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_Eminent Women Series_
EDITED BY JOHN H. INGRAM
GEORGE ELIOT
[_All Rights Reserved_]
GEORGE ELIOT
BY
MATHILDE BLIND
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN AND CO.
13, WATERLOO PLACE
1883.
[_All Rights Reserved_]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
PREFATORY NOTE.
Detailed accounts of GEORGE ELIOT'S life have hitherto been singularly
scanty. In the dearth of published materials a considerable portion of
the information contained in this biographical study has, necessarily,
been derived from private sources. In visiting the places connected with
GEORGE ELIOT'S early life, I enjoyed the privilege of meeting her
brother, Mr. Isaac Evans, and was also fortunate in gleaning many a
characteristic fact and trait from old people in the neighbourhood,
contemporaries of her father, Mr. Robert Evans. For valuable help in
forming an idea of the growth of GEORGE ELIOT'S mind, my warm thanks are
especially due to her oldest friends, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, and
Miss Hennell of Coventry. Miss Jenkins, the novelist's schoolfellow, and
Mrs. John Cash, also generously afforded me every assistance in their
power.
A great part of the correspondence in the present volume has not
hitherto appeared in print, and has been kindly placed at my disposal by
Mrs. Bray, Mrs. Gilchrist, Mrs. Clifford, Miss Marks, Mr. William M.
Rossetti, and the late James Thomson. I have also quoted from letters
addressed to Miss Phelps which were published in _Harper's Magazine_ of
March 1882, and from one or two other articles that have appeared in
periodical publications. For permission to make use of this
correspondence my thanks are due to Mr. C. L. Lewes.
By far the most exhaustive published account of GEORGE ELIOT'S life and
writings, and the one of which I have most freely availed myself, is Mr.
Call's admirable essay in the _Westminster Review_ of July 1881.
Although this, as indeed every other article on the subject, states
GEORGE ELIOT'S birthplace incorrectly, it contains many important _data_
not mentioned elsewhere. To the article on GEORGE ELIOT in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ for February 1881, I owe many interesting particulars, chiefly
connected with the beginning of GEORGE ELIOT'S literary career. Amongst
other papers consulted may be mentioned a noticeable one by Miss Simcox
in the _Contemporary Review_, and an appreciative notice by Mr.
Frederick Myers in _Scribner's Magazine_, as well as articles in
_Harper's Magazine_ of May 1881, and _The Century_ of August 1882. Two
quaint little pamphlets, 'Seth Bede: the Methody,' and 'George Eliot in
Derbyshire,' by Guy Roslyn, although full of inaccuracies, have also
furnished some curious items of information.
MATHILDE BLIND.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY HOME 9
CHAPTER III.
YOUTHFUL STUDIES AND FRIENDSHIPS 22
CHAPTER IV.
TRANSLATION OF STRAUSS AND FEUERBACH--TOUR ON
THE CONTINENT 44
CHAPTER V.
THE "WESTMINSTER REVIEW" 59
CHAPTER VI.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES 77
CHAPTER VII.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE 91
CHAPTER VIII.
ADAM BEDE 106
CHAPTER IX.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS 123
CHAPTER X.
SILAS MARNER 137
CHAPTER XI.
ROMOLA 148
CHAPTER XII.
HER POEMS 161
CHAPTER XIII.
FELIX HOLT AND MIDDLEMARCH 175
CHAPTER XIV.
DANIEL DERONDA 192
CHAPTER XV.
LAST YEARS 204
GEORGE ELIOT.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Speaking of the contributions made to literature by her own sex, George
Eliot, in a charming essay written in 1854, awards the palm of
intellectual pre-eminence to the women of France. "They alone," says the
great English author, "have had a vital influence on the development of
literature. For in France alone the mind of woman has passed, like an
electric current, through the language, making crisp and definite what
is elsewhere heavy and blurred; in France alone, if the writings of
women were swept away, a serious gap would be made in the national
history."
The reason assigned by George Eliot for this literary superiority of
Frenchwomen consists in their having had the courage of their sex. They
thought and felt as women, and when they wrote, their books became the
fullest expression of their womanhood. And by being true to themselves,
by only seeking inspiration from their own life-experience, instead of
servilely copying that of men, their letters and memoirs, their novels
and pictures have a distinct, nay unique, value, for the student of art
and literature. Englishwomen, on the other hand, have not followed the
spontaneous impulses of nature. They have not allowed free play to the
peculiarly feminine element, preferring to mould their intellectual
products on the masculine pattern. For that reason, says George Eliot,
their writings are "usually an absurd exaggeration of the masculine
style, like the swaggering gait of a bad actress in male attire."
