The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1899-03-26
GEORGE ELIOT.
Paper Read Before the XII
Club of Gainesville.
,ssssssssssssseeesssssssssss

Among fiction writers of the Nineteenth
century three names stand pre- eminent.
These names are George Eliot, Charles
Dickens and William Makepeace Thack-
cray OF this illustrious trio l unhesitat
ingly place the name OF George Eliot first.
do this, you Will say, because she Is n
woman and i desire to give the place of
highest honor to one of my own sex. By
no means Genius knows no SEX" says
famous French proverb. Whoever reads
thoughtfully the works of all three OF
these authors can not fail to notice George
Eliot's superior insight into human nature,
her superior power of developing human
character. Every quiverlng nerve is laid
bare and we can almost see the struggle
between good and evil. This alone is suf-
icient to establish her right of precedence.
Again, by the common voice of mankind
that writer is pronounced greatest who,
out of the many sided views OF his own
mind, creates the greatest variety of nat
ural characters. Who besides Shakespeare
has surpassed George Eliot in this re-
spect?
But there is third characteristic which
entities her beyond question to the place
of presidency. Sidney Lanier says The
great artist never can work In haste, never
| in malice, never in the sub-acid, satirlc
| mood OF Thackeray; in love and love only
| can great work. work that not only pulls
down, but builds up, be done; 1t is love
and love only that is truly constructive In
art " Therein, then, more than in any
thing else, lies the superiority OF George
Eliot over Dickens and Thackeray-her
| work was done in love. The words OF st.
| Paul are as true today as when his pen,
| dipped in the fervor of divine inspiration,
traced them in immortal characters over
| 1900 years ago. And now abideth faith,
hone, love, these three. but the greatest
| of these is love" The keynote of George
| Eliot's mission to the world was the divine
| command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
| as thyself" Dickens and Thackeray saw
| the hideous ulcers of society, but they
| poured upon them no healing oil, no balm
| of Gilead With their keen weapons OF
satire and of rldcue they dashed them aud
lacerated them afresh. George Eliot also
saw the ache and the agony beneath the
| fair outside show of life-saw all the hard
| ness the cruelty, the anguish and the mys-
| tery-and, with a sympathy as broad as
humanity itself, a tenderness as deep as
the woes of her sex. love which compre-
hended all forms of life. she entered upon
her mission of making even the most COM
monplace existence tolerable. Life meant
more to her than q succession OF petty
worldly pleasures and pains. She was toe
much in sympathy with human nature Il
caricature its follies with Dickens or laugh
at its weaknesses with Thackeray An IN,
tense. emotional thinker, she has settleC
forever. at least so far as she herself II
concerned. the long mooted question o.
woman's intellectual equality with man.
Though she lived among us only yester
day as It were. yet we know almost a!
little of her early life as we do OF snake
neares that other child of Warwickshlre
who lived over 300 years ago Accor1iht
to the generally accepted authorlty. Mar!
Ann Evans was born November 22, 1879, a
south farm. a mile from Gritf, In war
wIckshire. England. The family moved Il
| Criff House in the following spring, whel
| she was only months old. The house II
which she was reared was PLAIN, white
washed stone structure TWO stories hlgn
the upper chambers low, with gaple WIN
dows; a little garden at the side, brlgh
with flowers, all speaking oil nuilpie I'M -
and homey cares,
Mary Ann. or Marian, as she wrote 1t II
later life was the youngest OF three chill
dren by a second marriage we ma our
selves wondering what sort oil cnliu !
was that wandered about the sunny helu
OF Warwickshire gathering wild hover
and taking in at the same time WIN slase
watchful eyes, those Impressions ol rul 1
life OF when she WAS alNeA
come the greatest interpreter we can ~
think of her as ever having been = pap
/ al all. or even school girl, going throug
the weary drudgery Of doing sums, an
coming over with monotonous repeiitio
} her seven times one are seven we tn ,,,.
) of her as having come into the woriu I'M
! Il second Minerva, fully armed au
equipped for life's battles. AZ the ase
"a she is described by neishbor who wa
a frequent visitor at the house as "a tnIen
cornered. awkward girl who sal III coruei
and shyiy watched her elders -.
5 she was sent first to a village so ~,
where sitting side by side with the ils'i
rustics she learned her A, b. o. WuSh
little older she was sent TO a sehoo'
Nuneaton, where she remained uhlii a., ~
was ~. she was next placed In poaI ~. y
school al Coventry. When she reauneu ~
age of is her mother died. This even. ~
an end TO Marians school lie ror soi1
wears she was her fathers housekespe., :
: isll the family moved to Foiesnle hos
c Coventry. II was here that she oecalne ~ .,
= sociated with the Brays. who exer,eu sne
e a determining influence upon ner ny :,
, ramained her friends throhsnout ~
an,ire career. she passed ten years ?, a. y.
|