CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Note:

This is Volume I of a three volume set:

Volume I--Unknown

Volume II--Famous

Volume III--Sunset

A combined index to the entire set is located at the end of Volume III.

Narrative content written by J. Cross and material quoted from writers

other than George Eliot are interspersed throughout the text. Their

content is placed in block quotes.

Remaining transcriber's notes are located at the end of the text.

* * * * *

GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE

VOL. I.--UNKNOWN

"OUR FINEST HOPE IS FINEST MEMORY"

[Illustration: Portrait of George Eliot. Etched by M. Rajon.]

GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE

_as related in her Letters and Journals_

ARRANGED AND EDITED BY HER HUSBAND

J. W. CROSS

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

IN THREE VOLUMES.--VOLUME I

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE

GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS.

_LIBRARY EDITION._

ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

DANIEL DERONDA. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $2.50.

ESSAYS and LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

MIDDLEMARCH. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $2.50.

ROMOLA. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, and SILAS MARNER. Illustrated.

12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

THE IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

HARPER & BROTHERS _will send any of the above volumes by mail, postage

prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the

price. For other editions of George Eliot's works published by Harper

& Brothers see advertisement at end of third volume_.

PREFACE.

With the materials in my hands I have endeavored to form an

_autobiography_ (if the term may be permitted) of George Eliot. The

life has been allowed to write itself in extracts from her letters and

journals. Free from the obtrusion of any mind but her own, this method

serves, I think, better than any other open to me, to show the

development of her intellect and character.

In dealing with the correspondence I have been influenced by the

desire to make known the woman, as well as the author, through the

presentation of her daily life.

On the intellectual side there remains little to be learned by those

who already know George Eliot's books. In the twenty volumes which she

wrote and published in her lifetime will be found her best and ripest

thoughts. The letters now published throw light on another side of her

nature--not less important, but hitherto unknown to the public--the

side of the affections.

The intimate life was the core of the root from which sprung the

fairest flowers of her inspiration. Fame came to her late in life,

and, when it presented itself, was so weighted with the sense of

responsibility that it was in truth a rose with many thorns, for

George Eliot had the temperament that shrinks from the position of a

public character. The belief in the wide, and I may add in the

beneficent, effect of her writing was no doubt the highest happiness,

the reward of the artist which she greatly cherished: but the joys of

the hearthside, the delight in the love of her friends, were the

supreme pleasures in her life.

By arranging all the letters and journals so as to form one connected

whole, keeping the order of their dates, and with the least possible

interruption of comment, I have endeavored to combine a narrative of

day-to-day life, with the play of light and shade which only letters,

written in various moods, can give, and without which no portrait can

be a good likeness. I do not know that the particular method in which

I have treated the letters has ever been adopted before. Each letter

has been pruned of everything that seemed to me irrelevant to my

purpose--of everything that I thought my wife would have wished to be

omitted. Every sentence that remains adds, in my judgment, something

(however small it may be) to the means of forming a conclusion about

her character. I ought perhaps to say a word of apology for what may

appear to be undue detail of travelling experiences; but I hope that

to many readers these will be interesting, as reflected through George

Eliot's mind. The remarks on works of art are only meant to be records

of impressions. She would have deprecated for herself the attitude of

an art critic.

Excepting a slight introductory sketch of the girlhood, up to the time

when letters became available, and a few words here and there to

elucidate the correspondence, I have confined myself to the work of

selection and arrangement.

I have refrained almost entirely from quoting remembered sayings by

George Eliot, because it is difficult to be certain of complete

accuracy, and everything depends upon accuracy. Recollections of

conversation are seldom to be implicitly trusted in the absence of

notes made at the time. The value of spoken words depends, too, so

much upon the _tone_, and on the circumstances which gave rise to

their utterance, that they often mislead as much as they enlighten,

when, in the process of repetition, they have taken color from another

mind. "All interpretations depend upon the interpreter," and I have

judged it best to let George Eliot be her own interpreter, as far as

possible.

I owe thanks to Mr. Isaac Evans, the brother of my wife, for much of

the information in regard to her child-life; and the whole book is a

long record of debts due to other friends for letters. It is not,

therefore, necessary for me to recapitulate the list of names in this

place. My thanks to all are heartfelt. But there is a very special

acknowledgment due to Miss Sara Hennell, to Mrs. Bray, and to the late

Mr. Charles Bray of Coventry, not only for the letters which they

placed at my disposal, but also for much information given to me in

the most friendly spirit. The very important part of the life from

1842 to 1854 could not possibly have been written without their

contribution.

To Mr. Charles Lewes, also, I am indebted for some valuable letters

and extracts from the journals of his father, besides the letters

addressed to himself. He also obtained for me an important letter

written by George Eliot to Mr. R. H. Hutton; and throughout the

preparation of the book I have had the advantage of his sympathetic

interest, and his concurrence in the publication of all the

materials.

Special thanks are likewise due to Messrs. Wm. Blackwood & Sons for

having placed at my disposal George Eliot's long correspondence with

the firm. The letters (especially those addressed to her friend the

late Mr. John Blackwood) throw a light, that could not otherwise have

been obtained, on the most interesting part of her literary career.

To the legal representatives of the late Charles Dickens, of the late

Lord Lytton, and of Mrs. Carlyle; to Mr. J. A. Froude, and to Mr.

Archer Gurney, I owe thanks for leave to print letters written by

them.

For all the defects that there may be in the plan of these volumes I

alone am responsible. The lines were determined and the work was

substantially put into shape before I submitted the manuscript to any

one. While passing the winter in the south of France I had the good

fortune at Cannes to find, in Lord Acton, not only an enthusiastic

admirer of George Eliot, but also a friend always most kindly ready to

assist me with valuable counsel and with cordial, generous sympathy.

He was the first reader of the manuscript, and whatever accuracy may

have been arrived at, particularly in the names of foreign books,

foreign persons, and foreign places, is in great part due to his

friendly, careful help. But of course he has no responsibility

whatever for any of my sins of omission or commission.

By the kind permission of Sir Frederic Burton, I have been enabled to

reproduce as a frontispiece M. Rajon's etching of the beautiful

drawing, executed in 1864, now in the National Portrait Gallery, South

Kensington.

The view of the old house at Rosehill is from a drawing by Mrs. Bray.

It is connected with some of George Eliot's happiest experiences, and

with the period of her most rapid intellectual development.

For permission to use the sketch of the drawing-room at the Priory I

am indebted to the Messrs. Harpers, of New York.

In conclusion, it is in no conventional spirit, but from my heart,

that I bespeak the indulgence of readers for my share of this work. Of

its shortcomings no one can be so convinced as I am myself.

J. W. C.

CAMDEN HILL, _December, 1884_.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Introductory Sketch of Childhood. Page 1

CHAPTER I.

AUGUST, 1838, TO MARCH, 1841.

Life at Griff 28

CHAPTER II.

MARCH, 1841, TO APRIL, 1846.

Coventry--Translation of Strauss 61

CHAPTER III.

MAY, 1846, TO MAY, 1849.

Life in Coventry till Mr. Evans's Death 106

CHAPTER IV.

JUNE, 1849, TO MARCH, 1850.

Geneva 150

CHAPTER V.

MARCH, 1850, TO JULY, 1854.

Work in London--Union with Mr. Lewes 181

CHAPTER VI.

JULY, 1854, TO MARCH, 1855.

Germany 239

CHAPTER VII.

MARCH, 1855, TO DECEMBER, 1857.

Richmond--"Scenes of Clerical Life" 273

APPENDIX 349

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.

PORTRAIT OF GEORGE ELIOT.

Etched by M. Rajon _Frontispiece._

GRIFF--FRONT VIEW _To face p_. 6

GRIFF--WITH THE FARM OFFICES " 12

HOUSE IN FOLESHILL ROAD, COVENTRY " 62

PORTRAIT OF MR. ROBERT EVANS " 148

ROSEHILL " 182

GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE.

_INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF CHILDHOOD._

"_Nov. 22, 1819._--Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm,[1] at five

o'clock this morning."

This is an entry, in Mr. Robert Evans's handwriting, on the page of an

old diary that now lies before me, and records, with characteristic

precision, the birth of his youngest child, afterwards known to the

world as George Eliot. Let us pause for a moment to pay its due homage

to the precision, because it was in all probability to this most

noteworthy quality of her father's nature that the future author was

indebted for one of the principal elements of her own after-success--the

enormous faculty for taking pains. The baby was born on St. Cecilia's

day, and Mr. Evans, being a good churchman, takes her, on the 29th

November, to be baptized in the church at Chilvers Coton--the parish in

which Arbury Farm lies--a church destined to impress itself strongly on

the child's imagination, and to be known by many people in many lands

afterwards as Shepperton Church. The father was a remarkable man, and

many of the leading traits in his character are to be found in Adam Bede

and in Caleb Garth--although, of course, neither of these is a portrait.

He was born in 1773, at Ellaston, in Staffordshire, son of a George

Evans, who carried on the business of builder and carpenter there: the

Evans family having come originally from Northop, in Flintshire. Robert

was brought up to the business; but about 1799, or a little before, he

held a farm of Mr. Francis Newdigate at Kirk Hallam, in Derbyshire, and

became his agent. On Sir Roger Newdigate's death the Arbury estate came

to Mr. Francis Newdigate for his life, and Mr. Evans accompanied him

into Warwickshire, in 1806, in the capacity of agent. In 1801 he had

married Harriott Poynton, by whom he had two children--Robert, born

1802, at Ellaston, and Frances Lucy, born 1805, at Kirk Hallam. His

first wife died in 1809; and on 8th February, 1813, he married

Christiana Pearson, by whom he had three children--Christiana, born

1814; Isaac, born 1816, and Mary Ann, born 1819. Shortly after the last

child's birth, Robert, the son, became the agent, under his father, for

the Kirk Hallam property, and lived there with his sister Frances, who

afterwards married a Mr. Houghton. In March, 1820, when the baby girl

was only four months old, the Evans family removed to Griff, a charming

red-brick, ivy-covered house on the Arbury estate--"the warm little nest

where her affections were fledged"--and there George Eliot spent the

first twenty-one years of her life.

Let us remember what the England was upon which this observant child

opened her eyes.

The date of her birth was removed from the beginning of the French

Revolution by just the same period of time as separates a child, born

this year, 1884, from the beginning of the Crimean War. To a man of

forty-six to-day, the latter event seems but of yesterday. It took

place at a very impressionable period of his life, and the remembrance

of every detail is perfectly vivid. Mr. Evans was forty-six when his

youngest child was born. He was a youth of sixteen when the Revolution

began, and that mighty event, with all its consequences, had left an

indelible impression on him, and the convictions and conclusions it

had fostered in his mind permeated through to his children, and

entered as an indestructible element into the susceptible soul of his

youngest daughter. There are bits in the paper "Looking Backward," in

"Theophrastus Such," which are true autobiography.