This novel theory, concerning a specifically feminine manifestation of
the intellect, is doubly curious when one compares it with Madame de
Stael's famous saying, "_Le genie n'a pas de sexe._" But an aphorism,
however brilliant, usually contains only one half the truth, and there
is every reason to think that women have already, and will much more
largely, by-and-by, infuse into their works certain intellectual and
emotional qualities which are essentially their own. Shall we, however,
admit George Eliot's conclusion that Frenchwomen alone have hitherto
shown any of this original bias? Several causes are mentioned by her in
explanation of this exceptional merit. Among these causes there is one
which would probably occur to every one who began to reflect on this
subject. The influence of the "Salon" in developing and stimulating the
finest feminine talents has long been recognised. In this school for
women the gift of expression was carried to the utmost pitch of
perfection. By their active co-operation in the discussion of the most
vital subjects, thought became clear, luminous, and forcible; sentiment
gained indescribable graces of refinement; and wit, with its brightest
scintillations, lit up the sombre background of life.
But among other causes enumerated as accounting for that more
spontaneous productivity of Frenchwomen, attributed to them by George
Eliot, there is one which would probably have occurred to no other mind
than hers, and which is too characteristic of her early scientific
tendencies to be omitted. For according to her, the present superiority
of Frenchwomen is mainly due to certain physiological peculiarities of
the Gallic race. Namely, to the "small brain and vivacious temperament
which permit the fragile system of woman to sustain the superlative
activity requisite for intellectual creativeness," whereas "the larger
brain and slower temperament of the English and Germans are in the
womanly organisation generally dreamy and passive. So that the
_physique_ of a woman may suffice as the substratum for a superior
Gallic mind, but is too thin a soil for a superior Teutonic one."
So knotty and subtle a problem must be left to the scientist of the
future to decide. Perhaps some promising young physiologist, profiting
by the "George Henry Lewes Studentship" founded by George Eliot, may
some day satisfactorily elucidate this question. In the meanwhile it is
at least gratifying to reflect that she does not deny the future
possibilities of even English and German women. She admits that
conditions might arise which in their case also would be favourable to
the highest creative effort; conditions which would modify the existing
state of things according to which, to speak in her own scientific
phraseology: "The woman of large capacity can seldom rise beyond the
absorption of ideas; her physical conditions refuse to support the
energy required for spontaneous activity; the voltaic pile is not strong
enough to produce crystallisations."
But was the author of 'Adam Bede' not herself destined to be a
triumphant refutation of her theory? Or had those more favourable
circumstances mentioned as vague possibilities already arisen in her
case? Not that we believe, for that matter, in the superior claims of
illustrious Frenchwomen. It is true George Eliot enumerates a formidable
list of names. But on the whole we may boast of feminine celebrities
that need not shrink from the comparison.
There is, of course, much truth in the great Englishwoman's generous
praise of her French compeers. "Mme. de Sevigne remains," she says, "the
single instance of a woman who is supreme in a class of literature which
has engaged the ambition of men; Mme. Dacier still reigns the queen of
blue-stockings, though women have long studied Greek without shame; Mme.
de Stael's name still rises to the lips when we are asked to mention a
woman of great intellectual power; Mme. Roland is still the unrivalled
type of the sagacious and sternly heroic yet lovable woman; George Sand
is the unapproached artist who, to Jean Jacques' eloquence and deep
sense of external nature, unites the clear delineation of character and
the tragic depth of passion."
Shall we be forced to admit that the representative women of England
cannot justly be placed on as high a level? Is it so certain that they,
too, did not speak out of the fulness of their womanly natures? That
they too did not feel the genuine need to express modes of thought and
feeling peculiar to themselves, which men, if at all, had but
inadequately expressed hitherto?
Was not Queen Elizabeth the best type of a female ruler, one whose keen
penetration enabled her to choose her ministers with infallible
judgment? Did not Fanny Burney distil the delicate aroma of girlhood in
one of the most delightful of novels? Or what of Jane Austen, whose
microscopic fidelity of observation has a well-nigh scientific accuracy,
never equalled unless in the pages of the author we are writing of? Sir
Walter Scott apparently recognised the eminently feminine inspiration of
her writings, as he says: "That young lady had a talent for describing
the involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which
is for me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Bow-wow strain I can
do myself like any now agoing; but the exquisite touch, which renders
ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of
the descriptions and the sentiment, is denied to me." Then turning to
the Brontes, does not one feel the very heartbeats of womanhood in those
powerful utterances that seem to spring from some central emotional
energy? Again, does not Mrs. Browning occupy a unique place among poets?
