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Full text of "Essays and reviews of George Eliot not hitherto reprinted; together with an introductory essay on the genius of George Eliot by Mrs. S. B. Herrick"

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS 



OF 



GEORGE ELIOT 



NOT HITHERTO REPRINTED 



2E0{jet|jer fot'tfj an Entrotjuctarg 

ON 

THE GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT 

BY 

MRS. S. B. HERRICK 




iHnibcrsitg freest 
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 



SRLF 
URL 

514035^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT v-xxxiii 

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 

THE LADY NOVELISTS 7 

WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES 25 

WOMAN IN ERANCE : MADAME DE SABLE ........ 53 

MARGARET FULLER 91 

GEORGE FORSTER 94 

'SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS 157 

CARLYLE'S LIFE OF STERLING 184 

THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT 189 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 



BY MRS. S. B. HERRICK. 



IT is said that George Eliot spent years of her literary life 
in translating, and in writing review articles, before she 
ventured upon a creation of her own. Her first appearance as 
an author was made in " Blackwood's Magazine." She there 
published three stories of English rural life, called " Scenes 
in Clerical Life." Their literary merit was at once acknowl- 
edged ; but they did not attract the attention which they 
merited until she had made herself famous in her second 
work, " Adam Bede." 

Perhaps no book of fiction, since the days of the Great 
Unknown, has attracted so much attention, and been the 
subject of such universal discussion, as this first novel by 
George Eliot. Before the nom de plume had vanished in the 
light of eager inquiry, she was claimed as a man by men, 
and as a woman by women. She seems to us to be the only 
woman, in all the wide range of fictitious literature, who has 
drawn a genuine, manly man one who is manly in his faults 
as well as in his virtues. 

It seems given to the noblest and most gifted of each sex 
to possess so large and inclusive a humanity, as to be a repre- 
sentative of both man and woman. Where do we find a 
more exquisite tenderness, tact, and refinement, than in the 
highest type of man; and where a more noble courage, a 
deeper sense of truth and honor, than in the noblest of 
women ? George Eliot truly possesses an intellect which is 



vi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

so far above ordinary womanhood as to include the strength 
and grasp, the critical acumen and large outlook of a man, 
with the tenderness and purity of a woman. 

We are told that God said, "Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness .... So God created man in his 
own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and 
female created he them." The divine nature, then, must 
include within itself both the masculine and feminine attri- 
butes. The higher nature is, and the more fully it is devel- 
oped, if the moral growth be co-ordinate with the intellectual, 
the more godlike will it be, and the more certainly will it 
escape from the limitations of ignorance, of conventionality 
and finally of sex itself. 

Naturalists tell us that every organ and every member 
which is fully developed in the higher animal is possessed in 
a rudimentary condition by the lower. The organism of man 
shows the same members, in a high state of development, 
which we find in the lower vertebrates. The hand of man, 
with its wonderful capabilities and exquisite adaptability to 
an infinite variety of labor and uses, is but a full expression 
of the idea suggested in the fin of the fish, the hoof of the 
horse, the wing of the bat, and the paddle of the mole. 
Every bone which gives the power of grasp and flexibility, 
so necessary in supplying the needs of his higher existence, 
is found in the lower in a modified form. The whole natural 
world is pointing, by successive and increasingly perfect or- 
ganisms, to man, the crowning glory of the animal kingdom. 
He possesses powers which, in their just proportion and har- 
monious co-ordination, are far beyond the physical powers of 
the brute. Though he is less strong than the lion, less agile 
than the monkey ; though his hearing is less acute, and his 
vision less sensitive than those of the insect and the bird, 
yet he is far beyond them all in his powers of self-protection, 
self-development, and progress. This is because his powers 
are so adjusted to each other, and so co-ordinated with that 
higher spiritual being which constitutes him man, as to pro- 
duce the most perfect result. The soul and mind of man are 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. vii 

made in the image of God. In the more wretched and de- 
graded members of the human family, we see the germs 
folded, the power and faculties latent ; but who will say, in 
the light of missionary enterprise, that the soul is wanting in 
any race of men ? It only lies dormant, waiting the awaken- 
ing touch of divine truth. As we go from the lower to the 
higher forms of human life, we see, as we do in the analogous 
forms of animal existence, a life which approaches nearer 
and nearer to the divine type. The spiritual world points no 
less unerringly to the perfect and divine prototype. 

In the true artist, whether his creations be by the aid of 
pen or pencil, by the chisel of the sculptor, or the fingers of 
the musician, the work is creative, the attitude is godlike. 
The divine power of imagination is at work ; and the world is 
receiving beauty, wrought from the very life of the artist. 
There are a few, a very few, who deserve the title of artist in 
this high sense. The man who may rightfully lay claim to 
such a title must possess the gift, not only of seeing the 
truth and rendering it, but he must also have that all-com- 
prehensive glance, and that vitalizing power, which is rather 
a spiritual than an intellectual faculty. He must lay under 
contribution all the physical beauty of earth and sea and sky, 
besides all the subtler moral beauty of tenderness and hero- 
ism and devotion. When such men do bless the earth, they 
are cosmopolitan, and can be claimed exclusively by no age 
and no country. They are heaven-born souls, who have only 
made some unworthy spot of earth their abiding-place for a 
little time. The birthplace of a genius like this may well 
be proud that it was chosen for such a manifestation ; but it 
cannot claim him as its own. The world is his home, and 
mankind his compatriots. 

Into this noble army, how many women have ever been 
admitted, or how few ! It is strange that the world has seen 
almost no creative mind among women. The apology which 
is always offered for the inferiority of women, in every branch 
of severe intellectual labor, cannot be offered here. The cul- 
tivation of art has always been considered eminejitly proper 



viii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

for her sex. The most stringent conservative does not imag- 
ine that a woman must overstep her allotted sphere in order 
to excel in art. The facilities for artistic training, which 
have been open to women during the last two centuries, are 
certainly greater than those possessed by the men of earlier 
times. We confess to a deeply rooted scepticism in regard to 
"mute inglorious Miltons" of either sex. There is some- 
thing in the essence of genius which compels it to express 
itself, even if it perish in the expression. But when we do 
see this high order of creative talent among women, we hail 
it with delight. George Eliot has vindicated the divine 
right of her sex, if it needed vindication. In the estimation 
of the best critics of England and America, she has no supe- 
rior, we had almost said no peer, in her own province, 
among living artists. 

It would be worth our while to examine carefully the char- 
acter of her mind and the method of her working. She is, 
perhaps, the truest and highest exponent of the age in which 
we live. She is essentially modern in her mode of thought ; 
and yet, in spite of this quality, she has given us one of the 
most vivid pictures of past days which can be found in liter- 
ature. She is intensely modern ; but, more than that, deep 
down in the recesses of her nature, she is still more intensely 
human. The loves and joys, the disappointment and anguish, 
of antique Florentine life, are made to glow with vitality and 
beauty by the magic of her pen. The human heart, which 
throbs in all the ages, and under the garbs of those old times, 
appeals to, and finds a response in, the common humanity of 
the present. There is a charm about old times, old customs, 
old habits of thought and mode of life, which appeals to the 
aesthetic in all of us. The great trouble with most writers 
is that they make all which is old partake of the nature of a 
fossil, and that is not interesting. Fossils are very excellent 
things in their way, but they must be genuine bits of ancient 
existence, not the result of a modern fossil manufactory. 
Pictures of a life which has passed away with the rolling 
centuries can never be painted from nature ; and it is only the 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. ix 

most vivid and powerful imagination which should attempt 
to cope with the difficulties in the way of their reproduction. 
When such an imagination does give us a picture of the olden 
time, it possesses an indescribable charm. We look back 
upon the strange, fantastic garbs, the curious inexplica- 
ble customs of past times, with a sense of being alien and 
astray, until we are made to feel that the same joys and 
sorrows stir the hearts, beating under those odd vestments, 
which move our own ; and that the same human eyes, shining 
with joy or shaded with sorrow, are looking at us from under 
the quaint head-dresses, which we see in the faces of our 
friends and of our children. We give our recognition with 
something of the heart-leap with which we greet an old ac- 
quaintance in a foreign land, and which proclaims, in silent 
but eloquent language, that we are all of one kin. 

Look at Kingsley's "Hypatia" and " Amyas Leigh." One 
is never tired of returning again and again to them, and is 
rewarded each time by discovering new beauties. Beauty 
true, noble beauty never palls, but rather becomes more 
lovely in our eyes, as it is softened and hallowed by the clus- 
tering of tender associations around it. Shall we look but 
once at a beautiful picture, and never feel the desire to see it 
again ? Shall we hear only once exquisite music, and be for- 
ever satisfied because, forsooth, we know what is coming? 
Shall we look once on a glorious landscape, and the eye never 
again be thirsty to drink in delight from the same source ? 
Can our souls vibrate but once to any beauty, which reaches 
it through any channel, and then be forever afterward 
mute ? 

It must be that the motive which impels the public to the 
enjoyment of any work of art, is generally a restless desire 
to be amused ; not any deep love of truth or beauty, or it 
would not go away so soon filled. It is the highest order 
of creations alone which can bear the test of time, of differ- 
ent nationalities, and different creeds. There is only a giant 
here and there, who has infused into his work the exhaustless 
vitality which keeps it alive, though, in the mean time, em- 



X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



pires have risen, flourished, and sunk into decay ; though 
generation after generation has been born, lived out its little 
day of joy and anguish, and then passed away forgotten, 
while it goes forward rejoicing in its eternal youth, and find- 
ing a home wherever beats a human heart. Into such works 
a man must have cast his very soul. There is nothing but 
life, freed from its shackles and its human limitations, which 
causes a work of art to live such a life as this, adapting itself 
to the requirements and needs of every new phase of ex- 
istence, and amid all changes reappears 

" Forever lovely and forever young." 

George Eliot possesses this creative power of imagination. 
Her characters are never imaginative beings to our minds, 
they are people. We are no more afraid of confounding them, 
one with another, than we are of forgetting which is which 
in the circle of our friends. Each character preserves its 
individuality in our memories. She does not find it neces- 
sary to resort to the cheap expedient of putting an invariable 
form of words or mode of expression into the mouths of 
her dramatis persona;, as a sort of mechanical make-shift, 
which shall do duty for a higher kind of individuality. This 
expedient, which is not entirely unknown among good writ- 
ers, is painfully suggestive to us of our juvenile attempts at 
sketching, with the essential addition of a label below to 
prevent mistakes, and does not indicate high art. 

Her earlier works were almost too dazzling to be effective. 
It is not the best and truest art which forever stimulates the 
imagination, and keeps the wits constantly on the qui vive. 
There is sometimes a sense of pain at the profusion of good 
things she spreads before us. We feel that such prodigality 
is the prophet of coming want. It is not possible to enjoy 
everything at once; the mind requires quiet intervals, in 
which it may assimilate what has been given it. Without 
these intervals of rest, neither body nor mind, nor our aes- 
thetic faculties, can attain their most perfect development. 
The grossest form of the error into which an exuberant im- 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. XI 

agination, and a memory teeming with rich material are hur- 
ried, is the sensational novel. George Eliot has a mind too 
full of high thoughts and a heart too full of noble purposes 
to prostitute her art. These qualities have expressed them- 
selves in her maiden efforts by a tracery which occasionally 
is too rich to allow the design to show itself to full advan- 
tage, by an ornamentation which a little obscures the general 
design. There is never anything turgid in language, or high- 
flown in illustration, or exaggerated in sentiment, only many 
touches of color here and there, which, though admirable in 
themselves, mar the purity of the design. We are bewil- 
dered at the brilliancy of the display. It is a fault if it 
may be called a fault at all of a too exuberant fancy, of 
an imagination which cannot contain itself, but must over- 
flow and enrich everything around it. 

Have we not all felt, in the presence of some great beauty, 
a sense of pain at the limitations in ourselves ? Have we not 
all sighed to see the great ocean of delight stretching out be- 
fore us, at the consciousness that we had only one little pint- 
cup of capacity to fill ? Not that we want more from any 
greedy desire of appropriation, but that it is a pain to think 
of the dreary stretches of life, barren of all the loveliness 
which is so lavishly spread before us. Each one of us has, 
at times, as the journey of life lay over the desert, felt the 
very soul parching with thirst ; and then the consciousness 
that one drop of all this wasted delight would cool the tongue, 
has become a pang amid the pleasures of memory. The es- 
sence of every bygone pain is, indeed, not so much memory, 
as it is the prophecy which it holds within itself of a possible 
future like it. What is the minor tone, which softens and 
sobers the most exquisite delight of earth, but this memory 
of past sorrow, which casts its vague but lengthening shadow 
across the future ? 

Our author is learning a truer economy as she is gaining a 
riper and fuller development. It is a noble thrift, after all, 
where all go away filled, and yet care is taken that nothing 
be wasted. A comparison of " Scenes in Clerical Life," or 



xii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

"Adam Bede," with " Middlemarch," will show what we are 
aiming to illustrate. In " Adam Bede," for instance, there is 
more incident, more description of external life, more charac- 
ters, more pointed sayings, detachable from the main current 
of the story, than there is in " Middlemarch ; " and yet there 
is just half as much writing. " Adam Bede " is sparkling and 
scintillating from beginning to end with bits of pathos and 
humor, with occasions for laughter and tears. But in " Mid- 
dlemarch " there is a more perfect development of character, 
a closer analysis of feeling, and a more noble repose than 
we find in her earlier works. It is hard to say which is the 
finer book. Each has its own peculiar merits and its own 
individual blemishes. 

We lay down this great work from the pen of George Eliot 
in anything but a critical mood. It invites criticism more 
decidedly as we read it in detached portions, and disarms it 
more completely when we consider it as a finished whole, 
than do any of her previous productions. Without repeat- 
ing herself in plot or character, we feel that her mind is be- 
coming every year more deeply set in its original mould. 
She has lived a real, earnest, intense life, such a life as 
leaves deep traces behind it. The sufferings of the very least 
and meanest of God's creatures find a response in the great 
human heart, that beats under the keen analytic power of 
the mental philosopher and the quick-sighted discrimination 
of the critic. 

" Adam Bede " is in no sense crude ; it is from the pen of 
a trained writer, from one who was skilled in analysis, and 
trained in style, by her earlier literary efforts. It has, in this 
way, missed the faults of " first novels ; " but it is a younger 
book than " Middlemarch ; " it shows a fuller appreciation of 
outward life, a keener enjoyment of its external conditions, 
but not the same chastened and purified soul. We see the 
same clear-sighted vision and even-handed justice, but not 
the large-hearted sympathy, that comes from a bitter struggle 
with self which has ended in victory. She possessed the 
same object, first as last ; but she had not estimated the pub- 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xni 

lie, with which she had to deal, quite correctly. The same 
deep, significant lesson is taught in "Adam Bede," which 
rang out in such unmistakable tones in " Romola." It is the 
lesson which is generally taught, not by books, but by the 
noble and lovely lives which are lived around us, the les- 
son that there is just one thing on earth which is worth the 
seeking, and that is, the Right. 

The lesson taught in the character of Arthur Donnithorne 
is, that there is one, and only one, safeguard against baseness 
and dishonor, and that this safeguard is a supreme love of 
virtue, a high moral principle, which cannot be tampered 
with. No magnanimity, no natural generosity, no sweetness 
of temper or desire to please, is of a texture strong enough to 
bear the stress of temptation. The whole fabric of the story 
is so inwoven with the moral purpose that it is entirely 
inseparable ; and so the moral purpose is, to some extent, 
missed by some readers. It is not the first time that the 
moral of a fable has been missed by the public, because the 
judicious precaution was omitted of stating it in succinct form 
as an addendum. But her purpose lay too deep in her heart 
to admit of any uncertainty as to its results ; her message 
must be given to the world, and it was delivered with an 
accent that no one could miss, in the delineation of the beau- 
tiful Greek in " Komola." We consider that her power cul- 
minated in "Eomola;" the exuberance of life is present, 
but the slower measure is reached. 

Her novels are not the favorites of young, ardent souls, 
untouched by the troubles of life and unchastened by its disci- 
pline. It is only suffering, and suffering which has been a 
discipline, that can attune a soul to respond to the vibrations 
of her music. The story in her books is like the narration of 
a real life, the incidents are always subordinate to the results. 
The progress which we follow, with ever-increasing interest, 
is the progress of a soul toward perfection, not the progress 
of a plot toward completion. The issues are moral issues; 
the crises, spiritual crises ; and the culmination of interest 
consists, not in some well-laid scheme crowned with success, 



xiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

or some happy marriage consummated, but in the victory of a 
noble soul over the powers of darkness. The happiness 
which is reached is of that deep, sure nature which can be 
ruffled only on the surface by any of earth's disappointments, 
trials, or sufferings. 

There is manifested all through her works a passionate 
sympathy with joy and sorrow, with struggle, and even with 
failure. There is never a touch of the Pharisee in her. She 
has felt that there are moments in every battle when the 
result hangs trembling in the balance, even though it may 
turn on the side of victory. Though she recognizes, with the 
utmost clearness, the truth that victory is not the result of 
chance, yet those moments have taught her to look upon de- 
feat with a large indulgence. She looks at things as they 
are in their own just proportions, not as they seem in rela- 
tion to her own thoughts and prejudices. There is a curi- 
ously impersonal character in her writings, because she 
stands only as the interpreter of her own creations ; and yet 
there is the deep personality pervading them which must 
characterize the fruit of every living soul. They are her 
children, bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh ; and yet 
they maintain, each and every one, an individuality, intact 
and impregnable. 

There is no peculiarity which more truly characterizes our 
great novelists than the presence or absence of this conscious 
personality in their writings. For instance, Dickens threw 
himself into his work with a self-forgetful ardor, which has 
made the least prominent of his dramatis personce men and 
women to us. It is said that when he wrote he shut himself 
in alone, and yielded himself up utterly to the spell of en- 
chantment which he was weaving for the world. He forgot 
to eat and to sleep. He laughed and wept over the humor- 
ous and pathetic scenes he was delineating. The life he 
depicts passes before him like a panoramic view. He is 
conscious of himself only as a passive spectator, and feels 
that his work is to translate for the world what already 
exists in his own imagination. How often we feel inclined 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xv 

to say, when we meet an odd, or grotesque, or genial- 
looking figure, "That man has just stepped out of Dick- 
ens." As if Dickens had created a little world of his 
own, whose inhabitants interchanged occasional civilities 
with ourselves. His writings are sparkling and rippling 
over with an exuberance of life ; and yet, where is Charles 
Dickens ? 

Then we turn to Charles Eeade, a writer who stands de- 
servedly high in fictitious literature, and who has never been 
surpassed in a certain dramatic power. He shows us a won- 
derful picture : but he is always there himself, pointing out 
a beauty here and a deformity there ; joining in the derisive 
scorn, which he bespeaks from his audience, for every ignoble 
and vicious quality ; not forgetting to add his applause at 
every touch of tenderness or nobleness. He is always sure 
to be there, standing with his discriminating pointer between 
us and his own creations. 

Again, Anthony Trollope, who is undoubtedly a man of 
great talent, close in his analysis of motives, true in his in- 
sight, discriminating in his praise or blame, is only a photog- 
rapher of a very high order. He possesses the artistic sense 
which makes him choose his subjects well; which directs 
him in his arrangement of color and selection of pose ; but, 
after all, it wants the divine spark of imagination to make it 
true art. He seems to recognize this, for he keeps himself 
modestly in the background, as a photographer should. 

George Eliot is utterly unlike Dickens, and yet they are 
nearly enough on the same plane to admit of comparison. 
She possesses the same wonderfully acute observation, which 
enables her to enrich her writings with touches of nature, 
bits of description, and hints of exquisite sentiment, which 
we find in Dickens. She is far more analytic and intro- 
verted, and less genial and laughter-loving than Dickens. 
Under the pathos of Dickens is the ripple of laughter. Un- 
der her wit or humor, or that which partakes of the nature 
of both, and yet is neither, is the recognition of all the 
misery and sin in the world. She is the exponent, in the 



xvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

world of fiction, of that spirit of the nineteenth century 
which has been so well described by another. " Christianity 
ended," says the writer referred to, "by producing that 
peculiar passion for self-analysis, that rage for the anat- 
omy of emotion, and that reverence for the individual 
soul, which was almost entirely unknown to the ancient 
world. ... If we were now asked roughly to define what we 
mean by the Spirit of the Age, we should say the genius of 
the nineteenth century is analytic. There is hardly any- 
thing on earth which Goethe the very incarnation of mod- 
ern culture has not done something toward analyzing. 
Scientific research has taken complete possession of the 
unexplored regions of the physical world. Kant and Hegel 
have endeavored to define the limits of pure reason. Swe- 
denborg strove to give law and system to the most abnormal 
states of human consciousness. There is not an aspect of 
nature, or complication of character, or contrast of thought 
and feeling, which has not been delineated by modern novel- 
ists and painted by modern artists ; while the national poets 
of Europe, whether we think of Goethe, Heine, Lamartine, 
De Musset, or our own living poets, Tennyson and Brown- 
ing, have all shown the strongest disposition to probe and 
explore the hidden mysteries of thought and feeling : to ar- 
range and rearrange the insoluble problems of life, which 
never seemed so insoluble as now ; to present facts with all 
their by-play ; and to trace emotion through all its intricate 
windings." 