"In my earliest remembrance of my father his hair was already gray,

for I was his youngest child, and it seemed to me that advanced age

was appropriate to a father, as, indeed, in all respects I considered

him a parent so much to my honor that the mention of my relationship

to him was likely to secure me regard among those to whom I was

otherwise a stranger--his stories from his life including so many

names of distant persons that my imagination placed no limit to his

acquaintanceship.... Nor can I be sorry, though myself given to

meditative if not active innovation, that my father was a Tory who had

not exactly a dislike to innovators and dissenters, but a slight

opinion of them as persons of ill-founded self-confidence.... And I

often smile at my consciousness that certain Conservative

prepossessions have mingled themselves for me with the influences of

our Midland scenery, from the tops of the elms down to the buttercups

and the little wayside vetches. Naturally enough. That part of my

father's prime to which he oftenest referred had fallen on the days

when the great wave of political enthusiasm and belief in a speedy

regeneration of all things had ebbed, and the supposed millennial

initiative of France was turning into a Napoleonic empire.... To my

father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary doctrine were, to

speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the scoundrel; the

welfare of the nation lay in a strong government which could maintain

order; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word 'government' in

a tone that charged it with awe, and made it part of my effective

religion, in contrast with the word 'rebel,' which seemed to carry the

stamp of evil in its syllables, and, lit by the fact that Satan was

the first rebel, made an argument dispensing with more detailed

inquiry."

This early association of ideas must always be borne in mind, as it is

the key to a great deal in the mental attitude of the future thinker

and writer. It is the foundation of the latent Conservative bias.

The year 1819 is memorable as a culminating period of bad times and

political discontent in England. The nation was suffering acutely from

the reaction after the excitement of the last Napoleonic war. George

IV. did not come to the throne till January, 1820, so that George

Eliot was born in the reign of George III. The trial of Queen Caroline

was the topic of absorbing public interest. Waterloo was not yet an

affair of five years old. Byron had four years, and Goethe had

thirteen years, still to live. The last of Miss Austen's novels had

been published only eighteen months, and the first of the Waverley

series only six years before. Thackeray and Dickens were boys at

school, and George Sand, as a girl of fifteen, was leaving her loved

freedom on the banks of the Indre for the Convent des Anglaises at

Paris. That "Greater Britain" (Canada and Australia), which to-day

forms so large a reading public, was then scarcely more than a

geographical expression, with less than half a million of inhabitants,

all told, where at present there are eight millions; and in the United

States, where more copies of George Eliot's books are now sold than in

any other quarter of the world, the population then numbered less than

ten millions where to-day it is fifty-five millions. Including Great

Britain, these English-speaking races have increased from thirty

millions in 1820 to one hundred millions in 1884; and with the

corresponding increase in education we can form some conception how a

popular English writer's fame has widened its circle.

There was a remoteness about a detached country-house, in the England

of those days, difficult for us to conceive now, with our railways,

penny-post, and telegraphs; nor is the Warwickshire country about

Griff an exhilarating surrounding. There are neither hills nor vales,

no rivers, lakes, or sea--nothing but a monotonous succession of green

fields and hedgerows, with some fine trees. The only water to be seen

is the "brown canal." The effect of such a landscape on an ordinary

observer is not inspiring, but "effective magic is transcendent

nature;" and with her transcendent nature George Eliot has

transfigured these scenes, dear to Midland souls, into many an idyllic

picture, known to those who know her books. In her childhood the great

event of the day was the passing of the coach before the gate of Griff

House, which lies at a bend of the high-road between Coventry and

Nuneaton, and within a couple of miles of the mining village of

Bedworth, "where the land began to be blackened with coal-pits, the

rattle of hand-looms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here were

powerful men walking queerly, with knees bent outward from squatting

in the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened

flannel and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of

their high wages at the alehouse with their fellows of the Benefit

Club; here the pale, eager faces of hand-loom weavers, men and women,

haggard from sitting up late at night to finish the week's work,

hardly begun till the Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small

children were dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to

the loom; pious Dissenting women, perhaps, who took life patiently,

and thought that salvation depended chiefly on predestination, and not

at all on cleanliness. The gables of Dissenting chapels now made a

visible sign of religion, and of a meeting-place to counterbalance the

alehouse, even in the hamlets.... Here was a population not convinced

that old England was as good as possible; here were multitudinous men

and women aware that their religion was not exactly the religion of

their rulers, who might therefore be better than they were, and who,

if better, might alter many things which now made the world perhaps

more painful than it need be, and certainly more sinful. Yet there

were the gray steeples too, and the churchyards, with their grassy

mounds and venerable headstones, sleeping in the sunlight; there were

broad fields and homesteads, and fine old woods covering a rising

ground, or stretching far by the roadside, allowing only peeps at the

park and mansion which they shut in from the working-day world. In

these midland districts the traveller passed rapidly from one phase of

English life to another; after looking down on a village dingy with

coal-dust, noisy with the shaking of looms, he might skirt a parish

all of fields, high hedges, and deep-rutted lanes; after the coach had

rattled over the pavement of a manufacturing town, the scene of riots

and trades-union meetings, it would take him in another ten minutes

into a rural region, where the neighborhood of the town was only felt

in the advantages of a near market for corn, cheese, and hay, and

where men with a considerable banking account were accustomed to say

that 'they never meddled with politics themselves.'"[2]

[Illustration: Griff House--Front view.]

We can imagine the excitement of a little four-year-old girl and her

seven-year-old brother waiting, on bright frosty mornings, to hear the

far-off ringing beat of the horses' feet upon the hard ground, and

then to see the gallant appearance of the four grays, with coachman

and guard in scarlet, outside passengers muffled up in furs, and

baskets of game and other packages hanging behind the boot, as his

majesty's mail swung cheerily round on its way from Birmingham to

Stamford. Two coaches passed the door daily--one from Birmingham at 10

o'clock in the morning, the other from Stamford at 3 o'clock in the

afternoon. These were the chief connecting links between the household

at Griff and the outside world. Otherwise life went on with that

monotonous regularity which distinguishes the country from the town.

And it is to these circumstances of her early life that a great part

of the quality of George Eliot's writing is due, and that she holds

the place she has attained in English literature. Her roots were down

in the pre-railroad, pre-telegraphic period--the days of fine old

leisure--but the fruit was formed during an era of extraordinary

activity in scientific and mechanical discovery. Her genius was the

outcome of these conditions. It would not have existed in the same

form deprived of either influence. Her father was busy both with his

own farm-work and increasing agency business. He was already remarked

in Warwickshire for his knowledge and judgment in all matters relating

to land, and for his general trustworthiness and high character, so

that he was constantly selected as arbitrator and valuer. He had a

wonderful eye, especially for valuing woods, and could calculate with

almost absolute precision the quantity of available timber in a

standing tree. In addition to his merits as a man of business, he had

the good fortune to possess the warm friendship and consistent support

of Colonel Newdigate of Astley Castle, son of Mr. Francis Newdigate of

Arbury, and it was mainly through the colonel's introduction and

influence that Mr. Evans became agent also to Lord Aylesford, Lord

Lifford, Mr. Bromley Davenport, and several others.

His position cannot be better summed up than in the words of his

daughter, writing to Mr. Bray on 30th September, 1859, in regard to

some one who had written of her, after the appearance of "Adam Bede,"

as a "self-educated farmer's daughter."

"My father did not raise himself from being an artisan to be a farmer;

he raised himself from being an artisan to be a man whose extensive

knowledge in very varied practical departments made his services

valued through several counties. He had large knowledge of building,

of mines, of plantations, of various branches of valuation and

measurement--of all that is essential to the management of large

estates. He was held by those competent to judge as _unique_ among

land-agents for his manifold knowledge and experience, which enabled

him to save the special fees usually paid by landowners for special

opinions on the different questions incident to the proprietorship of

land. So far as I am personally concerned I should not write a stroke

to prevent any one, in the zeal of antithetic eloquence, from calling

me a tinker's daughter; but if my father is to be mentioned at all--if

he is to be identified with an imaginary character--my piety towards

his memory calls on me to point out to those who are supposed to speak

with information what he really achieved in life."

Mr. Evans was also, like Adam Bede, noteworthy for his extraordinary

physical strength and determination of character. There is a story

told of him, that one day when he was travelling on the top of a

coach, down in Kent, a decent woman sitting next him complained that a

great hulking sailor on her other side was making himself offensive.

Mr. Evans changed places with the woman, and, taking the sailor by the

collar, forced him down under the seat, and held him there with an

iron hand for the remainder of the stage: and at Griff it is still

remembered that the master, happening to pass one day while a couple

of laborers were waiting for a third to help to move the high, heavy

ladder used for thatching ricks, braced himself up to a great effort,

and carried the ladder alone and unaided from one rick to the other,

to the wide-eyed wonder and admiration of his men. With all this

strength, however, both of body and of character, he seems to have

combined a certain self-distrust, owing, perhaps, to his early

imperfect education, which resulted in a general submissiveness in his

domestic relations, more or less portrayed in the character of Mr.

Garth.

His second wife was a woman with an unusual amount of natural force; a

shrewd, practical person, with a considerable dash of the Mrs. Poyser

vein in her. Hers was an affectionate, warm-hearted nature, and her

children, on whom she cast "the benediction of her gaze," were

thoroughly attached to her. She came of a race of yeomen, and her

social position was, therefore, rather better than her husband's at

the time of their marriage. Her family are, no doubt, prototypes of

the Dodsons in the "Mill on the Floss." There were three other sisters

married, and all living in the neighborhood of Griff--Mrs. Everard,

Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Garner--and probably Mr. Evans heard a good

deal about "the traditions in the Pearson family." Mrs. Evans was a

very active, hard-working woman, but shortly after her last child's

birth she became ailing in health, and consequently her eldest girl,

Christiana, was sent to school, at a very early age, to Miss Lathom's,

at Attleboro, a village a mile or two from Griff, while the two

younger children spent some part of their time every day at the

cottage of a Mrs. Moore, who kept a dame's school close to Griff

gates. The little girl very early became possessed with the idea that

she was going to be a personage in the world; and Mr. Charles Lewes

has told me an anecdote which George Eliot related of herself as

characteristic of this period of her childhood. When she was only four

years old she recollected playing on the piano, of which she did not

know one note, in order to impress the servant with a proper notion of

her acquirements and generally distinguished position. This was the

time when the love for her brother grew into the child's affections.

She used always to be at his heels, insisting on doing everything he

did. She was not, in these baby-days, in the least precocious in

learning. In fact, her half-sister, Mrs. Houghton, who was some

fourteen years her senior, told me that the child learned to read

with some difficulty; but Mr. Isaac Evans says that this was not from

any slowness in apprehension, but because she liked playing so much

better. Mere sharpness, however, was not a characteristic of her mind.

Hers was a large, slow-growing nature; and I think it is, at any rate,

certain that there was nothing of the infant phenomenon about her. In

her moral development she showed, from the earliest years, the trait

that was most marked in her all through life, namely, the absolute

need of some one person who should be all in all to her, and to whom

she should be all in all. Very jealous in her affections, and easily

moved to smiles or tears, she was of a nature capable of the keenest

enjoyment and the keenest suffering, knowing "all the wealth and all

the woe" of a pre-eminently exclusive disposition. She was

affectionate, proud, and sensitive in the highest degree.

The sort of happiness that belongs to this budding-time of life, from

the age of three to five, is apt to impress itself very strongly on

the memory; and it is this period which is referred to in the Brother

and Sister Sonnet, "But were another childhood's world my share, I

would be born a little sister there." When her brother was eight years

old he was sent to school at Coventry, and, her mother continuing in

very delicate health, the little Mary Ann, now five years of age, went

to join her sister at Miss Lathom's school, at Attleboro, where they

continued as boarders for three or four years, coming, occasionally,

home to Griff on Saturdays. During one of our walks at Witley, in

1880, my wife mentioned to me that what chiefly remained in her

recollection about this very early school-life was the difficulty of

getting near enough the fire in winter to become thoroughly warmed,

owing to the circle of girls forming round too narrow a fireplace.

This suffering from cold was the beginning of a low general state of

health; also at this time she began to be subject to fears at

night--"the susceptibility to terror"--which she has described as

haunting Gwendolen Harleth in her childhood. The other girls in the

school, who were all, naturally, very much older, made a great pet of

the child, and used to call her "little mamma," and she was not

unhappy except at nights; but she told me that this liability to have

"all her soul become a quivering fear," which remained with her

afterwards, had been one of the supremely important influences

dominating at times her future life. Mr. Isaac Evans's chief

recollection of this period is the delight of the little sister at his

home-coming for holidays, and her anxiety to know all that he had been

doing and learning. The eldest child, who went by the name of

Chrissey, was the chief favorite of the aunts, as she was always neat

and tidy, and used to spend a great deal of her time with them, while

the other two were inseparable playfellows at home. The boy was his

mother's pet and the girl her father's. They had everything to make

children happy at Griff--a delightful old-fashioned garden, a pond and

the canal to fish in, and the farm-offices close to the house, "the

long cow-shed, where generations of the milky mothers have stood

patiently, the broad-shouldered barns, where the old-fashioned flail

once made resonant music," and where butter-making and cheese-making

were carried on with great vigor by Mrs. Evans.

[Illustration: Griff--with the Farm Offices.]

Any one, about this time, who happened to look through the window on

the left-hand side of the door of Griff House would have seen a pretty

picture in the dining-room on Saturday evenings after tea. The

powerful, middle-aged man with the strongly marked features sits in

his deep, leather-covered arm-chair, at the right-hand corner of the

ruddy fireplace, with the head of "the little wench" between his

knees. The child turns over the book with pictures that she wishes her

father to explain to her--or that perhaps she prefers explaining to

him. Her rebellious hair is all over her eyes, much vexing the pale,

energetic mother who sits on the opposite side of the fire, cumbered

with much service, letting no instant of time escape the inevitable

click of the knitting-needles, accompanied by epigrammatic speech. The

elder girl, prim and tidy, with her work before her, is by her

mother's side; and the brother, between the two groups, keeps assuring

himself by perpetual search that none of his favorite means of

amusement are escaping from his pockets. The father is already very

proud of the astonishing and growing intelligence of his little girl.

From a very early age he has been in the habit of taking her with him

in his drives about the neighborhood, "standing between her father's

knees as he drove leisurely," so that she has drunk in knowledge of

the country and of country folk at all her pores. An old-fashioned

child, already living in a world of her own imagination, impressible

to her finger-tips, and willing to give her views on any subject.

The first book that George Eliot read, so far as I have been able to

ascertain, was a little volume published in 1822, entitled "The

Linnet's Life," which she gave to me in the last year of her life, at

Witley. It bears the following inscription, written some time before

she gave it to me:

"This little book is the first present I ever remember having received

from my father. Let any one who thinks of me with some tenderness

after I am dead take care of this book for my sake. It made me very

happy when I held it in my little hands, and read it over and over

again; and thought the pictures beautiful, especially the one where

the linnet is feeding her young."

It must, I think, have been very shortly after she received this

present that an old friend of the family, who was in the habit of

coming as a visitor to Griff from time to time, used occasionally to

bring a book in his hand for the little girl. I very well remember her

expressing to me deep gratitude for this early ministration to her

childish delights; and Mr. Burne Jones has been kind enough to tell me

of a conversation with George Eliot about children's books, when she

also referred to this old gentleman's kindness. They were agreeing in

disparagement of some of the books that the rising generation take

their pleasure in, and she recalled the dearth of child-literature in

her own home, and her passionate delight and total absorption in

Æsop's Fables (given to her by the aforesaid old gentleman), the

possession of which had opened new worlds to her imagination. Mr.

Burne Jones particularly remembers how she laughed till the tears ran

down her face in recalling her infantine enjoyment of the humor in the

fable of Mercury and the Statue-seller. Having so few books at this

time, she read them again and again, until she knew them by heart. One

of them was a Joe Miller jest-book, with the stories from which she

used greatly to astonish the family circle. But the beginning of her

serious reading-days did not come till later. Meantime her talent for

observation gained a glorious new field for employment in her first

journey from home, which took place in 1826. Her father and mother

took her with them on a little trip into Derbyshire and Staffordshire,

where she saw Mr. Evans's relations, and they came back through

Lichfield, sleeping at the Swan.[3] They were away only a week, from

the 18th to the 24th of May; but "what time is little" to an

imaginative, observant child of seven on her first journey? About this

time a deeply felt crisis occurred in her life, as her brother had a

pony given to him, to which he became passionately attached. He

developed an absorbing interest in riding, and cared less and less to

play with his sister. The next important event happened in her eighth

or ninth year, when she was sent to Miss Wallington's school at

Nuneaton with her sister. This was a much larger school than Miss

Lathom's, there being some thirty girls, boarders. The principal

governess was Miss Lewis, who became then, and remained for many years

after, Mary Ann Evans's most intimate friend and principal

correspondent, and I am indebted to the letters addressed to her from

1836 to 1842 for most of the information concerning that period. Books

now became a passion with the child; she read everything she could lay

hands on, greatly troubling the soul of her mother by the consumption

of candles as well as of eyesight in her bedroom. From a subsequent

letter it will be seen that she was "early supplied with works of

fiction by those who kindly sought to gratify her appetite for

reading."

It must have been about this time that the episode occurred in

relation to "Waverley" which is mentioned by Miss Simcox in her

article in the June, 1881, number of the _Nineteenth Century Review_.

It was quite new to me, and, as it is very interesting, I give it in

Miss Simcox's own words: "Somewhere about 1827 a friendly neighbor

lent 'Waverley' to an elder sister of little Mary Ann Evans. It was

returned before the child had read to the end, and, in her distress at

the loss of the fascinating volume, she began to write out the story

as far as she had read it for herself, beginning naturally where the

story begins with Waverley's adventures at Tully Veolan, and

continuing until the surprised elders were moved to get her the book

again." Miss Simcox has pointed out the reference to this in the motto

of the 57th chapter of "Middlemarch:"

"They numbered scarce eight summers when a name

Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there

As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame

At penetration of the quickening air:

His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu,

Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,

Making the little world their childhood knew

Large with a land of mountain, lake, and scaur,

And larger yet with wonder, love, belief

Towards Walter Scott, who, living far away,

Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief.

The book and they must part, but, day by day,

In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran,

They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan."

Miss Simcox also mentions that "Elia divided her childish allegiance

with Scott, and she remembered feasting with singular pleasure upon an

extract in some stray almanac from the essay in commemoration of

'Captain Jackson and his slender ration of Single Gloucester.' This is

an extreme example of the general rule that a wise child's taste in

literature is sounder than adults generally venture to believe."

We know, too, from the "Mill on the Floss" that the "History of the

Devil," by Daniel Defoe, was a favorite. The book is still religiously

preserved at Griff, with its pictures just as Maggie looked at them.

"The Pilgrim's Progress," also, and "Rasselas" had a large share of

her affections.

At Miss Wallington's the growing girl soon distinguished herself by an

easy mastery of the usual school-learning of her years, and there,

too, the religious side of her nature was developed to a remarkable

degree. Miss Lewis was an ardent Evangelical Churchwoman, and exerted

a strong influence on her young pupil, whom she found very

sympathetically inclined. But Mary Ann Evans did not associate freely

with her schoolfellows, and her friendship with Miss Lewis was the

only intimacy she indulged in.

On coming home for their holidays the sister and brother began, about

this time, the habit of acting charades together before the Griff

household and the aunts, who were greatly impressed with the

cleverness of the performance; and the girl was now recognized in the

family circle as no ordinary child.

Another epoch presently succeeded, on her removal to Miss Franklin's

school at Coventry, in her thirteenth year. She was probably then very

much what she has described her own Maggie at the age of thirteen:

"A creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was

beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining

after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with

a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together

the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a

sense of home in it. No wonder, when there is this contrast between

the outward and the inward, that painful collisions come of it."

In _Our Times_ of June, 1881, there is a paper by a lady whose mother

was at school with Mary Ann Evans, which gives some interesting

particulars of the Miss Franklins.

"They were daughters of a Baptist minister who had preached for many

years in Coventry, and who inhabited, during his pastorate, a house in

the chapel-yard almost exactly resembling that of Rufus Lyon in 'Felix

Holt.' For this venerable gentleman Miss Evans, as a schoolgirl, had a

great admiration, and I, who can remember him well, can trace in Rufus

Lyon himself many slight resemblances, such as the 'little legs,' and

the habit of walking up and down when composing. Miss Rebecca Franklin

was a lady of considerable intellectual power, and remarkable for her

elegance in writing and conversation, as well as for her beautiful

calligraphy. In her classes for English Composition Mary Ann Evans

was, from her first entering the school, far in advance of the rest;

and while the themes of the other children were read, criticised, and

corrected in class, hers were reserved for the private perusal and

enjoyment of the teacher, who rarely found anything to correct. Her

enthusiasm for music was already very strongly marked, and her

music-master, a much-tried man, suffering from the irritability

incident to his profession, reckoned on his hour with her as a

refreshment to his wearied nerves, and soon had to confess that he had

no more to teach her. In connection with this proficiency in music, my

mother recalls her sensitiveness at that time as being painfully

extreme. When there were visitors, Miss Evans, as the best performer

in the school, was sometimes summoned to the parlor to play for their

amusement, and though suffering agonies from shyness and reluctance,

she obeyed with all readiness, but, on being released, my mother has

often known her to rush to her room and throw herself on the floor in

an agony of tears. Her schoolfellows loved her as much as they could

venture to love one whom they felt to be so immeasurably superior to

themselves, and she had playful nicknames for most of them. My mother,

who was delicate, and to whom she was very kind, was dubbed by her

'Miss Equanimity.' A source of great interest to the girls, and of

envy to those who lived farther from home, was the weekly cart which

brought Miss Evans new-laid eggs and other delightful produce of her

father's farm."

In talking about these early days, my wife impressed on my mind the

debt she felt that she owed to the Miss Franklins for their excellent

instruction, and she had also the very highest respect for their moral

qualities. With her chameleon-like nature she soon adopted their

religious views with intense eagerness and conviction, although she

never formally joined the Baptists or any other communion than the

Church of England. She at once, however, took a foremost place in the

school, and became a leader of prayer-meetings among the girls. In

addition to a sound English education the Miss Franklins managed to

procure for their pupils excellent masters for French, German, and

music; so that, looking to the lights of those times, the means of

obtaining knowledge were very much above the average for girls. Her

teachers, on their side, were very proud of their exceptionally gifted

scholar; and years afterwards, when Miss Evans came with her father to

live in Coventry, they introduced her to one of their friends, not

only as a marvel of mental power, but also as a person "sure to get

something up very soon in the way of clothing-club or other charitable

undertaking."

