F. W. H. MYERS: ‘George Eliot.’
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[Sidenote: Anecdote of her parting with Tennyson.]
She never tired of the lovely scenery about Witley, and the great expanse of view obtainable from the tops of the many hills. It was on one of her drives in that neighborhood that a characteristic conversation took place between her and one of the greatest English poets, whom she met as he was taking a walk. Even that short interval enabled them to get into somewhat deep conversation on evolution; and as the poet afterward related it to a companion on the same spot, he said, “Here was where I said good-bye to George Eliot; and as she went down the hill, I said, ‘Well, good-bye, you and your molecules,’ and she said to me, ‘I am quite content with my molecules.’” A trifling anecdote, perhaps, but to those who will read between the lines, not other than characteristic of both speakers.
C. KEGAN PAUL: ‘George Eliot.’
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[Sidenote: George Eliot’s reading aloud.]
We generally began our reading at Witley with some chapters of the Bible, which was a very precious and sacred book to her, not only from early associations, but also from the profound conviction of its importance in the development of the religious life of man. She particularly enjoyed reading aloud some of the finest chapters of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and St. Paul’s Epistles. With a naturally rich, deep voice, rendered completely flexible by constant practice; with the keenest perception of the requirements of emphasis, and with the most subtile modulations of tone, her reading threw a glamour over indifferent writing, and gave to the greatest writings fresh meanings and beauty. The Bible and our elder English poets best suited the organ-like tones of her voice, which required, for their full effect, a certain solemnity and majesty of rhythm. Her reading of Milton was especially fine; and I shall never forget four great lines of the ‘Samson Agonistes’ to which it did perfect justice--
“But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.”
The delighted conviction of justice in the thought--the sense of perfect accord between thought, language, and rhythm--stimulated the voice of the reader to find the exactly right tone. Such reading requires for its perfection a rare union of intellectual, moral, and physical qualities. It cannot be imitated. It is an art, like singing--a personal possession that dies with the possessor, and leaves nothing behind except a memory.
J. W. CROSS: ‘George Eliot’s Life.’
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[Sidenote: Intense mental vitality.]
Nothing was more remarkable in the last period of her life than her intense mental vitality, which failing health did not seem in the least to impair. She possessed in an eminent degree that power which has led to success in so many directions--which is ascribed both to Newton and to Napoleon--of keeping her mind unceasingly at the stretch without conscious fatigue. She would cease to read or to ponder when other duties called her, but never (as it seemed) because she herself felt tired. Even in so complex an effort as a visit to a picture-gallery implies, she could continue for hours at the same pitch of earnest interest, and outweary strong men.
F. W. H. MYERS: ‘George Eliot.’
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[Sidenote: Her great stores of reading.]
Her memory held securely her great stores of reading. Even of light books her recollections were always crisp, definite, and vivid. On our way home from Venice, after my illness, we were reading French novels of Cherbuliez, Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Droz, George Sand. Most of these books she had read years before, and I was astonished to find what clear-cut, accurate impressions had been retained, not only of all the principal characters, but also of all the subsidiary personages--even their names were generally remembered. But, on the other hand, her verbal memory was not always to be depended on. She never could trust herself to write a quotation without verifying it.
[Sidenote: Wide culture: languages.]
[Sidenote: Mathematics.]
In foreign languages George Eliot had an experience more unusual among women than among men. With a complete literary and scholarly knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Spanish, she _spoke_ all four languages with difficulty, though accurately and grammatically; but the mimetic power of catching intonation and accent was wanting. Greek and Latin she could read with thorough delight to herself; and Hebrew was a favorite study to the end of her life. In her younger days, especially at Geneva, inspired by Professor de la Rive’s lectures, she had been greatly interested in mathematical studies. At one time she applied herself heartily and with keen enjoyment to geometry, and she thought that she might have attained to some excellence in that branch if she had been able to pursue it. In later days the map of the heavens lay constantly on her table at Witley, and she longed for deeper astronomical knowledge. She had a passion for the stars; and one of the things to which we looked forward on returning to London was a possible visit to Greenwich Observatory, as she had never looked through a great telescope of the first-class.
[Sidenote: Botany.]
Her knowledge of wild-flowers gave a fresh interest each day to our walks in the Surrey lanes, as every hedgerow is full of wonders--to “those who know;” but she would, I think, have disclaimed for herself real botanical knowledge, except of an elementary sort.
[Sidenote: Self-distrust.]
This wide and varied culture was accompanied with an unaffected distrust of her own knowledge, with the sense of how little she really knew, compared with what it was possible for her to have known, in the world. Her standard was always abnormally high--it was the standard of an expert.
[Sidenote: A religious mind.]
Her many-sidedness makes it exceedingly difficult to ascertain, either from her books or from the closest personal intimacy, what her exact relation was to any existing religious creed or to any political party. Yet George Eliot’s was emphatically a religious mind. My own impression is that her whole soul was so imbued with, and her imagination was so fired by, the scientific spirit of the age--by the constant rapid development of ideas in the Western world--that she could not conceive that there was, as yet, any religious formula sufficient, nor any known political system likely to be final. She had great hope for the future, in the improvement of human nature by the gradual development of the affections and the sympathetic emotions, and “by the slow, stupendous teaching of the world’s events,” rather than by means of legislative enactments.
[Sidenote: Views on the status of women.]
She was keenly anxious to redress injustices to women, and to raise their general status in the community. This, she thought, could be best effected by women improving their work--ceasing to be amateurs. But it was one of the most distinctly marked traits in her character that she particularly disliked everything generally associated with the idea of a “masculine woman.” She was, and as a woman she wished to be, above all things, feminine--“so delicate with her needle, and an admirable musician.”
[Sidenote: Interest in higher education.]
[Sidenote: The end of all life.]
George Eliot was deeply interested in the higher education of women, ... and was among the earliest contributors to Girton College.... The danger she was alive to in the system of collegiate education was the possible weakening of the bonds of family affection and family duties. In her view, the family life holds the roots of all that is best in our mortal lot; and she always felt that it is far too ruthlessly sacrificed in the case of English _men_ by their public school and university education, and that much more is such a result to be deprecated in the case of women. But, the absolute good being unattainable in our mixed condition of things, those women especially who are obliged to earn their own living must do their best with the opportunities at their command, as “they cannot live with posterity,” when a more perfect system may prevail. Therefore, George Eliot wished Godspeed to the women’s colleges. It was often in her mind and on her lips that the only worthy end of all learning, of all science, of all life, in fact, is, that human beings should love one another better. Culture merely for culture’s sake can never be anything but a sapless root, capable of producing at best a shrivelled branch.
[Sidenote: A meliorist.]
In her general attitude toward life George Eliot was neither optimist nor pessimist. She held to the middle term, which she invented for herself, of “meliorist.” She was cheered by the hope and by the belief in gradual improvement of the mass; for in her view each individual must find the better part of happiness in helping another. She often thought it wisest not to raise too ambitious an ideal, especially for young people, but to impress on ordinary natures the immense possibilities of making a small home circle brighter and better. Few are born to do the great work of the world, but all are born to this. And to the natures capable of the larger effort the field of usefulness will constantly widen.