It is rather strange that, with her great powers of imagi- 
nation and command over the language of emotion, her poems 
have not been more successful. We heartily agree with the 
words of the best criticism which, in our opinion, has been 
written upon George Eliot. "The poems," says this critic, 
" are conspicuously inferior to the novels ; and a striking in- 
dication that poetry is not George Eliot's element as an ar- 
tist is this, that in her poems the idea and the matter do not 
really interpenetrate ; the idea stands above the matter as 
a master above the slave, and subdues the matter to its will. 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xvii 

The ideal motives of ' The Spanish Gypsy/ of ' Jubal/ and 
of ' Armgart ' can be stated in a concise form of words. 
For the mystery of life there is substituted the complexity 
of a problem of moral dynamics, a calculable composition of 
forces. And with this the details of the poem are necessa- 
rily in agreement. A large rhythm sustains the verse, similar 
in nature to the movement of a calmly musical period of 
prose; but at best the music of the lines is a measurable 
music ; under the verse there lies no living heart of music 
with curious pulsation and rhythm, which is a miracle of the 
blood. The carefully executed lyrics of Juan and Fedalma 
are written with an accurate knowledge of what song is, and 
how it differs from speech. The author was acquainted with 
the precise position of the vocal organs in singing ; the pity 
is, she could not sing. The little, modelled verses are 
masks taken from the dead faces of infantile lyrics that once 
lived and breathed." What Lowell says so happily of Dry- 
den is conspicuously true of her : " In his prose you come 
upon passages that persuade you he is a poet, in spite of his 
verses so often turning state's evidence against him, as to 
convince you he is none. He is a prose writer, with a sort 
of ^olian attachment." 

The reason why she lends herself so much more readily to 
prose than to poetry, lies probably in the predominating 
characteristic of her nature, her deep moral earnestness. Art 
must not have for its primary object the presentation of high 
moral truth. It must be a delineation of life as it is, glorified 
and idealized by the medium through which it has passed. 
If what it delineates be not true, true, either histori- 
cally or ideally, the art is false. We must have what is 
true, either in strict adherence to facts, or else in that wider 
sense of being in harmonious accord with the great underlying 
principles of human life. If the truth be not spiritualized by 
the imagination through which it has passed, it cannot be 
properly called art at all. Art lends itself readily to the 
high, spiritual truths of religion ; it finds itself at home among 
the purer and softer emotions ; but it rejects, as unfit for its 

b 



xviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

purposes, the sterner and more uncompromising element of 
religion which we call morality. And it is with morality 
that George Eliot chiefly has to do. It is with man's relations 
with man, and not man's relations with God, that she deals. 
We so commonly associate the fruits of human tenderness 
and charity and truth with the hidden life of divine com- 
munion, that we involuntarily assume this life when we see 
the fruits depicted. 

The human element, which is so strong in her, manifests 
itself very clearly here. The morality in her books is so pure 
and high that we recognize it as being the morality of the 
Bible. It is not a cold, clear-cut philosophy which she incul- 
cates, but a faith rich in all the tender charities which char- 
acterize the religion of Jesus. And yet there is not an 
allusion to a power higher than a lofty purpose taking root in 
a noble nature. She provides the seed and the soil, but the 
heaven-born influences of vitalizing dew and sunshine and air 
are all ignored. It is hardly possible to believe that the prac- 
tical truths of Christianity should have been so perfectly appre- 
hended by one who was at the same time ignorant of the 
divine life. It is difficult to conceive that one who had never 
felt the workings of God's Spirit should have been able 
to describe so perfectly its fruits ; for, if she rests upon 
the great central truth of the doctrine of Christ, she has 
left it to inference. There is no word to indicate it in 
her works. 

We find in her novels, on almost every page, beautiful bits 
of descriptive writing, exquisite touches of sentiment, and 
pointed illustration, glimmering all over with the fitful play 
of humor and pathos. Yet under all the music, whether it be 
bright and sparkling, fresh and pure, measured and solemn, 
or soul-stirring and heroic, there is a low monotone of pain. 
It is often so low that it may be overwhelmed by the lighter 
strain that is carried on above it, except to the ear which has 
been attuned by personal suffering to catch the wail. All the 
higher notes of her wonderful music give, besides the melo- 
dies and chords which are their natural and direct conse- 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xix 

quence, a low, resultant tone that imparts a sorrowful cadence 
to the whole, but which can be distinguished only by a trained 
and attentive ear. 

Though she is wandering in a world full of beautiful possi- 
bilities, they are not what she wants ; she sees afar off the 
gates of heavenly truth, but she has let go the guiding hand, 
and the clew she trusted in is gone. Does not the secret of 
this undertone of sorrowful longing lie here ? She appreciates 
the high moral beauty of the Christian standard, but at the 
same time recognizes how far the lives of Christians fall short 
of their profession. She sees the end to be attained and ap- 
proves it ; she recognizes the apparent inadequacy of the means 
and rejects them. She is striving in her own way to work 
out the solution of the problem. She has taken into consider- 
ation all the elements concerned ; her view is wide and inclu- 
sive ; and if her solution is not the true one, it is because her 
method is false, and not because the problem, with which she 
is endeavoring to grapple, is inadequately stated. She seems 
to make Christ the great teacher, the divine exemplar, all but 
the Saviour, of poor, storm-tossed, sin-stained humanity. She 
has never drunk in, with the divine teachings, the divine 
power of fulfilment which accompanies them. Her recogni- 
tion of truth is very clear, even of the highest type of divine 
truth ; there is none of the morbid sentimentality which tol- 
erates sin, and which is such an ominous characteristic of 
modern infidelity. She scorns the specious charity which is 
really a cloak for sin, while it pretends to be the divine love 
" which thinketh no evil ; which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 
rejoiceth in the truth." Her nature is too true to permit her 
to make any compromise with evil, no matter how alluring 
its guise may be. It is the instinct of her strong and truth- 
ful soul to tear off the flimsy coverings of modern sentimen- 
talism, and to call things by their plain unvarnished names. 
She looks steadily at the truth, however painful ; she recog- 
nizes every symptom of the disease, but she does not see the 
only remedy. If her solution of the difficulty is untrue, it is 
because it still is incomplete, not because it is one-sided. 



XX INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

She makes of suffering and disappointment a savior. Life, 
with its varied discipline of joy and sorrow, is the great puri- 
fier of souls. Her philosophy is an accurate copy of the 
divine system of Christianity, and wants only the divine 
life. 

Like the artist king of old, her whole soul revolts against 
the impurity of the lives she sees around her ; and she strives 
to create for herself an ideal which shall be worthy of her 
best worship. Out of her imagination is wrought the beau- 
tiful but lifeless semblance of the truth ; the body of truth 
waiting for its soul. She looks upon her own creation with 
the agonized longing of the artist, and feels in it the lack of 
that which alone can satisfy her cravings. She gives her pas- 
sionate but despairing love to the cold perfection of her own 
creation. Will the divine touch come, as it did to the fabled 
image of Pygmalion ? Will this longing, hungry soul ever be 
filled with the bread of life, so that she may be numbered 
with those of whom it is said : " They shall hunger no more, 
neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, 
nor any heat : for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne 
shall feed them, and shall lead them into living fountains 
of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes " ? 

With an author's historical self, we, as critics, have noth- 
ing to do, but we are drawn within the circle of his real indi- 
viduality. We do not know, as matters of fact, through what 
storms and sunshine this soul has ripened to such fulness. 
But we do know, from internal evidence, that it is a nature 
rich in all capabilities of happiness, and possessing commen- 
surate capabilities for suffering. We see everywhere the 
tokens of strife and of victory. The whole moral poise is 
upright ; there is no single instance where tenderness, for 
suffering or temptation or failure, degenerates into a com- 
promise with evil. One thing has always been to us an inex- 
plicable mystery : she deals with just those incidents which 
are so peculiarly hard to touch firmly and yet delicately. 
There is no thought of impurity in her rendering of the most 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxi 

difficult subjects. We feel the innate refinement and purity 
of the woman in the main current of the story ; and yet, scat- 
tered through her earlier works, are passages, here and there, 
which are coarse. They do not seem to belong to the texture 
of the narration, and are so utterly unnecessary. We do not 
hold that there is any indelicacy in dealing with truth plainly. 
Where there are high ends to be subserved, vice is a perfectly 
legitimate subject for fiction ; but it is the plane on which the 
writer stands, the standpoint from which he looks at the sin 
and folly in the world, which makes his work moral or im- 
moral in its tone. In the words of an eloquent writer we 
would say : " The best art is like Shakspeare's art and Ti- 
tian's art, always true to the great, glad, aboriginal instincts of 
our nature, severely faithful to its foibles, never representing 
disease in the guise of health, never rejoicing in the exercise 
of morbid fancy, many-sided without being unbalanced, ten- 
der without weakness, and forcible without ever losing the 
fine sense of proportion. Nothing can be falser than to sup- 
pose that morality is served by representing facts other than 
they are. No emasculated picture of life can be moral ; it may 
be meaningless, and it is sure to be false. No ; we must 
stand upon the holy hill with hands uplifted, like those of 
Moses, and see the battle of Good against Evil, with a deep 
and inexhaustible sympathy for righteousness, and a sense of 
victory in our hearts." 

As her powers find a fuller development, we note a more 
direct and absorbing moral purpose, and less lingering by the 
wayside. We have less of the picturesque as accessories to 
her delineations, but more of close analysis. The inner life 
is more full, and the outer life more meagre. Though we 
have lost something, yet we have gained more. We may con- 
sole ourselves for the loss of the rosy beauty of the orchard 
while we are enjoying the mellower fruitage of a later day ; 
and yet the eye misses the beauty of the blossoms, and is 
not quite satisfied with the fruit. 

In " Middlemarch " the story is so entirely subordinated to 
the development of character, and to the purpose of the book, 



xxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

that it requires a little effort to remember that there is a 
story or plot. The incidents flow on in a calm and steady 
current, which is worthy of notice only because it bears upon 
its bosom the rich treasure of immortal interests. In the 
light of eternity, it is a matter of comparative insignificance 
whether life be joyful or sorrowful. The great concern is, 
shall it purify and ennoble the soul ? She has an intense 
yearning for happiness, and feels that delight of every inno- 
cent kind is good and to be desired ; but she does not call 
this little strip of time which borders eternity, existence; 
she does not make this ante-chamber to the Temple of God 
the only theatre of life. 

She recognizes the indissoluble connection between sin and 
suffering, and between virtue and happiness. She does not 
reward goodness with success, or punish evil with failure, or 
play with puppets in which the wires are pulled in accord- 
ance with the requirements of poetic justice. She recognizes 
the great truth, that the very essence of sin lies in the revolt 
of the soul against its Maker, in the severing of the relation 
between God and man, and that suffering, ignorance, and 
death are but the fruits of this severance. God no more pun- 
ishes a planet with sterility and death, which has broken 
away from its allegiance to the central sun, and is wandering 
aimlessly in space, than he punishes the human race by sor- 
row and death, because it has severed the relation between 
itself and him. The divine justice plants its foundations far 
down beneath the shifting sands of circumstance. The Al- 
mighty does not merely issue decrees, and carry them into 
execution. Disobedience to the moral law carries, within it- 
self, its own punishment. Our author seems to recognize 
this truth fully ; she sees it as a part of that system of admin- 
istration which makes an indissoluble connection between the 
violation of physical laws and physical suffering and death. 
In the natural world these laws, which regulate the relations 
of things, are permitted to work out their results unchecked 
by divine interposition. Christ refused to cast himself down 
from the pinnacle of the Temple, not because the divine aid 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxiii 

which could hinder the consequences was wanting, but be- 
cause he conformed himself to the laws of nature. We have 
no proof, indeed, that any miracle he ever performed was a 
violation of any natural law ; all that his miracles were in- 
tended to manifest was that his power was supernatural. If 
he modified the effects of the laws of nature, which are be- 
yond all human control, so as to produce supernatural results, 
the object of miracles was attained. That is to say, his di- 
vine power, by coworking with the unchanged laws and 
forces of nature, achieved those resultant effects which re- 
veal his divinity, or godhead. 

In the divine government God has placed himself between 
the violation of the moral law and the consequences ; and 
this, it seems to us, our author fails to see. She does not 
recognize the cords of divine love, which are to draw alien- 
ated man back into his true relations with God. It is 
strange that such clear-sighted vision should just come short 
of the glory of God ! 

The intense and full delight which she takes in beauty 
produces a responsive delight in her readers. In no other 
prose writer do the descriptions of purely physical and nat- 
ural beauty produce the same impression upon us as do hers, 
the impression from her description is so like the impression 
from the reality ; it is the same beauty, reaching us through 
different channels. She has sunned herself in the light, and 
we catch the reflected rays. The allurements of luxury and 
beauty are full of power for her ; and it is because she feels 
the force of such temptation, and the necessity for a counter- 
balancing and correcting moral force, that she deals so sternly 
with self-indulgence. The warning comes with a personal 
accent, that tells of a personal struggle and a personal vic- 
tory. She reiterates with passionate fervor the refrain of 
all her stories. Again and again she tells us, that it is not 
only wickedness, but folly, to make happiness the supreme 
object of our lives ; that no direct and unscrupulous search 
after pleasure will ever be crowned with success ; that abiding 
happiness lies nowhere but in the path of honor and duty. 



xxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

It is only her human way of repeating the divine teachings : 
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, 
and all these things shall be added unto you." She has stood 
upon the edge of the abyss, and looked with horror down 
into the frightful depths which have swallowed up so many 
precious souls ; and necessity is laid upon her to speak and 
give warning. 

She has never drawn any characters which more fully jus- 
tify her reputation as a creative artist, than three in " Mid- 
dlemarch," Dorothea, Lydgate, and Rosamond. There is 
in Dorothea some suggestion of one of her previous creations. 
She possesses the same pure and simple lines of character 
with Komola ; she is the same grand type of woman, full of 
unconscious heroism, and a large-hearted generosity. Yet 
despite these resemblances, the one is not a repetition of the 
other, much less a copy. Each is, on the contrary, a distinct, 
separate, and original creation ; and if they bear a sort of 
family likeness to one another, this is only because they have 
a common parentage. 

We do not propose giving any synopsis of the story, or 
analysis of the characters. We shall, however, endeavor to 
illustrate the justice of some of our criticisms by extracts. 
There are thickly scattered through " Middlemarch " illus- 
trations drawn from a wide range of reading upon subjects 
not considered exactly feminine " specialties." For instance : 
" Miss Brooke argiied from words and dispositions not less 
unhesitatingly than other young ladies of her age. Signs are 
small, measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable ; 
and in girls of sweet, ardent natures, every sign is apt to con- 
jure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a 
diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge." 
Again : " For in truth, as the day fixed for his marriage came 
nearer, Mr. Casaubon did not find his spirits rising ; nor did 
the contemplation of that garden-scene, where, as all expe- 
rience showed, the path was to be bordered with flowers, prove 
persistently more enchanting to him than the accustomed 
vaults where he walked, taper in hand. He did not confess 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxv 

to himself, still less would he have breathed to another, his 
surprise that, though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted 
girl for his wife, he had not won delight, which he had also 
regarded as an object to be found by search. It is true that 
he knew all the classical passages implying the contrary ; but 
knowing classical passages, we find, is a mode of motion 
which explains why they leave so little extra force for their 
personal application." Again : " But Mr. Casaubon's theory 
of the elements which made the seed of all tradition was not 
likely to bruise itself unawares against discoveries. It floated 
among flexible conjectures, no more solid than those etymolo- 
gies which seemed strong because of the likeness of sound, 
until it was shown that likeness of sound made them impos- 
sible." Without the knowledge of the latest theory upon 
the color of the sky, or the modern doctrine of the correlation 
and conservation of force, or of the principles of compara- 
tive grammar, or recent researches in philology, she could 
not have illustrated her point in each case so perfectly. 
Superficial knowledge will often enable one to draw analo- 
gies from the facts of science, but not from the great funda- 
mental principles. With all her wealth of illustration, she 
has, we believe, never been betrayed into an error in history 
or science. 

In the delineation of character we note a peculiarly impar- 
tial judgment, which would lead to the belief that each one is 
a study from the life. There is, perhaps, no character in all 
her writings who is less calculated to arouse any strong feel- 
ing of admiration or reprehension than Mr. Casaubon; an 
elderly scholar, with no high belief in himself or his work, en- 
tirely self-centred, though not utterly selfish, is the last type 
of man to stir her sympathies ; and yet she pleads his cause 
against herself, with that intensely human sympathy which is 
her strongest characteristic. She says, in her calm, judicial 
way : " If, to Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon had been the mere 
occasion which set alight the inflammable material of her 
youthful illusions, does it follow that he was fairly repre- 
sented in the minds of those less impassioned personages who 



xxvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

have hitherto delivered their judgments concerning him ? I 
protest against any absolute conclusion, any prejudice derived 
from Mrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a neighboring clergy- 
man's alleged greatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor 
opinion of his rival's legs from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit 
a companion's ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged 
scholar's personal appearance. I am not sure that the great- 
est man of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, 
could escape these unfavorable reflections of himself in vari- 
ous small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his por- 
trait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a 
bumpkin." 

The habit of questioning facts, and giving a careful inter- 
pretation of them to the world, is a characteristic of modern 
art. It is the accurate truth of the delineation, rather than 
the ideal and religious sentiment, which recommends the 
work as genuine art. The impression which " Middlemarch " 
leaves, in contradistinction to that made by her earlier writ- 
ings, is, that each character has been carefully studied from 
nature ; and, in consequence, the delineation is more close, 
accurate, and analytic, though not more true than in her 
earlier works. She wrote "Scenes in Clerical Life" when 
her mind was teeming with the accumulated experience of 
years ; the exuberance of fancy, the multitude of characters, 
sometimes indicated in a few masterly lines, show her con- 
fidence in an inexhaustible reserve of material. We do not 
feel this prodigality in " Middlemarch ; " every conception is 
worked up carefully, and made to do full duty. 

The artist is manifested more clearly in the admirable 
manner in which she sustains relations, than even in the 
perfection of each bit of the painting. The moral perspec- 
tive is never forgotten. The minor characters are well sus- 
tained, but they keep their appointed places modestly. We 
find the neutral tints and masses of distinct color necessary 
to throw out into most effective relief the main features 
and characters of the story. The whole meaning and interest 
of " Middlemarch " is spiritual. It is the growth of a soul, 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxvn 

out of the crudities and illusions of youth, into a beautiful, 
rounded womanhood. Dorothea goes through an experience 
which could more easily find its counterpart in real life than 
in fiction. Her discipline is not one of treachery and cruelty 
and persecution, but the daily, wearing discipline, to an eager 
soul, of missing the work she is longing to do, as well as the 
help and sympathy she needs in her effort to live a high and 
noble life. With the ardent enthusiasm, which looks upon 
life as something to be done, goes the usual accompaniment, 
in a young and earnest soul, of a tendency to asceticism. 
Her greatest delight was in riding. " She loved the fresh air 
and the various aspects of the country ; and, when her eyes 
and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure, she looked very 
little like a devotee. Eiding was an indulgence which she 
allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms ; she felt that 
she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked 
forward to renouncing it." Her notions of life were very 
childlike and unpractical. " She felt sure she would have ac- 
cepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to 
save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony ; 
or John Milton when his blindness had come on ; or any of 
the other great men whose odd habits it would have been 
glorious piety to endure ; but an amiable, handsome baronet, 
who said 'Exactly' to her remark, even when she expressed 
uncertainty how could he affect her as a lover ? " 

The tragedy which awaits such a nature, in a world full of 
sordid cares and considerations, came in due time to her. 
Under the stress of her peculiar needs and longings she mar- 
ried ; but the higher and fuller life never came. It was not 
long before the veil of youthful illusion and glorifying fancy 
fell from her eyes, and she saw and felt how barren her life 
promised to be. " The clear heights where she expected to 
walk in full communion had become difficult even in imagi- 
nation ; the delicious repose of the soul on a complete superior 
had been shaken into uneasy effort, and alarmed with dim pre- 
sentiment. When would the day begin of that active, wifely 
devotion, which was to strengthen her husband's life and 



xxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

exalt her own? Never, perhaps, as she had preconceived 
them ; but somehow still somehow. In this solemnly 
pledged union of life, duty would present itself in some new 
form of inspiration, and give a new meaning to wifely 
love." 

