Show 1 George Eliot OMi MARY y AN EVANS the great English novelist was born in Warwickshire England November 22 1819 and died Dec December 22 1880 She won her fame under the assumed name of George Eliot The Th foundation of her reputation tf tion re rests ts on her short stories and as a writer of these she has not been surpassed sur- sur passed As s a child she was not precocious although she could read well when but three e years of age When a school girl she was well educated in French German German Ger Ger- rH man man n Spanish Italian Latin Greek ff Hebrew brew and music and in Engli English h composition was always far in advance of l her companions A thorough knowledge knowledge knowledge know know- ledge of the above languages must have hav g greatly atly assisted her in acquiring a wide vocabulary and this she accurately used In n reading any of her works it is interesting interesting inter inter- esting sting to note the care with which she has lias selected her words it being almost impossible for one to supply another word I that will convey the exact shade o of f meaning as the words she uses She was an eager constant reader at nineteen she says of herself I am generally in the same predicament with bo books ks as a glutton with his feast hurrying hurrying hurry hurry- ing through one course that I may be in time for the next to In the latter part of her life she was rather a student of bo Books ks than a reader Her health was frail but her head usually remained clear and often when when confined confined to her bed she was able to pursue her daily severe intellectual life As a girl she was a devout Christian Christian- often often morbid concerning the simple legitimate pleasures of existence She was also a Bible student full of good works and altogether she led a life of spiritual aspiration and effort indicative of a deeply religious nature tinged with asceticism When a girl she lived through all the experiences portrayed in inmany inmany inmany many of the characters of her novels her novels are in fact epitomes of her own subjectivity and of the English social life of her hei day along its whole gaunt She was very ambitious In Daniel Dorinda she says You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a mans man's force of character in you and yet to suffer the slavery of being a l girl to Conscientiousness was always a a dominant force even in the homeliest and most trifling details of other her life She refused without a murmur an offer of for the MS of Romola if delivered within a certain period and finally accepted for the story because she was thus enabled to devote thirteen months to its elaboration She permitted nothing to leave her pen un unless unless less she felt assured that she had done the very best she could When but two twenty-two years of age she wrote to a friend that Learning is valuable only so far as it serves to enlarge and en enlighten enlighten en- en lighten the bounds of conscience II and anda a year later she wrote People absurdly talk of self denial Why there is none in virtue to a being of moral excellence the greatest torture to such a soul would be to run counter to the dictates of con con- science II The first work of Miss Evans was a translation of Strauss' Strauss Life of Jesus Jesus which appeared in 1846 from this time without intermission ion i. i e. e from her twenty seventh twenty nth till her sixtieth year her i j literary work continued Throughout all her life George Eliot exhibited the need of some one person on whom to lean Up to her sixteenth year her mother was her loving companion ar and d confidant confidant confidant dant but at that time her mother died and then her father became her intimate as well as her most tenderly loved com t panion In IS 1849 death again visited K their home and deprived her once more of a loving parent This was the beginning beginning bel be be- l' l ginning of numerous changes in George Eliot's life and she shortly after made her first visit to the continent In 1851 she accepted the position of editor assistant-editor of the U Westminster Review Review Review Re Re- view and retained it until the summer of 1854 Her home and editorial work in London initiated the most important period of her life Her acquaintance extended her views on many of the topics of the day became more liberal It was during these years years- that she met Mr Lewes who was to exercise a profound profound profound pro pro- found influence over her during the entire entire entire en en- tire period of her career as a novelist In a letter to a friend dated September 1851 she he says I I was introduced to Mr Lewes the other day He is a sort of a minature in appearance It is interesting to note that the real notwithstanding his fierce eyebrows and coarse features marred with smallpox stirred the rich nature of Rachel Levin when she was but sixteen arousing in her soul a love of liberty as marked as her social and literary powers and that as Mr Lewes influenced the most remarkable woman in English letters so M afforded inspiration to Rachel Levin whom George Eliot calls the greatest of German German German Ger Ger- man women To years of association with the versatile versatile ver ver- mind of George Henry Lewes to toa a long intimacy with Herbert Spencer and her publisher Mr John Blackwood Blackwood Blackwood Black- Black wood to pleasant friendship and correspondence correspondence correspondence cor cor- with Mr Fr Frederick derick Harri Harri- l. l son and many others eminent in in th the literary and scientific world was doubtless doubtless doubtless doubt doubt- less due much of the mental stimulus required by George Eliot who was at once self-conscious self ambitious and self- self distrusting Her true name appeared but once in print when a book was published in July 1854 three months after she severed her connection with th the Westminster Westminster Westminster West West- minster Review During 1855 and 1856 George Eliot and Mr Lewes were together absorbed in literary work and it was during this time that she became imbued with Mr Lewes' Lewes love of science and as a consequence consequence consequence con con- sequence records in her diary the desire now now constantly growing in me to escape from all vagueness vagueness and and inaccuracy inaccuracy inaccuracy racy into daylight of distinct vivid ideas This interval of hard work and hard study and at a time when she was in much isolation living was virtually the culminating period of her literary life Her first novel was written when she was thirty-seven thirty years of age Several short stories followed and were published under the nom de plume now become so famous because she would if successful secure all the advantages without the of ot reputation She assumed the name of George Eliot because George was the Christian name of Mr Lewes and Eliot was a good mouth-filling mouth easily pronounced word In October 1857 she recorded in her diary My life has deepened unspeakably during the last year I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual enjoyment enjoyment enjoyment en en- a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the past a more solemn desire to be faithful to my coming duties than I remember ber a at t any former former for for- mer period of my life Few women I fear have had such reason as I have had to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle middle age Mr Lewes died in 1878 and George Georg El Eliot ot married married- Mr James W. W Cross in May 1880 only a few fe months previous to her death Some of her most important works are Adam Bede The Mill on the Floss Romola Silas Marner Felix Holt Felix Holt and Middlemarch Of these she she- said the writing of Romola ploughed into her more than any of her other books that she began it a young woman and finished it an old woman In 1877 the journal which the great author had kept for sixteen years was finished j this record of study bookmaking bookmaking bookmaking book- book making and travel was nut not closed with with witha j the thought that her literary labors were at at- atan an end On the contrary her mind was full of conceptions Behind them however lurked the fear of her fitness for further effort She felt that it jt was reasonable to argue that she she must have already done done- her best work Her fear was a a. a prophecy Such her last book and published a year before before before be be- fore her death rich as it is in thought is nevertheless so cumbered with an involved style with such a ponderous vocabulary with such a chaotic piling that the truer true lover of this peerless genius among women feels as if he were picking picking pick pick- picking ing his way over some mighty past but suggestive as they are sad mementos of ofa a power that has as vanished In all her writings she is true to nature showing vividly human character in all its phases and always making things appropriate to the se settings tings of her story She is a literary artist in every sense of the word and also one of the most marvelous observers of human nature in every detail We see reflected in her works not mer merely ly the image of society fifty years ago but the hope and interests of the best thinkers of today and possibly what may be the truisms of fifty years hence When the chatter of those writers whose sole claim to attention is their novelty has has' become silent George Georger r t. t I ik j-fi j i Eliot's work will remain r to show how a i 1 great mind is in the commonest things J Jand and how the great question before us allis all is how to live well 1 |