This year, 1832, was not only memorable for the change to a new and

superior school, but it was also much more memorable to George Eliot

for the riot which she saw at Nuneaton, on the occasion of the

election for North Warwickshire, after the passing of the great Reform

Bill, and which subsequently furnished her with the incidents for the

riot in "Felix Holt." It was an event to lay hold on the imagination

of an impressionable girl of thirteen, and it is thus described in the

local newspaper of 29th December, 1832:

"On Friday, the 21st December, at Nuneaton, from the commencement of

the poll till nearly half-past two, the Hemingites[4] occupied the

poll; the numerous plumpers for Sir Eardley Wilmot and the adherents

of Mr. Dugdale being constantly interrupted in their endeavors to go

to the hustings to give an honest and conscientious vote. The

magistrates were consequently applied to, and from the representations

they received from all parties, they were at length induced to call in

aid a military force. A detachment of the Scots Greys accordingly

arrived; but it appearing that that gallant body was not sufficiently

strong to put down the turbulent spirit of the mob, a reinforcement

was considered by the constituted authorities as absolutely necessary.

The tumult increasing, as the detachment of the Scots Greys were

called in, the Riot Act was read from the windows of the Newdigate

Arms; and we regret to add that both W. P. Inge, Esq., and Colonel

Newdigate, in the discharge of their magisterial duties, received

personal injuries.

"On Saturday the mob presented an appalling appearance, and but for

the forbearance of the soldiery numerous lives would have fallen a

sacrifice. Several of the officers of the Scots Greys were materially

hurt in their attempt to quell the riotous proceedings of the mob.

During the day the sub-sheriffs at the different booths received

several letters from the friends of Mr. Dugdale, stating that they

were outside of the town, and anxious to vote for that gentleman, but

were deterred from entering it from fear of personal violence. Two or

three unlucky individuals, drawn from the files of the military on

their approach to the poll, were cruelly beaten, and stripped

literally naked. We regret to add that one life has been sacrificed

during the contest, and that several misguided individuals have been

seriously injured."

The term ending Christmas, 1835, was the last spent at Miss

Franklin's. In the first letter of George Eliot's that I have been

able to discover, dated 6th January, 1836, and addressed to Miss

Lewis, who was at that time governess in the family of the Rev. L.

Harper, Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, she speaks of her mother

having suffered a great increase of pain, and adds--

"We dare not hope that there will be a permanent improvement. Our

anxieties on my mother's account, though so great, have been since

Thursday almost lost sight of in the more sudden, and consequently

more severe, trial which we have been called on to endure in the

alarming illness of my dear father. For four days we had no cessation

of our anxiety; but I am thankful to say that he is now considered out

of danger, though very much reduced by frequent bleeding and very

powerful medicines."

In the summer of this year--1836--the mother died, after a long,

painful illness, in which she was nursed with great devotion by her

daughters. It was their first acquaintance with death; and to a highly

wrought, sensitive girl of sixteen such a loss seems an unendurable

calamity. "To the old, sorrow is sorrow; to the young, it is despair."

Many references will be found in the subsequent correspondence to what

she suffered at this time, all summed up in the old popular phrase,

"We can have but one mother." In the following spring Christiana was

married to Mr. Edward Clarke, a surgeon practising at Meriden, in

Warwickshire. One of Mr. Isaac Evans's most vivid recollections is

that on the day of the marriage, after the bride's departure, he and

his younger sister had "a good cry" together over the break-up of the

old home-life, which of course could never be the same with the mother

and the elder sister wanting.

Twenty-three years later we shall find George Eliot writing, on the

death of this sister, that she "had a very special feeling for

her--stronger than any third person would think likely." The relation

between the sisters was somewhat like that described as existing

between Dorothea and Celia in "Middlemarch"--no intellectual affinity,

but a strong family affection. In fact, my wife told me, that although

Celia was not in any sense a portrait of her sister, she "had Chrissey

continually in mind" in delineating Celia's character. But we must be

careful not to found too much on such _suggestions_ of character in

George Eliot's books; and this must particularly be borne in mind in

the "Mill on the Floss." No doubt the early part of Maggie's

portraiture is the best autobiographical representation we can have of

George Eliot's own feelings in her childhood, and many of the

incidents in the book are based on real experiences of family life,

but so mixed with fictitious elements and situations that it would be

absolutely misleading to trust to it as a true history. For instance,

all that happened in real life between the brother and sister was, I

believe, that as they grew up their characters, pursuits, and tastes

diverged more and more widely. He took to his father's business, at

which he worked steadily, and which absorbed most of his time and

attention. He was also devoted to hunting, liked the ordinary

pleasures of a young man in his circumstances, and was quite satisfied

with the circle of acquaintance in which he moved. After leaving

school at Coventry he went to a private tutor's at Birmingham, where

he imbibed strong High-Church views. His sister had come back from the

Miss Franklins' with ultra-Evangelical tendencies, and their

differences of opinion used to lead to a good deal of animated

argument. Miss Evans, as she now was, could not rest satisfied with a

mere profession of faith without trying to shape her own life--and, it

may be added, the lives around her--in accordance with her

convictions. The pursuit of pleasure was a snare; dress was vanity;

society was a danger.

"From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw

some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even

into her self-renunciation: her own life was still a drama for her, in

which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with

intensity. And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of

humility by being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after

too high a flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged

wings dabbled in the mud.... That is the path we all like when we set

out on our abandonment of egoism--the path of martyrdom and endurance,

where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of

tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy

honors to be gathered and worn."[5]

After Christiana's marriage the entire charge of the Griff

establishment devolved on Mary Ann, who became a most exemplary

housewife, learned thoroughly everything that had to be done, and,

with her innate desire for perfection, was never satisfied unless her

department was administered in the very best manner that circumstances

permitted. She spent a great deal of time in visiting the poor,

organizing clothing-clubs, and other works of active charity. But over

and above this, as will be seen from the following letters, she was

always prosecuting an active intellectual life of her own. Mr. Brezzi,

a well-known master of modern languages at Coventry, used to come over

to Griff regularly to give her lessons in Italian and German. Mr.

M'Ewen, also from Coventry, continued her lessons in music, and she

got through a large amount of miscellaneous reading by herself. In the

evening she was always in the habit of playing to her father, who was

very fond of music. But it requires no great effort of imagination to

conceive that this life, though full of interests of its own, and the

source from whence the future novelist drew the most powerful and the

most touching of her creations, was, as a matter of fact, very

monotonous, very difficult, very discouraging. It could scarcely be

otherwise to a young girl with a full, passionate nature and hungry

intellect, shut up in a farmhouse in the remote country. For there was

no sympathetic human soul near with whom to exchange ideas on the

intellectual and spiritual problems that were beginning to agitate her

mind. "You may try, but you can never imagine what it is to have a

man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a

girl."[6] This is a point of view that must be distinctly recognized

by any one attempting to follow the development of George Eliot's

character, and it will always be corrected by the other point of view

which she has made so prominent in all her own writing--the soothing,

strengthening, sacred influences of the home life, the home loves, the

home duties. Circumstances in later life separated her from her

kindred, but among her last letters it will be seen that she wrote to

her brother in May, 1880, that "our long silence has never broken the

affection for you that began when we were little ones"[7]--and she

expresses her satisfaction in the growing prosperity of himself and

all his family. It was a real gratification to her to hear from some

Coventry friends that her nephew, the Rev. Frederic Evans, the present

rector of Bedworth, was well spoken of as a preacher in the old

familiar places, and in our last summer at Witley we often spoke of a

visit to Warwickshire, that she might renew the sweet memories of her

child-days. No doubt, the very monotony of her life at Griff, and the

narrow field it presented for observation of society, added

immeasurably to the intensity of a naturally keen mental vision,

concentrating into a focus what might perhaps have become dissipated

in more liberal surroundings. And though the field of observation was

narrow in one sense, it included very various grades of society. Such

fine places as Arbury, and Packington, the seat of Lord Aylesford,

where she was being constantly driven by her father, affected the

imagination and accentuated the social differences--differences which

had a profound significance for such a sensitive and such an

intellectually commanding character, and which left their mark on it.

"No one who has not a strong natural prompting and susceptibility

towards such things [the signs and luxuries of ladyhood] and has, at

the same time, suffered from the presence of opposite conditions, can

understand how powerfully those minor accidents of rank which please

the fastidious sense can preoccupy the imagination."[8]

The tone of her mind will be seen from the letters written during the

following years, and I remember once, after we were married, when I

was urging her to write her autobiography, she said, half sighing,

half smiling, "The only thing I should care much to dwell on would be

the absolute despair I suffered from of ever being able to achieve

anything. No one could ever have felt greater despair, and a knowledge

of this might be a help to some other struggler"--adding, with a

smile, "but, on the other hand, it might only lead to an increase of

bad writing."

_SUMMARY._

NOVEMBER 22, 1819, TO END OF 1837.

Birth at Arbury Farm--Baptism--Character of father--His first

marriage and children--Second marriage and children--Removal

to Griff--Events at time of birth--Character of country

about Griff--Coach communication--Father's

position--Anecdotes of father--Character of mother--Mother's

family and delicacy--Dame's school--Companionship with

brother--Miss Lathom's school at Attleboro--Suffers from

fear--Father's pet--Drives with him--First books read--First

journey to Staffordshire--Miss Wallington's school at

Nuneaton--Miss Lewis, governess--Books read--Religious

impressions--Charade acting--Miss Franklin's school at

Coventry--Riot at Nuneaton--First letter to Miss

Lewis--Mother's illness--Mother's death--Sister Christiana

married to Mr. Clarke--Relations with brother--Housekeeper at

Griff--Life and studies there.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The farm is also known as the South Farm, Arbury.

[2] "Felix Holt"--Introduction.

[3] See vol. ii. p. 96.

[4] A Mr. Heming was the Radical candidate.

[5] "Mill on the Floss," chap. iii. book iv.

[6] "Daniel Deronda."

[7] See vol. iii.

[8] "Felix Holt," chap. xxxviii. p. 399.

CHAPTER I.

In the foregoing introductory sketch I have endeavored to present the

influences to which George Eliot was subjected in her youth, and the

environment in which she grew up; I am now able to begin the

fulfilment of the promise on the titlepage, that the life will be

related in her own letters; or, rather, in extracts from her own

letters, for no single letter is printed entire from the beginning to

the end. I have not succeeded in obtaining any between 6th January,

1836, and 18th August, 1838; but from the latter date the

correspondence becomes regular, and I have arranged it as a continuous

narrative, with the names of the persons to whom the letters are

addressed in the margin. The slight thread of narrative or explanation

which I have written to elucidate the letters, where necessary, will

hereafter occupy an inside margin, so that the reader will see at a

glance what is narrative and what is correspondence, and will be

troubled as little as possible with marks of quotation or changes of

type.

The following opening letter of the series to Miss Lewis

describes a first visit to London with her brother:

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. 1838.]

Let me tell you, though, that I was not at all delighted with the stir

of the great Babel, and the less so, probably, owing to the

circumstances attending my visit thither. Isaac and I went alone (that

seems rather Irish), and stayed only a week, every day of which we

worked hard at seeing sights. I think Greenwich Hospital interested me

more than anything else.

