SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.
As has already been mentioned, Mr. Lewes and Marian went to Germany in
1854, dividing the year between Berlin, Munich, and Weimar. In the
latter pleasant little Saxon city, on which the mighty influence of
Goethe seemed still visibly resting, as the reflection of the sun
lingers in the sky long after the sun himself has set, Lewes partly
re-wrote his 'Life of Goethe.' Here must have been spent many delightful
days, wandering in Goethe's track, exploring the beautiful
neighbourhood, and enjoying some of the most cultivated society in
Germany. Several articles on German life and literature, afterwards
published in the _Westminster Review_, were probably written at this
time. The translation of Spinoza's 'Ethics' by George Eliot was also
executed in the same year. Mr. Lewes, alluding to it in 'Goethe's Life,'
says, in a foot-note, "It may interest some readers to learn that
Spinoza will ere long appear in English, edited by the writer of these
lines." This was a delusive promise, since the translation has not yet
made its appearance. But surely its publication would now be warmly
welcomed.
The time, however, was approaching when George Eliot was at last to
discover where her real mastery lay. And this is the way, as the story
goes, that she discovered it. They had returned from the Continent and
were settled again in London, both actively engaged in literature. But
literature, unless in certain cases of triumphant popularity, is perhaps
the worst paid of all work. Mr. Lewes and George Eliot were not too well
off. The former, infinite in resources, having himself tried every form
of literature in turn, could not fail to notice the matchless power of
observation, and the memory matching it in power, of the future
novelist. One day an idea struck him. "My dear," he said, "I think you
could write a capital story." Shortly afterwards there was some dinner
engagement, but as he was preparing to go out, she said, "I won't go out
this evening, and when you come in don't disturb me. I shall be very
busy." And this was how the 'Scenes of Clerical Life' came first to be
written! On being shown a portion of the first tale, 'Amos Barton,' Mr.
Lewes was fairly amazed.
Stories are usually fabricated after the event; but, if not true, they
often truly paint a situation. And the general testimony of friends
seems to agree that it was Mr. Lewes who first incited the gifted woman,
of whose great powers he was best able to form a judgment, to express
herself in that species of literature which would afford the fullest
scope to the creative and dramatic faculties which she so eminently
possessed. Here, however, his influence ended. He helped to reveal
George Eliot to herself, and after that there was little left for him to
do. But this gift of stimulating another by sympathetic insight and
critical appreciation is itself of priceless value. When Schiller died,
Goethe said, "The half of my existence is gone from me." A terrible
word to utter for one so great. But never again, he knew, would he meet
with the same complete comprehension, and, lacking that, his genius
itself seemed less his own than before.
There is an impression abroad that Mr. Lewes, if anything, did some
injury to George Eliot from a literary point of view; that the nature of
his pursuits led her to adopt too technical and pedantic a phraseology
in her novels. But this idea is unjust to both. In comparing her
earliest with her latest style, it is clear that from the first she was
apt to cull her illustrations from the physical sciences, thereby
showing how much these studies had become part of herself. Indeed, she
was far more liable to introduce these scientific modes of expression
than Mr. Lewes, as may be easily seen by comparing his 'Life of Goethe,'
partly re-written in 1854, with some of her essays of the same date. As
to her matter, it is curious how much of it was drawn from the earliest
sources of memory--from that life of her childhood to which she may
sometimes have turned yearningly as to a long-lost Paradise. Most of her
works might, indeed, not inaptly be called 'Looking Backward.' They are
a half-pathetic, half-humorous, but entirely tender revivification of
the "days that are no more." No one, however intimate, could really
intermeddle with the workings of a genius drawing its happiest
inspiration from the earliest experiences of its own individual past.
