The record-union., 1892-05-07
Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1921


Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1921
BEDwoRTH, England, April %, 1892.
1t is not long ago that one of the noblest
of American women said to me:
''If there is any earthly influence that
might repress the presumption, impu-
dence and immodesty of that rapidly-in-
creasing class of my countrywomen who
seem possessed of mad craze TO unsex
themselves for thepitiable reward of tenn
porary public recognition or notoriety,
1t would be genuine study of the ge-
MUS of George Eliot coupled with pill
grimage to the localities upon which her
everyday life as a maid and woman
left the grand impress of their personal
worth.
This much of an object-lesson would
be learned-if such women are capable
of receiving grave and serious instruc-
ton as would also result from a life
study OF the genius of Harriet Martineau,
the Cary sisters, Rosa Bonheur, Dinah
Muiock Craik, Elizabeth Barret Brown
ing, Charlotte Bronte, and all other
women who are to remain among the
lmmortab. That where genius has been
the original gift of woman, in the precise
degree that has been eventually achieved
and accorded, mas that woman shrunk
from offensive exhibitions of her own
personality and importance. Another as
impressive truth would have logical re-
Fealment. Where any woman charges
upon the public with demands for its at
tentIon and homage, in the same degree
OF her lnslstent clamor it will, in time,
be withheld and prove her doom to mer-
tied oblivion"
However this may be, remembering
George EllotS work which, in its hold
upon the intellect and heart of all Eng
Ilsh-speaaing people, is instinctively
grouped with that of Scott and Shakes
peare, and her grand, strong, plain face
which you instinctively group with those
OF Dante, Bronte, Savonarola and Liszt,
you come TO the pleasant region where
she grew to her full stature of person and
genius with something akin to the same
Indetinable feeling Of dreamful unreality,
touched With reverence and almost
Lushed with awe, as when you tread the
quaint streets of old Stratford, close to the
shrine of the immortal Bard of Avon.
Indeed the Shakespeare country is
truly George Eliot's land. Stratford,
Warwick, bennington, Coventry and
Nuneaton all lie in a direct line from the
southwest 10 the northeast boundaries of
Warwickshire. one of the finest high
ways in England, elm-shaded for more
than half its length, connects them all
Llots Warwlckshire was the Arden of
Shakespeare. The same Avon smiled back
from its murmuring waters upon them
both. The same billowy hills, gentle
slopes and sunny valleys gave both their
inspiration and imagery. Their hearts
warmed to the same peasantry. In the
subtle delineation of these Eliot was to
the early Victorian age, at least in de-
what Sh1 kpSnparn rn fbn II,
Elizabethan. And Shakespeares birth
place and grave at Stratford are not
thirty miles distant from George Eliot's
girlhood home.
1t lies on the olden highway between
Coventry and Nuneaton. These towns
are bat nine miles apart. Bedworth a
sleepy old pit village, is midway between,
and about half way from Bedworth to Nu-
neaton, near Arbury Hall, the seat of the
Newdigates, is Gritf, fine old English
farm home and steading, belonging to the
great Aubury estates now as when George
Eliot's MARY Ann Evans') baby eyes first
looked upon the great frs, cedars, elms
and lines which shade this old and am
pie stone structure. In this house Of
many gables and tiny-paned bow win
dows George Eliot lived from March
lSZO, when she was a babe but four
months old, until March, lS4l, when her
family removed from Griff to FoleshiIl
-.
These were the twenty-one wears in
which were nurtured and matured all
those bodily, heart and mental forces
which gave her the highest place in liter
ature of any woman that ever lived.
Her father, Robert Evans, was a tenant
OF Francis Newdigate, at Kirk Hallem,
Derbyshire. On the death of old Sir
Roger Newdlgate the Arbury estate in
WarwickShire came to Francis Newdi-
gate for life, and Robert Evans accompa-
MED him to Arbury as his tenant and
agent. By first wife there had been two
children. Their mother died in 1909
Their father married Christiana Pearson
in 1913. Three children were born of this
union-Chrlstiana in 1914, Isaac in 1916
and Mary Ann George Eliot in 1919. at
the south Farm" Arbury, which had
been given the father temporarily. Cross
IN his biography of George Eliot, tran
scribes from an old diary of the father
where it had been penned in his own
handwriting:
NOV. 2, lS19.-Mary Ann Evans was
born at Arbury Farm this was "South
Farm," Arbury) at 8 o'clock this morn
ing"
1t was st. Cecilia's day. 1t is also of
record that the child was baptized in the
ancient church of Chilvers Cotton. which
rears its crumbling Norman tower over a
landscape that will strongly remind Won
OF the moorS about Haworth, where the
sisters Bronte struggled nearly all their
lives in pathetic silence. This quaint old
pile, midway between the Gritf farm
house and NuneatOn, and the half dozen
houses under its caves, is the Shepperton
of "Amos Barton"
The three Evans children, then. most
and longest associated with Grid were
the three born upon the Arbury estates.
Chrlstiana married surgeon named
Clark OF Meriden, Warwick shire. and
died In 1888. George Eliot died in 1880.
Isaac, as l learned after arrival here
who had remained at GriIf and succeeded
the novelists father as its tenant and the
Newdigates' agent, suddenly died in his
chair on returning from service at Chill
vers Cotton Church, in October, 1880.
his children, nephews and nieces of
George Eliot, are four in number. IT is
an unpleasant but truthful statement that
while they command certain Difference
on account of relationship. without
which their own small affairs would
never have reached the confines of their
little parish, they are unlovabIe and un-
loved by the few of quality and the
thousands OF lowly around them. They
are stern, cold, miserly money-grabbers.
all; ohenslvely conscious of their rad
lated importance and Snappishly chur-
hsh and repellant TO all who bring a
whoIe-hearted reverence to a spot made
luminous by the presence of a mighty
soul.
One daughter, q maiden lady of severe
and awful aspect, was Isaac's housekeep-
er for many years at Griff. She now re-
sides at bedworth, and the lowly of the
place dread her auStere visage and her
cruel platitudes, they freely confessed to
me, when her purse, hand and gentle
words might relieve great SUFFERING s
brother, the Rev. Frederic Evans IS tho
present Rector OF Bedworth. He per-