New-York tribune., 1907-01-06
GEORGE ELIOTS LAND.
Ghmpses of Her Realism in a War
rickshire Walk.
Nuneaton, December 20.

Nuneaton December 70.
Coventry is overstocked with heroines. Lady
Godva. veiled by her own tresses, took there
her legendary galop on a white charger; Mrs.
Siddons was married under OF the famous
spires; Ellen Terry was born In one old house
or another in Market street, and George Eliot
received there the literary training for her ca
reer Neglect is natural when SO many cee-
brated wcmen to be remembered and one
of them is picturesque a figure as Peeping
Toms beauteous White Countess. Coventry
pays little heed to it's minor heroines The
marriage entry is in the church registry yell
low with age: the birth house is anybody's
guess. and time is required before the school
where three years of George Eiot's girlhood
were passed be identified In Little Park
street The school building has degenerated into
a group of shabby tenements, and retains only
one relic of its former state-a shapely hood
over the main entrance Equally lacking In dis
unction Is the house in Foleshill where she lived
with her father during his closing years. studied
Greek and Hebrew. well as three modern
languages and music, and made the acquaint-
ance of the Brays and Hennells. who were to
open the way for her entrance into literary life
Foeshill IS now a struggling. unattractive
suburb of Coventry, cluttered up with Wesleyan
chapels. cycle and motor works. woollen and
yards and sanitary laundries. Suburban Eng
land can be as hideous as rural England Is love-
v. and this is dismal and commonplace tract
Ind noisy withal. for 1t is pierced by trolley
lines The Evans house. with a garden behind
IT. can be found. but there is no local color here
for 'Middlemarch" with provincial life as the
novelist saw it during her Coventry period
II is not until the walker Is well out Of Foles-
limo
picturesque village on the Nuneaton road. that
the background for George Eliot's earlier works
b supplied. The Coventry canal. with sluggish
Feeders draining stagnant pools. cannot be mis-
taken for the Floss for which she had to 20
Gar afeld to Lincolnshire; but the sweeps OF
,pen country. fringed with woods and dotted
sver with red-roofed cottages. orchards and
hedgerows. are those which flashed upon her
memory when she needed Il setting for her
Scenes OF Clerical Life" \ mile beyond Bed
worth. at the turning Of the road there is =,
large red brick house behind a screen of trees
and this is Gr.n House. George EIots hone
for twenty years big yew ben IS over it, a. I
frs guard the entrance from the road; ana tn,
uncovered walls are lankcd by a broad lcwn.
with winding walks under trees Beyond the
house there is irregular line of farm h-;:Id-
ings, stables and sheds. with gardens. he la,-
vas in tbs house that the novelist. in outlining,
her first story, put her mother. under the ai,iec
OF Mrs Iiatket, in the kitchen is stin to be
seen her fathers handiwork as a carpenter md
his portrait is in another room-:he original
Adam Bede and in the gable IS window
which lights the big attic whore Maggie Tulli-
ver-Georgc Eliot h.r&c.f-uscl t. read The
History of the Devil" and, Jaci-li1c drive nails
into the head OF her doh whenever there was
crisis in her childish fortunes Tie rivulets
above and below Griff House are outlets for
nelc ponds and the Arbury lakes. and among
them IS the rcedy pool where the Tulliver chill
dren went fishing. Tom Tulver in the person
OF Isaac Evans, lived in the old house after
Adam Bede went to Foloshill and it was there
that he read THE Mill the Floss and knew
that his sister alone could have written It
From Grn House the main road leads over n
hvuet and up hill to Chilvcrs Coton-once an
isolated village. with cottages on three roads.