Nothing is more characteristic of this obvious tendency than the first
of the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' 'The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos
Barton.' At Chilvers Coton the curious in such matters may still see the
identical church where the incumbent of Shepperton used to preach
sermons shrewdly compounded of High Church doctrines and Low Church
evangelicalism, not forgetting to note "its little flight of steps with
their wooden rail running up the outer wall, and leading to the
school-children's gallery." There they may still see the little
churchyard, though they may look in vain for the "slim black figure" of
the Rev. Amos, "as it flits past the pale gravestones," in "the silver
light that falls aslant on church and tomb." And among the tombs there
is one, a handsome substantial monument, overshadowed by a yew-tree, on
which there is this inscription:
HERE LIES,
WAITING THE SUMMONS OF THE ARCHANGEL'S TRUMPET,
ALL THAT WAS MORTAL OF
THE BELOVED WIFE OF THE
REV. JOHN GWYTHER, B.A.,
CURATE OF THIS PARISH,
NOV. 4TH, 1836,
AGED THIRTY-FOUR YEARS,
LEAVING A HUSBAND AND SEVEN CHILDREN.
This Emma Gwyther is none other than the beautiful Milly, the wife of
Amos, so touchingly described by George Eliot, whose mother, Mrs. Evans,
was her intimate friend. George Eliot would be in her teens when she
heard the story of this sweet woman: heard the circumstantial details of
her struggles to make the two ends of a ridiculously small income meet
the yearly expenses: heard her mother, no doubt (in the words of Mrs.
Hackit) blame her weak forbearance in tolerating the presence in her
house of the luxurious and exacting countess, who, having ingratiated
herself with the gullible Amos by her talk of the "livings" she would
get him, gave much scandal in the neighbourhood: heard of the pathetic
death-bed, when, worn by care and toil, the gentle life ebbed quietly
away, leaving a life-long void in her husband's heart and home. All this
was the talk of the neighbourhood when George Eliot was a girl; and her
extraordinary memory allowed nothing to escape.
On the completion of 'Amos Barton,' Mr. Lewes, who, as already
mentioned, was a contributor to 'Maga.' sent the MS. to the editor, the
late Mr. John Blackwood, as the work of an anonymous friend. This was in
the autumn of 1856. The other scenes of 'Clerical Life' were then
unwritten, but the editor was informed that the story submitted to his
approval formed one of a series. Though his judgment was favourable, he
begged to see some of the other tales before accepting this, freely
making some criticisms on the plot and studies of character in 'Amos
Barton.' This, however, disheartened the author, whose peculiar
diffidence had only been overcome by Mr. Lewes's hearty commendation.
When the editor had been made aware of the injurious effect of his
objections, he hastened to efface it by accepting the tale without
further delay. It appeared soon afterwards in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for
January 1857, where it occupied the first place. This story, by some
considered as fine as anything the novelist ever wrote, came to an end
in the next number. 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story,' and 'Janet's Repentance'
were written in quick succession, and the series was completed in
November of the same year.
Although there was nothing sufficiently sensational in these 'Scenes' to
arrest the attention of that great public which must be roused by
something new and startling, literary judges were not slow to discern
the powerful realism with which the author had drawn these
uncompromising studies from life. After the appearance of 'Amos Barton,'
Mr. Blackwood wrote to the anonymous author: "It is a long time since I
have read anything so fresh, so humorous, and so touching. The style is
capital, conveying so much in so few words." Soon afterwards he began
another letter: "My dear Amos, I forget whether I told you or Lewes that
I had shown part of the MS. to Thackeray. He was staying with me, and
having been out at dinner, came in about eleven o'clock, when I had just
finished reading it. I said to him, 'Do you know that I think I have
lighted upon a new author, who is uncommonly like a first-class
passenger.' I showed him a page or two, I think the passage where the
curate returns home and Milly is first introduced. He would not
pronounce whether it came up to my ideas, but remarked afterwards that
he would have liked to have read more, which I thought a good sign."
