George Eliot (70 page)
Authors: Kathryn Hughes
If all this sounds familiar, that is because the dilemmas in which Eliot and her readers found themselves resemble our own. Two hundred years of industrialisation have fragmented the landscape before sticking it back together in virtual terms, via the modem. ‘Community’ has been hooked out of an imagined village pump past and pressed into service to describe something as culturally variegated as the entire black population of Great Britain. Nationalism is increasingly disrupted and made bloody by claims based on ethnicity. Calls for devolution criss-cross with demands for a single European currency. Town and country dwellers declare themselves abandoned by each other. After decades of
agnosticism, the flourishing Evangelical wing of the Anglican Church competes with the biggest surge of interest in Buddhism, not to mention psychotherapy, since the seventies. Feminism, which once seemed such a simple good, reveals itself as a set of conflicting agendas.
George Eliot was the last Victorian who believed that it was possible to face these kinds of crises without shattering into shards. She would have understood where Post-Modernism came from, recognised the seductive call to retreat from the centre, to take refuge in partial narratives and solutions, to despair of ‘the real’. But she would have hated its defeatedness. For Eliot believed that it was possible for society to move forward from the centre. The pace would be slow, certainly, the mood both sceptical and humble. But there would also be value, purpose, a sense that this was
right
. Eliot despaired of Progress, with its crude ‘Victorian’ triumphalism and lack of doubt. In its place she proposed Meliorism, a slow, consensual grasping towards something better. It is Meliorism which we need now.
C
HAPTER 1
‘Dear Old Griff
1
. J. W. Cross,
George Eliot’s Life as Related in Her letters and Journals
, 3 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1885), I, 1. In 1886 Cross published a new version of his work incorporating some important new material, in particular an account of Mary Anne during her early twenties from her Coventry friend Mary Sibree. This revised edition will be noted as Cross,
Life
(1886).
2
.
The George Eliot Letters
, ed. Gordon S. Haight, 9 vols. (New Haven, 1954–78), I, 254.
3
. Ibid., VI, 129n.
4
. Ibid., VI, 374.
5
.
Daniel Deronda
(1876), ed. Barbara Hardy (Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 50, Bk.1, ch.3.
6
.
Felix Holt, The Radical
(1866), ed. Peter Coveney (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 79, Author’s Introduction.
7
.
Silas Marner
(1861), ed. Q. D. Leavis (Harmondsworth, 1967), p. 147, ch.11.
8
.
Scenes of Clerical Life
(1858), ed. David Lodge (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 59–60, ‘The Sad Fortunes of the Revd Amos Barton,’ ch.2.
9
. ‘Occurrences at Nuneaton’ 1810–45, MS Nuneaton Library.
10
.
Adam Bede
(1859), ed. Stephen Gill (Harmondsworth, 1980), p. 324, ch.25.
11
.
The Mill on the Floss
(1860), ed. A. S. Byatt (Harmondsworth 1979), p. 197, Bk.1, ch.13.
12
. See, for example, Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 1 January 1838, MS Warwickshire County Record Office.
13
. Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 29 December 1835–23 January 1836, MSs WCRO.
14
.
Letters
, III, 174.
15
.
Middlemarch
(1871–2), ed. Rosemary Ashton (Harmondsworth, 1994), p. 326, Bk.4, ch.34.
16
.
The Mill on the Floss
, p. 96, Bk.1, ch.6.
17
.
Letters
, VI, 45–46.
18
. See illustration no.1, an engraving taken from this 1842 miniature by Carlisle.
19
. Cross,
Life
, 1, 12–13.
20
. On one occasion Evans enthusiastically supplied the Arbury tenants with copies of
Chemistry Made Easy for the Use of the Agriculturalist
, Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 2 Sept. 1843, MS WCRO.
21
. Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 8 July 1839, MS WCRO.
22
. ‘Occurrences’, MS Nuneaton.
23
. Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 6 July 1834, MS WCRO.
24
.
Letters
, III, 168.
25
. ‘Occurrences’, MS Nuneaton.
26
. Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 31 July 1837, MS WCRO.
27
. Cross,
Life
, I, 13.
