The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-09
GEORGE ELIOT.
The Woman and the Genius

i SECOND PAPER.
| Written for the Journal, by Nay Wright sewaH
| Mary Ann Evans was less than eighteen years
/ old when, having lost her mother by death and
her elder sister by marriage she became the
mistress of her fathers house. The manage
ment of the household under her mother had
been pre-eminently thrifty. Mrs. Evans was a
notable heusekeeper, and had carried on cheese
and butter-making with the greatest energy.
As her successor, Mary Ann RENTED
none of her mothers painstaking industry; but,
leaving no domestic duty undone, found an ex-
cess of time and force which was divided between
outside charity and her own culture.
| Her naturally serious and religious spirit had
at school been biased by the evangelical opinions
| of her teachers, and at eighteen her state of
mind concerning religion was what the mild
est verdict Of our time would pronounce
morbid. At this time the life of Nilberforce
the letters Of Hannah More and the homilies and
dismal meditations of Young were her favorite
reading; and her letters to her personal friends
are full of passionate longings that she s'might
live for eternity" Despairing descriptions of
her low spiritual state and lofty aspirations d.
vide the attention and the surprise of the
reader.
| An argumentative letter against novel reading
written when she was nineteen, is of vital inter-
est to a student of George Eliot. She condemns
| historic felton, finds the religious novel more
pernicious and hateful than any other
form of romance, while domestic fc-
tons are pronounced pits of danger
| AT this period, when fiction had little or no
charm for her, works of religious controversy
| were full of interest One sentence from a let
ter of this period affords keyt her subsequent
| frequent changes of opinion: II think no one
feels more difficulty in coming to decision on
controverted matters than myself. 1 do not
| mean that have not preferences; but, however
congruous theory may be with my notions, 1
| cannot find that comfortable repose that others
appear to possess after having made their cleo
! ton of class of sentiments"
There is a kind of egotism very common in
| this world which makes it's possessor regard
everything that belongs to him Tor to her as be-
| yond criticism question This egotism
| imparts to all belongings, to the family
the friends the house, the furniture, the dress,
| the opinions, the tastes and the creed of its
possessor the quality of individuality flavor of
| personality which Immediately secures for all
| these varied possessions the protection of self
| love-. OF this kind of egotism George Eliot had
absolutely none. 1t was to it's absence that she
| owed what Mr.. Cross rather startlngly calls her
| ''chameleon-like nature" This epithet startles
us when applied to George Eliot, because it is so
often applied to yielding and tickle natures who
An analysis of the term will show that its ordi-
nary. is its false application. Humility.
which makes its possessor slow to
trust to his own thoughts; reverence,
which makes it easy to believe that to another
have been revealed heights and depths unattain-
able by him; sympathy, which enables one to
comprehend and to respond to all phases of be-
lief that many sidedness which is the most in
variable characteristic of the truly great soul,
all Of these are qualities of the 'chameleon-like
nature"
What is usually regarded as the conserva-
tor and cultivator of the true womanly"
was given to Mary Ann Evans in abundance,
viz, domestic duty. For thirteen years she made
her fathers home h0me-like and in the record
of these years one finds the germs of all quail
ties which the future developed in her From evans
gelical dissent to conformty; from conformity to
pOsitivism we see her move, but under every form
of faith, and no faith we see her dominated al
ways by the conscientious determination to seek
the light, to reflect in her own life every ray that
falls upon her, and to impart to al around her
share in her illumination.
It is pre- eminently the spirit of the missionary
that is her motive power She establishes sew
ing clubs and with them reading clubs; to i'm
prove the material and the spiritual conditions
of her fellows is her first and her last care.
While her father was still living, we see the
manifestation of that quality which enabled her
to forsake all and to be forsaken of all, that she
might live with the man whom English law
would not permit her to marry.
Years before she left kindred and society for
George Lewess sake, she left her faith er and her
home for conscience sake, and it is quite evident
| that conscience was as truly the determining
influence in the later as in the earlier self-exile.
| One takes deep pleasure in having ones confid-
| dence in George Eliot's fidelity confirmed by the
life" One not only finds that this woman
| shirked no duty inherited, assumed or incidental
but also that she discharged all such with
| punctilious care and with loving readiness. Her
| acquaintance with the Brays and the Hennels
| began in l84l, and some of the tenderest and
frankest letters Of her last years are addressed
to them Apparently her sister ''Chrissey' is the
| only member of her own family with whom she
corresponded during Mr.. Lewes's life. To this
| sister she was faithful and generous, and after
| their mothers death superintendent and provided
| for the education of her nieces. The position
of 'step another has always been regarded
one of the severest tests to which womans
| character can be put. In Mary Ann Evanss
case the strain of the position must have been
| aggravated by the peculiar circumstances; yet
her letters to her husbands sons and her letters
| containing incidental mention of them, her sue
| cessful binding them to their father and their
| home, prove that she evaded no duty no care
| incident to the position, and that she won from
| it such love and loyalty, such companionship
| and service as this relation seldom yields Not
! only step-mothers but mothers might be profited
by her incidental discussion of the characters of
her stepsons, of their studies, their pleasures,
and by observing the preparations which she
made for their home coming, and the pains
which she took to be companionable to them.
Skilled as she was in housekeeping its greedy
and remorseless consumption of time evidently
irked her; but her accounts Of struggles with
tapestry and upholstery are in vivid constrast
with Mrs. Carlyles pquant kitchen sketches.
Almost any man might afford to pardon in
George Eliot her philosophy and her ability
ito discuss subjects" when she exclaims in con-
Guiding the description of their new home, the
drawing room of which had been furnished
under the direction of an artist, that tidy,
wholesome, well furnished kitchen, with its rows
of shining. tins. is more to her taste than any