Is there not a distinctively womanly strain of emotion in the throbbing
tides of her high-wrought melodious song? And, to come to George Eliot
herself, will any one deny that, in the combination of sheer
intellectual power with an unparalleled vision for the homely details of
life, she takes precedence of all writers of this or any other country?
To some extent this wonderful woman conforms to her own standard. She
undoubtedly adds to the common fund of crystallised human experience, as
literature might be called, something which is specifically feminine.
But, on the other hand, her intellect excels precisely in those
qualities habitually believed to be masculine, one of its chief
characteristics consisting in the grasp of abstract philosophical ideas.
This faculty, however, by no means impairs those instinctive processes
of the imagination by which true artistic work is produced; George Eliot
combining in an unusual degree the subtlest power of analysis with that
happy gift of genius which enabled her to create such characters as Amos
Barton, Hetty, Mrs. Poyser, Maggie, and Tom Tulliver, Godfrey Cass and
Caleb Garth, which seem to come fresh from the mould of Nature itself.
Indeed, she has hardly a rival among women in this power of objective
imagination by which she throws her whole soul into natures of the most
varied and opposite types, whereas George Sand only succeeds greatly
when she is thoroughly in sympathy with her creations.
After George Eliot's eulogium of French women, one feels tempted to
institute a comparison between these two great contemporaries, who
occupied the same leading position in their respective countries. But it
will probably always remain a question of idiosyncracy which of the two
one is disposed to rank higher, George Eliot being the greatest realist,
George Sand the greatest idealist, of her sex. The works of the French
writer are, in fact, prose poems rather than novels. They are not
studies of life, but life interpreted by the poet's vision. George Sand
cannot give us a description of any scene in nature, of her own
feelings, of a human character, without imparting to it some magical
effect as of objects seen under the transfiguring influence of moonlight
or storm clouds; whereas George Eliot loves to bathe her productions in
the broad pitiless midday light, which leaves no room for illusion, but
reveals all nature with uncompromising directness. The one has more of
that primitive imagination which seizes on the elemental side of
life--on the spectacle of the starry heavens or of Alpine solitudes, on
the insurrection and tumult of human passion, on the shocks of
revolution convulsing the social order--while the other possesses, in a
higher degree, the acute intellectual perception for the orderly
sequence of life, for that unchangeable round of toil which is the lot
of the mass of men, and for the earth in its homelier aspects as it
tells on our daily existence. In George Sand's finest work there is a
sweet spontaneity, almost as if she were an oracle of Nature uttering
automatically the divine message. But, on the other hand, when the
inspiration forsakes her, she drifts along on a windy current of words,
the fatal facility of her pen often beguiling the writer into vague
diffuseness and unsubstantial declamation.
In this respect, also, our English novelist is the opposite of George
Sand, for George Eliot invariably remains the master of her genius:
indeed, she thoroughly fulfils Goethe's demand that if you set up for an
artist you must command art. This intellectual self-restraint never
forsakes George Eliot, who always selects her means with a thorough
knowledge of the ends to be attained. The radical difference in the
genius of these two writers, to both of whom applies Mrs. Browning's apt
appellation of "large-brained woman and large-hearted man," extends
naturally to their whole tone of thought. George Sand is impassioned,
turbulent, revolutionary, the spiritual daughter of Rousseau, with an
enthusiastic faith in man's future destiny. George Eliot, contemplative,
observant, instinctively conservative, her imagination dearly loving to
do "a little Toryism on the sly," is as yet the sole outcome of the
modern positive spirit in imaginative literature--the sole novelist who
has incorporated in an artistic form some of the leading ideas of Comte,
of Mazzini, and of Darwin. In fact, underlying all her art there is the
same rigorous teaching of the inexorable laws which govern the life of
man. The teaching that not liberty but duty is the condition of
existence; the teaching of the incalculable effects of hereditary
transmission, with the solemn responsibilities it involves; the teaching
of the inherent sadness and imperfection in human nature, which render
resignation the first virtue of man.
In fact, as a moral influence, George Eliot cannot so much be compared
with George Sand, or with any other novelist of her generation, as with
Carlyle. She had, indeed, a far more explicit ethical code to offer than
the author of 'Sartor Resartus.' For though the immense force of the
latter's personality, glowing through his writings, had a tonic effect
in promoting a healthy moral tone, there was little of positive moral
truth to be gathered from them. But the lessons which George Eliot would
fain teach to men were most unmistakable in their bearing--the lessons
of pitying love towards fellow-men; of sympathy with all human
suffering; of unwavering faithfulness towards the social bond,
consisting in the claims of race, of country, of family; of unflagging
aspiration after that life which is most beneficent to the community,
that life, in short, towards which she herself aspired in the now famous
prayer to reach
"That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense."