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ELIOT, GEORGE

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 277 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ELIOT, See also:GEORGE , the See also:pen-name of the famous See also:English writer, nee See also:Mary See also:Ann (or Marian) See also:Evans (1819–188o), afterwards Mrs J. W. See also:Cross, See also:born at Arbury See also:Farm, in See also:Warwickshire, on the 22nd of See also:November 1819. Her See also:father, See also:Robert Evans, was the See also:agent of Mr See also:Francis See also:Newdigate, and the first twenty-one years of the See also:great novelist's See also:life were spent on the Arbury See also:estate. She received an See also:ordinary See also:education at respectable See also:schools till the See also:age of seventeen, when her See also:mother's See also:death, and the See also:marriage of her See also:elder See also:sister, called her See also:home in the See also:character of housekeeper. This, though it must have sharpened her sense, already too acute, of responsibility, was an immense See also:advantage to her mind, and, later, to her career, for, delivered from the tiresome routine of lessons and class-See also:work, she was able to work without pedantic interruptions at See also:German, See also:Italian and See also:music, and to follow her unusually See also:good See also:taste in See also:reading. The life, inasmuch as she was a girl still in her teens, was no doubt monotonous, even unhappy. Just as See also:Cardinal See also:Newman See also:felt, with such different results, thesadness and See also:chain of evangelical influences from his boyhood till the end of his days, so Marian Evans was subdued all through her youth by a severe religious training which, while it pinched her mind and crushed her spirit,attracted her See also:idealism by the very hardness of its perfect counsels. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that when Mr Evans moved to See also:Coventry in 1841, and so enlarged the circle of their acquaintance, she became much interested in some new See also:friends, Mr and Mrs See also:Charles See also:Bray and Mr Charles Hennell. Mr Bray had See also:literary taste and wrote See also:works on the Education of the Feelings, the See also:Philosophy of See also:Necessity, and the like. Mr Hennell had published in 1838 An Enquiry concerning the Origin of See also:Christianity. See also:Miss Evans, then twenty-two, absorbed immediately these unexpected, and, at that See also:time, daring habits of thought.

So compelling was the See also:

atmosphere that it led to a See also:complete See also:change in her opinions. See also:Kind in her See also:affection, she was relentless in See also:argument. She refused to go to See also:church (for some time, at least), wrote painful letters to a former governess—the pious Miss Lewis—and barely avoided an irremediable See also:quarrel with her father, a churchman of the old school. Here was See also:rebellion indeed. But rebels come, for the most See also:part, from the provinces where See also:petty tyranny, exercised by small souls, show the See also:scheme of the universe on the meanest possible See also:scale. George Eliot was never orthodox again; she abandoned, with fierce determination, every creed, and although she passed, later, through various phases, she remained incessantly a rationalist in matters of faith and in all other matters. It is nevertheless true that she wrote admirably about See also:religion and religious persons. She had learnt the evangelical point of view; she knew—none better—the strength of religious motives; vulgar doubts of this fact were as distasteful to her as they were to another eminent writer, to whom she refers in one of her letters (dated 1853) as " a Mr See also:Huxley, who was the centre of See also:interest " at some " agreeable evening." Her books abound in tributes to See also:Christian virtue, and one of her own favourite characters was Dinah See also:Morris in See also:Adam See also:Bede. She undertook, about the beginning of 1844, the See also:translation of See also:Strauss's Leben Jesu. This work, published in 1846, was considered scholarly, but it met, in the nature of things, with no popular success. On the death of Mr Evans in 1849, she went abroad for some time, and we hear of no more literary ventures till 1851, when she accepted the assistant-editorship of the See also:Westminster See also:Review. For a while she had lodgings at the offices of that publication in the Strand, See also:London.

She wrote several notable papers, and became acquainted with many distinguished authors of that period—among them See also:

Herbert See also:Spencer, See also:Carlyle, Harriet See also:Martineau, Francis Newman and George See also:Henry See also:Lewes. Her friendship with the last-named led to a closer relationship which she regarded as a marriage. Among the many criticisms passed upon this step (in view of the fact, among other considerations, that Lewes had a wife living at the time), no one has denied her courage in defying the See also:law, or questioned the quality of her tact in a singularly false position. That she felt the deepest affection for Lewes is evident; that we owe the development of her See also:genius to his See also:influence and See also:constant sympathy is all but certain. Yet it is also sure that what she gained from his intimate companionship was heavily paid for in the unceasing consciousness that most See also:people thought her guilty of a See also:grave See also:mistake, and found her written words, with their endorsement of traditional morality, wholly at variance with the circumstances of her private life. Doubts of her suffering in this respect will be at once dismissed after a study of her See also:journal and letters. See also:Stilted and unnatural as these are to a tragic degree, one can read well enough between the lines, and also in the elaborate See also:dedication of each See also:manuscript to " my See also:husband " (in terms of the strongest love), that self-repression, coupled with audacity, does not make for See also:peace. Her sensitiveness to See also:criticism was extreme; a flippant See also:paragraph or an illiterate review with regard to her work actually affected her for days. The whole See also:history of her See also:union with Lewes is a complete See also:illustration of the force of sheer will, in that See also:case partly her own and not inconsiderably his--over a nature essentially unfitted for a bold stand against attacks. At first she and the See also:man whom she had described " as a sort of See also:miniature See also:Mirabeau in See also:appearance," went abroad to See also:Weimar and See also:Berlin, but they returned to See also:England the same See also:year and settled, after several moves, in lodgings at See also:East Sheen. In 1854 she published The Essence of Christianity, a translation from See also:Feuerbach, a philosopher to whom she had been introduced by Charles Bray. During 1855 she translated See also:Spinoza's See also:Ethics, wrote articlesfor the See also:Leader, the Westminster Review, and the Saturday Review—then a new thing.

It was not until the following year that she attempted the See also:

writing of fiction, and produced The Sad Fortunes of the See also:Reverend See also:Amos Barton—the first of the Scenes of Clerical Life. These, published in See also:Blackwood's See also:Magazine, were issued in two volumes in 1858. The See also:press in See also:general ex-tended a languid welcome to this work, and although the author received much encouragement from private See also:sources, notably from Charles See also:Dickens, the critics were mostly non-committal, and it was not until the publication of Adam Bede in 1859 that See also:enthusiasm was attracted to the quality of the earlier See also:production. Adam Bede, in the See also:judgment of many George Eliot's masterpiece, met with a success (in her own words) " triumphantly beyond anything she had dreamed of." In 186o appeared The See also:Mill on the Floss. After the sensational good See also:fortune of Adam Bede, the criticism applied to the new novel seems to have been disappointing. We find Miss Evans telling her publisher that " she does not wish to see any newspaper articles." But the See also:book made its way, and prepared an ever-growing See also:army of readers for See also:Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-1863), and See also:Felix See also:Holt (1866). Silas Marner shows a reversion to her See also:early manner—the manner of Scenes of Clerical Life. Romola, which is what is called an See also:historical novel, owes it vitality not to the portraits of See also:Savonarola or of the heroine, or to its vigorous pictures of Florentine life in the 15th See also:century, but to its superb presentment of the treacherous, handsome Tito Melema, who belongs not to any one See also:period but to every See also:generation. Felix Holt, a novel dealing with See also:political questions, is strained by a painfulness too severe for any reader's See also:pleasure. Where other eminent authors have produced See also:mechanical books, or books which were See also:mere repetitions of their most popular effort, she erred only on the See also:side of the ponderous and the distressing. Felix Holt is both, and it is the only one of her novels which lacks an unforgettable human See also:note. The See also:Spanish Gypsy (1868), a See also:drama in See also:blank See also:verse, received more public response than most compositions of the kind executed by those connected with the drama or with See also:poetry only; and she published in 1874 another See also:volume of verses, The See also:Legend of Jubal and other Poems.

Any depression which the author may have felt with regard to the faults found with some of the last-named books was completely cured by the praise bestowed on Middlemarch (1872). This profound study of certain types of English character was supreme at the time of its writing, and it remains supreme, of its school, in See also:

European literature. See also:Thackeray is brilliant; Tolstoi is vivid to a point where life-likeness overwhelms any See also:consideration of See also:art; See also:Balzac created a whole See also:world; George Eliot did not create, but her exposition of the upper and See also:middle class minds of her See also:day is a masterpiece of scientific See also:psychology. See also:Daniel Deronda (1876), a production on the same lines, was less satisfactory. It exhibited the same human insight, the passionate earnestness, the insinuated See also:special See also:pleading for hard cases, the same intellectual strength, but the subject was unwieldy, almost forbidding, and, as a result, the novel, in spite of its distinction, has never been thoroughly liked. The death of Mr Lewes in 1878 was also the death-See also:blow to her See also:artistic vitality. She corrected the proofs of See also:Theophrastus Such (a collection of essays), but she wrote no more. About two years later, however, she married Mr J. W. Cross, a See also:gentleman whose friendship was especially congenial to a temperament so abnormally dependent on affectionate understanding as George Eliot's. But she never really recovered from her See also:shock at the loss of George Lewes, and died at 4 See also:Cheyne Walk, See also:Chelsea, on the 22nd of See also:December r880. No right estimate of her, whether as a woman, an artist or a philosopher, can be formed without a steady recollection of her See also:infinite capacity for See also:mental suffering, and her need of humansupport.