Mr. Isaac Evans himself tells me that what he remembers

chiefly impressed her was the first hearing the great bell of

St. Paul's. It affected her deeply. At that time she was so

much under the influence of religious and ascetic ideas that

she would not go to any of the theatres with her brother, but

spent all her evenings alone, reading. A characteristic

reminiscence is that the chief thing she wanted to buy was

Josephus's "History of the Jews;" and at the same bookshop

her brother got her this he bought for himself a pair of

hunting sketches. In the same letter, alluding to the

marriage of one of her friends, she says:

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 18th Aug. 1838.]

For my part, when I hear of the marrying and giving in marriage that

is constantly being transacted, I can only sigh for those who are

multiplying earthly ties which, though powerful enough to detach their

hearts and thoughts from heaven, are so brittle as to be liable to be

snapped asunder at every breeze. You will think that I need nothing

but a tub for my habitation to make me a perfect female Diogenes; and

I plead guilty to occasional misanthropical thoughts, but not to the

indulgence of them. Still, I must believe that those are happiest who

are not fermenting themselves by engaging in projects for earthly

bliss, who are considering this life merely a pilgrimage, a scene

calling for diligence and watchfulness, not for repose and amusement.

I do not deny that there may be many who can partake with a high

degree of zest of all the lawful enjoyments the world can offer, and

yet live in near communion with their God--who can warmly love the

creature, and yet be careful that the Creator maintains his supremacy

in their hearts; but I confess that, in my short experience and narrow

sphere of action, I have never been able to attain to this. I find, as

Dr. Johnson said respecting his wine, total abstinence much easier

than moderation. I do not wonder you are pleased with Pascal;[9] his

thoughts may be returned to the palate again and again with increasing

rather than diminished relish. I have highly enjoyed Hannah More's

letters; the contemplation of so blessed a character as hers is very

salutary. "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who, through

faith and patience, inherit the promises," is a valuable admonition. I

was once told that there was nothing out of myself to prevent my

becoming as eminently holy as St. Paul; and though I think that is too

sweeping an assertion, yet it is very certain we are generally too low

in our aims, more anxious for safety than sanctity, for place than

purity, forgetting that each involves the other, and that, as

Doddridge tells us, to rest satisfied with any attainments in religion

is a fearful proof that we are ignorant of the very first principles

of it. O that we could live only for eternity! that we could realize

its nearness! I know you do not love quotations, so I will not give

you one; but if you do not distinctly remember it, do turn to the

passage in Young's "Infidel Reclaimed," beginning, "O vain, vain, vain

all else eternity," and do love the lines for my sake.

I really feel for you, sacrificing, as you are, your own tastes and

comforts for the pleasure of others, and that in a manner the most

trying to rebellious flesh and blood; for I verily believe that in

most cases it requires more of a martyr's spirit to endure, with

patience and cheerfulness, daily crossings and interruptions of our

petty desires and pursuits, and to rejoice in them if they can be made

to conduce to God's glory and our own sanctification, than even to lay

down our lives for the truth.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 6th Nov. 1838.]

I can hardly repress a sort of indignation towards second causes. That

your time and energies should be expended in ministering to the petty

interests of those far beneath you in all that is really elevating is

about as _bienséant_ as that I should set fire to a goodly volume to

light a match by! I have had a very unsettled life lately--Michaelmas,

with its onerous duties and anxieties, much company (for us) and

little reading, so that I am ill prepared for corresponding with

profit or pleasure. I am generally in the same predicament with books

as a glutton with his feast, hurrying through one course that I may be

in time for the next, and so not relishing or digesting either; not a

very elegant illustration, but the best my organs of ideality and

comparison will furnish just now.

I have just begun the "Life of Wilberforce," and I am expecting a rich

treat from it. There is a similarity, if I may compare myself with

such a man, between his temptations, or rather _besetments_, and my

own, that makes his experience very interesting to me. O that I might

be made as useful in my lowly and obscure station as he was in the

exalted one assigned to him! I feel myself to be a mere cumberer of

the ground. May the Lord give me such an insight into what is truly

good that I may not rest contented with making Christianity a mere

addendum to my pursuits, or with tacking it as a fringe to my

garments! May I seek to be sanctified wholly! My nineteenth birthday

will soon be here (the 22d)--an awakening signal. My mind has been

much clogged lately by languor of body, to which I am prone to give

way, and for the removal of which I shall feel thankful.

We have had an oratorio at Coventry lately, Braham, Phillips, Mrs.

Knyvett, and Mrs. Shaw--the last, I think, I shall attend. I am not

fitted to decide on the question of the propriety or lawfulness of

such exhibitions of talent and so forth, because I have no soul for

music. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he

alloweth." I am a tasteless person, but it would not cost me any

regrets if the only music heard in our land were that of strict

worship, nor can I think a pleasure that involves the devotion of all

the time and powers of an immortal being to the acquirement of an

expertness in so useless (at least in ninety-nine cases out of a

hundred) an accomplishment, can be quite pure or elevating in its

tendency.

The above remarks on oratorio are the more surprising

because, two years later, when Miss Evans went to the

Birmingham festival, in September, 1840, previous to her

brother's marriage, she was affected to an extraordinary

degree, so much so that Mrs. Isaac Evans--then Miss

Rawlins--told me that the attention of people sitting near

was attracted by her hysterical sobbing. And in all her later

life music was one of the chiefest delights to her, and

especially oratorio.

"Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a

great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility to the

supreme excitement of music was only one form of that passionate

sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and made her faults

and virtues all merge in each other--made her affections sometimes an

impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from taking the form

of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of

ambition."[10]

The next two letters, dated from Griff--February 6th and

March 5th, 1839--are addressed to Mrs. Samuel Evans, a

Methodist preacher, the wife of a younger brother of Mr.

Robert Evans. They are the more interesting from the fact,

which will appear later, that an anecdote related by this

aunt during her visit to Griff in 1839 was the germ of "Adam

Bede." To what extent this Elizabeth Evans resembled the

ideal character of Dinah Morris will also be seen in its

place in the history of "Adam Bede."

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Samuel Evans, 6th Feb. 1839.]

I am so unwilling to believe that you can forget a promise, or to

entertain fears respecting your health, that I persuade myself I must

have mistaken the terms of the agreement between us, and that I ought

to have sent you a letter before I considered myself entitled to one

from Wirksworth. However this may be, I feel so anxious to hear of

your well-being in every way, that I can no longer rest satisfied

without using my only means of obtaining tidings of you. My dear

father is not at home to-night, or I should probably have a message of

remembrance to give you from him, in addition to the good news that he

is as well as he has been for the last two years, and even, I think,

better, except that he feels more fatigue after exertion of mind or

body than formerly. If you are able to fill a sheet, I am sure both

uncle and you would in doing so be complying with the precept, "Lift

up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees." I need

not tell you that this is a dry and thirsty land, and I shall be as

grateful to you for a draught from your fresh spring as the traveller

in the Eastern desert is to the unknown hand that digs a well for him.

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," seems to be my character,

instead of that regular progress from strength to strength that marks,

even in this world of mistakes, the people that shall, in the heavenly

Zion, stand before God. I shall not only suffer, but be delighted to

receive, the word of exhortation, and I beg you not to withhold it. If

I did not know how little you need human help, I should regret that my

ignorance and want of deep feeling in spiritual things prevent me from

suggesting profitable or refreshing thoughts; but I dare say I took

care to tell you that my desire for correspondence with you was quite

one of self-interest.

I am thankful to tell you that my dear friends here are all well. I

have a faint hope that the pleasure and profit I have felt in your

society may be repeated in the summer: there is no place I would

rather visit than Wirksworth, or the inhabitants of which have a

stronger hold on my affections.

In the next letter the touch about Mrs. Fletcher's life is

characteristic.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Samuel Evans, 5th Mch. 1839.]

My dear father is just now so plunged in business, and that of a

fatiguing kind, that I should put your confidence in my love and

gratitude to an unreasonably severe trial if I waited until he had

leisure to unite with me in filling a sheet. You were very kind to

remember my wish to see "Mrs. Fletcher's Life:" I only desire such a

spiritual digestion as has enabled _you_ to derive so much benefit

from its perusal. I am truly glad to hear that you are less

embarrassed with respect to your congregation, etc., than you were

when we saw you. I must protest against your making apologies for

speaking of yourself, for nothing that relates to you can be

uninteresting to me.

The unprofitableness you lament in yourself, during your visit to us,

had its true cause, not in your lukewarmness, but in the little

improvement I sought to derive from your society, and in my lack of

humility and Christian simplicity, that makes me willing to obtain

credit for greater knowledge and deeper feeling than I really possess.

Instead of putting my light under a bushel, I am in danger of

ostentatiously displaying a false one. You have much too high an

opinion, my dear aunt, of my spiritual condition, and of my personal

and circumstantial advantages. My soul seems for weeks together

completely benumbed, and when I am aroused from this torpid state, the

intervals of activity are comparatively short. I am ever finding

excuses for this in the deprivation of outward excitement and the

small scope I have for the application of my principles, instead of

feeling self-abasement under the consciousness that I abuse precious

hours of retirement, which would be eagerly employed in spiritual

exercises by many a devoted servant of God who is struggling with

worldly cares and occupations. I feel that my besetting sin is the one

of all others most destroying, as it is the fruitful parent of them

all--ambition, a desire insatiable for the esteem of my

fellow-creatures. This seems the centre whence all my actions proceed.

But you will perhaps remember, my dear aunt, that I do not attach

much value to a disclosure of religious feelings, owing probably to

the dominant corruption I have just been speaking of, which "turns the

milk of my good purpose all to curd."

On 16th March, 1839, in a letter to Miss Lewis, there is a

reference to good spirits, which is of the rarest occurrence

all through the correspondence:

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 16th Mch. 1839.]

I am this morning hardly myself, owing to the insuppressible rising of

my animal spirits on a deliverance from sick headache;

and then the letter continues as to the expediency of reading

works of fiction, in answer to a question Miss Lewis had

asked:

I put out of the question all persons of perceptions so quick, memories

so eclectic and retentive, and minds so comprehensive that nothing less

than omnivorous reading, as Southey calls it, can satisfy their

intellectual man; for (if I may parody the words of Scripture without

profaneness) they will gather to themselves all facts, and heap unto

themselves all ideas. For such persons we cannot legislate. Again, I

would put out of the question standard works, whose contents are matter

of constant reference, and the names of whose heroes and heroines

briefly, and therefore conveniently, describe characters and ideas--such

are "Don Quixote," Butler's "Hudibras," "Robinson Crusoe," "Gil Blas,"

Byron's Poetical Romances, Southey's ditto, etc. Such, too, are Walter

Scott's novels and poems. Such allusions as "He is a perfect Dominie

Sampson," "He is as industrious in finding out antiquities, and about as

successful, as Jonathan Oldbuck," are likely to become so common in

books and conversation that, _always providing_ our leisure is not

circumscribed by duty within narrow bounds, we should, I think, qualify

ourselves to understand them. Shakespeare has a higher claim than this

on our attention; but we have need of as nice a power of distillation as

the bee, to suck nothing but honey from his pages. However, as in life

we must be exposed to malign influences from intercourse with others, if

we would reap the advantages designed for us by making us social beings,

so in books. Having cleared our way of what would otherwise have

encumbered us, I would ask why is one engaged in the instruction of

youth to read, as a purely conscientious and self-denying performance of

duty, works whose value to others is allowed to be doubtful? I can only

imagine two shadows of reasons. Either that she may be able

experimentally to decide on their desirableness for her pupils, or else

that there is a certain power exerted by them on the mind that would

render her a more efficient "tutress" by their perusal. I would not

depreciate the disinterestedness of those who will make trial of the

effect on themselves of a cup suspected poisonous, that they may deter

another from risking life; but it appears to me a work of

supererogation, since there are enough witnesses to its baneful effect

on themselves already to put an end to all strife in the matter. The

Scriptural declaration, "As face answereth to face in a glass, so the

heart of man to man," will exonerate me from the charge of

uncharitableness, or too high an estimation of myself, if I venture to

believe that the same causes which exist in my own breast to render

novels and romances pernicious have their counterpart in that of every

fellow-creature. I am, I confess, not an impartial member of a jury in

this case; for I owe the culprits a grudge for injuries inflicted on

myself. When I was quite a little child I could not be satisfied with

the things around me; I was constantly living in a world of my own

creation, and was quite contented to have no companions, that I might be

left to my own musings, and imagine scenes in which I was chief actress.