" Meanwhile there was the snow and the low arch of dun 
vapor; there was the stifling oppression of that gentle- 
woman's world, where everything was done for her and none 
asked her aid ; where the sense of connection with a manifold, 
pregnant existence had to be kept up painfully as an inward 
vision, instead of coming from without, in claims that would 
have shaped her energies. ' What shall I do ? ' ' What 
ever you please, my dear : ' that had been her brief history 
since she had left off learning morning lesson, and practis- 
ing silly rhythms on the hated piano. Marriage, which 
was to bring guidance into worthy and imperative occu- 
pation, had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman's 
oppressive liberty; it had not even filled her leisure with 
ruminant tenderness. Her blooming, full-pulsed youth 
stood there in a moral imprisonment, which made itself one 
with the chill, colorless, narrowed landscape." But this 
nature was too full of vigorous spiritual vitality to be crushed 
by her narrow, hopeless life. When love and a noble ambi- 
tion were forced to be silent, a tender, womanly compassion 
took up the strain. At first she felt only the blight upon her 
own hopes. " She was as blind to his inward troubles as he 
to hers ; she had not yet learned those hidden conflicts in 
her husband which claim our pity. She had not yet listened 
patiently to his heart-beats, but only felt that her own was 
beating violently." The sweet, womanly nature soon righted 
itself ; the world should never know her disappointment, how- 
ever bitter it might be, and her husband should have all 
the tender care which the most admiring love could bestow. 

Mr. Casaubon's disappointment is touched no less tenderly 
than is Dorothea's. The infinite pathos of a failure, where 
life and health have been cast into the decisive throw, encir- 
cles him with a halo to the eyes of our author ; and yet she 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxix 

does not spare him. " When he had seen Dorothea " (this 
was before their marriage) " he believed that he had found 
even more than he demanded; she might really be such a 
helpmate as would enable him to dispense with a hired sec- 
retary an aid which Mr. Casaubon had never yet employed, 
and had a suspicious dread of. (Mr. Casaubon was nervously 
conscious that he was expected to manifest a powerful mind.) 
Providence, in its kindness, had supplied him with the wife 
he needed ; for a modest young lady, with the purely appre- 
ciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think her 
husband's mind powerful. Whether Providence had taken 
equal care of Miss Brooke, in presenting her with Mr. Casau- 
bon, was an idea which could hardly occur to him. Society 
never made the preposterous demand that a man should think 
as much about his own qualification for making a charming 
girl happy, as he thinks of hers for making him happy. As 
if a man should choose not only his wife, but his wife's hus- 
band. ... It is an uneasy lot, at best, to be what we call 
highly taught, and yet not to enjoy ; to be present at this 
great spectacle of life, and never be liberated from a small, 
hungry, shivering self; never to be fully possessed by the 
glory we behold ; never to have our consciousness rapturously 
transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a 
passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly 
and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim- 
sighted. . . . He had not much foretaste of happiness in his 
previous life. To know intense joy, without a strong bodily 
frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon 
had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensi- 
tive without being enthusiastic ; it was too languid to thrill 
out of self -consciousness into passionate delight ; it went on 
fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, think- 
ing of its wings, and never flying. His experience was of 
that pitiable kind which shrinks from pity, and fears most of 
all that it should be known ; it was that proud, narrow sen- 
sitiveness, which has not mass enough to spare for transforma- 
tion into sympathy, and quivers thread-like in small currents 



xxx INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

of self-preoccupation, or at best of an egotistic scrupu- 
losity. ... To this mental estate, mapped out a quarter of a 
century before, to sensibilities thus fenced in, Mr. Casaubon 
had thought of annexing happiness with a lovely young bride ; 
but even before marriage, as we have seen, he found himself 
under a new depression in the consciousness that the new 
bliss was not blissful to him. Inclination yearned back to 
its old, easier custom ; and the deeper he went into domes- 
ticity, the more did the sense of acquitting himself and acting 
with propriety predominate over any other satisfaction." He 
was sensitively alive to the indifference and criticism of the 
literary world ; because he possessed no self-confidence which 
could sustain him under adverse criticism. " These were 
heavy impressions to struggle against, and brought that mel- 
ancholy embitterment which is the consequence of all exces- 
sive claim. . . . There was no denying that Dorothea was 
as virtuous and amiable a young lady as he could have ob- 
tained for a wife ; but a young lady turned out to be a some- 
thing more troublesome than he had conceived. She nursed 
him, she read to him, she anticipated his wants, and was 
solicitous about his feelings ; but there had entered into her 
husband's mind the certainty that she judged him, and that 
her wifely devotedness was like a penitential expiation for 
unbelieving thoughts was accompanied by a power of com- 
parison by which himself and his doings were seen too lumi- 
nously as a part of things in general. His discontent passed 
vapor-like through all her gentle, loving manifestations, and 
clung to that inappreciative world which she had only brought 
nearer to him. Poor Mr. Casaubon ! This suffering was the 
harder to him, because it seemed like a betrayal ; the young 
creature who had worshipped him with perfect trust had 
quickly turned into the critical wife ; and early instances of 
criticism and resentment had made an impression which no 
tenderness and submission afterward could remove. ... In Mr. 
Casaubon's ear Dorothea's voice gave loud, emphatic iteration 
to those muffled suggestions of consciousness, which it was 
possible to explain as mere fancy, the illusion of exaggerated 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxxi 

sensitiveness : always when such suggestions are unmistaka- 
bly repeated from without, they are resisted as cruel and 
unjust. . . . We are angered even by the full acceptance of our 
humiliating confessions ; how much more by hearing in hard, 
distinct syllables, from the lips of a mere observer, those con- 
fused murmurs which we try to call morbid, and strive against 
as if they were the oncoming of numbness ! And this cruel, 
outward accuser was there in the shape of a wife nay, of a 
young bride who, instead of observing his abundance of pen- 
scratches and amplitude of paper, with the uncritical awe of an 
elegant-minded canary-bird, seemed to present herself as a 
spy, watching everything with a malign power of inference. 
Here, toward this particular point of the compass, Mr. Ca- 
saubon had a sensitiveness to match Dorothea's, and an equal 
quickness to imagine more than the fact. He had formerly 
observed with approbation her capacity for worshipping the 
right object; he now foresaw with sudden terror that this 
capacity might be replaced by presumption, this worship by 
the most exasperating of all criticism that which sees 
vaguely a great many fine ends, and has not the least notion 
what it costs to reach them." 

We have purposely made long quotations from these reflec- 
tions by the author, because they illustrate so pointedly her 
distinguishing characteristics. They show a subtle analysis 
of character, and of that hidden current of motive which 
forever ebbs and flows underneath the surface, as well as 
underneath the ostensible motives and feelings which are 
acknowledged to the world and to one's self. She seems to 
see as clearly "all the little, mean work of our natures," 
which "is generally done in a small, dark closet, just a little 
back of the subject we are talking about," as she does the 
hidden springs of nobleness and of unconscious heroism. 
The close analysis of such a character as Mr. Casaubon's 
shows wonderful clearness in one whose nature is so full of 
intense vitality as George Eliot's. 

" Middlemarch " does not offer to the reader so many pithy 
sentences, detachable from the current of the story, as we 



xxxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

have in " Adam Bede." Still it does not lack brightness and 
point. The sharp-tongued Mrs. Cadwallader does not say so 
many good things as Mrs. Poyser; yet there are remarks 
here, there, and everywhere, which are sparkling with wit 
and satire. . . . 

It is impossible to speak too strongly of the masterly power 
of the pen which has drawn Lydgate and Rosamond. There 
is a tragedy in Lydgate's fate, before which the tragedy of 
death itself sinks into insignificance ; and which comes home 
to us with peculiar force, because it lies so close to the 
experience of our daily lives and struggles. The chief artis- 
tic merit of the book is its unity. It is a growth which may 
not be fairly represented by any fragment. If we cut a bit 
of the stalk, or carry away with us a leaf as a memento, it 
can only recall, it can never represent, the existence of which 
it was a part. Toward the end, when the whole outcome of 
Dorothea's life is shown in her passionate sufferings at what 
she believed was her broken trust ; in her woman's scorn of 
the treachery shown her, and strong self-contempt at her own 
delusion ; and finally in the noble reassertion of her better 
nature, we see the glorious bloom which crowns the plant and 
which gives meaning to the hidden processes of growth. In 
the light of this beautiful culmination we see the reason of 
the bursting of the seed-sheath, and the casting off of the en- 
cumbering yet life-sustaining earth. The dark creations of 
nature or of art are then understood and self-vindicated, when, 
out of the elements by which they are surrounded and which 
threaten to stifle their existence, they burst into the open air 
and sunshine of a higher life. Thus do we look upon the 
growth of character, whether real or fictitious, as upon that of 
a plant whose culmination in the flower sheds meaning and 
beauty on all the slow and doubtful stages of its development. 
The real question of life is, in story as in history, what we 
are, and not what we possess. This question lies beneath all 
the hard conditions of uneventful lives, pressed down by sor- 
did cares and conventional trammels, and preaches a sermon 
which sinks into the heart like dew from heaven. It helps 



GENIUS OF GEORGE ELIOT. xxxiii 

us to see that, although a life may be full of repression and 
misery, yet, under all this, there is a divine alchemy which 
turns all the baser metal of existence into pure gold, seven 
times refined. 

We gratefully acknowledge that we owe much to the gen- 
ius of George Eliot, not less, perhaps, to its short-comings and 
defects than to its achievements and perfections. It has 
made life seem a better and nobler thing to us, and has shown 
us that truth, when illuminated by genius, finds its way where 
the same truth would, in other guise, fail to penetrate. But 
if it has shown us what life ought to be, it has, at the same 
time, shown us what life must be if it comes short of the 
hopes and the joys of the Christian's faith. Give us these, 
and others may, if they please, or if they can, find rest in the 
riches, the honors, or the pleasures of a perishable world. 

Her faith in the God-given possibilities of human nature 
has, it is true, " gathered round itself a fair shape " of words ; 
and other souls, stirred by the same faith, may worship with 
her at the same shrine. But the surer faith, "which is 
founded upon a rock," begets a higher and more certain hope, 
converting the possibilities of our nature into the realities of 
the eternal, unchanging, and unfading glory of the divine life 
within us. These are the sublime heights, the " delectable 
mountains," on which the Christian worships, and in no tem- 
ple made with hands ; and from which he looks down upon all 
the shrines erected by human genius, however exalted, as 
upon the lower plains in the gilded valley of death. 



ESSAYS AND BEVIEWS 



GEORGE ELIOT 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 

appearance of Woman in the field of literature is a 
I significant fact. It is the correlate of her position in 
society. To some men the fact is doubtless as distasteful as 
the social freedom of women in Europe must be to an Eastern 
mind ; it must seem so unf eminine, so contrary to the real 
destination of woman; and it must seem so in both cases 
from the same cause. But although it is easy to be supercil- 
ious and sarcastic on Blue Stockings and Literary Ladies, 
and although one may admit that such sarcasms have fre- 
quently their extenuation in the offensive pretensions of 
what are called " strong-minded women," it is certain that 
the philosophic eye sees in this fact, of literature cultivated 
by women, a significance not lightly to be passed over. It 
touches both society and literature. The man who would 
deny to woman the cultivation of her intellect, ought, for 
consistency, to shut her up in a harem. If he recognize in 
the sex any quality which transcends the qualities de- 
manded in a plaything or a handmaid, if he recognize in her 
the existence of an intellectual life not essentially dissimilar 
to his own, he must, by the plainest logic, admit that life to 
express itself in all its spontaneous forms of activity. It is 
very true that ink on the thumb is no ornament, but we have 
yet to learn that stains upon the blouse or the dissecting- 



8 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

sleeves are ornamental; few incidents of work are. What 
then ? Moreover we confess it is very awkward and uncom- 
fortable to hear a woman venture on Greek, when you don't 
know Greek, or to quote from a philosophical treatise which 
would give you a headache ; and something of this feeling 
doubtless lies at the core of much of the opposition to 
" learned women ; " the men are " put out " by it. The enor- 
mity seems equivalent to the domestic partner of your joys 
assuming the privilege of a latch-key ! " Where is our su- 
premacy to find a throne if we admit women to share our 
imperious dominion Intelligence ? " So reasons the intel- 
lectual Jones. But one might quietly ask him whether he 
professed any immense delight in the society of the man who 
threw Greek and philosophy at his head ? Pedantry is the 
ostentation of learning, the scholar's coxcombry ; no one likes 
it, any more than he likes other forms of obtrusive self-asser- 
tion. Therefore we may say with Mademoiselle de Scudery : 
" Je veux done bien qu'on puisse dire d'une personne de mon 
sexe qu'elle sait cent choses dont elle ne se vante pas, qu'elle 
a 1'esprit fort eclaire, qu'elle connait finement les beaux ouv- 
rages, qu'elle parle bien, qu'elle e*crit juste et qu'elle sait le 
monde ; mais je ne veux pas qu'on puisse dire d'elle, c'est une 
femme savante : car ces deux caracteres sont si differents 
qu'ils ne se ressemblent meme point." 1 

One may admit that much folly is spoken and written on 
the subject of " woman's mission " and " emancipation," folly 
pro and folly con ; one may admit that literary women are 
not always the most charming of their sex (are literary men 
of theirs ?) but let us leave all such side questions, and defi- 
nitely ask ourselves, What does the literature of women really 
mean ? To aid us in arriving at something like distinctness, 
it will be well to settle a definition of literature itself. 

Literature must be separated from philosophy and science, 
at least for our present purpose. Science is the expression of 
the forms and order of Nature ; literature is the expression 
of the forms and order of Human Life. 
1M Le Grand Cyrus." 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 9 

All poetry, all fiction, all comedy, all belles lettres, even to 
the playful caprices of fancy, are but the expression of expe- 
riences and emotions ; and these expressions are the avenues 
through which we reach the sacred adytum of Humanity, and 
learn better to understand our fellows and ourselves. In 
proportion as these expressions are the forms of universal 
truths, of facts common to all nations or appreciable by all 
intellects, the literature which sets them forth is permanently 
good and true. Hence the universality and immortality of 
Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Moliere. But in proportion 
as these expressions are the forms of individual, peculiar 
truths, such as fleeting fashions or idiosyncrasies, the litera- 
ture is ephemeral. Hence tragedy never grows old, for it 
arises from elemental experience ; but comedy soon ages, for 
it arises from peculiarities. Nevertheless, even idiosyncrasies 
are valuable as side glances ; they are aberrations that bring 
the natural orbit into more prominent distinctness. 

It follows from what has been said that literature, being 
essentially the expression of experience and emotion, of 
what we have seen, felt, and thought, that only that litera- 
ture is effective, and to be prized accordingly, which has real- 
ity for its basis (needless to say that emotion is as real as the 
three-per-cents), and effective in proportion to the depth and 
breadth of that basis. 

It was M. de Bonald, we believe, who gave currency to the 
famous definition, so constantly accepted as accurate, " Liter- 
ature is the expression of society." To make it acceptable, 
however, we must depart very widely from its direct mean- 
ing. The most cursory glance at literature on the one hand, 
and at society on the other, will detect the glaring discre- 
pancy. So far from literature being a mirror or expression of 
society, it is under most aspects palpably at variance with 
society. Idyls flourish on the eve of violent social outbreaks, 
as we see in Florian, Gesner, and George Sand; chivalry 
finds a voice as chivalry is passing from the world ; wild, ad- 
venturous novels, agitated with hair-breadth 'scapes, solace a 
money-making society " so eminently respectable ; " love in a 



10 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

cottage makes the heart flutter that is about to sell itself for 
a splendid match. The remark is as old as Horace : 

" Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum 
Mercator metuens otium et oppidi 
L/audat rura sui ; mox reficit rates 
Quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati." 

Not only so, but our novels and plays, even when pretending 
to represent real life, represent it as no human being ever 
saw it. 

If, however, instead of regarding literature as the expres- 
sion of society, we regard it as the expression of the emo- 
tions, the whims, the caprices, the enthusiasms, the fluctuat- 
ing idealisms which move each epoch, we shall not be far 
wrong ; and inasmuch as women necessarily take part in 
these things, they ought to give them their expression. And 
this leads us to the heart of the question, What does the 
literature of women mean ? It means this : while it is im- 
possible for men to express life otherwise than as they know 
it, and they can only know it profoundly according to their 
own experience, the advent of female literature promises 
woman's view of life, woman's experience, in other words, a 
new element. Make what distinctions you please in the so- 
cial world, it still remains true that men and women have 
different organizations, consequently different experiences. 
To know life you must have both sides depicted. 

" Der Mann muss hinaus 
Ins feindliche Leben, 
Muss wirken und streben ! " 

Let him paint what he knows. And if you limit woman's 
sphere to the domestic circle, you must still recognize the 
concurrent necessity of domestic life finding its homeliest 
and truest expression in the woman who lives it. 

Keeping to the abstract heights we have chosen, too ab- 
stract and general to be affected by exceptions, we may fur- 
ther say that the Masculine mind is characterized by the 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 11 

predominance of the intellect, and the Feminine by the pre- 
dominance of the emotions. According to this rough division 
the regions of philosophy would be assigned to men, those of 
literature to women. We need scarcely warn the reader 
against too rigorous an interpretation of this statement, 
which is purposely exaggerated, the better to serve as a sign- 
post. It is quite true that no such absolute distinction ex- 
ists in mankind, and therefore no such correlative distinction 
will be found in authorship. There is no man whose mind is 
shrivelled up into pure intellect ; there is no woman whose 
intellect is completely absorbed by her emotions. But in 
most men the intellect does not move in such inseparable 
alliance with the emotions as in most women ; and hence, 
although often not so great as in women, yet the intellect is 
more commonly dominant. In poets, artists, and men of 
letters, par excellence, we observe this feminine trait, that 
their intellect habitually moves in alliance with their emo- 
tions ; and one of the best descriptions of poetry was that 
given by Professor Wilson, as the " intellect colored by the 
feelings." 

Woman, by her greater affectionateness, her greater range 
and depth of emotional experience, is well fitted to give ex- 
pression to the emotional facts of life, and demands a place 
in literature corresponding with that she occupies in society ; 
and that literature must be greatly benefited thereby, follows 
from the definition we have given of literature; 

But hitherto, in spite of splendid illustrations, the literature 
of women has fallen short of its function, owing to a very 
natural and very explicable weakness ; it has been too much 
a literature of imitation. To write as men write is the aim 
and besetting sin of women ; to write as women is the real 
office they have to perform. Our definition of literature in- 
cludes this necessity. If writers are bound to express what 
they have really known, felt, and suffered, that very obliga- 
tion imperiously declares they shall not quit their own point 
of view for the point of view of others. To imitate is to ab- 
dicate. We are in no need of more male writers ; we are in 



12 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

need of genuine female experience. The prejudices, notions, 
passions, and conventionalisms of men are amply illustrated ; 
let us have the same fulness with respect to women. Un- 
happily the literature of women may be compared with that 
of Rome ; no amount of graceful talent can disguise the inter- 
nal defect. Virgil, Ovid, and Catullus were assuredly gifted 
with delicate and poetic sensibility ; but their light is, after 
all, the light of moons reflected from the Grecian suns, and 
such as brings little life with its rays. To speak in Greek, to 
think in Greek, was the ambition of all cultivated Romans, 
who could not see that it would be a grander thing to utter 
their pure Roman natures in sincere originality. So of 
women. The throne of intellect has so long been occupied 
by men, that women naturally deem themselves bound to 
attend the Court. Greece domineered over Rome ; its intel- 
lectual supremacy was recognized ; and the only way of rival- 
ling it seemed to be imitation. Yet not so did Rome vanquish 
Pyrrhus and his elephants, not by employing elephants to 
match his, but by Roman valor. 