The statement that there is no See also:

sex in genius, is on the See also:face of it, absurd. George See also:Sand, certainly the most See also:independent and dazzling of all See also:women authors, neither felt, nor wrote, nor thought as a man. See also:Saint Teresa, another great writer on a totally different See also:plane, was pre-eminently feminine in every word and See also:idea. George Eliot, less reckless, less romantic than the Frenchwoman, less spiritual than the Spanish saint, was more masculine in See also:style than either; but her outlook was not, for a moment, the man's outlook; her sincerity, with its See also:odd reserves, was not quite the same as a man's sincerity, nor was her See also:humour that genial, broad, unequivocal humour which is peculiarly virile. Hers approximated, curiously enough, to the See also:satire of Jane See also:Austen, both for its See also:irony and its application to little everyday affairs. Men's humour, in its classic manifestations, is on the heroic rather than on the See also:average scale: it is for the uncommon situations, not for the daily See also:tea-table. Her method of attacking a subject shows the influence of Jane Austen, especially in parts of Middlemarch; one can detect also the stronger influence of Mrs See also:Gaskell, of See also:Charlotte See also:Bronte, and of Miss See also:Edgeworth. It was, however, but an influence, and no more than a man writer, anxious to acquire a knowledge of the feminine point of view, might have absorbed from a study of these women novelists. One often hears that she is not artistic; that her characterization is less distinct than Jane Austen's; that she tells more than should be known of her heroes and heroines. But it should be remembered that Jane Austen dealt with See also:familiar domestic types, whereas George Eliot excelled in the presentation of extraordinary souls. One woman See also:drew members of polite society with correct notions, while the other woman depicted social rebels with ideas and ideals. In every one of George Eliot's books, the protagonists, tortured by dreams of perfection, are in revolt against the prudent compromises of the worldly.

All through her stories, one hears the clash of " the heroic for See also:

earth too high," and the desperate philosophy, disguised it is true, of See also:Omar Khayyam. In her day, Epicurean-ism had not reached the life of the people, nor passed into the education of the See also:mob. Few dared to confess that the pursuit of pleasure, whether real or imagined, was the aim of mankind. The See also:charm of Jane Austen is the charm of the untroubled and well-to-do materialist, who See also:sees in a See also:rich marriage, a comfortable See also:house, carriages and an assured income the best to strive for; and in a fickle See also:lover of either sex or the loss of See also:money the severest calamities which can befall the human spirit. Jane Austen despised the greater number of her characters: George Eliot suffered with each of hers. Here, perhaps, we find the See also:reason why she is accused of being inartistic. She could not be impersonal. Again, George Eliot was a little scornful to those of both sexes who had neither special See also:missions nor the consciousness of this deprivation. Men are seldom in favour of missions in any See also:field. She demanded, too strenuously from the very beginning, an aim, more or less altruistic, from every individual; and as she advanced in life this claim became the more imperative, till at last it overpowered her art, and transformed a great delineator of humanity into an eloquent observer with far too many See also:personal prejudices. But she was altogether See also:free from cynicism, bitterness, or the least tendency to See also:pride of See also:intellect. She suffered from bodily weakness the greater part of her life, and, but for an extraordinary mental health—inherited from the See also:fine See also:yeoman stock from which she sprang—it is impossible that she could have retained, at all times, so sane a view of human conduct, or been the least sentimental among women writers of the first ranktheonewholly without morbidity in any disguise.

The See also:

accumulation of mere book knowledge, as opposed to the See also:friction of a life spent among all sorts and conditions of men, drove George Eliot at last to write as a specialist for specialists: joy was lost in the consuming See also:desire for strict accuracy: her genius became more and more speculative, less and less emotional. The highly trained See also:brain suppressed the impulsive See also:heart,—the heart described with such candour and pathos as Maggie Tulliver's in The Mill on the Floss. For this reason—chiefly because philosophy is popularly associated with inactive depression, whereas human nature is held to be eternally exhilarating—her later works have not received so much praise as her earlier productions. But one has only to compare Romola or Daniel Deronda with the compositions of any author except herself to realize the greatness of her designs, and the astonishing gifts brought to their final accomplishment. See also the Life of George Eliot, edited by J. W. Cross (3 vols., 1885–1887) ; George Eliot, by See also:Sir See also:Leslie See also:Stephen, in the " English Men of Letters " See also:series (1902) ; by Oscar See also:Browning, " Great Writers" series (189o), with a bibliography by J. P. See also:Anderson; by Mathilde See also:Blind, " Eminent Women " series, a new edition of which also contains a bibliography (See also:Boston, See also:Mass., 1904). (P. M. T.

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