Dickens, after the publication of the 'Scenes,' sent a letter to the
unknown writer through the editor, warmly expressing the admiration he
felt for them. But he was strongly of opinion from the first that they
must have been written by a woman. In the meanwhile the tales were
reprinted in a collected form, and they were so successful that the
editor, writing to Mr. Lewes at the end of January 1858, when the book
had hardly been out a month, was able to say, "George Eliot has fairly
achieved a literary reputation among judges, and the public must follow,
although it may take time." And in a letter to George Eliot herself, he
wrote in February: "You will recollect, when we proposed to reprint, my
impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in the
magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long enough
to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, a very
long time often elapses between the two stages of reputation--the
literary and the public. Your progress will be _sure_, if not so quick
as we could wish."
While the sketches were being re-issued in book form, Messrs. Blackwood
informed its author that they saw good cause for making a large increase
in the forthcoming reprint, and their anticipations were fully justified
by its success. All sorts of rumours were abroad as to the real author
of these clerical tales. Misled by a hint, calculated to throw him off
the real scent, Mr. Blackwood was at first under the impression that
they were the work of a clergyman, and perhaps this may have been the
origin of a belief which lingered till quite recently, that George Eliot
was the daughter of a clergyman, a statement made by several of the
leading daily papers after her death. Abandoning the idea of the
clergyman, Mr. Blackwood next fixed upon a very different sort of
person, to wit, Professor Owen, whom he suspected owing to the
similarity of handwriting and the scientific knowledge so exceptional in
a novelist. No less funny was the supposition held by others of Lord
Lytton--who more than once hoaxed the public under a new literary
disguise--having at last surpassed himself in the sterling excellence of
these tales. Now that Bulwer has gone the way of all fashions, it seems
incredible that the most obtuse and slow-witted of critics should have
mistaken for a moment his high-flown sentimental style for the new
author's terse, vigorous and simple prose.
It was impossible, however, for an author to remain a mere nameless
abstraction. An appellation of some kind became an imperative necessity,
and, during the passage of 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story' through the press,
the pseudonym of "George Eliot"--a name destined to become so justly
renowned--was finally assumed.
The 'Scenes of Clerical Life' were to George Eliot's future works what a
bold, spirited sketch is to a carefully elaborated picture. All the
qualities that distinguished her genius may be discovered in this, her
first essay in fiction. With all Miss Austen's matchless faculty for
painting commonplace characters, George Eliot has that other nobler
faculty of showing what tragedy, pathos, and humour may be lying in the
experience of a human soul "that looks out through dull grey eyes, and
that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones." While depicting some
commonplace detail of every day life, she has the power to make her
reader realise its close relation to the universal life. She never gives
you the mere dry bones and fragments of existence as represented in some
particular section of society, but always manages to keep before the
mind the invisible links connecting it with the world at large. In 'Mr.
Gilfil's Love Story' there is a passage as beautiful as any in her
works, and fully illustrating this attitude of her mind. It is where
Tina, finding herself deceived in Captain Wybrow, gives way to her
passionate grief in solitude.
"While this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight too heavy
for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in unmoved and
terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal courses; the
tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed; the sun was
making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the swift
earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying and broadening
onward. The astronomer was at his telescope; the great ships were
labouring over the waves; the toiling eagerness of commerce, the fierce
spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief rest; and sleepless
statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the morrow. What were our
little Tina and her trouble in this mighty torrent, rushing from one
awful unknown to another? Lighter than the smallest centre of quivering
life in the water-drop, hidden and uncared for as the pulse of anguish
in the breast of the tiniest bird that has fluttered down to its nest
with the long-sought food, and has found the nest torn and empty."
There is rather more incident in this story of Mr. Gilfil than in either
of the two other 'Scenes of Clerical Life.' In 'Amos Barton' the
narrative is of the simplest, as has already been indicated; and the
elements from which 'Janet's Repentance' is composed are as free from
any complex entanglement of plot. The author usually describes the most
ordinary circumstances of English life, but the powerful rendering of
the human emotions which spring from them takes a most vivid hold of the
imagination: 'Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story,' however, seems a little Italian
romance dropped on English soil.