28
. Robert Evans, Journal, 2 August 1832, MS Nuneaton.
29
. Cross,
Life
, I, 10.
30
.
The Mill on the Floss
, p. 60, Bk. 1, ch.2.
31
. ‘Self and Life’, reprinted
George Eliot Collected Poems
, ed. Lucien Jenkins (London, 1989), pp. 189–91. The date of composition is unclear. The poem first appeared in the Cabinet Edition of GE’s works, 1878.
32
.
The Mill on the Floss
, p. 120, Bk. 1, ch.7.
33
. Ibid., p. 79, Bk. 1, ch.4.
34
.
Letters
, I, 173.
35
. ‘Brother and Sister’ sonnets (1874), reprinted
Collected Poems
, pp. 84–90.
36
. Quoted Gordon S. Haight,
George Eliot: A Biography
(1968), (Harmondsworth, 1992), p. 5.
37
. ‘Brother and Sister’ sonnets, p. 90.
38
. Cross,
Life
, I, 17.
39
. Ibid., I, 15.
40
. Ibid.
41
. My understanding of the dynamics and tensions in the Evans household is indebted to Ruby Redinger’s discussion in
George Eliot: The Emergent Self
(London, 1976).
42
. Cross,
Life
, I, 16.
43
. Ibid.
44
.
Letters
, I, 41n.
45
. Ibid., I, 22.
46
. This copy of
The Linnet’s Life
can be seen at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
47
. Cross,
Life
, I, 19–20.
C
HAPTER
2 ‘On Being Called a Saint’
1
. Edith Simcox, Autobiography, 9 March 1880, K. A. McKenzie,
Edith Simcox and George Eliot
(Oxford, 1961), p. 97.
2
. Ibid., 12 June 1885, p. 129.
3
. Ibid.
4
.
Scenes of Clerical Life
, p. 320, ‘Janet’s Repentance’, ch.10.
5
.
Silas Marner
, p. 137, ch.10.
6
.
Scenes of Clerical Life
, p. 121, ‘Mr Gilfil’s Love Story’, ch.1.
7
. Simcox,
Autobiography
, 12 June 1885, McKenzie, p. 129.
8
. Cross,
Life
, I, 25.
9
. Ibid., I, 26.
10
. Ibid.
11
. Quoted Haight,
George Eliot
, p. 20.
12
. Mathilde Blind,
George Eliot
(London, 1883), p. 19.
13
. Reproduced Haight,
George Eliot
, pp. 553–4, Appendix 1.
14
.
Letters
, I, 298.
15
. Ibid., ΓV, 116.
16
. Blind,
George Eliot
, p. 18.
17
. Quoted Haight,
George Eliot
, pp. 13–14.
18
.
Letters
, I, 3.
19
. Robert Evans to Francis Newdigate, 22 February 1836, MS WCRO.
20
. Cross,
Life
, I, 24.
21
. Ibid., I, 39–40;
Letters, 1
, 6–7.
22
. Cross, L
ife
, I, 157.
23
.
Letters
, I, 42.
24
. Cross,
Life
, I, 30–31.
25
. Ibid., I, 35.
26
.
Letters
, I, 8.
27
. Ibid., I, 284.
28
. Ibid., I, 6.
29
. Ibid., I, 31, 24.
30
. Ibid., III, 175.
31
. Ibid., I, 19.
32
. Cross,
Life
, I, 156.
33
.
Letters
, I, 40–1.
34
. Quoted Cross,
Life
, I, 36.
35
. Marghanita Laski,
George
Eliot and Her World
(London, 1978) p. 36.
36
.
Letters
, I, 25.
37
. Ibid., I, 23.
38
. Ibid., I, 12.
39
. Ibid., I, 23.
40
. Ibid., I, 64.
41
. Ibid., I, 51.
42
. Ibid., I, 107–8.
43
. See Rosemarie Bodenheimer’s excellent discussion of GE’s correspondence in
The Real Life of Mary Ann Evans: George Eliot, Her Letters and Fiction
(Ithaca, 1994), PP. 23–56.
44
.
Scenes of Clerical Life
, p. 121, ‘Mr Gilfil’s Love Story’, ch.1.