Conceive what a character novels would give to these Utopias. I was

early supplied with them by those who kindly sought to gratify my

appetite for reading, and of course I made use of the materials they

supplied for building my castles in the air. But it may be said--"No one

ever dreamed of recommending children to read them: all this does not

apply to persons come to years of discretion, whose judgments are in

some degree matured." I answer that men and women are but children of a

larger growth: they are still imitative beings. We cannot (at least

those who ever read to any purpose at all)--we cannot, I say, help being

modified by the ideas that pass through our minds. We hardly wish to lay

claim to such elasticity as retains no impress. We are active beings

too. We are each one of the _dramatis personæ_ in some play on the stage

of life; hence our actions have their share in the effects of our

reading. As to the discipline our minds receive from the perusal of

fictions, I can conceive none that is beneficial but may be attained by

that of history. It is the merit of fictions to come within the orbit of

probability: if unnatural they would no longer please. If it be said the

mind must have relaxation, "Truth is strange--stranger than fiction."

When a person has exhausted the wonders of truth there is no other

resort than fiction: till then, I cannot imagine how the adventures of

some phantom conjured up by fancy can be more entertaining than the

transactions of real specimens of human nature, from which we may

safely draw inferences. I dare say Mr. James's "Huguenot" would be

recommended as giving an idea of the times of which he writes; but as

well may one be recommended to look at landscapes for an idea of English

scenery. The real secret of the relaxation talked of is one that would

not generally be avowed; but an appetite that wants seasoning of a

certain kind cannot be indicative of health. Religious novels are more

hateful to me than merely worldly ones: they are a sort of centaur or

mermaid, and, like other monsters that we do not know how to class,

should be destroyed for the public good as soon as born. The weapons of

the Christian warfare were never sharpened at the forge of romance.

Domestic fictions, as they come more within the range of imitation, seem

more dangerous. For my part, I am ready to sit down and weep at the

impossibility of my understanding or barely knowing a fraction of the

sum of objects that present themselves for our contemplation in books

and in life. Have I, then, any time to spend on things that never

existed?

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 20th May, 1839.]

You allude to the religious, or rather irreligious, contentions that

form so prominent a feature in the aspect of public affairs--a

subject, you will perhaps be surprised to hear me say, full of

interest to me, and on which I am unable to shape an opinion for the

satisfaction of my mind. I think no one feels more difficulty in

coming to a decision on controverted matters than myself. I do not

mean that I have not preferences; but, however congruous a theory may

be with my notions, I cannot find that comfortable repose that others

appear to possess after having made their election of a class of

sentiments. The other day Montaigne's motto came to my mind (it is

mentioned by Pascal) as an appropriate one for me--"Que

sais-je?"--beneath a pair of balances, though, by-the-bye, it is an

ambiguous one, and may be taken in a sense that I desire to reprobate,

as well as in a Scriptural one, to which I do not refer. I use it in a

limited sense as a representation of my oscillating judgment. On no

subject do I veer to all points of the compass more frequently than on

the nature of the visible Church. I am powerfully attracted in a

certain direction, but, when I am about to settle there,

counter-assertions shake me from my position. I cannot enter into

details, but when we are together I will tell you all my

difficulties--that is, if you will be kind enough to listen. I have

been reading the new prize essay on "Schism," by Professor Hoppus, and

Milner's "Church History," since I last wrote to you: the former ably

expresses the tenets of those who deny that any form of Church

government is so clearly dictated in Scripture as to possess a divine

right, and, consequently, to be binding on Christians; the latter, you

know, exhibits the views of a moderate Evangelical Episcopalian on the

inferences to be drawn from ecclesiastical remains. He equally

repudiates the loud assertion of a _jus divinum_, to the exclusion of

all separatists from the visible Church, though he calmly maintains

the superiority of the evidence in favor of Episcopacy, of a moderate

kind both in power and extent of diocese, as well as the benefit of a

national establishment. I have been skimming the "Portrait of an

English Churchman," by the Rev. W. Gresley: this contains an outline

of the system of those who exclaim of the Anglican Church as the Jews

did of their sacred building (that they do it in as reprehensible a

spirit I will not be the judge), "the temple of the Lord, the temple

of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" is exclusively theirs; while the

authors of the Oxford Tracts go a step further, and evince by their

compliments to Rome, as a dear though erring sister, and their

attempts to give a Romish color to our ordinance, with a very confused

and unscriptural statement of the great doctrine of justification, a

disposition rather to fraternize with the members of a Church carrying

on her brow the prophetical epithets applied by St. John to the

scarlet beast, the mystery of iniquity, than with pious

Nonconformists. It is true they disclaim all this, and that their

opinions are seconded by the extensive learning, the laborious zeal,

and the deep devotion of those who propagate them; but a reference to

facts will convince us that such has generally been the character of

heretical teachers. Satan is too crafty to commit his cause into the

hands of those who have nothing to recommend them to approbation.

According to their dogmas, the Scotch Church and the foreign

Protestant Churches, as well as the non-Episcopalians of our own land,

are wanting in the essentials of existence as part of the Church.

In the next letter there is the first allusion to authorship,

but, from the wording of the sentence, the poem referred to

has evidently not been a first attempt.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 17th July, 1839.]

I send you some doggerel lines, the crude fruit of a lonely walk last

evening when the words of one of our martyrs occurred to me. You must

be acquainted with the idiosyncrasy of my authorship, which is, that

my effusions, once committed to paper, are like the laws of the Medes

and Persians, that alter not.

"_Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle._"

--2 PETER i. 14.

"As o'er the fields by evening's light I stray

I hear a still, small whisper--Come away;

Thou must to this bright, lovely world soon say

Farewell!

"The mandate I'd obey, my lamp prepare,

Gird up my garments, give my soul to pray'r,

And say to earth, and all that breathe earth's air,

Farewell!

"Thou sun, to whose parental beam I owe

All that has gladden'd me while here below,

Moon, stars, and covenant-confirming bow,

Farewell!

"Ye verdant meads, fair blossoms, stately trees,

Sweet song of birds and soothing hum of bees,

Refreshing odors wafted on the breeze,

Farewell!

"Ye patient servants of creation's Lord,

Whose mighty strength is govern'd by his word,

Who raiment, food, and help in toil afford,

Farewell!

"Books that have been to me as chests of gold,

Which, miserlike, I secretly have told,

And for them love, health, friendship, peace have sold,

Farewell!

"Blest volume! whose clear truth-writ page once known,

Fades not before heaven's sunshine or hell's moan,

To thee I say not, of earth's gifts alone,

Farewell!

"There shall my new-born senses find new joy,

New sounds, new sights, my eyes and ears employ,

Nor fear that word that here brings sad alloy,

Farewell!"

I had a dim recollection that my wife had told me that this

poem had been printed somewhere. After a long search I found

it in the _Christian Observer_ for January, 1840. The version

there published has the two following additional verses, and

is signed M. A. E.:

"Ye feebler, freer tribes that people air,

Ye gaudy insects, making buds your lair,

Ye that in water shine and frolic there,

Farewell!

"Dear kindred, whom the Lord to me has given,

Must the strong tie that binds us now be riven?

No! say I--only till we meet in heaven,

Farewell!"

The editor of the _Christian Observer_ has added this note:

"We do not often add a note to a poem: but if St. John found

no temple in the New Jerusalem, neither will there be any

need of a Bible; for we shall not then see through a glass

darkly--through the veil of sacraments or the written

Word--but face to face. The Bible is God's gift, but not for

heaven's use. Still, on the very verge of heaven we may cling

to it, after we have bid farewell to everything earthly: and

this, perhaps, is what M. A. E. means."

In the following letter we already see the tendency to draw

illustrations from science:

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 4th Sept. 1839.]

I have lately led so unsettled a life, and have been so desultory in

my employments, that my mind, never of the most highly organized

genus, is more than usually chaotic, or, rather, it is like a stratum

of conglomerated fragments, that shows here a jaw and rib of some

ponderous quadruped, there a delicate alto-relievo of some fern-like

plant, tiny shells and mysterious nondescripts incrusted and united

with some unvaried and uninteresting but useful stone. My mind

presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history,

ancient and modern; scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare,

Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton; newspaper topics; morsels of Addison

and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, and chemistry; reviews

and metaphysics--all arrested and petrified and smothered by the

fast-thickening every-day accession of actual events, relative

anxieties, and household cares and vexations. How deplorably and

unaccountably evanescent are our frames of mind, as various as the

forms and hues of the summer clouds! A single word is sometimes enough

to give an entirely new mould to our thoughts--at least, I find myself

so constituted; and therefore to me it is pre-eminently important to

be anchored within the veil, so that outward things may be unable to

send me adrift. Write to me as soon as you can. Remember Michaelmas is

coming, and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseating to me that it

will be a charity to console me; to reprove and advise me no less.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 22d Nov. 1839.]

I have emerged from the slough of domestic troubles, or, rather, to

speak quite clearly, "malheurs de cuisine," and am beginning to take a

deep breath in my own element, though with a mortifying consciousness

that my faculties have become superlatively obtuse during my

banishment from it. I have been so self-indulgent as to possess myself

of Wordsworth at full length, and I thoroughly like much of the

contents of the first three volumes, which I fancy are only the low

vestibule of the three remaining ones. I never before met with so many

of my own feelings expressed just as I could like them. The distress

of the lower classes in our neighborhood is daily increasing, from the

scarcity of employment for weavers, and I seem sadly to have

handcuffed myself by unnecessary expenditure. To-day is my 20th

birthday.

This allusion to Wordsworth is interesting, as it entirely

expresses the feeling she had to him up to the day of her

death. One of the very last books we read together at Cheyne

Walk was Mr. Frederick Myers's "Wordsworth" in the "English

Men of Letters," which she heartily enjoyed.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 23d Mch. 1840.]

I have just received my second lesson in German.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 2d May, 1840, Friday evening.]

I know you will be glad to think of me as thoroughly employed, as,

indeed, I am to an extent that makes me fear I shall not be able to

accomplish everything well. I have engaged, if possible, to complete

the chart,[11] the plan of which I sketched out last year, by November

next, and I am encouraged to believe that it will answer my purpose to

print it. The profits arising from its sale, if any, will go partly to

Attleboro Church, and partly to a favorite object of my own. Mrs.