Of all departments of literature, Fiction is the one to which, 
by nature and by circumstance, women are best adapted. 
Exceptional women will of course be found competent to the 
highest success in other departments ; but, speaking gene- 
rally, novels are their forte. The domestic experiences, which 
form the bulk of woman's knowledge, find an appropriate form 
in novels ; while the very nature of fiction calls for that pre- 
dominance of sentiment which we have already attributed to 
the feminine mind. Love is the staple of fiction, for it 
" forms the story of a woman's life." The joys and sorrows 
of affection, the incidents of domestic life, the aspirations and 
fluctuations of emotional life, assume typical forms in the 
novel. Hence we may be prepared to find women succeeding 
better in finesse of detail, in pathos and sentiment, while men 
generally succeed better in the construction of plots and the 
delineation of character. Such a novel as " Tom Jones " or 
" Vanity Fair " we shall not get from a woman, nor such an 
effort of imaginative history as " Ivanhoe " or " Old Mortal- 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 13 

ity ; " but Fielding, Thackeray, and Scott are equally excluded 
from such perfection in its kind as " Pride and Prejudice," 
" Indiana," or " Jane Eyre." As an artist, Miss Austen sur- 
passes all the male novelists that ever lived ; and, for elo- 
quence and depth of feeling, no man approaches George 
Sand. 

We are here led to another curious point in our subject, 
viz., the influence of Sorrow upon female literature. It may 
be said without exaggeration that almost all literature has 
some remote connection with suffering. " Speculation," said 
Novalis, " is disease." It certainly springs from a vague 
disquiet. Poetry is analogous to the pearl which the oyster 
secretes in its malady. 

" Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

What Shelley says of poets, applies with greater force to 
women. If they turn their thoughts to literature, it is 
when not purely an imitative act always to solace by some 
intellectual activity the sorrow that in silence wastes their 
lives ; and by a withdrawal of the intellect from the contem- 
plation of their pain, or by a transmutation of their secret 
anxieties into types, they escape from the pressure of that 
burden. If the accidents of her position make her solitary 
and inactive, or if her thwarted affections shut her somewhat 
from that sweet domestic and maternal sphere to which her 
whole being spontaneously moves, she turns to literature as 
to another sphere. We do not here simply refer to those no- 
torious cases where literature has been taken up with the 
avowed and conscious purpose of withdrawing thoughts from 
painful subjects, but to the unconscious unavowed influence 
of domestic disquiet and unfulfilled expectations, in deter- 
mining the sufferer to intellectual activity. The happy wife 
and busy mother are only forced into literature by some he- 
reditary organic tendency, stronger even than the domestic ; 
and hence it is that the cleverest women are not always 
those who have written books. 



14 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Having said thus much on the general subject of female 
novel writing, let us glance rapidly, and without pretence of 
exhaustive criticism, at some of the novelists ; doing in care- 
less prose what Leigh Hunt has done in genial verse in his 
"Blue Stocking Revels." We have been great readers and 
great admirers of female novels ; and although it is difficult 
to give authors a satisfactory reason for not including their 
names among the most celebrated, we beg our fair novelists 
to put the most generous construction upon all our " omis- 
sions," and to believe that when we are ungallant and omis- 
sive, there is " a design under it " as profound as that under 
Swift's dulness. To include all would obviously be impos- 
sible in these limits ; and we shall purposely exclude some 
names of undoubted worth and renown, in order not even to 
seem invidious. 

First and foremost let Jane Austen be named, the greatest 
artist that has ever written, using the term to signify the 
most perfect mastery over the means to her end. There are 
heights and depths in human nature Miss Austen has never 
scaled nor fathomed, there are worlds of passionate existence 
into which she has never set foot ; but although this is obvi- 
ous to every reader, it is equally obvious that she has risked 
no failures by attempting to delineate that which she had not 
seen. Her circle may be restricted, but it is complete. Her 
world is a perfect orb, and vital. Life, as it presents itself 
to an English gentlewoman peacefully yet actively engaged 
in her quiet village, is mirrored in her works with a purity 
and fidelity that must endow them with interest for all time. 
To read one of her books is like an actual experience of life ; 
you know the people as if you had lived with them, and you 
feel something of personal affection towards them. The mar- 
vellous reality and subtle distinctive traits noticeable in her 
portraits has led Macaulay to call her a prose Shakspeare. 
If the whole force of the distinction which lies in that epithet 
prose be fairly appreciated, no one, we think, will dispute the 
compliment ; for out of Shakspeare it would be difficult to 
find characters so typical yet so nicely demarcated within the 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 15 

limits of their kind. We do not find such profound psycho- 
logical insight as may be found in George Sand (not to 
mention male writers), but taking the type to which the 
characters belong, we see the most intimate and accurate 
knowledge in all Miss Austen's creations. 

Only cultivated minds fairly appreciate the exquisite art of 
Miss Austen. Those who demand the stimulus of " effects," 
those who can only see by strong lights and shadows, will 
find her tame and uninteresting. We may illustrate this by 
one detail. Lucy Steele's bad English, so delicately and 
truthfully indicated, would in the hands of another have 
been more obvious, more " effective " in its exaggeration ; but 
the loss of this comic effect is more than replaced to the cul- 
tivated reader by his relish of the nice discrimination visible 
in its truthfulness. And so of the rest. Strong lights are 
unnecessary, true lights being at command. The incidents, 
the characters, the dialogue all are of every-day life ; and 
so truthfully presented, that to appreciate the art we must 
try to imitate it, or carefully compare it with that of others. 

We are but echoing an universal note of praise in speaking 
thus highly of her works ; and it is from no desire of simply 
swelling that chorus of praise that we name her here, but to 
call attention to the peculiar excellence, at once womanly and 
literary, which has earned this reputation. Of all imagina- 
tive writers, she is the most real. Never does she transcend 
her own actual experience, never does her pen trace a line 
that does not touch the experience of others. Herein we 
recognize the first quality of literature. We recognize the 
second and more special quality of womanliness in the tone 
and point of view ; they are novels written by a woman, an 
Englishwoman, a gentlewoman ; no signature could disguise 
that fact ; and because she has so faithfully (although uncon- 
sciously) kept to her own womanly point of view, her works 
are durable. There is nothing of the doctrinaire in Jane 
Austen, not a trace of woman's " mission ; " but as the most 
truthful, charming, humorous, pure-minded, quick-witted, and 
unexaggerated of writers, female literature has reason to be 
proud of her. 



16 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Of greater genius, and incomparably deeper experience, 
George Sand represents woman's literature more illustriously 
and more obviously. In her, quite apart from the magnificent 
gifts of Nature, we see the influence of Sorrow, as a deter- 
mining impulse to write, and the abiding consciousness of 
the womanly point of view as the subject-matter of her writ- 
ings. In vain has she chosen the mask of a man ; the features 
of a woman are everywhere visible. Since Goethe, no one 
has been able to say with so much truth, " My writings are 
my confessions." Her biography lies there, presented, in- 
deed, in a fragmentary shape, and under wayward disguises, 
but nevertheless giving to the motley groups the strange and 
unmistakable charm of reality. Her grandmother, by whom 
she was brought up, disgusted at her not being a boy, resolved 
to remedy the misfortune as far as possible by educating her 
like a boy. We may say of this, as of all the other irregular- 
ities of her strange and exceptional life, that whatever un- 
happiness and error may be traceable thereto, its influence on 
her writings has been beneficial, by giving a greater range to 
her experience. It may be selfish to rejoice over the malady 
which secretes a pearl, but the possessor of the pearl may 
at least congratulate himself that at any rate the pearl has 
been produced ; and so of the unhappiness of genius. Cer- 
tainly few women have had such profound and varied expe- 
rience as George Sand ; none have turned it to more account. 
Her writings contain many passages that her warmest ad- 
mirers would wish unwritten ; but although severe criticism 
may detect the weak places, the severest criticism must con- 
clude with the admission of her standing among the highest 
minds of literature. In the matter of eloquence, she surpasses 
everything France has yet produced. There has been no 
style at once so large, so harmonious, so expressive, and so 
unaffected ; like a light shining through an alabaster vase, 
the ideas shine through her diction ; while as regards rhyth- 
mic melody of phrase, it is a style such as Beethoven might 
have written, had he uttered in words the melodious passion 
that was in him. 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 17 

But deeper than all eloquence, grander than all grandeur of 
phrase, is that forlorn splendor of a life of passionate expe- 
rience painted in her works. There is no man so wise but he 
may learn from them, for they are the utterances of a soul in 
pain, a soul that has been tried. No man could have written 
her books, for no man could have had her experience, even 
with a genius equal to her own. The philosopher may smile 
sometimes at her philosophy, for that is only a reflex of some 
man whose ideas she has adopted ; the critic may smile some- 
times at her failure in delineating men ; but both philosopher 
and critic must perceive that those writings of hers are origi- 
nal, are genuine, are transcripts of experience, and as such 
fulfil the primary condition of all literature. It is not our 
present purpose to enter upon details, but we may add in 
passing that although all her works will be found to partake 
of the character of confessions, there is one wherein the bio- 
graphical element takes a more definite and literal shape, 
viz., in "Lucrezia Floriani." Wide as the incidents of 
this story are from the truth, the characters of Lucrezia, 
Karol, and Vandoni are more like portraits than is usual 
with her. 

By a whimsical transition our thoughts wander to Lady 
Morgan, the " Wild Irish Girl," who delighted our fathers, 
and gave the " Quarterly " an opportunity of displaying its 
accustomed amenity and nice feeling for the sex. Lady Mor- 
gan has been a stanch upholder of the rights of woman, and 
in her own person vindicated the claims of the sex to be heard 
as authors. But Leigh Hunt shall touch her portrait for 
us : 



" And dear Lady Morgan ! look, look how she comes, 
With her pulses all beating for freedom, like drums 
So Irish, so modish, so mixtish, so wild ; 
So committing herself, as she talks, like a child, 
So trim yet so easy, polite yet high-hearted, 
That truth and she, try all she can, won't be parted. 
She '11 put on your fashions, your latest new air, 
And then talk so frankly, she '11 make you all stare." 
2 



18 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

From the same hand you shall have a sketch of Miss Edge- 
worth a strange contrast to her countrywoman just 
named : 

" At the sight of Miss Edgeworth, he a said, ' Here comes one 
As sincere and as kind as lives under the sun ; 
Not poetical, eh 1 nor much given to insist 
On utilities not in utility's list. 
(Things, nevertheless, without which the large heart 
Of my world would but play a poor husk of a part.) 
But most truly within her own sphere sympathetic 
And that 's no mean help towards the practice poetic/ 
Then smiling he said a most singular thing 
He thanked her for making him ' saving of string ' ! ! 
But, for fear she should fancy he did n't approve her in 
Matters more weighty, praised much her ' Manoeuvring ; ' 
A book, which, if aught could pierce craninms so dense, 
Might supply cunning folks with a little good sense. 
And her Irish (he added), poor souls! so impressed him, 
He knew not if most they amused, or distressed him ! " 

Miss Edgeworth possesses in a remarkable degree the pe- 
culiarly feminine quality of Observation ; though but little of 
that other quality, Sentiment, which distinguishes female 
writers, and which, combined with observation, constitutes 
the staple of novels. Indeed one might class novelists thus : 
1st, those remarkable for Observation ; 2d, those remarka- 
ble for Sentiment ; 3d, those remarkable for the combination 
of the two. Observation without sentiment usually leads to 
humor or satire; sentiment without observation to rhetoric 
and long-drawn lachrymosity. The extreme fault of the one 
is flippant superficiality ; that of the other is what is called 
"sickly sentimentality." 

Miss Burney, for example, had a quick observation, nota- 
bly of ridiculous details, and with a certain broad vulgar 
gauge of human nature, contrived to write one or two novels 
that admirably reflected the passing manners of her age ; but 
when as in the " Wanderer " she attempted to interest by 
sentiment, her failure was hopeless. L. E. L., on the other 

1 Apollo. 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 19 

hand, was essentially deficient in that which made the repu- 
tation of Fanny Burney ; but her quick emotive nature, trem- 
bling with sensibility, enabled her to write passages of 
exquisite beauty, which were not, however, more durable 
than mere emotion is. Mrs. Gore, again, who might, per- 
haps, with more care bestowed upon her works, have been 
the Fanny Burney of our age, exhibits in every chapter the 
marvellous finesse and quickness of observation, winged with 
a certain airy gayety of style which, if it be not wit, has half 
the charm of wit ; and this faculty of observation has al- 
lowed her to write heaps of fashionable novels, as fugitive as 
the fashions they reflect, yet as gay and pleasant. But who 
does not miss in them that element of serious sentiment 
which gives to other novels their pathos, their poetry, their 
psychology ? 

We might run through the list of female writers, thus con- 
trasting them, noting the strong sarcastic observation of Mrs. 
Trollope and the wearisome sentimentality of Mrs. Marsh 
(who has, nevertheless, written one most powerful tale, 
" The Admiral's Daughter," and whose most popular work, 
" Emilia Wyndham," we are willing to take upon trust, not 
having read it) ; but the excursion would carry us beyond our 
limits. Enough, if we have indicated the point of view. 

Two celebrated women whose works have produced an ex- 
traordinary "sensation" the authoress of "Jane Eyre," 
and the authoress of "Mary Barton " owe their success, we 
believe, to the union of rare yet indispensable qualities. 
They have both given imaginative expression to actual expe- 
rience ; they have not invented, but reproduced ; they have 
preferred the truth, such as their own experience testified, to 
the vague, false, conventional notions current in circulating 
libraries. Whatever of weakness may be pointed out in their 
works will, we are positive, be mostly in those parts where 
experience is deserted, and the supposed requirements of fic- 
tion have been listened to ; whatever has really affected the 
public mind is, we are equally certain, the transcript of some 
actual incident, character, or emotion. Note, moreover, that 



20 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

beyond this basis of actuality these writers have the further 
advantage of deep feeling united to keen observation. The 
presence of observation is more apparent in " Mary Barton " 
than in " Jane Eyre," as it is possibly more predominant in 
the mind of the authoress ; and this is why there never was 
even a momentary doubt as to the writer's sex, a woman's 
delicate hand being visible in the strongest pages ; whereas 
" Jane Eyre " was not only attributed to a man, but one of 
the most keen-witted and observing of female writers dog- 
matically pronounced, upon internal evidence, that none but a 
man could have written it. The force and even fierceness of 
the style certainly suggested doubts, but what man could have 
drawn Jane herself ; above all, what man could so have drawn 
Rochester ! The lyrical tendency the psychological and 
emotional tendency which prevails in " Jane Eyre " may 
have blinded some to the rare powers of observation also ex- 
hibited in the book ; a critical examination, however, will at 
once set this right, the more so when we know that the au- 
thoress has led a solitary life in a secluded part of Yorkshire, 
and has had but little opportunities of seeing the world. She 
has made the most of her material. 

The deep impression produced on Europe by George Sand 
has naturally caused many imitations, notably in Germany 
and France. As to the Germans, palmam qui meruit ferat ! 
" let the most gifted bear away the palm ; " and the palm of bad 
novel-writing certainly belongs to them. However, as the 
names of these Indianas and Lelias have scarcely crossed the 
German Ocean, we will leave them in untroubled emanci- 
pation 

" non ragioniam di lor 
Ma guarda e passa." 

The name of Daniel Stern (pseudonyme for the Comtesse 
d'Agoult) has had more attention. Her first appearance was 
in "Nelida," a novel in which she idealized herself, and 
branded her truant lover, Franz Liszt. It had a certain 
" succes de scandale." The assumption of a man's name, and 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 21 

the abiding imitation of Madame Sand, lessened, perhaps, the 
admiration the novel would otherwise have excited, because 
it claimed a standard to which, in no sense, could it be com- 
pared. Since that, Daniel Stern has earned a more serious 
reputation as a political and historical writer. Her " History 
of the Revolution of 1848 " is the best that has been written 
on that subject. 

Apropos of " Nelida," and of Lady Bulwer Lytton's novels, 
it may be pertinent to distinguish between writing out your 
actual experience in fiction, and using fiction as a medium for 
obtruding your private history on the sympathies of the pub- 
lic. We hold that the author is bound to use actual experi- 
ence as his material, or else to keep silent ; but he is equally 
bound by all moral and social considerations not to use that 
experience in such forms that the public will recognize it, and 
become, as it were, initiated into the private affairs of his 
characters. If he avow himself as the Juvenal or Aristoph- 
anes of his age, and satirize his friends and foes, he has, 
at any rate, the excuse that every one is on guard against 
avowed satire. But if he have been mixed up in some deplo- 
rable history which has become notorious, and if he take ad- 
vantage of that notoriety to tell his version of it under the 
transparent disguise of fiction, then we say he violates all 
principle of truth and of literature ; because in fiction he has 
an immunity from falsehood. He does not profess to tell 
you the story, yet he gives you to understand what he wishes. 
He paints himself as an injured innocent ; and if you object 
to his portrait of you, as that of an incarnate demon, his 
answer is ready : " That is a character in my novel ; who said 
it was a portrait of you ? " 

It was notorious, for example, that Madame Sand had lived 
for some years with Chopin, and that Madame d'Agoult had 
children by Liszt, and that both women had finally separated 
from their lovers. Now, although we hold that if Madame 
Sand or Madame d'Agoult wished to write, they were bound 
to go back for material to their own personal experience, it 
is quite clear that, in so doing, they were bound, by the very 



22 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

notoriety of their histories, to work up that material into 
shapes so unlike the outward form of these histories, that 
no one should detect the origin. Instead of doing so, 
they both take the public into confidence, and manage to 
paint themselves as victims, and their lovers as insupport- 
able. We are touching upon a delicate distinction, but the 
moral sense of every impartial reader easily distinguishes 
between the legitimate and illegitimate employment of 
experience. 

As examples of the legitimate employment, let us name the 
works of Geraldine Jewsbury and Eliza Lynn, two writers in 
whom the influence of George Sand is traceable, and in whom, 
although we know that actual experience is taken as the ma- 
terial used, no one ever pretends to recognize private life. 
Eecurring to our rough classification, we should cite Miss 
Jewsbury as one in whom observation and sentiment were 
about equal ; but although she possesses, in an eminent de- 
gree, both qualities, she does not work them harmoniously 
together. Her keen womanly observation of life gives to her 
novels the piquancy of sarcasm, and her deep womanly feel- 
ing of life gives to them the warmth and interest of senti- 
ment ; but there is a but ! the works seem rather the 
offspring of two minds than of one mind ; there is a want of 
unity in them, arising, perhaps, from want of art. Curious it 
is to trace the development of her mind in the three novels 
she has published at wide intervals : " Zoe," in which the 
impetuous passionate style clearly betrays the influence of 
George Sand ; " The Half-Sisters," in which the style is 
toned down to a more truthful pitch ; and " Marian With- 
ers," in which there is scarcely any trace of the turbulence 
and fervor of " Zoe." If we look closely we shall find that 
age and experience have had their customary influence, and, 
while subduing the exuberance of sentiment, have brought 
into greater prominence the strong characteristics of observa- 
tion. Miss Jewsbury excels in subtle and sometimes deep 
observation of morals as of manners ; and we look to her for 
still finer works than any she has yet written. 



THE LADY NOVELISTS. 23 

Miss Lynn occupies a strange and defiant position. In her 
first work, " Azeth," she astonished by the recondite reading 
exhibited in her Egyptian coloring, and by the daring volup- 
tuousness of her eloquence. In her second romance, " Amy- 
mone," she quitted Egypt for Greece, showed an equal 
amount of laborious study and of exuberant rhetoric, but as- 
sumed a still more hostile position against received notions 
by a paradoxical defence of Aspasia. In " Realities," a novel 
of our day, the antagonism was avowed, incessant, impetuous ; 
it was a passionate and exaggerated protest against conven- 
tions, which failed of its intended effect, because it was too 
exaggerated, too manifestly unjust. Splendor of diction, and 
a sort of rhythmic passion, rising oftentimes into accents of 
startling power, have never been denied her ; but one abiding 
defect of her novels we must allude to, and that is, the want 
of that observation which we have insisted on as a requisite 
in fiction. In " Realities " this want was singularly appar- 
ent, and gave it the air of unreality so detrimental to such a 
work. The realm of imagination is better suited to her 
powers than that of fact ; she feels deeply, paints vividly 
what she feels, but she sees dimly. 

