GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7223, 11 April 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE.

Tho following are extracts from MrCroii" " Lite of George Eliot' :— HEB FIUbT ATTEJU'T IN FICTION, Much in the jntereut iu tbe book unses from Geoige Eliot'a account of the incessant gro>\tti aau cmupb'tinn of tho woiktt which huvu made her nom deplume a household word thruughuut Ihe KithoU-Bpouking world. Wo learn all about the way in whii-.h, uftor many yuara' uluveiy u\or'iranelatiooH, levitw amuits, and editiuKnf *'Weatn inster," Mi Lewesonoiurnged U9r to try her t aud at fiction. It was alu.r reading au ur irle on Canning (bat h-; tnJd htr, in August 1855, while uulking in Hichm< nu Park, t.hut it iouvi. c d him ul berg mus for wilting. Up to this time he hud not been quits ture of anything but great taltnt in her productions. She was then 36 years old. She began to write fiction in September 185G, a fact " which made a new era in my life " Hew Bha began ia thus described by herself: —

"It bad always been a vague of mine that some time or other I might write a novel, and my shadowy conception of what the novel was to be varied, of course, from.one epoch of my life to another. But I never went further towards the actual writing of the novel than an introductory chapter describing a Staffordshire village and the life of the neighbouring farmhouses ; and as years passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I deßponchd about everything else in my future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both in construction and dialogue, but I felt that I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts of a novel. George (Mr Lewes) med to Bay : ' It may bB a failure, but you have wit, description, and philosophy—those go a good way towards the production of a novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment.' .... One morning as I was thinking what should be the subject of my first otory, my thoughts merged themsolves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined myself writing a story, of which the title was ' Tha Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton.' I waa soon wide awako again, and told G,; but I did not begin my atory till September 22, After I had begun it, as wo were walking in the park, I mentioned to G, that I had thought of the plan of writing a series of stories containing sketches drawn from my own observation of the clergy, and calling them 'Scenes of • Clerical Lite,' opening with ' Amos Barton,' He at once accopted tha notion as a good one — freah and striking; and about a week afterwards, when I road him the first part of 'Amos', he had no longer any doubt about my ability to carry out the plan. The scene at Cross Farm, he said, satisfied him that I had the very element he had been doubtful about —it was clear that I could write good dialogue. There still remained the question whether I could command any pathos, and that was to be decided by the mode in which I treated Milly's death. One night G. went to town on purpose to leave me a quiet evening for wri'ing it. I wrote the chapter from the news brought by the shepherd to Mrs Hackit to the moment when Amos is dragged from tha bedside, and I read it to G. when he came home. We both cried over it, and then he came to me and kissed me, saying, ' I think your pathos is better than your fun,'" " SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE." It was the tiist tale in her first work, afterwards to be familiar .to eveiyono as the "Scanes of Clerical Life." When the book wfm published she records in her journal as an event of 1857 :— "I have written the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' my first bonk; and though we are uncertain still whether it will be a success as a separate publication, I have had much sympathy from my readors in 'Blackwood,' and feel a deep satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that will perhap3 remain like a primrose root ia the hedgerow, and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to come." Thera is a good deal about all her booka in her letters and her journal. She was a very industrious worker, and read up for bur novels as men study for an examination. We extract some of her references to the better known of her writings;— " ADAM BEDK." The germ of " Adam Bade " was an aneodqte told me by Methodist aunt Samuel (the wife of ray father's younger brother) —an anecdote from her own expsrience. We were sitting together one afteruuon during her visit to mo at Griff, probably in 1839 or 1810, when it occurred to her to tell ice how Bha had visited a condemned criminal—a very ignorant girl, who hatl murdered hoc child and refused to confess ; how sho had stayed with hor praying through tho night; and how the poor creature at last broke out into toars and confessed her crime. My aunt afterwards went with her in tho cart to the place of execution ; and she doscribsd to me ths great respect with which this ministry of hers wa3 regarded by the official people ahout the gaol. The story, told by my uuuG with great faeling, affected me deeply, and I never lost the impr-asdon of that afternoon and our talk together; but I believe I never mentioned it, through all the intervening years, till something prompted me to tell it to George in December 1856, when I had begun to write the ' Scenes of Clerical Life.' Dinah gro myjrecok lika my aunt, who" was*lTv¥ry Rifialfv blackeyed woman, and (as I was told, for I never haard her preach) very vehement in her style nf preaching. I was very fond of her, and onjoyed tha few weeks of her stay with me greatly. ' She was loving and kind to me, aud I could talk to her about my inward life, which waa closely shut up from those usually round me. I saw hor only twice again, for much shorter periods. The character of Adam, and one or two incidents connected with him, were suggested by my father's early life; but Adam is not my father any more than Dinah is my aunt." HER JUDGMENTS ON CONTEMPORARIES. From among her literary judgments and personal descriptions we extract the following :— At dinnsr at Mr. Goscheiißin 'SZGshemet tha Ciov/u Prince and PrinußßO Germany. She writes : " The royalties uicl themselves much credit. The Crown Princa is really a grand-looking man, who3e name you would a.sk for with expectation if you imagined him no royalty. He is like a grand antique bust, cordial and simple in manners. She its equally good-natured and unpretending, liking bast to talk of nursery, soldiers, and of what her father's taste was in literature." Of Disraeli she wrote in 1845, on receiving "Sybil": "I am not utterly disgusted with Disraeli. The man hath good veins, aa Bacon would say, but there is not enough blood in them." At Sir Jiiuies Paget's (in 1876): " I was much interested to find that a gentle-looking, clour-eyed, neatly-made man waa Sir G.'irnst Wolaeley, and I had aoma talk with him which quite confirmed the impressions of him as one of those men who have a power of command by dint of their sweot temper, calm demeanour, and unswerving resolution." Of Hannah More Bhe once wrote :— " I am glad you detest Mrs Hannah More's letters. I liked neither her letters, nor her books, nor her cbaractor. Sha was that moat disagreeably of all momt-ara, a blus-Jtocking — a monitor that can only exist in a miserably false state of society, in which a woman with but a smattering a learning or philsophy is classed with singiug mica and card-playing pips." I remember, writes Mr Cross, George Eliot tolling mo that she had never met any literary man whose sociaiy she enjoyed so thoroughly :md so unrestrainedly as sho did that of M. Tuigenicff. They had innumerable bonds of sympathy. Hero aro a few more interesting judgments taken at random from a great mass of such material:—

"Ruskin's little book on the 'Political Economy of Art' contains some magnificent passages, mixed up with stupendous specimens of arrogant absurdity on some economical points. But I venerate him as one of the greatest teachers of the day. The grand doctrines of tiuth and sincerity in art, and the nobleness and solemnity of our human life, which he teachas with the inspiration of a Hebrew phophat, must be otirring up young minds in a promising way. The two last volumes of ' Modern Painters' contain, I think, some of the finest writing of the age Ha is strongly akin to the sublimest part of Words worth, whom, by tbe-bye, we are reading with fro3h admiration for bis bounties and tolerance for his faults."

" N-jt to put too fine a point on it, Buokle impresses me as an irreligious, conceited man. I was pleasofi with Wilkie Collins; there is a sturdy uprightness about him that make3 all opinion and all occupation respectable. " As to the Byron subject, nothing oan outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarising young minds with the desecration of fataily ties. As to tha high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poatry, I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to mo the most vulgar-minded genius that ever produced a great effect in literature."