The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-05-24
NAKEMANS WANDERINCS
EEoRos sLloT's elRLHOOO HOME.

GriG. tho Farm Home of Htcrat"re's
Foremost Woman-Tbc Region George
Eliot Land a. Wei as Shakespeare
Conntry-~ExiraordIn Relatives and
Many Childhood Friends stiIi Living.
ICopyright. 1872. by Edgar l.. Wakeman.l
BEDwORTH. England, April q. -Remem-
bcring George Eliot's work which, in us
bold upon the intellect and heart Of all
English speaking people, j. instinctiveiy
grouped with that Of Scott and Shake
speare. and her grand, strong plain face,
which you instinotiyely group with those
Of Dante. Bronze, Savonarola and List, you
come 10 the pleasant region where she grew
10 her full stature Of person and genius with
something akin 10 the same indefnable
feeling Of dreamful unreality touched with
reverence aud almost hushed with awe, as
when you tread the quaint streets OF old
Stratford. close 10 the shrine Of the i'm
mortal bard ~ Avon.
Indeed the Shakespeare country Is truly
George Eliots land. StrafOrd, Warwick,
bennington, Coventry and Nuneaton all
lie In nearly direct line from the south
west 10 the northeast boundaries OF War
wickshire. One Of the finest highways IN
England elm shaded for more than half
its length, connects them all Eiiots War
wickshire was the Arden Of Shakespeare
The same Avon smiled back from It's muir
muring waters upon them both. The same
billowy hills. gentle slopes aud sunny val
Ieys gave both their inspiration and image
~. Their hearts warmed 10 the same
peasantry In the subtle dclineatiOn Of
these Eliot was 10 the early Victorian age
at least in "a degree, what Shakespeare was
20 the early Elizabethan And Shake
speares birthplace and grave at Stratford
are not thirty miles distant from George
Eliot's girlhood home.
II lies ON the oldon highway between
Coventry and Nuneaton. These towns are
but nine miles apart Bedworth, a sleepy
old pit village, is midway between, and
about halfway from Bcdworth 10 Nunea-
ton, near Arbury Hall, the seat Of the
Newdigates. is Grill. fine old English
farm home and stealing, belonging 20 the
great Arbury estates now as when George
Eliot's MARY Ann Evans baby eyes first
looked upon the great frs, cedars, cims
and lines which shade this old and ample
stone structure. IN this house OF many
gables and tiny paned bow windows George
Eliot lived from March, 1920, when she
was babe but four months old, until
March, 1871, when her family removed
from Grin 10 FOleshill, Coventry. a period
OF twenty-one years. These were the
twenty-one years in which were nurtured
and maturcd all those bodily, heart and
mental forces which gave her the highest
place in literature Of any woman that ever
lived.
Her father, Robert Evans, was tenant
Of Mr.. Francis Newdigate, at Kirk llallam,
Derbyshire ON the death of old Sir Roger
Newdigate the Arbury estate in Warwick
shire camel 10 Francis Newdigate for life,
and Robert Evans accompanied him to
Arbury as his tenant and agent. by a
first wife there had been two children.
Their mother died in 1909. Their father
married Christiana Pearson in 1873 Three
children were born Of this union
Christana, i'm 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, transcribes
from an old diary of the father where IL
had been penned in his own handwriting;
Nov. p. lsl9-Niary Ann Evans was born at
Arbury Farm 6his was south Farm" Ar
bury at b o'clock this morning.
1t was ST. Cecelia's Day it 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 you Of
the mOors about Haworth, where the sis
ters Bront6 struggled nearly all their lives
in pathetic silence This quaint old pile,
,nidway between the Griff farmhouse and
Nuneaton, and the half dozen houses un-
der its caves is the Shepperton of Amos
Barton"
The three Evans children, then, most and
longest associated with GrfI, were the
three born upon the Arbury estates Chris
tiana married a surgeon named Clark, of
Meriden, Warwickshire, and died in 1859
George Eliot died in 1880. Isaac as learned
after arrival here, who had remained at
Grit and succeeded the noyelist's fatheras
its tenant and the Newdigates' agent, sud
denly died in his chair on returning from
service at Chilvers Cotton church in Octo-
Der, 1890
His children, nephews and nieces of
George Eliot, are four in number 1t Is an
unpleasant but truthful statement that
while they command a certain Difference
on account of relationship, without
which their own small affairs would never
have reached the confines of their little
parish, they are ENJOYABLE and unloved by
the few of quality and the thousands of
lowly around them They are stern cold,
ynserly money grabbers, all; extensively
conscious Of their radiated Importance and
snappishly churlish and repellent 70 all
who bring a whole hearted reverence TO
SPOT made luminous by the presence of a
mighty soul
One daughter, a maiden lady Of severe
and awful aspect, was lsaac's hOusekeeper
for many years at Grin. She now resides
at Bedworth, and the lowly Of the place
dread her austere visage and her cruel
patitudes, they freely confessed so me,
when her purse, hand and gentle words
might relieve great suffering. A brother,
the Rev. Frederic Evans, Is the present
rector Of Bedworth. He performs his
canonical offices with mechanical accuracy
and metallic soddenness; enjoys his fat
"livingn rs though the Almighty had ar
ranged the parishes and population of
England with especial reference 10 the
vicarious relations Of the Evans family 10
IJis affairs and has no heart or ewes for the