Miss Muloch has also a great gift of eloquence, and con- 
siderable power in the dramatic presentation of character. 
" The Ogilvies," " Olive," and the " Head of the Family " 
may be compared with Miss Jewsbury's three novels, as indi- 
cating the rapid progress in observation, and a more subdued 
employment of sentiment ; although sentiment, after all, re- 
mains her forte. Not so the authoress of " Rose Douglas " 
and the " Two Families," in whom we recognize a wonderful 
truthfulness of touch in the portraiture of quiet village life 
and quiet village character. The authoress of " Margaret 
Maitland " excels in delineation of character of greater range 
and depth, and her pictures of Scottish life are among the 
most memorable and agreeable we know. They place her 
beside the charming Madame Charles Reybaud, whose nov- 
els, we may parenthetically add, are among the few French 
fictions admissible into the libraries of young ladies. 



24 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

But we must cease this rapid flight over the large field of 
female literature. We have done enough if in this bird's-eye 
view we have indicated the most characteristic details ; and 
we have proved our case if we have proved the right of 
Woman to citizenship in the Kepublic of Letters. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 

r~PlHEKE is no country which presents so many difficulties 
1 to the national historian as Germany, none in which 
the principle of centralization was so long and so completely 
excluded, and in which it still exists in so imperfect a degree. 
The Roman Germanic Empire was in its very essence opposed 
to that principle. It was the secular representation of the 
universality of the Church. Divided into above two hundred 
little states, which are completely independent of the other, 
being connected by no link save one common tongue, Ger- 
many, despite her poets' continual invocation of the " Father- 
land," has never had any real existence as a nation. Indeed, 
until the present century, the patriotic attachments and sym- 
pathies of her sons had always been confined to the particular 
spot which gave them birth. Whether in the Middle Ages, 
after the Reformation, or during the Thirty Years' War, we 
find the same civil feuds and divisions. The Germans were 
Guelphs and Ghibellines, Saxons or Thuringians, Bavarians 
or Swabians. The triumphs of Frederick the Great, the most 
popular of German heroes, were the triumphs of one German 
over the other, the humiliation of the House of Hapsburg by 
that of Brandenburg. It was not till the galling yoke of Napo- 
leon, by pressing with equal weight upon the whole empire, 
roused one universal thrill of shame and indignation, that 
for the first time, and for a brief space only, the Germans be- 
came indeed one nation. The peril over, the victory achieved, 
they relapsed once more into their former condition, and in 
this they still remain. This was strikingly exemplified in 
the Revolution of 1848, when the mutual jealousies between 
the various states, large and small, prevented the realiza- 



26 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

tion of their long-cherished project of forming a "united 
Germany." 

Under these circumstances, a national history must be 
admitted to be a most difficult undertaking. It is only with- 
in the last fifty years that it has been attempted, and 
even now, despite the high merits and popularity of Wenzel, 
Hatiser, and some others, with but partial success. On the 
other hand, the number of provincial and dynastic historians 
is particularly large. Justes, Moeser, Spittler, Schlosser, &c., 
have treated successively with more or less talent the origin 
and history of the little principalities to which they severally 
belong. Dr. Vehse has followed in their footsteps. His 
" History of the Prussian Court and People," which appeared 
in 1851, though very verbose and somewhat wearisome, still 
attracted sufficient attention to induce the author to follow 
it up by others of the Courts of Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, &c. 
It is the last of these which has just reached a second edi- 
tion, to which we now invite the reader's attention, deriving 
as it does a peculiar attraction from the individuals of whom 
it treats, the eccentric John Frederic Carl Auguste, the 
friend and patron of Goethe, his mother Amelia, the noble 
and high-minded Duchess Louise, who forced even the con- 
queror and oppressor of her native land to respect and admi- 
ration, and, above all, Goethe himself, and his contemporaries, 
Wieland, Herder, and Schiller. The other volumes prefixed 
to this article also throw some new light on the habits, man- 
ners, and history of the Court of Weimar. We shall therefore 
freely avail ourselves of them while sketching, as we now 
propose to do, some of the more salient features and incidents 
of that Court. 

Weimar, indeed, is but a little spot on the map of Europe ; 
but in the history of the empire to which it belongs, and, 
above all, in the history of the human mind, it occupies a far 
more conspicuous place than the proud capitals of Austria 
and Prussia. Its most brilliant days were at the close of the 
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. This 
was the golden age of German philosophy and literature, 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 27 

ai.d almost all the celebrated men of the epoch seem to have 
met in the capital of Carl Auguste's dominions. The Ger- 
man rulers had never evinced much inclination to favor the de- 
velopment of literary genius in their own land. They either 
despised it as unworthy their attention, or dreaded it as inimi- 
cal to their authority. It was to a foreign monarch that 
Klopstock was indebted for his pension, and all his worldly 
advantages. Schubert languished for ten long years in the 
prisons of Hohen-Asberg, without one neighboring sovereign 
interesting himself in his behalf, and was at length indebted 
for his freedom to the intercession of an English prince. 
Burger, poor and neglected, applied in vain to the greatest 
of German kings in his distress. Lessing owed nothing to 
any earthly potentate. Thus unaided and unprotected, Ger- 
man poetry had slowly but successfully emerged from ob- 
scurity, and worked out its way to the light. As yet, indeed, 
it had achieved no signal triumph ; no mighty master of song 
no Homer, no Dante, Milton, or Shakspeare had shone 
forth with dazzling splendor, to form the wonder of succeed- 
ing ages. Even the "Messiah" of Klopstock, hailed as it 
had been with rapturous applause, could not claim a place 
beside the glorious monuments of human genius of which 
Greece, Italy, and England may be so justly proud. But 
enough had been achieved to give hope and promise of brighter 
days. It was at this moment that a woman-regent of a little 
principality numbering scarcely thirty thousand inhab- 
itants, and hitherto almost unknown and unnoticed stepped 
forward as the good genius of her country's muse, and for- 
ever associated her name with that of its most gifted sons. 
While Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder are remem- 
bered, Amelia of Weimar will not be forgotten in the literary 
annals of the land those great names adorn. 

The founder of the present reigning House of Weimar (the 
younger branch of the Saxon line, the " Ernestonians," called 
after the first of their race) was the Duke William, born in 
1598. He was one of eleven brothers, among whom was that 
Bernard, so famous in the Thirty Years' War, and the unfor- 



28 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

tunate John Frederic, whose strange and tragic story st .11 
lives in the recollection of his countrymen. Like his brother, 
John Frederic offered his sword to the Protestant cause ; but 
,the singularity of his character, and the dark reports already 
attached to his name, made him rather shunned than sought 
by his companions-in-arms. It was rumored that he had 
devoted himself to forbidden studies, and the faith in witch- 
craft and demonology was at that time so universally dif- 
fused that the tale found easy credence. Far from seeking 
to destroy this impression, John Frederic did his best to con- 
firm it. Shutting himself up in his hereditary castle, he 
devoted his days and nights to the study of Paracelsus, Cor- 
nelius Agrippa, and other necromantic writers, in the hope 
of discovering the awful secrets of magic ; his name became 
a byword, and nothing but his rank and position saved him 
from the fate of a sorcerer. In the year 1625 he entered the 
service of King Christian of Denmark, then at the head of 
the Protestant cause, in whose ranks his younger brother, 
the famous Bernard, had already enlisted. But a dispute 
with a Danish officer, in which his violent and unjustifiable 
conduct excited general indignation, soon brought about his 
dismissal. Burning with rage, he abandoned the Protestant 
cause and faith, and joined the Imperial army, where he was 
well received. Ere long, however, he was compelled to fly, 
in consequence of a duel in which he ran his adversary 
through the body, and falling into the hands of the enraged 
Protestants, was thrown into a dungeon and loaded with 
fetters, as at once a renegade, a traitor, a maniac, and magi- 
cian attributes, one alone of which would have sufficed to 
render him an object of universal horror and detestation. 
Tha Court of Weimar claiming him, he was given up to it 
on condition of his being kept in close custody a con- 
dition rigorously fulfilled. Caged like a wild beast, conscious 
that he was the object of general hatred and terror, the mind 
of the wretched captive, already deeply shaken, completely 
gave way, till, in a fit of despair or insanity, he declared he 
had entered into a pact with the devil, had signed it with his 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 29 

blood, and hourly expected his deliverance by the Prince of 
Darkness. What passed on a certain awful night in the cap- 
tive's chamber has never been revealed to human ear; but 
the next morning the wretched man was found dead on the 
floor, bathed in blood. The report was industriously spread 
that the foul fiend, enraged by his disclosure of their secret 
intercourse, had destroyed the wretched prisoner, as he had 
destroyed Faust, and so many others who had pledged their 
eternal weal ; and that in the dead of night unearthly howl- 
ings had rent the air, and that the very walls had trembled 
as though shaken by an earthquake. But the immediate 
reception of the guards, who had watched the captive, into 
the Duke's service, the lavish bestowal of presents on the 
captains and officers, and the absence of all investigation, 
seem to point to a more probable, though scarcely less horrid, 
solution of the gloomy tale. However this may be, the 
popular belief, as usual in Germany, inclined to the super- 
natural version of the story. The building which had been 
the scene of the tragedy was shut up ; and such was the terror 
with which it was regarded, that an inhabitant of Weimar 
would have gone miles out of his way, rather than pass it 
after sunset. At length, in 1817, it was pulled down, and 
its place supplied by modern houses, to which is attached no 
such fearful mystery. This crime of fratricide, if indeed it 
was committed by the Duke of Weimar, is strangely in con- 
trast with his general character that of an honest, open- 
hearted man. He reigned peacefully for twenty years ; his 
successor was so deeply engrossed by theological pursuits that 
he found little time for the duties of government, holding 
religious conferences, and examining his hearers on the state 
of their consciences, instead of attending to public affairs. 
His grandson, Ernest Augustus, was one of the most singular 
characters of the day, and occupies some amusing pages in 
the memoirs of the Margravine of Baireuth, who met him at 
her father-in-law's court in 1732. He was carried off by a 
fever when his son, the father of Carl Auguste, had attained 
his eleventh year; and that prince likewise dying, at the 



30 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

age of one-and-twenty, his widow, Amelia, became Dowager 
Duchess of Weimar. 

Amelia of Brunswick was born the 14th of October, 1742. 
The Court of Brunswick was at that period the most highly 
cultivated in Germany, and the princess enjoyed the advan- 
tages of a careful and solid education. Her youth, however, 
was far from happy. Her father, stern, cold, and haughty, 
regarded his children, especially his daughters, as mere house- 
hold appendages, to be disposed of as best suited his personal 
convenience and his political interests. The strict etiquette 
on which he insisted, not only deprived the young girl of all 
the delights of intimate friendship with those of her own age, 
but exercised a chilling influence even over the heart of her 
royal mother, and introduced itself like a dark spectre be- 
tween parent and child. In 1756 she was given in marriage 
to the Duke of Weimar. It was a union in which the heart 
had little share. "I was married as princesses generally 
are," she said; nevertheless, she could not but rejoice at her 
deliverance from the harsh treatment to which she had been 
subjected under the parental roof, and which, it appears, 
went even to the length of blows. Her gentle sweetness 
gained the confidence and affection of her not very congenial 
spouse, so as to render her married life at least supportable, 
if not happy. In 1757 she became the mother of Carl Au- 
guste. A year later her husband died, leaving her enciente 
with her second son, Constantine. By the Duke's will, Ame- 
lia's father was appointed Regent, and guardian of mother 
and children ; but at the expiration of a twelvemonth, the 
fair widow was declared of age by the Emperor, and invested 
with the sole regency of her little realm. 

Her position was a difficult one for a young, lovely, and 
inexperienced woman; but the zeal and earnestness with 
which she applied herself to her new duties went far to sup- 
ply the place of the knowledge of affairs and practical wisdom 
in which she was necessarily deficient. The following docu- 
ment, found among her papers after her decease, will give 
some idea of her thoughts at this momentous epoch of her 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 31 

existence, and proves that it was not only in the family of 
Frederic William of Prussia that princesses were subject to 
corporeal chastisement : 

MY THOUGHTS. 

From childhood my lot has been nothing but self-sacrifice. Never 
was education so little fitted as mine to form one destined to rule 
others. Those who directed it themselves needed direction; she to 
whose guidance I was entrusted was the sport of every passion, sub- 
ject to innumerable wayward caprices, of which I became the unre- 
sisting victim. Unloved by my parents, ever kept in the background, 
I was regarded as the outcast of the family. The sensitive feelings 
I had received from nature made me keenly alive to this cruel 
treatment; it often drove me to despair. I became silent, reserved, 
concentrated, and thus gained a certain firmness, which gradually 
degenerated into obstinacy. I suffered myself to be reproached, in- 
sulted, beaten, without uttering a word, and still, as far as possible, 
persisted in my own course. At length, in my sixteenth year, I was 
married. In my seventeenth I became a mother. It was the first 
unmingled joy I had ever known. It seemed to me as though a host 
of new and varied feelings had sprung into life with my child. My 
heart became lighter, my ideas clearer ; I gained more confidence in 
myself. In my eighteenth year arrived the greatest epoch in my life. 
I became a mother for the second time, a widow, and Regent of the 
Duchy. The sudden changes, which one after another had taken place 
in my existence, created such a tumult in my mind, that for some time 
I could scarcely realize what had occurred. A rush of ideas and feel- 
ings, all undeveloped, and no friend to whom I could open my heart! 
I felt my own incapacity, and yet I was compelled to find everything 
in my own resources. Never have I prayed Math truer or deeper de- 
votion than at that moment. I believe I might have become the 
greatest of saints. When the first storm was over, and I could look 
within and around with more calmness, my feelings were, I confess, 
those of awakened vanity. To be Regent, so young ! to rule and 
command ! It could not be otherwise. But a secret voice whispered, 
Beware! I heard it, and my better reason triumphed. Truth and 
self-love straggled for the mastery ; truth prevailed. Then came war. 
My brothers and nearest relations were crowned with laurels. Nothing 
was heard but the name of Brunswick. It was sung alike by friend 
and foe. This roused my ambition. I, too, longed for praise. Day 



32 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

and night I studied to render myself mistress of my new duties. Then 
I felt how absolutely I needed a friend in whom I could place my entire 
confidence. There were many who courted my favors, some by 
flattery, others by a show of disinterestedness. I seemed to accept 
all, in the hope that among them I should find the pearl of great 
price. At length I did find it, and it filled me with the same joy 
which others experience at the discovery of a treasure. If a prince, 
and the individual he selects as a confidant, are both noble-minded, 
the sincerest affection may exist between them ; and thus the question 
is decided, whether or no princes can have friends. 

These extracts prove how deeply the young Duchess felt 
the responsibility of her new position. She soon displayed 
talents for government which, in a wider sphere of action, 
might have given her a name in history. The state of the 
little Duchy was lamentable ; the treasury was empty, agri- 
culture was neglected, and the people were discontented. 
With the aid of her faithful ministers she succeeded in re- 
storing something like order to the exhausted finances, estab- 
lished schools and charitable asylums, and left untried no 
means of promoting the general prosperity. Disgusted by 
the wearisome etiquette of which her youth had been a victim, 
she banished all that was not absolutely indispensable to the 
due maintenance of her dignity ; while in her love of litera- 
ture she succeeded in drawing round her a galaxy of genius 
which recalled the Court of Ferrara in the days of Alfonso. 
The first who answered her call was Herder. After spending 
some years at Biickeburg, one of the innumerable little prin- 
cipalities into which Germany was then divided, he accepted 
her proposal to settle at Weimar, as chaplain, and superinten- 
dent of the schools she had established there. 

Few men have possessed greater virtues, or faculties more 
lofty and varied than Herder. Like Lessing, he may be re- 
garded as one of the pioneers of the German intellect. But 
his temper was too uncertain, his sensibility too morbidly 
keen, to permit him to live on very good terms with those 
around him. He was perpetually imagining some offence 
where none was intended, and lending every word and action 






WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 33 



an import of which their authors probably had never even 
dreamt. He reminds us of an instrument of exquisite tone, 
in which, by some fault of mechanism, a slight but oft-recur- 
ring jar mars the delicious harmony. Perhaps his frequent 
attacks of ill health, his position, which never exactly suited 
his taste or his temperament, may in some degree account 
for the fits of irritability and hypochondria which at times 
darkened his noble nature. These defects, however, did not 
prevent him from being generally loved and admired, both 
as a writer and a man. A poet, in the highest sense of the 
word, perhaps he was not, for in the creative faculty he was 
deficient ; but no man had a deeper sense of the beautiful, or 
keener powers of analysis and criticism. Indeed, whatever 
the defects of his works, they are forgotten amid their many 
beauties. In every line we trace a pure, noble, lofty spirit, 
the love of God and man; a mind equally removed from 
incredulity and bigotry. " He was inspired," says Edgar 
Quiiiet, one of his warmest admirers, "by something nobler 
than love of fame, by a sincere and constant desire to pro- 
mote the best and highest interests of humanity." 

Wieland played a more conspicuous part than Herder at 
the little Court of Weimar. When he first made his appear- 
ance, he was at the very zenith of his popularity, the pride 
and darling of his countrymen. His " Oberon/' indeed, on 
which his celebrity principally if not entirely rests, the only 
one of his numerous productions which still maintains its 
place among the classic works of Germany, was not yet com- 
posed; but his poem of "Musarion," in which Goethe de- 
lighted, and the classic romance, the " Agathon," now almost 
forgotten, sufficed to raise him to the very pinnacle of liter- 
ary fame. The latter, indeed, had called forth the unmingled 
praises of the severe Lessing, who, in his " Dramaturgic," 
declared it, without contradiction, "the most remarkable 
work of its era." Carl Auguste was then in his sixteenth 
year. The high and varied endowments, and the private 
virtues of Wieland, decided the Duchess on selecting him as 
the preceptor of the young prince. The appointment, indeed, 

3 



34 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

was not unopposed, for spotless as was Wieland's life, his 
works were by no means equally immaculate ; and it was but 
too easy to point out passages, both in the " Agathon " and 
" Musarion," strangely at variance with that sound and lofty 
morality which ought to form the basis of every education, 
more especially that of one born to rule the destinies of his 
fellow-men. But the Duchess, who, despite her unsullied 
purity, was somewhat tainted by the philosophy of the day, 
and who held the delusive though plausible theory that no 
license of tone, or warmth of coloring, could injure any really 
healthful and high-toned mind, cast these objections to the 
wind. We have Wieland's well-known honor as guarantee 
that he never betrayed the sacred trust reposed in him. But 
there were not wanting many who attributed that tendency 
to licentious habits which was the only stain upon Carl 
Auguste's many virtues if not to the instructions of his 
tutor, at least to the perusal of his works, the evil effects of 
which even his example could not suffice to neutralize. The 
emolument offered to Wieland was so small as to appear 
almost ludicrous in our eyes. He was to receive 1000 gulden, 
or 90 per annum, for three years, to be followed by the 
magnificent pension of 300 gulden, or 23 per annum for 
life. But in this world everything is comparative. The 
90 went further in Germany in the eighteenth century 
than 300 would in England at the present day. 

The tastes of the inhabitants were simple. The price of 
all the necessaries of life was comparatively small. 1 Schiller, 
some years later, declared that he could live charmingly at 
Jena for 300 florins, or 60 per annum, with wife and chil- 
dren ; that he had a servant who, when necessary, could per- 
form the part of a secretary, for 18s. per quarter, and a 
carriage and horses for 60. per annum. Thus Wieland's 
salary, with what he gained by his literary labors, was suffi- 
cient for his wants and those of an increasing family. The 
close intimacy between the Duchess Amelia and her son's 

1 Beef was 4 kreutzers (a penny farthing) per pound ; wood, 6 gulden, or 
11s. a load (it is now 28 gulden) ; and everything in proportion. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 35 

tutor was broken only by death. Nor could even the more 
brilliant glory of a Goethe or a Schiller eclipse his in the 
estimation of this devoted friend. 

In 1776 the Duchess resigned the reins of government to 
Carl Auguste, then eighteen years of age, and set out for 
Italy, that land which had ever been the darling dream of 
her existence. 