It is, in brief, the narration of how Sir Christopher Cheverel and his
wife, during their residence at Milan, took pity on a little orphan
girl, "whose large dark eyes shone from out her queer little face like
the precious stones in a grotesque image carved in old ivory." Caterina,
or Tina as she is called, taken back to Cheverel Manor, grew up under
the care of the Baronet's wife, to whom she became endeared by her
exceptional musical talent. Sir Christopher had no children, but had
chosen his nephew, Captain Wybrow, for his heir, and planned a marriage
between him and Miss Assher, the handsome and accomplished owner of a
pretty estate. Another marriage, on which he has equally set his heart,
is that between his ward Maynard Gilfil, an open-eyed manly young fellow
destined for the Church, and the mellow-voiced, large-eyed Tina, for
whom he has long nursed an undeclared passion. But alas, for the
futility of human plans! Tina, to whom the elegant Anthony Wybrow has
been secretly professing love, suffers tortures of jealousy when he and
Miss Assher, to whom he has dutifully become engaged, come on a visit to
Cheverel Manor. The treacherous Captain, to lull the suspicions of his
betrothed, insinuates that poor Miss Sarti entertains a hopeless passion
for him, which puts the poor girl, who gets an inkling of this
double-dealing, into a frenzy of indignation. In this state she
possesses herself of a dagger, and as she is going to meet the Captain
by appointment, dreams of plunging the weapon in the traitor's heart.
But on reaching the appointed spot, she beholds the false lover
stretched motionless on the ground already--having suddenly died of
heart disease. Tina's anguish is indescribable: she gives the alarm to
the household, but stung by remorse for a contemplated revenge of which
her tender-hearted nature was utterly incapable, she flies unperceived
from the premises at night. Being searched for in vain, she is suspected
of having committed suicide. After some days of almost unbearable
suspense, news is brought that Tina is lying ill at the cottage of a
former maid in the household. With reviving hopes her anxious lover
rides to the farm, sees the half-stunned, unhappy girl, and, after a
while, manages to remove her to his sister's house. She gradually
recovers under Mrs. Heron's gentle tendance, and one day a child's
accidental striking of a deep bass note on the harpsichord suddenly
revives her old passionate delight in music. And 'the soul that was born
anew to music was born anew to love.' After a while Tina agrees to
become Mr. Gilfil's wife, who has been given the living at Shepperton,
where a happy future seems in store for the Vicar. "But the delicate
plant had been too deeply bruised, and in the struggle to put forth a
blossom it died.
"Tina died, and Maynard Gilfil's love went with her into deep silence
for evermore."
Besides this sympathy with the homeliest characters and situations, or,
more properly speaking, springing from it, there already runs through
these three tales the delicious vein of humour irradiating George
Eliot's otherwise sombre pictures of life with sudden flashes of mirth
as of sunlight trembling above dark waters. In this depth and richness
of humour George Eliot not only takes precedence of all other
distinguished women, but she stands among them without a rival. Hers is
that thoughtful outlook on life, that infinite depth of observation
which, taking note of the inconsistencies and the blunders, the
self-delusions and "fantastic pranks" of her fellow-men, finds the
source of laughter very near to tears; never going out of her way for
the eccentric and peculiar in human nature, seeing that human nature
itself appears to her as the epitome of all incongruity. It is this
breadth of conception and unerringness of vision piercing through the
external and accidental to the core of man's mixed nature which give
certain of her creations something of the life-like complexity of
Shakespeare's.