Newdigate is very anxious that I should do this, and she permits me to

visit her library when I please, in search of any books that may

assist me. Will you ask Mr. Craig what he considers the best authority

for the date of the apostolical writings? I should like to carry the

chart down to the Reformation, if my time and resources will enable me

to do so. We are going to have a clothing-club, the arrangement and

starting of which are left to me. I am ashamed to run the risk of

troubling you, but I should be very grateful if you could send me an

abstract of the rules by which yours is regulated.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st May, 1840.]

Our house is now, and will be for the next two months, miserably noisy

and disorderly with the musical operations of masons, carpenters, and

painters. You know how abhorrent all this is to my tastes and

feelings, taking all the spice out of my favorite little epithet,

"this working-day world:" I can no longer use it figuratively. How

impressive must the gradual rise of Solomon's Temple have been! each

prepared mass of virgin marble laid in reverential silence. I fancy

Heber has compared it to the growth of a palm. Your nice miniature

chart, which I shall carefully treasure up, has quite satisfied me

that Dr. Pearson, at least, has not realized my conceptions, though it

has left me still dubious as to my own power of doing so. I will just

(if you can bear to hear more of the matter) give you an idea of the

plan, which may have partly faded from your memory. The series of

perpendicular columns will successively contain the Roman emperors,

with their dates, the political and religious state of the Jews, the

bishops, remarkable men, and events in the several churches, a column

being devoted to each of the chief ones, the aspect of heathenism and

Judaism towards Christianity, the chronology of the apostolical and

patristical writings, schisms, and heresies, General Councils, eras of

corruption (under which head the remarks would be general), and I

thought possibly an application of the apocalyptic prophecies, which

would merely require a few figures and not take up room. I think there

must be a break in the chart after the establishment of Christianity

as the religion of the empire, and I have come to a determination not

to carry it beyond the first acknowledgment of the supremacy of the

Pope by Phocas, in 606, when Mohammedanism became a besom of

destruction in the hand of the Lord, and completely altered the aspect

of ecclesiastical history. So much for this, at present, airy

project, about which I hope never to tease you more. Mr. Harper[12]

lent me a little time ago a work by the Rev. W. Gresley, begging me to

read it, as he thought it was calculated to make me a proselyte to the

opinions it advocates. I had skimmed the book before ("Portrait of an

English Churchman"), but I read it attentively a second time, and was

pleased with the spirit of piety that breathes throughout. His last

work is one in a similar style ("The English Citizen"), which I have

cursorily read; and, as they are both likely to be seen by you, I want

to know your opinion of them. Mine is this: that they are sure to have

a powerful influence on the minds of small readers and shallow

thinkers, as, from the simplicity and clearness with which the author,

by his _beau-idéal_ characters, enunciates his sentiments, they

furnish a magazine of easily wielded weapons for _morning-calling_ and

_evening-party_ controversialists, as well as that really honest minds

will be inclined to think they have found a resting-place amid the

footballing of religious parties. But it appears to me that there is

unfairness in arbitrarily selecting a train of circumstances and a set

of characters as a development of a class of opinions. In this way we

might make atheism appear wonderfully calculated to promote social

happiness. I remember, as I dare say you do, a very amiable atheist

depicted by Bulwer in "Devereux;" and for some time after the perusal

of that book, which I read seven or eight years ago,[13] I was

considerably shaken by the impression that religion was not a

requisite to moral excellence.

Have you not alternating seasons of mental stagnation and activity?

just such as the political economists say there must be in a nation's

pecuniary condition--all one's precious specie, Time, going out to

procure a stock of commodities, while one's own manufactures are too

paltry to be worth vending. I am just in that condition--partly, I

think, owing to my not having met with any steel to sharpen my edge

against for the last three weeks. I am going to read a volume of the

Oxford Tracts and the "Lyra Apostolica;" the former I almost shrink

from the labor of conning, but the other I confess I am attracted

towards by some highly poetical extracts that I have picked up in

various quarters. I have just bought Mr. Keble's "Christian Year," a

volume of sweet poetry that perhaps you know. The fields of poesy look

more lovely than ever, now I have hedged myself in the geometrical

regions of fact, where I can do nothing but draw parallels and measure

differences in a double sense.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 26th May, 1840.]

[14]I will only hint that there seems a probability of my being an

unoccupied damsel, of my being severed from all the ties that have

hitherto given my existence the semblance of a usefulness beyond that

of making up the requisite quantum of animal matter in the universe. A

second important intimation respecting my worthy self is one that, I

confess, I impart without one sigh, though perhaps you will think my

callousness discreditable. It is that Seeley & Burnside have just

published a Chart of Ecclesiastical History, doubtless giving to my

airy vision a local habitation and a name. I console all my little

regrets by thinking that what is thus evidenced to be a desideratum

has been executed much better than if left to my slow fingers and

slower head. I fear I am laboriously doing nothing, for I am beguiled

by the fascination that the study of languages has for my capricious

mind. I could e'en give myself up to making discoveries in the world

of words.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, in London, Whit-Wednesday, June,

1840.]

May I trouble you to procure for me an Italian book recommended by Mr.

Brezzi--Silvio Pellico's "Le mie Prigioni;" if not, "Storia d'Italia"?

If they are cheap, I should like both.

I shall have, I hope, a little trip with my father next week into

Derbyshire, and this "lark" will probably be beneficial to me; so do

not imagine I am inviting you to come and hear moaning, when you need

all attainable relaxation.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 23d June, 1840.]

Your letter greeted me last night on my arrival from Staffordshire.

The prospectus of Mr. Henslow's work is as marvellous to my ignorant

conceptions as the prophecies of the wonders of the steam-engine would

have been to some British worthy in the days of Caractacus. I can only

gape as he would probably have done. I hope Mr. H. has not imitated

certain show-keepers, who give so exaggerated a representation of

their giantess, on the outside, that the spectators have

disappointment for their cash within.

If I do not see you, how shall I send your "Don Quixote," which I hope

soon to finish? I have been sadly interrupted by other books that have

taken its scanty allowance of time, or I should have made better haste

with it. Will you try to get me Spenser's "Faery Queen"? the cheapest

edition, with a glossary, which is quite indispensable, together with

a clear and correct type. I have had some treats on my little

excursion, not the least of which was the gazing on some--albeit the

smallest--of the "everlasting hills," and on those noblest children

of the earth, fine, healthy trees, as independent in their beauty as

virtue; set them where you will, they adorn, and need not adornment.

Father indulged me with a sight of Ashborne Church, the finest mere

parish church in the kingdom--in the _interior_; of Alton Gardens,

where I saw actually what I have often seen mentally--the bread-fruit

tree, the fan-palm, and the papyrus; and last, of Lichfield Cathedral,

where, besides the exquisite architectural beauties, both external and

internal, I saw Chantrey's famous monument of the Sleeping Children.

There is a tasteless monument to the learned and brilliant female

pedant of Lichfield, Miss Seward, with a poor epitaph by Sir Walter

Scott. In the town we saw a large monument erected to Johnson's

memory, showing his Titanic body, in a sitting posture, on the summit

of a pedestal which is ornamented with bas-reliefs of three passages

in his life: his penance in Uttoxeter Market, his chairing on the

shoulders of his schoolmates, and his listening to the preaching of

Sacheverel. The statue is opposite to the house in which Johnson was

born--altogether inferior to that in St. Paul's, which shook me almost

as much as a real glance from the literary monarch. I am ashamed to

send you so many ill-clothed nothings. My excuse shall be a state of

head that calls for four leeches before I can attack Mrs. Somerville's

"Connection of the Physical Sciences."

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, July, Monday morning, 1840.]

I write with a very tremulous hand, as you will perceive; both this,

and many other defects in my letter, are attributable to a very mighty

cause--no other than the boiling of currant jelly! I have had much of

this kind of occupation lately, and I grieve to say I have not gone

through it so cheerfully as the character of a Christian who

professes to do _all_, even the most trifling, duty, as the Lord

demands. My mind is consequently run all wild, and bears nothing but

_dog-roses_. I am truly obliged to you for getting me Spenser. How

shall I send to you "Don Quixote," which I have quite finished?

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th July, 1840.]

I believe it is decided that father and I should leave Griff and take

up our residence somewhere in the neighborhood of Coventry, if we can

obtain a suitable house, and this is at present a matter of anxiety.

So you see I am likely still to have a home where I can independently

welcome you. I am really so plunged in an abyss of books, preserves,

and sundry _important trivialities_, that I must send you this bare

proof that I have not cast the remembrance of you to a dusty corner of

my heart. Ever believe that "my heart is as thy heart," that you may

rely on me as a second self, and that I shall, with my usual

selfishness, lose no opportunity of gratifying my duplicate.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 12th Aug. 1840.]

The Epistle to the Colossians is pre-eminently rich in the coloring

with which it portrays the divine fulness contained in the Saviour,

contrasted with the beggarly elements that a spirit of self-righteousness

would, in some way, mingle with the light of life, the filthy rags it

would tack round the "fine raiment" of his righteousness. I have been

reading it in connection with a train of thought suggested by the reading

of "Ancient Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, one

of the most eloquent, acute, and pious of writers. Five numbers only

have yet appeared. Have you seen them? If not, I should like to send you

an abstract of his argument. I have gulped it (pardon my coarseness) in a

most reptile-like fashion. I must _chew_ it thoroughly to facilitate its

assimilation with my mental frame. When your pupils can relish Church

history, I venture to recommend the chart lately published by Seeley &

Burnside--far superior in conception to mine--as being more compendious,

yet answering the purpose of presenting epochs as nuclei round which less

important events instinctively cluster.

Mrs. John Cash of Coventry, who was then Miss Mary Sibree,

daughter of a Nonconformist minister there, and whose

acquaintance Miss Evans made a year or two later in Coventry,

writes in regard to this book of Isaac Taylor's: "In her

first conversations with my father and mother, they were much

interested in learning in what high estimation she held the

writings of Isaac Taylor. My father _thought_ she was a

little disappointed on hearing that he was a Dissenter. She

particularly enjoyed his 'Saturday Evening,' and spoke in

years after to me of his 'Physical Theory of Another Life,'

as exciting thought and leading speculation further than he

would have desired. When his 'Ancient Christianity' was

published in numbers, Miss Evans took it in, and kindly

forwarded the numbers to us. From the impression made on my

own mind by unfavorable facts about 'The Fathers,' and from

her own subsequent references to this work, I am inclined to

think it had its influence in unsettling her views of

Christianity."

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 17th Sept. 1840.]

I have thought of you as _the_ one who has ever shown herself so

capable of consideration for my weakness and sympathy in my warm and

easily fastened affections. My imagination is an enemy that must be

cast down ere I can enjoy peace or exhibit uniformity of character.

I know not which of its caprices I have most to dread--that which

incites it to spread sackcloth "above, below, around," or that

which makes it "cheat my eye with blear illusion, and beget strange

dreams" of excellence and beauty in beings and things of only

working-day price. The beautiful heavens that we have lately enjoyed

awaken in me an indescribable sensation of exultation in existence,

and aspiration after all that is suited to engage an immaterial

nature. I have not read very many of Mr. B.'s poems, nor any with much

attention. I simply declare my determination not to feed on the broth

of literature when I can get strong soup--such, for instance, as

Shelley's "Cloud," the five or six stanzas of which contain more

poetic metal than is beat out in all Mr. B.'s pages. You must know I

have had bestowed on me the very pretty cognomen of Clematis, which,

in the floral language, means "mental beauty." I cannot find in my

heart to refuse it, though, like many other appellations, it has

rather the appearance of a satire than a compliment. _Addio!_ I will

send your floral name in my next, when I have received my dictionary.