" My son," were her last words on quitting her little capi- 
tal, " I confide to your hands the happiness of your subjects ; 
be it your care as it has been mine." In many respects Carl 
Auguste was no ordinary man. Frederick the Great, who 
saw him at the Court of Brunswick in 1771, when he was but 
fourteen, declared he had never beheld a youth who at an 
early age justified such lofty hopes ; and in 1775, the prince- 
primate Dalberg, writing to Gorres, observes : " He unites an 
excellent understanding to all the frankness and true heart- 
iness of his age ; he has a princely soul such as I have never 
yet seen. Taught both by precept and example to place little 
value upon empty pomp and splendor, he carries his dislike 
to all courtly forms and ceremonials to an even exaggerated 
degree." How early and how well Carl Auguste had learnt to 
value genius, is evident from the discourse he addressed to 
his Council in his nineteenth j"ear, in which he expressed his 
intention of inviting Goethe to his Court. " The judgment of 
the world," observes the young prince, " may perhaps censure 
me for placing Dr. Goethe in my most important university, 
without his having passed the grades of professor, chancellor, 
&c. The world judges according to its own prejudices ; but I 
do not act like others, for the sake of fame or the approbation 
of the world, but to justify myself before God and my own 
conscience." 

Occasionally the thoughtlessness and reckless love of 
pleasure, which in his earlier years contrasted so strangely 
with the Duke's loftier qualities of head and heart, may 
have led him astray ; but his nature was essentially gener- 
ous and noble, his ear ever open to the cry of the suffering 
and distressed, his hand ever ready, so far as his means al- 



36 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

lowed, to aid them. In 1774 the Duke left Weimar to cele- 
brate his union with the Princess Louise. On his way 
through Frankfort, Goethe, already celebrated as the author 
of " Gotz von Berlichingen " and " Werter," was introduced 
to him. Fascinated by the charm of his genius, by the grace 
and gayety of his manner, the Duke invited him to visit his 
Court ; and Goethe, only too happy to escape from Frankfort, 
and from the vicinity of the fair Lili, that bright being he 
had, at least as he imagined, once so passionately loved, but 
whom he had, as usual, discovered was not a meet partner for 
his glorious destinies, at once accepted the proposition. 

It was arranged that the Duke's chamberlain, Herr von 
Kalb, who having lingered behind at Strasburg to execute 
some commissions for his master, was to arrive at Frankfort 
on a certain day, should call for the new guest. But days 
and weeks passed on, and no Von Kalb made his appearance. 
Goethe's father was a burgher of the old school, and, thor- 
oughly disliking kings and princes, had always been exceed- 
ingly averse to the project. He now insisted that the whole 
affair was a hoax, and urged his son to wait no longer, but to 
set off at once on his long-proposed journey to Italy, and 
Goethe at length consented. In the journal he now com- 
menced, which, however, was carried on only for a very brief 
period, we find certain expressions which induce the belief 
that his resolutions to break off his marriage with Lili were 
aided by a dawning inclination for another, Augusta Stolberg, 
sister to the two counts of that name. " How shall I call 
thee," he writes, " thou whom I cherish as a spring blossom 
in my heart ? Thou shalt bear the name of fairest flower. 
How shall I take leave of thee ? Comfort for it is time 
the full time. A few days, and already oh, farewell! 
Am I, then, only in the world to involve myself eternally in 
involuntary guilt ? " 

The meaning of these last words is not very apparent, un- 
less it be that Goethe's feelings toward Augusta were of a 
warmer nature than has generally been supposed. The cor- 
respondence is altogether of the most romantic cast ; and 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 37 

many of the letters, written long before Goethe's engagement 
with Lili was broken off, sound not a little strange from a 
man passionately attached and already affianced to another. 
" My dearest," he writes, in one of the earliest of these epis- 
tles, " I will give you no name, for what are the names of 
friend, sister, beloved, bride, or even a word which would 
comprehend all these, in comparison with my feelings ? I 
can write no more." To this he added his silhouette, en- 
treating she would send him hers in return. The receipt of 
it seems to have filled him with delight. " How completely 
is my belief in physiognomy confirmed," he writes ; " that 
pure thoughtful eye, that sweet firm nose, those dear lips. 
Thanks, my love, thanks. Oh ! that I could repose in your 
heart, rest in your eyes." It is true that Goethe had never 
seen Augusta, and that her rank as Countess rendered a 
union with her in those days almost impossible ; so strict was 
the line of demarcation between the nobles and burghers, that 
even Goethe's already brilliant fame would not have enabled 
him to surmount the barrier. Nor, perhaps, did the idea ever 
take a tangible form ; but it seems pretty certain that this 
half-ideal, half-romantic passion for one whom imagination 
invested with every conceivable perfection, tended somewhat 
to cool his affection for the gay open-hearted young creature, 
who, while loving him with truth and tenderness, was too 
much accustomed to homage to hang upon his every word 
and look as Fredricka had done, and Augusta seemed inclined 
to do. 1 

Goethe proceeded to Heidelberg, and from thence was 
about to depart to Italy when the long-expected messenger 
from Weimar arrived, and he set off post-haste for the little 
capital of which he was henceforth to be the brightest orna- 
ment. His appearance was the signal for fetes and rejoicings, 
and he himself seems to have given free vent to the spirit of 
youthful gayety and love of pleasure which at this time pos- 
sessed him. 

1 Mr. Lewes does not appear to attach any importance to this correspond- 
ence, and scarcely notices it ; but it will be found published in extenso. 



38 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

The author of the " Musen Hof," who is nevertheless one of 
his warmest admirers, declares that his immediate influence 
over the young Duke was not peculiarly beneficial, as he led 
him into dissipations prejudicial alike to his health and do- 
mestic happiness ; and certainly the letters of his contempo- 
raries of Bottiger, Berteuch, Knebel, nay of Madame von 
Stein herself seem to have corroborated this assertion. 
" Goethe," says the latter, " causes a terrible commotion 
here ; all our happiness has disappeared. A ruler dissatisfied 
with himself and every one about him, risking his life con- 
stantly in mad follies, with little health to sustain him, a 
mother annoyed and vexed, a wife discontented, &c." It is 
evident that the strange mode of existence in which the Duke 
and Goethe indulged, and the infelicity of the royal pair 
which seems to have been the result, must have attracted 
general attention, since it reached the ears of Klopstock, and 
induced the aged poet to address a letter to Goethe on the 
subject, which, like most advice of a similar nature, served 
only to displease all parties. 

We will not enter further into this much-vexed question. 
At all events, Goethe soon grew weary of a mode of life so 
little in accordance with the higher aspirations of the poet's 
soul. He gradually retired more and more from the noisy 
pleasures of the Court, spending a considerable portion of his 
time in the quiet retirement of his garden pavilion. A new 
and all-engrossing passion had likewise its share in with- 
drawing him from pursuits unworthy of his nobler nature. 
He loved, not indeed for the first, second, or third time, as 
his annals attest, but with a warmth, a tenderness, and, 
above all, a constancy, which neither the fair, innocent, and 
trusting Fredricka, nor the bright and graceful Lili, had 
been able to inspire. And yet the woman to whom was re- 
served the triumph of fettering for ten long years the heart 
of one of the most gifted and most inconstant of mortals, was 
no longer in the early bloom of womanhood ; she had attained 
her thirty-third year, and Goethe was but twenty-eight. 
Beautiful in the strict sense of the word she had never been, 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 39 

but there was a mingled grace, sweetness, and dignity in her 
glance and demeanor which exercised a singular fascination 
on all around her. Goethe, the young, the gallant, the ad- 
mired of all admirers, was at once enthralled by her spell. 
" I can only explain," he writes to Wieland, " the power she 
exercises over me, by the theory of the transmigration of 
souls. Yes ! we were formerly man and wife. Now, I can 
find no name for us, for the past, the future." Unluckily, 
Charlotte von Stein was already the wife of another, the 
mother of six children. That she returned the passion of 
her adorer cannot be doubted ; but if we are to believe the 
assurance of her son, in his preface to Goethe's letters to his 
mother, and the testimony of many of her contemporaries, 
among others that of Schiller she never transgressed the 
strictest bounds of virtue. She had been indoctrinated with 
the questionable morality of the eighteenth century, and was 
married, while yet a girl, to a man infinitely her inferior in all 
mental endowments, and for whom she had little sympathy 
or affection. She was thrown, by her position as lady-of- 
honor to the Dowager Duchess, into the constant society of 
the young and brilliant genius, already the day-star of his 
age and country. Proud in conscious virtue, it is perhaps not 
to be wondered at that she could not prevail on herself to 
break an intercourse so replete with every charm of intellect 
and fancy, to refuse an homage so flattering alike to her 
heart and her vanity, if she permitted herself to be the 
Laura of this new Petrarch. . 

"Indeed," observes Frederick von Stein, "if this correspondence 
proves that emotions even dangerous in their warmth were not far dis- 
tant from this intercourse, it also serves to place in a still stronger 
light the virtue and prudence of the woman who, while keeping her 
young, gifted, and ardent lover within the limits of the strictest re- 
serve, still contrived to reconcile him to her severity, by sincere sym- 
pathy in all his trials, both mental and material, by fully comprehend- 
ing his glorious vocation, and by soothing him with the most sincere 
and lasting friendship." 



40 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

More than one German author, especially Adolphe Stahr, in 
his well-known work, " Weimar and Jena," has actually cen- 
sured Madame von Stein in no measured terms for refusing 
to accede to Goethe's entreaties that she would obtain a di- 
vorce from her husband, the father of her children, against 
whom she had no just cause of complaint, and become his 
wife, that is, when he found it impossible to induce her to 
listen to a suit of any other description. Upon this refusal 
is thrown the whole responsibility of the poet's subsequent 
liaison with Christina Vulpius. These authors seem never 
even to imagine that there may be some slight fault on Goe- 
the's side ; that if Madame von Stein was blamable in admit- 
ting him to an intimacy endangering her peace of mind, if 
not her conjugal fidelity, he was not perfectly justifiable in 
seeking, with all the eloquence of genius, to win the heart of 
a woman already bound by the most sacred ties to another. 
But Nemesis was not forgetful. The connection which in a 
moment of ennui and weariness Goethe formed with Christina 
Vulpius a connection which he had not the courage or cru- 
elty to break, and which he ultimately confirmed by marriage 
embittered his latter years, and could not but exercise an 
unfavorable influence on his whole nature. Would not Fred- 
ricka or Lili have been a more genial companion than Chris- 
tina Vulpius for that great poet of whom his native land is 
so justly proud ? Who could have dreamt of such a bride 
for the beautiful gifted Apollo, as Adolphe Stahr calls him, 
when he first set foot in the dominions of Carl Auguste ! 

Weimar, consecrated to all lovers of poetry, scarcely de- 
served the name of a town when Goethe first lived there. 
Schiller, in a letter to Korner, calls it " something between a 
town and a hamlet." Goethe laughingly observed one day to 
his friend Zetter, when the latter spoke of building a theatre 
for the people, " How is it possible to talk of the people of 
Weimar in this little residence, where there are ten thousand 
poets and five hundred inhabitants ? " 

The park did not then exist. A few trees alone waved on 
the spot now so beautifully diversified with verdant wood 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 41 

and grassy lawn. On the Curplatz, now covered with stately 
houses, stood nothing save the straw-thatched huts of the 
Weimar peasants. One thing only have we to regret in the 
changes which have gradually transformed an insignificant 
village into a stately city. On the esplanade, which as late 
as 1770 was the favorite promenade of the good inhabitants, 
stands a dwelling so humble as scarcely to attract attention 
among the more conspicuous buildings around. It is the 
house of Schiller. Here, in this modest retreat, did the 
author of " Wallenstein " spend the latter years of his exist- 
ence. He purchased it at the high price, as he called it, of 
4,000 gulden, 360. He entered it on the 29th of April, full 
of delight at possessing one spot on earth he could call his 
own. A heavy domestic calamity soon came to damp this 
joy. Within a few days he received a letter informing him 
of the death of his mother, that mother to whom he was so 
devotedly attached. The blow was a heavy one. Amid 
every change of place and scene, domestic joys and sorrows, 
amid fame, homage, toil and suffering, his heart had ever 
clung with inexpressible fondness to the home of his child- 
hood, and above all to the parent who had watched over his 
infant years. 

" Would," he writes to his sister, " that I had been able to aid you 
in tending our beloved mother during her last illness. Oh, dear sister, 
now our parents are sunk to rest, the most holy bond which united us 
is tom asunder. It makes me unspeakably sad, and I feel desolate, 
though suiTounded by the loved and loving. Yet I have you too, my 
sister, to whom I can fly in joy and sorrow. Oh ! let us, now there 
are but three of us remaining in the paternal house, cling close to each 
other. Never forget you have a loving brother. I remember vividly 
the days of our youth, when we were all in all to each other. Life 
has divided our destiny ; but confidence and affection may at least re- 
main unalterable." 

It is scarcely possible to enter, without a feeling of deep 
emotion, that humble dwelling, where so many glorious works 
of genius were brought forth, where one of the purest and 
noblest spirits that ever breathed on earth passed away. 



42 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Three years only was Schiller permitted to inhabit this lowly 
but pleasant abode, so modest that even Goethe's house, 
though not particularly splendid, looks like a palace in com- 
parison. The middle story, in which the family resided, is 
let ; only the room which Schiller himself inhabited is shown 
to the visitor, the town having at length purchased the house. 
In the centre stands the table on which he was in the habit of 
writing, that very table which, as he informs his friend Kor- 
uer, " cost two Carolines," a heavy sum for his narrow finances 
at that period. It is of the very commonest wood, and so low 
as perfectly to explain his unfortunate habit of bending over 
it when composing. One drawer was always filled with half- 
rotten apples, the smell of which was peculiarly agreeable to 
the poet. The walls are covered with green paper ; the fur- 
niture is of light mahogany, covered with leather. A little 
guitar, a few bad-colored prints of Palermo, the bed in which 
Schiller breathed his last, a portrait taken from his bust, and 
a second painted after death these complete the picture. 
When Schiller resided at this cottage it had nothing but 
green trees around and upland shades before it. 

Improvements, however, so far as the Duke's finances al- 
lowed, went on rapidly under the supervision of the almost 
ubiquitous Goethe. The park owes its origin to a tragic inci- 
dent which occurred about the beginning of 1780 the sui- 
cide of a young and blooming girl, Christel von Lasberg, who, 
in despair at the infidelity of her lover, destroyed herself on 
a spot Goethe was compelled to pass on his way to and from 
the ducal castle. This affected him painfully, the more so as 
his " Werther " was found in her pocket, though it appeared 
that this was but an accidental coincidence. At first he re- 
solved on erecting a monument to her memory, but abandoned 
this project, " because," as he said, " one could neither pray 
nor love there." But the gloom of the spot, overhung by 
dark pine-trees, and peopled by such terrible recollections, 
became intolerable to Goethe, and he determined to try and 
lend it a more cheerful aspect. To this end he had some of 
the trees cut down, the rocks planted with shrubs and flowers. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 43 

This suggested the idea of further changes, which at length 
resulted in that beautiful park which is now the principal 
ornament of Weimar. 

" The Duke and Goethe," says Wieland to Merck, June 3, 1778, 
" came back yesterday afternoon from their trip to Leipzig, Dessau, 
and Berlin. In the evening I went with my wife and both my eldest 
girls to see the exercise-grounds opposite Goethe's garden, and ar- 
ranged according to his own plans ; thence I proceeded to the so- 
uamed Star, to show rny wife the new Poemata, which has been 
made by the Duke, after Goethe's designs, and is laid out with won- 
derful skill, to represent a wild, solitary, yet not completely seques- 
tered assemblage of rocks, where Goethe and the Duke often dine 
together, with some goddess or half-goddess. We met both with the 
fair Corinna Schroder, who with her exquisite Attic elegance, her 
lovely form, her simple yet inexpressively graceful attire, looks like 
the very nymph of this sequestered spot." 

The words "in the society of some goddess," let us 
into something of the secret origin of the Weimar scandal. 
There were other pleasures, however, of a less objectionable 
character. 

"Last Saturday," writes Wieland to Merck, August 21, 1779, 
" we drove to Goethe's, who had invited the Duchess Amelia to spend 
the evening with him in his garden, to regale her with all the poems 
he had composed during her absence. We dined in a charming soli- 
tary spot. When we rose from table, and the doors were thrown open, 
we beheld before us a scene which resembled a realization of a poet's 
dream. The whole banks of the Ilin were illuminated quite in the 
taste of Rembrandt, a wondrous enchanting mixture of light and 
shadow, which produced an effect beyond all description. The Duch- 
ess was delighted ; so were we all. As we descended the little steps of 
the hermitage, and wandered along the banks of the Ilm, amid the 
rocks and bushes which unite this spot with the Star, the whole vision 
changed into a number of small pictures au Rembrandt, which one 
could have looked on forever. The carnival time," he continues, 
" has brought with it its usual gayeties, and we have done our best to 
make the ordinary Court malady, ennui, as brilliant as possible." 



44 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

The limited finances of the little Court somewhat interfered 
with these courtly amusements. Carl Auguste often found 
himself in difficulties, which neither his own skill nor that 
of his counsellors could suffice to remove. When tormented 
by some of these petty annoyances, or fatigued with the 
cares of state, he would retire to a little country-house, where, 
dismissing all his train, he would remain alone. 

" It is just ten o'clock," he writes to Knebel. " I am sitting at the 
window, and writing to you. The day has been exquisitely beautiful, 
and this, my first evening of liberty, I have enjoyed to the utmost. I 
feel so far removed from the affairs of earth, so completely in a better, a 
higher sphere. Man is not destined to be the miserable phlister of 
this every-day life. Never do we feel so noble, so elevated, as when 
we behold the sun sink to rest, and the stars rise, and know that all 
this is created for its own sake alone, not for that of man ; and yet we 
enjoy it as though it were all made for us. I will bathe with the eve- 
ning star, and draw in new life. Till then, farewell. ... I come from 
my bath. The water was cold ; night already lay upon its bosom. It 
seems as though I had plunged into the cold night itself when I took 
the first dip, all was so calm, so holy. Over the distant hills rose the 
full moon. All was silent, and the intense stillness made me hear, or 
fancy I heard purer sounds, than those which really reached the ear." 

The individual to whom this letter is addressed enjoyed, 
next to Goethe, the confidence and affection of the Duke. 
Knebel, better known as the friend and companion of poets 
and princes than by any celebrity of his own, was one of 
those peculiarly constituted natures which seem destined to 
act rather in calling forth the powers of others, than in dis- 
playing their own. These perhaps are, on the whole, the 
happiest. Free from those feverish impulses, that burning 
thirst for fame, which so often torment more highly gifted 
spirits, they can enjoy to the full the productions of genius 
without envy or regret. They, too, are poets ; but they are 
content to find poetry in life and nature, in the summer 
flowers, in the murmur of the fountain, in the whispering of 
the breeze, instead of attempting to give it form and shape 
in verse. They compose, but only for the amusement of a 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 45 

leisure hour ; yet no men have had more influence on the 
great minds of their age. Most rare and valuable are such 
spirits, sufficiently gifted to appreciate the lofty endow- 
ments of genius, to sympathize in all its varied moods and 
sublime aspirations, and yet content to play the humble part 
of confidant and admirer. Such a man was Knebel. His 
literary works, though not absolutely devoid of merit, have 
been long since forgotten ; but the ascendancy he exerted 
over the intellect of the great men of his country and his 
time has associated his name lastingly with theirs. 

Descended from a Flemish family, he was born at Wallen- 
stein, in Ottingen, 1744. One of his ancestors having paid 
the penalty of his religious opinions by a cruel death under 
Philip II., the family had fled from the land of their birth, 
and taken refuge in Germany. Stern, harsh, and unbending, 
Knebel's father was feared rather than loved by his son, and 
the youth always attributed his timidity in after life to the 
severity exercised towards him in childhood. His delicate 
and somewhat fastidious tastes seemed continually in the 
way. At the university they rendered the rude habits of his 
companions insupportable. When he entered the service of 
Frederick the Great, he found the want of education and 
literary taste among his brother officers still more intolerable. 
He felt like an automaton, deprived of all individuality of 
action ; and despite the royal notice, with which he was occa- 
sionally honored, he grew sad and dispirited. 