Her power of rendering the idiom and manners of peasants, artisans, and
paupers, of calling up before us the very gestures and phrases of
parsons, country practitioners, and other varieties of inhabitants of
our provincial towns and rural districts, already manifests itself fully
in these clerical stories. Here we find such types as Mr. Dempster, the
unscrupulous, brutal, drunken lawyer; Mr. Pilgrim, the tall, heavy,
rough-mannered, and spluttering doctor, profusely addicted to bleeding
and blistering his patients; Mr. Gilfil, the eccentric vicar, with a
tender love-story hidden beneath his rugged exterior; the large-hearted,
unfortunate Janet, rescued from moral ruin by Mr. Tryan, the ascetic
evangelical clergyman, whose character, the author remarks, might have
been found sadly wanting in perfection by feeble and fastidious minds,
but, as she adds, "The blessed work of helping the world forward happily
does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that
neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the
modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true,
feels nothing but what is exalted, and does nothing but what is
graceful. The real heroes of God's making are quite different: they have
their natural heritage of love and conscience, which they drew in with
their mother's milk; they know one or two of those deep spiritual truths
which are only to be won by long wrestling with their own sins and their
own sorrows; they have earned faith and strength so far as they have
done genuine work, but the rest is dry, barren theory, blank prejudice,
vague hearsay."
George Eliot's early acquaintance with many types of the clerical
character, and her sympathy with the religious life in all its
manifestations, was never more fully shown than in these 'Scenes.' In
'Janet's Repentance' we already discover one of George Eliot's favourite
psychological studies--the awakening of a morally mixed nature to a new,
a spiritual life. This work of regeneration Mr. Tryan performs for
Janet, Felix Holt for Esther, and Daniel Deronda for Gwendolen. Her
protest against the application of too lofty a moral standard in judging
of our fellow-creatures, her championship of the "mongrel, ungainly dogs
who are nobody's pets," is another of the prominent qualities of her
genius fully expressed in this firstling work, being, indeed, at the
root of her humorous conception of life. One of the finest bits of
humour in the present volume is the scene in 'Amos Barton,' which occurs
at the workhouse, euphemistically called the "College." Mr. Barton,
having just finished his address to the paupers, is thus accosted by Mr.
Spratt, "a small-featured, small-statured man, with a remarkable power
of language, mitigated by hesitation, who piqued himself on expressing
unexceptionable sentiments in unexceptionable language on all occasions.
"'Mr. Barton, sir--aw--aw--excuse my trespassing on your time--aw--to
beg that you will administer a rebuke to this boy; he is--aw--aw--most
inveterate in ill-behaviour during service-time.'
"The inveterate culprit was a boy of seven, vainly contending against
'candles' at his nose by feeble sniffing. But no sooner had Mr. Spratt
uttered his impeachment than Mrs. Fodge rushed forward, and placed
herself between Mr. Barton and the accused.
"'That's _my_ child, Muster Barton,' she exclaimed, further manifesting
her maternal instincts by applying her apron to her offspring's nose.
'He's aly's a-findin' faut wi' him, and a-poundin' him for nothin'. Let
him goo an' eat his roost goose as is a-smellin' up in our noses while
we're a-swallering them greasy broth, an' let my boy alooan.'
"Mr. Spratt's small eyes flashed, and he was in danger of uttering
sentiments not unexceptionable before the clergyman; but Mr. Barton,
foreseeing that a prolongation of this episode would not be to
edification, said 'Silence!' in his severest tones.
"'Let me hear no abuse. Your boy is not likely to behave well, if you
set him the example of being saucy.' Then stooping down to Master Fodge,
and taking him by the shoulder, 'Do you like being beaten?'
"'No--a.'
"'Then what a silly boy you are to be naughty. If you were not naughty,
you wouldn't be beaten. But if you are naughty, God will be angry, as
well as Mr. Spratt; and God can burn you for ever. That will be worse
than being beaten.'
"Master Fodge's countenance was neither affirmative nor negative of this
proposition.
"'But,' continued Mr. Barton, 'if you will be a good boy, God will love
you, and you will grow up to be a good man. Now, let me hear next
Thursday that you have been a good boy.'
"Master Fodge had no distinct vision of the benefit that would accrue to
him from this change of courses."