It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine
himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the
prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the
rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first
sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a
great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded
in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear.
This traditional guardedness seems to have been completely swept away
by these stories; Mr. Blackwood writes letter after letter to George
Eliot, full of expressions that the hackneyed editor would ordinarily
consider extravagant: and finally in a letter concerning the
publication in book-form of the magazine-stories: "You will recollect
... 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."
Before examining these stories, it seems a pleasant method of pursuing
our account of the George Eliot thus introduced, to go forward a
little to the time when a curious and amusing circumstance resulted in
revealing her actual name and sex. Thus we seem to be making this
lovely star rise before us historically as it rose before the world. I
have just spoken of the literary interest which the stories excited in
Mr. Blackwood. The personal interest appears to have been as great,
and he was at first very anxious to make the acquaintance of his new
contributor in the flesh. He was given to understand, however, that
the contributor wished to remain obscure, for the present, and he
forbore further inquiries with scrupulous delicacy. It happened,
however, that presently the authorship of _Scenes of Clerical Life_
was claimed for another person, and the claim soon assumed
considerable proportions. Certain residents about Nuneaton, in
Warwickshire--where in point of fact George Eliot had been born and
brought up--felt sure they recognized in the stories of Amos Barton
and Mr. Gilfil portraits of people who had actually lived in that
country, and began to inquire what member of their community could
have painted these portraits. Presently, while the stories were
running in the magazine, a newspaper published in the Isle of Man
boldly announced that a certain Mr. Liggins, of Nuneaton, was their
author. The only claim to literary power Mr. Liggins had, it seems,
lay in the circumstance that he had run through a fortune at
Cambridge; and in fact he himself denied the charge at first. But
immediately upon the heels of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ appeared _Adam
Bede_, and the honor of that great work was so seductive that for some
reason or other--whether because the reiteration of his friends had
persuaded him that he actually did write the works, in some such way
as it is said that a man may tell a lie so often and long that he will
finally come to believe it himself, or for whatever other reason--it
seems that Mr. Liggins so far compromised himself that, without active
denial by him, a friendly clergyman down in Warwickshire sent a letter
to the _Times_, formally announcing Liggins as the author of _Scenes
of Clerical Life_ and of _Adam Bede_. Hereupon appeared a challenge
from the still mythical George Eliot, inviting Mr. Liggins to make a
fair test of his capacity by writing a chapter or two in the style of
the disputed works. The Blackwoods were thickly besieged with letters
from various persons earnestly assuring them that Liggins was the
author. To add to the complications, it was given out that Liggins was
poor, so that many earnest persons wrote to the Blackwoods declaring
that so great a genius ought not to be hampered by want, and liberally
offering their purses to place him in such condition that he might
write without being handicapped by care. It seems to have been
particularly troublesome to the Blackwoods to prevent money from being
misapplied in this way--for they were satisfied that Liggins was not
the author; and they were made all the more careful by some previous
experiences of a similar kind; and in one of Blackwood's letters to
George Eliot he comically exclaims that "some years ago a rascal
nearly succeeded in marrying a girl with money on the strength of
being the author of a series of articles in the Magazine."
Thus what with the public controversy between the Liggins and
anti-Liggins parties--for many persons appear to have remained firmly
persuaded that Liggins was the true author--and what with the more
legitimate stimulus excited by the confirmatory excellence of _Adam
Bede_, the public curiosity was thoroughly aroused, so that even
before _The Mill on the Floss_ appeared in 1860, it had become pretty
generally known who "George Eliot" was.
Here, then, would seem to be a fitting point for us to pause a moment
and endeavor to construct for ourselves some definite figure of the
real flesh-and-blood creature who, up to this time, had remained the
mere literary abstraction called George Eliot.
It appeared that her real name was Marian Evans, and that she was the
daughter of a respectable land surveyor, who had married and settled
at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. Here she was born in November, 1820; and
it seems pleasant to reflect that but a few miles off in the same
county of Warwickshire was the birthplace of Shakspeare, whose place
among male writers seems more nearly filled by Marian Evans or George
Eliot among female writers than by any other woman, so that we have
the greatest English man and the greatest English woman born, though
two centuries and a half apart in time, but a few miles apart in
space.
Here, among the same thick hedges and green fields of the fair English
Midlands with which Shakspeare was familiar, Marian Evans lived for
the first large part of her life. Perhaps a more quiet, uneventful
existence as to external happenings could hardly be imagined; and that
Marian Evans was among the quietest of the quiet residents there seems
cunningly enough indicated if we remember that when the good people of
Nuneaton first began to suspect that some resident of that region had
been taking their portraits in _Scenes of Clerical Life_, none seemed
to think for a moment of a certain Marian Evans as possibly connected
with the matter; and popular suspicion, after canvassing the whole
ground, was able to find only one person--to wit, the Mr. Liggins
just referred to--who seemed at all competent to such work.
Of these demure, reserved, uneventful years of country existence it
is, of course, impossible to lay before you any record; no life of
George Eliot has yet been given to the public. Sometime ago, however,
I happened upon a letter of Marian Evans published in an English
paper, in which she refers with so much particularity to this portion
of her life, that I do not know how we could gain a more vivid and
authentic view thereof than by quoting it here. Specifically, the
letter relates to a controversy that had sprung up as to who was the
original of the character of Dinah Morris--that beautiful Dinah
Morris, you will remember in _Adam Bede_--solemn, fragile, strong
Dinah Morris, the woman-preacher whom I find haunting my imagination
in strange but entrancing unions of the most diverse forms, as if, for
instance, a snow-drop could also be St. Paul, as if a kiss could be a
gospel, as if a lovely phrase of Chopin's most inward music should
become suddenly an Apocalypse--that rare, pure and strange Dinah
Morris who would alone consecrate English literature if it had yielded
no other gift to man. It would seem that possibly a dim suggestion of
such a character may have been due to a certain aunt of hers,
Elizabeth Evans, whom Marian had met in her girlhood; but this
suggestion was all; and the letter shows us clearly that the character
of Dinah Morris was almost an entire creation. The letter is as
follows:
HOLLY LODGE, Oct. 7, 1859.