Knebel spent ten years in the Prussian service ten long 
and weary years, as he calls them. In 1772 he obtained his 
discharge, with a small pension, and a letter of introduction 
to the young Duchess of Weimar from the Crown Prince, in 
, whose regiment he had served. By her he was graciously 
received ; while by Wieland, who had already resided at 
Weimar, as tutor to the young duke, he was warmly wel- 
comed. In 1773 he was himself appointed professor of 
mathematics to Carl Auguste and his brother. Shortly after- 
wards he accompanied the princes on a visit to some of the 
courts of Germany, and afterwards to Paris. Knebel was 



46 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

delighted with the novelty of all he beheld, and especially 
with the grace of French manners. " They may say what 
they like," he wrote to Wieland, " the French are an agree- 
able and amiable people ; nowhere else does one find so much 
urbanity." "I saw a good deal of Diderot," he adds in a 
subsequent letter. He expressed his amazement that Men- 
delssohn was not admitted to the Royal Academy of Berlin. 
Though royalty still seemed to reign supreme, the Revolution- 
ary spirit was already abroad. " Many young men of distin- 
guished talent," says Knebel in his letters, " repeated to me 
continually that henceforward all must be equal nobles, 
peers, burghers, and peasants, and such like trash" He was 
not keen-sighted enough to discern, through the bright and 
glowing atmosphere that surrounded him, the dark clouds, 
big with the mighty changes, already slowly looming on the 
verge of the horizon, so soon to cover all with its gloomy 
folds, and to burst in thunder over Europe. 

Next to Goethe and Knebel, the most intimate friend of 
Carl Auguste was his chamberlain, Frederick von Einsedel. 
Born 1750, he commenced his Court career as page ; he was 
then promoted to the rank of chamberlain to the Dowager 
Duchess Amelia; in 1770 he was named privy -councillor. 
Himself gay, joyous, and light-hearted, he had, while page, 
played prank upon prank, which had already become proverb- 
ial in the court chronicles of Weimar. In after life his glad- 
some temperament, his frank and open manners, and generous 
nature secured him the lasting favor of his royal master. His 
very failings served as subjects of amusement rather than 
anger. His constitutional laziness, varied by fits of feverish 
activity, and his strange absence of mind, during which he 
might be robbed of hat, gloves, or watch, without his ever 
perceiving it, diverted the ennui to which, despite the pres- 
ence of a Goethe, or a Herder and a Wieland, this little Court 
seems to have been peculiarly subject. Einsedel, however, 
must have had merits of a higher order than mere harmless- 
ness and good-humor, or he would scarcely have been ad- 
mitted to the intimate friendship of Herder and Schiller. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 47 

"He is an excellent, unaffected man," writes the latter to 
Korner, in 1803, " and far from devoid of talent." Einsedel's 
private life, however, was anything but immaculate, and 
some of his adventures might serve as a curious illustration of 
the times and the atmosphere in which he lived. He had be- 
come desperately enamored of a Madame von Werthein, who, 
yielding to her passion, abandoned home, husband, friends, 
and country, to follow her seducer. Not completely dead, 
however, to the shame of thus publicly violating all her ho- 
liest duties, she had recourse to one of the most extraordinary 
stratagems ever devised by a romantic female head. She 
took advantage of the fainting fits to which she was occasion- 
ally subject, to feign death. With the connivance of her at- 
tendants, she contrived to steal out of the house unperceived, 
while a doll was buried in her stead. She then proceeded 
with her lover to Africa, where he proposed exploring cer- 
tain gold-mines, by which he expected to make his fortune. 
The affair turned out a complete failure, and Einsedel re- 
turned poorer than he went, with his fair and frail compan- 
ion. Great was the amazement and indignation of husband 
and friends on beholding the resuscitation of her they be- 
lieved long since buried in the vaults of her ancestors. But 
in German courts in the eighteenth century such affairs were 
not regarded as involving any very great amount of moral 
turpitude. The Court of Weimar indeed was virtue itself, 
compared with those of Dresden, of Wurtemberg, and Han- 
over ; but even here " excess of love " was held as sufficient 
excuse for every sin. There was a strange mixture of the 
maudlin and the licentious, French immorality grafted on 
German sentimentality. A separation was obtained, and 
Madame W. became the wife of her lover. Einsedel lived to 
the age of seventy-eight, and died in 1828. 

In 1796 Weimar received a new visitor in the author of 
" Hesperus." The mingled naivete and singularity of his de- 
meanor, his animated and poetic language, full of thoughts 
and images at once tender and ironical, for he spoke as he 
wrote, his enthusiastic belief in the progress of humanity, 



48 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

charmed Herder to such, a degree, that he wrote to Jacob! : 
" Heaven has given me in Jean Paul a treasure which I dare 
not hope I merit. He is all intellect, all soul, a melodious 
sound from the mighty golden harp of humanity, that harp 
of which so many chords are snapped or broken." By Goe- 
the he was more coldly received. 

'It was witli apprehension, almost with terror," he writes to his 
friend Otto, " that I entered the abode of Goethe. Every one depicted 
him as cold and indifferent to all earthly things. Madame von Kalb 
had told me that he no longer admired anything, not even his own 
works. Every word, she said, is an icicle, especially to strangers, 
whom he is with difficulty persuaded to admit to his presence. His 
house struck me. It was the only one in Weimar built in the Italian 
style ; from the very staircase it is a museum of statues and pictures. 
The god at length appeared. He was cold ; he expressed himself in 
monosyllables only, and without the slightest emphasis. ' Tell him,' 
said Knebel, 'that the French have just entered Rome.' 'Hein,' re- 
plied the god. His person is bony, his physiognomy full of fire, his 
look a sun. At length our conversation on the arts and on the opin- 
ions of the public, perhaps also the champagne, animated him, and 
then at length I felt I was with Goethe ! His language is not flowery 
and brilliant, like that of Herder; it is incisive, calm, and resolute. 
He concluded by reading, or rather performing, one of his unpublished 
poems, a composition truly sublime. Thanks to this, the flames of 
his heart pierced their crust of ice, and he pressed the hand of the en- 
thusiast Jean Paul. How shall I describe his mode of reading ? It 
was like the distant roar of thunder, mingled with the soft dripping of 
a summer shower. No ! there is no one in the world like Goethe ! 
We must be friends." 

This desire was not destined to be fulfilled. The author 
of " Quintus Filein " was too diametrically opposed, not only 
as a writer but as an individual, to the poet of " Faust " or 
" Tasso," to allow of any real or lasting intimacy. 

One of the most eccentric and most troublesome personages 
of the little Court of Weimar was Constantine, the Duke's 
brother. He possessed neither the intellectual endowments 
nor the generous nature of Carl Auguste. Knebel, who was ap- 
pointed his tutor in 1782, had in vain endeavored to inspire 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 49 

him with loftier tastes. An unfortunate liaison with a beauti- 
ful girl, Carolina von S , produced so much scandal, that 

the Duke sent him from Weimar, on his travels to Italy, ac- 
companied by the Councillor Albrecht von , a talented and 

excellent man, but apparently not a very amusing companion. 
Constantine soon grew weary of so grave a Mentor. Arrived 
at Paris, he plunged, despite his companion's admonitions, 
into all the dissipations of that brilliant capital, and ere long 
fell into the snare of a clever actress, Mademoiselle Darsain- 
court, whose wit, intrigue, and beauty completely enthralled 
him. Yielding to her counsel, he got rid of the perpetual 
presence of his guardian, by assigning him, under some pre- 
text, a place in another carriage, while his mistress took hers 
beside him. He then set off, not for Italy, but to London. 

Poor Albrecht, from a sense of duty, followed him, but 
finding his admonitions utterly useless, returned in despair 
to Weimar. In vain did Carl Auguste recall his brother ; he 
disregarded his commands. Of his life in London little is 
recorded, but it is probable that it was not of a very reputa- 
ble nature. At length, in 1803, his resources failing, he set 
out for Germany. Somewhat embarrassed how to dispose 
of his companion, he despatched her beforehand. Carl Au- 
guste, however, would not permit her to set foot on his do- 
minions, and she was forced to return to France, despite the 
entreaties and remonstrances of her despairing lover. 

" This last catastrophe," writes Carl Auguste to Knebel, January 
5, 1784, "has been of service to Constantine, apparently at least. 
The society here endeavored to prove its adherence to me by openly 
blaming his conduct, and shunning his company, so that he was left 
to almost complete solitude. This decided condemnation was very 
painful to him, and made him feel how essential is a certain degree of 
exterior decency at least, to procure a reception in good society, and 
that even his rank could not protect him from contempt and neglect. 
He has now adopted an appearance of respectability, fulfils more ex- 
actly the ordinary duties of life, and performs his part well enough to 
be regarded as an educated member of society. I am seeking to ob- 
tain his admission into the Saxon service." 

4 



50 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Constantine died in 1803. 

Amid this circle of genius, wit, fancy, and gallantry, some- 
times verging on libertinism, stood the Duchess Louise, like 
one of those pure, calm, beautiful, though somewhat stiff and 
stately figures of Holbein or Vandyke, among the loose and 
lovely groups of a Rubens or a Lily. Endowed with every 
grace of mind and person, seemingly formed to enjoy and 
bestow felicity, united to one of the most charming and 
noble-minded princes of the age, Louise was still unhappy 
and alone. The circumstances which led to this sense of 
isolation were trifling in themselves ; yet in such a position 
as that of the young Duchess, they sufficed to darken all 
her prospects of domestic bliss. Educated with the utmost 
severity, accustomed to the observance of the most rigid eti- 
quette and the strictest reserve, Louise found herself suddenly 
transplanted into an atmosphere diametrically opposite to that 
in which her whole existence had hitherto been passed. We 
have seen how completely, both in private and public life, 
the Duchess Amelia and her son had thrown aside those 
wearisome observances which in other German Courts were 
still held as necessary appendages to royalty, and which the 
young Louise had learned to regard with almost superstitious 
reverence. At Weimar, on the contrary, all was simplicity, 
gayety, equality, and fraternity. In their desire to do away 
with the useless encumbrances imposed by their rank, the 
Duke and Duchess had in fact unconsciously gone a little too 
far, and infringed something of that strict decorum which is 
one of the best safeguards of royalty. 

Louise was surprised, pained, even shocked. Her high 
and perhaps exaggerated sense of what was due alike to the 
bride and the princess was perpetually wounded. The 
charms of intellectual intercourse with such men as Goethe, 
Herder, Wieland, and Schiller, the gay good-humor of her 
thoughtless but really noble-minded consort, the grace and 
sweetness of her mother-in-law, would have reconciled most 
women to the sacrifice of some of their early prejudices. 
But Louise, with all her lofty qualities, was wanting in that 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 51 

flexibility of character which could alone have secured her 
felicity under existing circumstances ; and though she never 
by word or deed expressed her feelings, her pallid cheek, her 
saddened mien, her cold, reserved manner, too plainly showed 
what passed within. If Carl Auguste had passionately loved 
his young wife, all might have been well. But Louise's was 
a nature so utterly antagonistic to his own that he never 
fully understood her, or at least not till too late. Her tim- 
idity and reserve prevented her expressing her sentiments, 
while her daily increasing silence and coldness chilled her 
husband, and led him to believe he was utterly indifferent 
to her. Nay, he conceived an equally erroneous opinion of 
her intellect as of her heart. " She is incomprehensible," 
he wrote to his friend Knebel; "before her marriage she 
lived quite alone in the world, without ever finding a being 
who answered her expectations of what friends ought to be, 
without exercising a single talent which would have softened 
her nature. She runs the risk of becoming completely iso- 
lated, and losing all that grace and amiability which form 
the principal charm of her sex." These words speak vol- 
umes. They explain the clouds which from day to day grew 
darker over the domestic horizon of the royal pair. Louise 
felt that her husband neither understood nor appreciated her, 
as she was conscious she deserved to be appreciated. Wound- 
ed alike in her affections and her pride, too timid to remon- 
strate, too haughty to complain, she withdrew more and 
more from his society, till at length, though living together, 
the two consorts became almost strangers to each other. 
" The young Duchess," observes Knebel, " shone like a dark- 
ened star in a hazy atmosphere. The first meeting did not 
produce very favorable impressions on either side, and she 
certainly had in part reason to complain of the want of con- 
venances in her court. She endured much with infinite 
patience, and maintained her dignity with unvarying consis- 
tency. The characters of the two princesses, which did not 
quite agree, gave rise to much disunion. That this exercised 
a painful influence on those who surrounded them may 



52 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

easily be supposed. Nevertheless the prudence of their en- 
tourage, the moderation of the Duchess, and the desire of 
her mother-in-law to love and be loved, prevented any violent 
outbreak." Even the powerful bonds of parental love did 
not suffice to draw the royal pair closer together. For many 
years, indeed, the Duke had cherished another passion ; he 
loved a beautiful and gifted actress, Caroline Jagernau. 
With a virtue and self-denial rare in her class and time, she 
had long repelled his entreaties, though her heart pleaded 
his cause. Louise was no stranger to this attachment; it 
scarcely sought concealment. It had often rent her heart 
and embittered her existence ; but she knew the passionate 
temperament of her husband ; she felt that Caroline, with 
whose gentle and generous character she was well acquainted, 
might save him from worse seduction. 

Affection, womanly pride, religious principle, all opposed 
such a compromise of her own paramount claims and duty. 
But, as with Burger's Dora, 1 Louise's devoted tenderness 
overcame every other consideration. She not only did noth- 
ing to prevent or oppose the liaison ; she wrote the fair ac- 
tress to entreat her to listen to the Duke's suit. However 
we may wonder at such a course, we are bound to render 
justice to the unselfish motives which inspired it. Louise 
did not, like Caroline of England, give her lord a mistress 
in order to rule him more easily, or less ostensibly, through 
her influence. It was to save him from worse courses, to 
confer on him a happiness she felt she had not been able 
to bestow. Caroline yielded, yet not without a struggle. 
She was elevated to the dignity of Madame von Hagendorf, 
and presented with a superb estate in Saxony. Her influence 
over Carl Auguste was boundless, and ended only with his 
life. It is to her credit that she never abused her position, 
and that she always preserved a most perfect fidelity to her 
royal lover. She was a blonde, with light hair, and features 

1 See " Poets and Poetry of Germany," by Madame de Pontes ; vol. ii. 
p. 337. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 53 

and complexion of surpassing beauty. The Duchess treated 
her happier rival with the delicacy and kindness natural to 
her own pure and noble soul, both before and after the death 
of the Duke. How Carl Auguste's mother regarded this 
liaison, we are not informed. Between herself and her daugh- 
ter-in-law there was too little congeniality of taste or char- 
acter to admit of intimacy or confidence; yet that Amelia 
fully appreciated the lofty virtues of her son's wife can 
scarcely be denied. On her return from Italy the Dowager 
Duchess resided at the Belvidere, or her jointure house some 
little distance from Weimar, where, in the society of the 
gifted men she had drawn to her son's Court, and the enjoy- 
ment of innocent and intellectual pleasures, she passed the 
remainder of her days. Her health, which had latterly 
shown many symptoms of decay, sank completely beneath 
the terrible incidents of 1806 the death of her brother, 
the Duke of Brunswick, the ruin of her ancestral house, 
and the danger which impended over the land of her adop- 
tion. She died in 1807. 

But the events which overwhelmed the sensitive nature of 
the Dowager Duchess only called into action the noble quali- 
ties of her daughter-in-law. When Weimar was threatened 
by the victorious army of the conqueror, when all deserted 
a town which seemed doomed to destruction, the Duchess 
Louise remained firm and unshaken at the post which she 
believed Providence assigned her. 

Her lord, on whom Napoleon had vowed vengeance, had 
been forced by prudence to fly. Her children, in her mater- 
nal tenderness, she had sent to a place of safety, her troops 
were scattered, her friends trembling and defenceless, but 
still Louise, Duchess of Weimar, remained firm and unshrink- 
ing, in that town which every instant might become a prey 
to the flames, in that palace which was so soon to receive 
the presence of the imperious victor, among the people of 
whom she had always been the friend and protector, and of 
whom she was now the guardian angel. " When," says Talk, 
in his personal reminiscences of Goethe, " the people learnt 



54 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

that the Grand Duchess was still in the Castle, their joy 
knew no bounds. When they met they threw themselves in 
each others' arms exclaiming, ' The Grand Duchess is here.' " 

Nor were they mistaken in the sense of safety with which 
her presence inspired them. The Duchess received the con- 
queror (who had previously announced his intention of pass- 
ing the night of the 15th of October at the Castle) at the 
head of the grand staircase. Pale, but calm and dignified, 
she awaited the approach of the terrible Emperor, on whom 
the fate of her people depended. Napoleon turned towards 
her with an angry mien. " Qui etes-vous, madame ? " " The 
Duchess of Weimar, sire," was the answer. " Je vous plains," 
replied Napoleon, abruptly; "I must crush your husband." 
Then turning rudely away, " Qu'on me fasse diner dans mes 
apartements," he exclaimed, and left the Duchess without ad- 
dressing her another word. But Louise would not suffer her- 
self to be discouraged. The following morning she requested 
another interview ; it was granted. 

Night had brought counsel. The conqueror, though still 
haughty and imperious, condescended at least to lend an ear 
to her remonstrance and appeal. Unmoved by his darkening 
brow and impatient gestures, she defended, with all the elo- 
quence of a noble nature, the conduct of the Duke in adhering 
to the Prussian cause, as commanded alike by honor and 
necessity. She painted in vivid colors the personal friend- 
ship which bound him to Frederic William, the marks of 
affectionate interest he had received from that monarch, and 
inquired with generous indignation whether "it was in the 
hour of peril and misfortune that he could desert his friend 
and ally." She pictured the fearful condition of the land, 
the stain that would forever rest upon the fame of the victor 
if the city were, as he threatened, abandoned to pillage. 
Struck and impressed despite himself, Napoleon relented so 
far as not only to give strict orders that the town should be 
respected, but to rescind his repeated declaration that the Duke 
should never again set foot on his native soil. True, the con- 
ditions appended to this concession were rigorous enough. 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 55 

Carl Augusts was to quit the Prussian camp within twenty- 
four hours. In vain the anxious wife endeavored to obtain 
some delay. Here Napoleon was inflexible; and Louise, 
finding her efforts useless, retired to take instant measures 
to inform her lord of what had occurred. She despatched 
messengers in all directions, for the exact spot where he was 
to be found was not known. 

Next morning Napoleon returned the visit, accompanied by 
all his principal officers. Desirous, it would seem, of effac- 
ing all recollection of his former harshness, he expressed 
the deepest regret for the excesses committed by his soldiery, 
lamenting the cruel necessity of war, and declaring that it 
had been forced upon him. " Croyez-moi, madame, il y a une 
Providence qui dirige tout, et dont je ne suis que 1'instru- 
ment," he repeated. On descending to his apartment he ex- 
claimed, " Voila une f emme k qui nos deux cents canons n'ont 
pas pu faire peur." 

Perhaps political considerations induced Napoleon to pro- 
long the term originally fixed for the Duke's return to Wei- 
mar, and to admit some modification of the severe conditions 
he had imposed. No entreaties or remonstrances, however, 
could obtain any reduction of the contribution of two hundred 
million francs, a fearful burden on a country already so terri- 
bly impoverished. All that the Duchess could do to alleviate 
the sufferings of the people, she did. Her private purse was 
drained to aid their necessities, and it is even said that she 
disposed of many of her jewels for the same purpose. This 
noble conduct found its reward in the adoration of her peo- 
ple, in the increasing regard of her lord, in the admiration of 
Europe. " She is the true model of a woman," writes Ma- 
dame de Stael, " formed by nature for the very highest posi- 
tion. Equally devoid of pretension or weakness, she awakens 
at the same time, and in an equal degree, both confidence and 
veneration. The heroic soul of the olden days of chivalry 
still animates her, without in the slightest degree diminishing 
the gentleness of her sex." 

Though in the latter years of their union a sincere if not 



56 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

ardent friendship had succeeded the coldness of early life, 
Louise was not destined to be beside her husband at the hour 
of his death. He had undertaken a journey to Berlin to visit 
his granddaughter, the Princess Marie, who had lately mar- 
ried the Prince of Prussia. On his return he was suddenly 
seized with illness, and died at Graditz, near Torgau, 14th 
June, 1828, at the age of seventy. Alexander Humboldt had 
been his constant companion during the latter days of his 
life, and with him he conversed hours together, on all those 
subjects in which he had even felt so lively an interest. 

