The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-10-14
q ELIOT.
The Manuscripts Of Har Works Now In the
British Museum.

- ~ NAuT y ts ""f~
British Museum.
A fow weeks nRo we briefly announced,
aAys tho London Athennum, that the Brit
ish museum had come In possession OF the
autograph manuscripts Of the works Of
George Eliot, her bequess Of them to- tho
nation taking effect after tho recent death
OF her stepaon. Charles Lewea. The Volumes,
numbered additional MSS. H,02O--W,04
are now made available to the public, and
form a peculiarly interesting memorial OF
the great novelist, whose mode OF dispoaing
OF them may Mt the same time be COM
ipendod TO other writer's for imitation.
Her earliest work, ..Nuccess Of Clerical
Lite,' la. we believe, In the hands Of Mr..
Blackwood. the publisher; but, with this
exception, the whole Of ller novels are in
"Jubal,'' and .'Iheophrastus Such,' all
written entirely In her " neat and legible
hand, Just as they were sent to press. To
Judge from its generally unaoiled condition
the printers must have been enjoined to
treat the copy with unusual care; and, as
soon as the complete manuscript. OF each
work was returned to the author, her habit
was to have it bound up and to give 1t to
George Henry Lewes, with an inscription
prefixad. These inscriptions, varying in
terms, bnt all expressing the deepest atfec-
ton. have a special interest Of their own,
and the ultimate destination Of the manu-
scripts. when, on the death OF q. III. Lewes
In 1878, they came back to the donor, may
have been determined aH much by her de-
sire thus to perpetuate the memory of their
mutual devotion as by any other consider
atoms.
Failing .'scenes Of Clerical Life" the
museum series begins with adam Bede."
the others, has been partially printed by j.
w. Cross in George Eliots Life" is as
follows:
s'To my dear husband, George Henry
Lewes, l give this MS. Of q work which
would never have been written but for the
my life.-Marian Lewes, March "a, 1852"
The first volume was written at Rich
mond. the second at Munich and Dresden,
the third at Richmond again. The work
was begun the 22d of October, 1867, and fin
ished the 10th of November, 1858. A large
portion OF it was written twice, though
often scarcely at all altered in the copying,
but other parts only once, and among these
the description of Dinah and a good deal
of her sermon, the love scene between her
and Seth, "Hetty's World" most OF the
scene in the Two bedchambers, the talk
between Arthur and Adam, various parts in
the second volume which ! can recall less
her confession, and the cottage scenes.
What the author remarks in regard to
adam Bede" was to all appearances
equally the case in her other works. The
amount of correction in the manuscripts
is comparatively small and unimportant.
Here and there short passages are struck
out or inserted, an expression is modified,
a sentence is differently turned, or words
are t~ransposed, but the impression given
on the whole ID that Of O writer whose
story, dialogue and all, whatever process It
went through in the mind, flowed freely
from the pen, and once set down needed
little revision. With Mr.. Cross Life to
refer to it is superfuous to quote the au-
thor's successive tributes to the man with
whom, in spite OF obloquy, she was content
to link her life. Room, however, may be
found for two that are typical, and the lat
ter of which Mr.. Cross does not give. thus
in "Romola" she writes (1863):
To the husband whose perfect love has been
manuscript is given by his devoted wife the
writer. ~.
And again, eleven years later, in ''Jubal:''
To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes,
whose cherishing tenderness for twenty years has
alone made my work possible to me.
And the la;tpsrting now began to send. "a.
Dlf1usive dread through love and welded bliss
Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
May 1874.
After the date OF these boding lines only
one more manuscript, that of Daniel De
ronda'' (1876), passed from one to the other
When 'Ineopnrasbus oucH was sent y
press Lewes was still living, but he wa
dead before it was published MAY, 1879
and although the manuscript was bound III
like the rest, its fly-leaf is left eloquent,
blank. This volume completes the series o
George Eliot's writings, but by the kind
ness OF Mrs. Charles Lewes the autograph
manuscript, of the Aristotle" of G. FL
Lewes has been added to them (Add. MS
34,O44). The inscription contained in i
forms a fitting pendant to those above:
To MY BELOVED MARIAN: "Where tn
heart lies let the brain lie Also"
July, 1864. G. Fl. LEwEs.