-
BIER, 1878.
The mystery of the final chapter in
George Eliot's life we cannot speculate
about without imminent risk of doing
gross injustice to a character which
always hid itself as much as possible
from the curiosity of the world.
Nevertheless, remembering what
those two lives were to each
other before the first of these graves
were made, and remembering also the
subsequent marriage which threwsuch
a miserable shadow backward upon
George EGot's relation with George
Lewis, a sentence from Middlemarch
forces itself into ones mind:
when tender affection has been
storing itself in us through many of
our years, the idea that we could ac-
cept any exchange for it seems a
cheapening Of our lives. And we can
set watch over our affections and
our constancy as we can over other
treasures