45
.
Letters
, I, 36.
46
. Ibid., I, 60.
47
. Ibid., I, 47–8.
48
. Ibid., I, 64.
49
. Ibid., I, 11.
50
. Ibid., I, 59.
51
. Ibid., I, 29.
52
. Cross,
Life
, I, 27.
53
. Ibid., I, 21–3.
54
. Reproduced in Haight,
George Eliot
, pp. 554–62, Appendix 1.
55
.
Letters
, I, 13.
56
. Ibid., I, 41.
C
HAPTER
3 ‘The Holy War’
1
.
Letters
, I, 22.
2
. Ibid., I, 34.
3
. Ibid., I, 45–6.
4
. Ibid., I, 34.
5
. Ibid., I, 84.
6
. Ibid., I, 90.
7
. Ibid., I, 91.
8
. Ibid., I, 90–1.
9
. Ibid., I, 102.
10
. Ibid., I, 103.
11
. Ibid., I, 108.
12
. Ibid., I, 111–12.
13
. Ibid., I, 116.
14
. Ibid., I, 116.
15
. Ibid., I, 119.
16
. Ibid., I, 120–1.
17
. Ibid., I, 50.
18
. Ibid., I, 60.
19
. Ibid., I, 68.
20
. Cross,
Life
, I, 44.
21
.
Letters
, I, 46–7.
22
. Ibid., I, 51.
23
. Ibid., I, 70.
24
. Robert Evans, Journal, 19 March 1841, quoted Haight,
George Eliot
, p. 30.
25
.
Letters
, I, 86.
26
. Ibid., I, 93.
27
. Ibid., I, 91.
28
. Cross,
Life
(1886), I, 403.
29
.
Letters
, I, 90.
30
. Cross,
Life
(1886), I, 126.
31
. Charles Bray,
Phases of Opinion and Experience during a Long Life
(London, 1884), p. 82.
32
. Ibid., p. 48.
33
. Charles Christian Hennell,
An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity
(London,
1838, 2nd edition 1841), pp. 476, 489.
34
. Cross,
Life
, I, 158.
35
. Bray,
Phases
, p. 76.
36
.
Letters
, I, 120.
37
. Bray,
Phases
, p. 76.
38
. Robert Evans, Journal, 2 January 1842,
Letters
, I, 124.
39
.
Letters
, I, 125, 127.
40
. Ibid., I, 157.
41
. Ibid., I, 156–7.
42
. Ibid., I, 128–30.
43
. Ibid., I, 131.
44
. Ibid., I, 132.
45
. Ibid., I, 132.
46
. Ibid., I, 134.
47
. Ibid., I, 138.
48
. Ibid., I, 132.
49
. Cross,
Life
(1886), I, 397.
50
. Cross,
Life
, I, 157–8.
51
. Cross,
Life
(1886), I, 397.
52
. Ibid., I, 398.
53
. Robert Evans, Journal, 15 May 1842,
Letters
, I, I38n.
54
.
Letters
, I, 127.
55
. Ibid., I, 134.
56
. Cross,
Life
, I, 113.
57
.
Letters
, I, 162–3.
58
. Ibid., I, 140.
59
. Ibid., I, 23on.
60
. Simcox,
Autobiography
, 12 June 1885, McKenzie, p. 131.
61
. Ibid., 12 June 1885, p. 130.
62
.
Letters
, I, lxxiii.
63
. Ibid., I, xlix–1.
64
. Ibid., III, 176.
65
. Ibid., I, 113.
66
. Cross,
Life
(1886), I, 403–4.
67
. Laski,
George Eliot
, pp. 24–5. For an account of how GE’s ‘northerly’ relatives continued to view her right into the twentieth century, see William Mottram,
The True Story of George Eliot
(London, 1905).
C
HAPTER
4 ‘I Fall Not In Love With Everyone’
1
. Bray,
Phases
, p. 70.
2
. Quoted Gordon S. Haight, ‘George Eliot’s Bastards’,
George Eliot: A Centenary Tribute
, ed. Gordon S. Haight and Rosemary T. VanArsdel (London, 1982), p. 5.