My hand and mind are wearied with writing four pages of German and a

letter of business.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st Oct. 1840.]

My dear Veronica--which, being interpreted, is "fidelity in

friendship"--Last week I was absent from home from Wednesday to

Saturday, in quest of the "coy maiden," Pleasure--at least, nominally

so, the real motive being rather to gratify another's feeling.[15] I

heard the "Messiah" on Thursday morning at Birmingham, and some

beautiful selections from other oratories of Handel and Haydn on

Friday. With a stupid, drowsy sensation, produced by standing sentinel

over damson cheese and a warm stove, I cannot do better than ask you

to read, if accessible, Wordsworth's short poem on the "Power of

Sound," with which I have just been delighted. I have made an

alteration in my plans with Mr. Brezzi, and shall henceforward take

Italian and German alternately, so that I shall not be liable to the

consciousness of having imperative employment for every interstice of

time. There seems a greater affinity between German and my mind than

Italian, though less new to me, possesses.

I am reading Schiller's "Maria Stuart," and Tasso.

I was pleased with a little poem I learned a week or two ago in

German; and, as I want you to like it, I have just put the idea it

contains into English doggerel, which quite fails to represent the

beautiful simplicity and nature of the original, but yet, I hope, will

give you sufficiently its sense to screen the odiousness of the

translation. _Eccola_:

QUESTION AND ANSWER.

"'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?'

'That can I not tell thee, my child;

Not one on the bosom of earth e'er grows

But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.'

"'Would I'd a rose on my bosom to lie,

But I shrink from the piercing thorn:

I long, but I dare not its point defy;

I long, and I gaze forlorn.'

"'Not so, O my child--round the stem again

Thy resolute fingers entwine;

Forego not the joy for its sister, pain--

Let the rose, the sweet rose, be thine.'"

Would not a parcel reach you by railway?

This is the first allusion to the new means of locomotion,

which would, no doubt, be attracting much interest in the

Griff household, as valuation was a large part of Mr. Evans's

business. Long years after, George Eliot wrote:

"Our midland plains have never lost their familiar expression and

conservative spirit for me; yet at every other mile, since I first

looked on them, some sign of world-wide change, some new direction of

human labor, has wrought itself into what one may call the speech of

the landscape.... There comes a crowd of burly navvies with pickaxes

and barrows, and while hardly a wrinkle is made in the fading mother's

face, or a new curve of health in the blooming girl's, the hills are

cut through, or the breaches between them spanned, we choose our

level, and the white steam-pennon flies along it."

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 27th Oct. 1840.]

My only reason for writing is to obtain a timely promise that you will

spend your holidays chiefly with me, that we may once more meet among

scenes which, now I am called on to leave them, I find to have _grown

in_ to my affections. Carlyle says that to the artisans of Glasgow the

world is not one of blue skies and a green carpet, but a world of

copperas-fumes, low cellars, hard wages, "striking," and whiskey; and

if the recollection of this picture did not remind me that gratitude

should be my reservoir of feeling, that into which all that comes from

above or around should be received as a source of fertilization for my

soul, I should give a lachrymose parody of the said description, and

tell you all-seriously what I now tell you playfully, that mine is too

often a world such as Wilkie can so well paint, a walled-in world

furnished with all the details which he remembers so accurately, and

the least interesting part whereof is often what I suppose must be

designated the intelligent; but I deny that it has even a comparative

claim to the appellation, for give me a three-legged stool, and it

will call up associations--moral, poetical, mathematical--if I do but

ask it, while some human beings have the odious power of contaminating

the very images that are enshrined as our soul's arcana. Their baleful

touch has the same effect as would a uniformity in the rays of

light--it turns all objects to pale lead-color. O how luxuriously

joyous to have the wind of heaven blow on one after being _stived_ in

a human atmosphere--to feel one's heart leap up after the pressure

that Shakespeare so admirably describes: "When a man's wit is not

seconded by the forward chick understanding, it strikes a man as dead

as a large reckoning in a small room." But it is time I check this

Byronic invective, and, in doing so, I am reminded of Corinne's, or

rather Oswald's, reproof--"La vie est un _combat_ pas un _hymne_." We

should aim to be like a plant in the chamber of sickness--dispensing

purifying air even in a region that turns all pale its verdure, and

cramps its instinctive propensity to expand. Society is a wide nursery

of plants, where the hundreds decompose to nourish the future ten,

after giving collateral benefits to their contemporaries destined for

a fairer garden. An awful thought! one so heavy that if our souls

could once sustain its whole weight, or, rather, if its whole weight

were once to drop on them, they would break and burst their tenements.

How long will this continue? The cry of the martyrs heard by St. John

finds an echo in every heart that, like Solomon's, groans under "the

outrage and oppression with which earth is filled." Events are now so

momentous, and the elements of society in so chemically critical a

state, that a drop seems enough to change its whole form.

I am reading Harris's "Great Teacher," and am _innig bewegt_, as a

German would say, by its stirring eloquence, which leaves you no time

or strength for a cold estimate of the writer's strict merits. I wish

I could read some extracts to you. Isaac Taylor's work is not yet

complete. When it is so, I hope to reperuse it. Since I wrote to you I

have had Aimé Martin's work, "L'Education des Mères," lent to me, and

I have found it to be the real Greece whence "Woman's Mission" has

only imported to us a few marbles--but! Martin is a _soi-disant_

rational Christian, if I mistake him not. I send you an epitaph which

he mentions on a tomb in Paris--that of a mother: "Dors en paix, O ma

mère, ton fils t'obeira toujours." I am reading eclectically Mrs.

Hemans's poems, and venture to recommend to your perusal, if unknown

to you, one of the longest ones--"The Forest Sanctuary." I can give it

my pet adjective--exquisite.

I have adopted as my motto, "_Certum pete finem_"--seek a sure

end.[16]

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 5th Dec. 1840.]

Come when you would best like to do so: if my heart beat at all at the

time, it will be with a more rapid motion than the general, from the

joy of seeing you. I cannot promise you more than calmness when that

flush is past, for I am aweary, aweary--longing for rest, which seems

to fly from my very anticipations. But this wrought-up sensitiveness

which makes me shrink from all contact is, I know, not for

communication or sympathy, and is, from that very character, a kind of

trial best suited for me. Whatever tends to render us ill-contented

with ourselves, and more earnest aspirants after perfect truth and

goodness, is gold, though it come to us all molten and burning, and we

know not our treasure until we have had long smarting.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st Dec. 1840.]

It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in cold weather. I

understand the Icelanders have much national poetry, but I guess it

was written in the neighborhood of the boiling springs. I will promise

to be as cheerful and as Christmas-like as my rickety body and

chameleon-like spirits will allow. I am about to commence the making

of mince-pies, with all the interesting sensations characterizing

young enterprise or effort.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 27th Jan. 1841.]

Happily, the moody, melancholy temperament has some counterbalancing

advantages to those of the sanguine: it _does_ sometimes meet with

results more favorable than it expected, and by its knack of imagining

the pessimus, cheats the world of its power to disappoint. The very

worm-like originator of this coil of sentiment is the fact that you

write more cheerfully of yourself than I had been thinking of you, and

that, _ergo_, I am pleased.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 11th Feb. 1841.]

On Monday and Tuesday my father and I were occupied with the sale of

furniture at our new house: it is probable that we shall migrate

thither in a month. I shall be incessantly hurried until after our

departure, but at present I have to be grateful for a smooth passage

through contemplated difficulties. Sewing is my staple article of

commerce with the hard trader, Time. Now the wind has veered to the

south I hope to do much more, and that with greater zest than I have

done for many months--I mean, of all kinds.

I have been reading the three volumes of the "Life and Times of Louis

the Fourteenth," and am as eagerly waiting for the fourth and last as

any voracious novel-reader for Bulwer's last. I am afraid I am

getting quite martial in my spirit, and, in the warmth of my sympathy

for Turenne and Condé, losing my hatred of war. Such a conflict

between _individual_ and _moral_ influence is no novelty. But

certainly war, though the heaviest scourge with which the divine wrath

against sin is manifested in Time, has been a necessary vent for

impurities and a channel for tempestuous passions that must have

otherwise made the whole earth, like the land of the devoted

Canaanites, to vomit forth the inhabitants thereof. Awful as such a

sentiment appears, it seems to me that in the present condition of man

(and I do not mean this in the sense that Cowper does), such a

purgation of the body politic is probably essential to its health. A

foreign war would soon put an end to our national humors, that are

growing to so alarming a head.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th Mch. 1841.]

What do you think of the progress of architecture as a subject for

poetry?

I am just about to set out on a purchasing expedition to Coventry: you

may therefore conceive that I am full of little plans and anxieties,

and will understand why I should be brief. I hope by the close of next

week that we and our effects shall be deposited at Foleshill, and

until then and afterwards I shall be fully occupied, so that I am sure

you will not expect to hear from me for the next six weeks. One little

bit of unreasonableness you must grant me--the request for a letter

from yourself within that time.

_SUMMARY._

AUGUST 18, 1838, TO MARCH 8, 1841.

Letters to Miss Lewis--First visit to London--Religious

asceticism--Pascal--Hannah More's letters--Young's "Infidel

Reclaimed"--Michaelmas visitors--"Life of

Wilberforce"--Nineteenth birthday--Oratorio at

Coventry--Religious objections to music--Letters to Mrs.

Samuel Evans--Religious reflections--Besetting sin

ambition--Letters to Miss Lewis--Objections to

fiction-reading--Religious contentions on the nature of the

visible Church--First poem--Account of books read and studies

pursued--Wordsworth--Twentieth birthday--German begun--Plan

of Chart of Ecclesiastical History--Religious

controversies--Oxford Tracts--"Lyra Apostolica"--"Christian

Year"--Chart of Ecclesiastical History forestalled--Italian

begun--Trip to Derbyshire and Staffordshire--"Don

Quixote"--Spenser's "Faery Queen"--Mrs. Somerville's

"Connection of the Physical Sciences"--Dislike of

housekeeping work--Removal to Coventry decided--"Ancient

Christianity and the Oxford Tracts," by Isaac Taylor, and

Mrs. John Cash's impression of its effect--Determination not

to feed on the broth of literature--Visit to Birmingham to

hear the "Messiah"--Reading Schiller's "Maria Stuart," and

Tasso--Translation of German poem--Depression of surroundings

at Griff--Reading Harris's "Great Teacher," Aimé Martin's

"L'Education des Mères," and Mrs. Hemans's Poems--Selling

furniture at new house--Sewing--Reading "Life and Times of

Louis XIV."--Removal to Foleshill road, Coventry.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Given to her as a school prize when she was fourteen.

[10] "Mill on the Floss," chap. v. book vi.

[11] Of ecclesiastical history.

[12] The Squire of Coton.

[13] When she would be thirteen years old.

[14] Written probably in view of her brother's marriage.

[15] Visit to Miss Rawlins, her brother's _fiancée_.

[16] By a curious coincidence, when she became Mrs. Cross, this

actually was her motto.