" In Potsdam," says this gifted man, in a letter to Chancellor Miil- 
ler, " I spent many hours alone with the Grand Duke on the sofa. 
He drank and slept alternately, drank again, rose to write to his con- 
sort, then again sank to sleep. He was cheerful, but very much ex- 
hausted. During the interval he pressed me with the most difficult 
questions on physics, astronomy, meteorology, and geology, on the 
transparency of a comet, the atmosphere of the moon, the influence of 
the spots on the sun, on the temperature, &c. In the midst of our 
conversation he would fall asleep, and was often uneasy. When he 
awoke, he would quickly and kindly entreat forgiveness for his want 
of attention. ' You see, Humboldt, it is all over with me.' All at 
once he would commence a desultory conversation on religion. He 
complained of the increase of fanaticism, the close connection of this 
religious tendency with jwlitical absolutism, and the oppression of all 
the free movements of the intellect. ' Besides, they are false and 
treacherous,' he exclaimed ; ' all they try for is to render themselves 
agreeable to princes, to receive stars and ribbons. They sneaked in 
with their poetical love of the Middle Ages.' Soon, however, his indig- 
nation appeased itself; he began to speak of all the consolation he 
had found in the Christian faith. ' That is a truly philanthropic 
doctrine,' he observed, ' but from the very commencement it has 
been deformed.' " 

It was on occasion of this letter of Humboldt that Goethe 
pronounced his well-known eulogium on Carl Auguste : 

"The Duke was a born nobleman ; he had taste and interest for 
everything good and great. He was but eighteen when I came to Wei- 
mar ; but even then the bud and blossom showed what the tree would 
become. He soon chose me for his friend, and evinced the sincerest 



WEIMAR AND ITS CELEBRITIES. 57 

sympathy iu everything I did. My being nearly ten years older than 
himself was favorable to our intimacy. He would sit whole evenings 
beside me in deep conversation on nature, art, or anything elee that 
was worth his attention. Often did we converse thus till nearly mid- 
night, and it not unfrequently happened that we fell asleep beside each 
other on the sofa. Fifty years did we continue this intercourse. 
There are many princes capable of speaking admirably on subjects of 
interest ; but they have not the real love of them in their hearts , it is 
only superficial. And it is no wonder, when we remember all the 
distractions and dissipations attending a Court life to which a young 
prince is peculiarly exposed. He must notice everything, and know a 
bit of this and a bit of the other ; but in this way nothing can take 
deep root in the mind, and it requires a really powerful nature not to 
turn to mere empty smoke in such an atmosphere. The Grand Duke 
was a man, in the full sense of the term. He was animated by the 
noblest benevolence, the purest philanthropy ; and from his whole soul 
desired to do the best he could. His first thought was always his peo- 
ple's happiness ; his own was the very last. 

11 His hand was ever open, and ready to aid noble individuals and 
noble aims. There was much that was divine iu his nature. He 
would fain have showered happiness on all mankind. 

" He was by nature taciturn ; but the action followed close upon 
the words. He loved simplicity, and was an enemy to all coddling 
and effeminacy. He never drove out except in a drosky, which 
really hardly kept together, wrapt in an old gray mantle and a mili- 
tary cap. He loved travelling; but not so much to amuse himself as 
everywhere to keep his eyes and ears open, and observe everything 
good and useful, that he might introduce it into his own country. 
Agriculture and manufactures owe him no common debt of gratitude. 
He did not seek to win the favor of his people by fine words ; but the 
people loved him, because they knew his heart beat for them." 

Carl Auguste was buried, by his own desire, in the same 
vault in which Schiller already reposed, and where Goethe 
himself was one day to sleep beside him. 



WOMAN IN FRANCE : MADAME DE SABLE. 

IN 1847 a certain Count Leopold Ferri died at Padua, leav- 
ing a library entirely composed of works written by 
women, in various languages, and this library amounted to 
nearly thirty-two thousand volumes. We will not hazard any 
conjecture as to the proportion of these volumes which a se- 
vere judge, like the priest in Don Quixote, would deliver to 
the flames ; but for our own part, most of those we should 
care to rescue would be the works of French women. With a 
few remarkable exceptions, our own feminine literature is made 
up of books which could have been better written by men, 
books which have the same relation to literature in general, 
as academic prize poems have to poetry ; when not a feeble im- 
itation, they are usually an absurd exaggeration of the mas- 
culine style, like the swaggering gait of a bad actress in male 
attire. Few English women have written so much like a 
woman as Richardson's Lady G. Now we think it an im- 
mense mistake to maintain that there is no sex in literature. 
Science has no sex ; the mere knowing and reasoning facul- 
ties, if they act correctly, must go through the same process, 
and arrive at the same result. But in art and literature, 
which imply the action of the entire being, in which every 
fibre of the nature is engaged, in which every peculiar modi- 
fication of the individual makes itself felt, woman has some- 
thing specific to contribute. Under every imaginable social 
condition, she will necessarily have a class of sensations and 
emotions, the maternal ones, which must remain unknown to 
man ; and the fact of her comparative physical weakness, which, 
however it may have been exaggerated by a vicious civiliza- 
tion, can never be cancelled, introduces a distinctively femi- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 59 

nine condition into the wondrous chemistry of the affections 
and sentiments, which inevitably gives rise to distinctive 
forms and combinations. A certain amount of psychological 
difference between man and woman necessarily arises out of 
the difference of sex, and instead of being destined to vanish 
before a complete development of woman's intellectual and 
moral nature, will be a permanent source of variety and 
beauty, as long as the tender light and dewy freshness of 
morning affect us differently from the strength and brilliancy 
of the midday sun. And those delightful women of France 
who, from the beginning of the seventeenth to the close of 
the eighteenth century, formed some of the brightest threads 
in the web of political and literary history, wrote under cir- 
cumstances which left the feminine character of their minds 
uncramped by timidity and unstrained by mistaken effort. 
They were not trying to make a career for themselves ; they 
thought little, in many cases not at all, of the public ; they 
wrote letters to their lovers and friends, memoirs of their 
every-day lives, romances in which they gave portraits of 
their familiar acquaintances, and described the tragedy or 
comedy which was going on before their eyes. Always re- 
fined and graceful, often witty, sometimes judicious, they 
wrote what they saw, thought, and felt, in their habitual lan- 
guage, without proposing any model to themselves, without 
any. intention to prove that women could write as well as 
men, without affecting manly views or suppressing womanly 
ones. One may say, at least with regard to the women of 
the seventeenth century, that their writings were but a 
charming accident of their more charming lives, like the pet- 
als which the wind shakes from the rose in its bloom. And 
it is but a twin fact with this, that in France alone woman 
has had a vital influence on the development of literature ; 
in France alone the mind of woman has passed like an elec- 
tric current through the language, making crisp and definite 
what is elsewhere heavy and blurred ; in France alone, if the 
writings of women were swept away, a serious gap would be 
made in the national history. 



60 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Patriotic gallantry may perhaps contend that English 
women could, if they had liked, have written as well as 
their neighbors ; but we will leave the consideration of that 
question to the reviewers of the literature that might have 
been. In the literature that actually is, we must turn to 
France for the highest examples of womanly achievement in 
almost every department. We confess ourselves unacquainted 
with the productions of those awful women of Italy who 
held professorial chairs, and were great in civil and canon 
law ; we have made no researches into the catacombs of fe- 
male literature, but we think we may safely conclude that 
they would yield no rivals to that which is still unburied ; 
and here, we suppose, the question of pre-eminence can only 
lie between England and France. And to this day Madame 
de Sevigne remains the single instance of a woman who is 
supreme in a class of literature which has engaged the ambi- 
tion of men ; Madame Dacier still reigns the queen of blue- 
stockings, though women have long studied Greek without 
shame ; l Madame de Stael's name still rises first to the lips 
when we are asked to mention a woman of great intellectual 
power; Madame Roland is still the unrivalled type of the 
sagacious and sternly heroic, yet lovable woman; George 
Sand is the unapproached artist, who, to Jean Jacques' elo- 
quence and deep sense of external nature, unites the clear 
delineation of character and the tragic depth of passion. 
These great names, which mark different epochs, soar like 
tall pines amidst a forest of less conspicuous, but not less 
fascinating, female writers ; and beneath these, again, are 
spread, like the thicket of hawthorns, eglantines, and honey- 
suckles, the women who are known rather by what they 
stimulated men to write, than by what they wrote themselves 
the women whose tact, wit, and personal radiance created 
the atmosphere of the Salon, where literature, philosophy, 

1 Queen Christina, when Madame Dacier (then Mademoiselle Le Fevre) 
sent her a copy of her edition of " Callimachus," wrote in reply : " Mais 
vous, de qui on m'assure que vous etes une belle et agre'able fille, n'avez-vous 
pas honte d'etre si savante ? " 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 61 

and science, emancipated from the trammels of pedantry and 
technicality, entered on a brighter stage of existence. 

What were the causes of this earlier development and more 
abundant manifestation of womanly intellect in France ? 
The primary one, perhaps, lies in the physiological charac- 
teristics of the Gallic race the small brain and vivacious 
temperament which permit the fragile system of woman to 
sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual crea- 
tiveness ; while on the other hand, the larger brain and slower 
temperament of the English and Germans are, in the wo- 
manly organization, generally dreamy and passive. The type 
of humanity in the latter may be grander, but it requires a 
larger sum of conditions to produce a perfect specimen. 
Throughout the animal world, the higher the organization, 
the more frequent is the departure from the normal form ; 
we do not often see imperfectly developed or ill-made insects, 
but we rarely see a perfectly developed, well-made man. 
And thus the physique of a woman may suffice as the sub- 
stratum for a superior Gallic mind, but is too thin a soil for 
a superior Teutonic one. Our theory is borne out by the 
fact that, among our own countrywomen, those who distin- 
guish themselves by literary production more frequently ap- 
proach the Gallic than the Teutonic type ; they are intense 
and rapid rather than comprehensive. The woman of large 
capacity can seldom rise beyond the absorption of ideas ; her 
physical conditions refuse to support the energy required for 
spontaneous activity ; the voltaic-pile is not strong enough 
to produce crystallizations ; phantasms of great ideas float 
through her mind, but she has not the spell which will arrest 
them, and give them fixity. This, more than unfavorable 
external circumstances, is, we think, the reason why woman 
has not yet contributed any new form to art, any discovery 
in science, any deep-searching inquiry in philosophy. The 
necessary physiological conditions are not present in her. 
That under more favorable circumstances in the future, these 
conditions may prove compatible with the feminine organiza- 
tion, it would be rash to deny. For the present, we are only 



62 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

concerned with our theory so far as it presents a physiologi- 
cal basis for the intellectual effectiveness of French women. 

A secondary cause was probably the laxity of opinion and 
practice with regard to the marriage tie. Heaven forbid that 
we should enter on a defence of French morals, most of all 
in relation to marriage ! But it is undeniable that unions 
formed in the maturity of thought and feeling, and grounded 
only on inherent fitness and mutual attraction, tended to 
bring women into more intelligent sympathy with men, and 
to heighten and complicate their share in the political drama. 
The quiescence and security of the conjugal relation are 
doubtless favorable to the manifestation of the highest quali- 
ties by persons who have already attained a high standard of 
culture, but rarely foster a passion sufficient to rouse all the 
faculties to aid in winning or retaining its beloved object 
to convert indolence into activity, indifference into ardent par- 
tisanship, dulness into perspicuity. Gallantry and intrigue 
are sorry enough things in themselves; but they certainly 
serve better to arouse the dormant faculties of woman than 
embroidery and domestic drudgery, especially when, as in 
the high society of France in the seventeenth century, they 
are refined by the influence of Spanish chivalry, and controlled 
by the spirit of Italian causticity. The dreamy and fantas- 
tic girl was awakened to reality by the experience of wifehood 
and maternity, and became capable of loving, not a mere 
phantom of her own imagination, but a living man, struggling 
with the hatreds and rivalries of the political arena ; she es- 
poused his quarrels, she made herself, her fortune, and her 
influence the stepping-stones of his ambition ; and the lan- 
guid beauty, who had formerly seemed ready to "die of a 
rose," was seen to become the heroine of an insurrection. 
The vivid interest in affairs which was thus excited in wo- 
man must obviously have tended to quicken her intellect, 
and give it a practical application; and the very sorrows, 
the heart-pangs and regrets which are inseparable from a life 
of passion, deepened her nature by the questioning of self 
and destiny which they occasioned, and by the energy de- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 63 

manded to surmount them and live on. No wise person, we 
imagine, wishes to restore the social condition of France in 
the seventeenth century, or considers the ideal programme of 
woman's life to be a mariaye de convenance at fifteen, a career 
of gallantry from twenty to eight-and-thirty, and penitence 
and piety for the rest of her days. Nevertheless, that social 
condition has its good results, as much as the madly supersti- 
tious Crusades had theirs. 

But the most indisputable source of feminine culture and 
development in Franca was the influence of the salons ; which, 
as all the world knows, were reunions of both sexes, where 
conversation ran along the whole gamut of subjects, from the 
frothiest vers de societe to the philosophy of Descartes. Riche- 
lieu had set the fashion of uniting a taste for letters with 
the habits of polite society and the pursuits of ambition ; and 
in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, there were 
already several hotels in Paris, varying in social position 
from the closest proximity of the Court to the debatable 
ground of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, which served 
as a rendezvous for different circles of people, bent on enter- 
taining themselves, either by showing talent or admiring it. 
The most celebrated of these rendezvous was the Hotel de 
Bambouillet, which was at the culmination of its glory in 
1630, and did not become quite extinct until 1648, when the 
troubles of the Fronde commencing, its habitues were dis- 
persed or absorbed by political interests. The presiding 
genius of this salon, the Marquise de Rambouillet, was the 
very model of the woman who can act as an amalgam to the 
most incongruous elements : beautiful, but not preoccupied by 
coquetry or passion ; an enthusiastic admirer of talent, but 
with no pretension to talent on her own part ; exquisitely re- 
fined in language and manners, but warm and generous 
withal ; not given to entertain her guests with her own com- 
positions, or to paralyze them by her universal knowledge. 
She had once meant to learn Latin, but had been prevented 
by an illness ; perhaps she was all the better acquainted with 
Italian and Spanish productions, which, in default of a 



64 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

national literature, were then the intellectual pabulum of all 
cultivated persons in France who were unable to read the clas- 
sics. In her mild, agreeable presence was accomplished that 
blending of the high-toned chivalry of Spain with the caustic 
wit and refined irony of Italy, which issued in the creation of 
a new standard of taste the combination of the utmost exal- 
tation in sentiment with the utmost simplicity of language. 
Women are peculiarly fitted to further such a combination, 
first, from their greater tendency to mingle affection and im- 
agination with passion, and thus subtilize it into sentiment ; 
and next, from that dread of what overtaxes their intellect- 
ual energies, either by difficulty or monotony, which gives 
them an instinctive fondness for lightness of treatment and 
airiness of expression, thus making them cut short all pro- 
lixity and reject all heaviness. When these womanly char- 
acteristics were brought into conversational contact with the 
materials furnished by such minds as those of Kichelieu, Cor- 
neille, the Great Conde, Balzac, and Bossuet, it is no wonder 
that the result was something piquant and charming. Those 
famous habitues of the Hotel de Rambouillet did not ap- 
parently first lay themselves out to entertain the ladies 
with grimacing " small-talk " and then take each other by the 
sword-knot to discuss matters of real interest in a corner; 
they rather sought to present their best ideas in the guise 
most acceptable to intelligent and accomplished women. 
And the conversation was not of literature only ; war, poli- 
tics, religion, the lightest details of daily news everything 
was admissible, if only it were treated with refinement and 
intelligence. The Hotel de Rambouillet was no mere literary 
reunion; it included hommes d'affaires and soldiers as well 
as authors ; and in such a circle women would not become has 
bleus or dreamy moralizers, ignorant of the world and of hu- 
man nature, but intelligent observers of character and events. 
It is easy to understand, however, that with the herd of imi- 
tators who, in Paris and the provinces, aped the style of this 
famous salon, simplicity degenerated into affectation, and no- 
bility of sentiment was replaced by an inflated effort to out- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 65 

strip nature, so that the genre precieux drew down the satire 
which reached its climax in the " Precieuses Ridicules " and 
" Les Femmes Savantes," the former of which appeared in 
1660, and the latter in 1673. But Madelon and Caltros are the 
lineal descendants of Mademoiselle Scudery and her satel- 
lites, quite as much as of the Hotel de Rambouillet. The 
society which assembled every Saturday in her salon was ex- 
clusively literary, and, although occasionally visited by a few 
persons of high birth, bourgeois in its tone, and enamoured 
of madrigals, sonnets, stanzas, and bouts rimes. The affecta- 
tion that decks trivial things in fine language belongs essen- 
tially to a class which sees another above it, and is uneasy in 
the sense of its inferiority ; and this affectation is precisely 
the opposite of the original genre precieux. 

Another centre, from which feminine influence radiated 
into the national literature, was the Palais du Luxembourg, 
where Mademoiselle d' Orleans, in disgrace at Court on ac- 
count of her share in the Fronde, held a little court of her 
own, and for want of anything else to employ her active 
spirit, busied herself with literature. One fine morning, it 
occurred to this princess to ask all the persons who fre- 
quented her court, among whom were Madame de Sevigne, 
Madame de la Fayette, and La Rochefoucauld, to write their 
own portraits, and she at once set the example. It was un- 
derstood that defects and virtues were to be spoken of with 
like candor. The idea was carried out, those who were not 
clever or bold enough to write for themselves employing the 
pen of a friend. 

" Such," says M. Cousin, u was the pastime of Mademoiselle and her 
friends during the years 1657 and 1G58 ; from this pastime proceeded 
a complete literature. In 1659 Segrais revised these portraits, added 
a cousiderahle number in prose and even in verse, and published the 
whole in a handsome quarto volume, admirably printed, and now be- 
come very rare, under the title, ' Divers Portraits.' Only thirty copies 
were printed, not for sale, but to be given as presents by Mademoiselle. 
The work had a prodigious success. That which had made the for- 
tune of Mademoiselle de Scudery's romances the pleasure of seeing 

5 



66 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

one's portrait a little flattered ; curiosity to see that of others ; the pas- 
sion which the middle class always have had and will have, for knowing 
what goes on in the aristocratic world (at that time not very easy of 
access) ; the names of the illustrious persons who were here for the 
first time described physically and morally with the utmost detail ; 
great ladies transformed all at once into writers, and unconsciously in- 
venting a new manner of writing, of which no book gave the slightest 
idea, and which was the ordinary manner of speaking of the aristo- 
cracy; this undefinable mixture of the natural, the easy, and at the 
same time of the agreeable and supremely distinguished all this 
charmed the Court and the town, and very early in the year 1659 
permission was asked of Mademoiselle to give a new edition of the 
privileged book for the use of the public in general." 

The fashion thus set, portraits multiplied throughout 
France, until in 1688, La Bruyere adopted the form in his 
"Characters," and ennobled it by divesting it of person- 
ality. We shall presently see that a still greater work than 
La Bruyere's also owed its suggestion to a woman, whose 
salon was hardly a less fascinating resort than the Hotel de 
Rambouillet itself. 

In proportion as the literature of a country is enriched and 
culture becomes more generally diffused, personal influence 
is less effective in the formation of taste and in the further- 
ance of social advancement. It is no longer the coterie which 
acts on literature, but literature which acts on the coterie ; 
the circle represented by the word " public " is ever widening, 
and ambition, poising itself in order to hit a more distant 
mark, neglects the successes of the salon. What was once lav- 
ished prodigally in conversation is reserved for the volume 
or the " article ; " and the effort is not to betray originality, 
rather than to communicate it. As the old coach-roads have 
sunk into disuse through the creation of railways, so journal- 
ism tends more and more to divert information from the chan- 
nel of conversation into the channel of the Press ; no one is 
satisfied with a more circumscribed audience than that very 
indeterminate abstraction "the public," and men find a vent 
for their opinions not in talk, but in " copy." We read the 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 67 

" Athenaeum " askance at the tea-table, and take notes from 
the " Philosophical Journal " at a soiree ; we invite our friends, 
that we may thrust a book into their hands, and presuppose 
an exclusive desire in the " ladies " to discuss their own mat- 
ters, " that we may crackle the ' Times ' " at our ease. In fact 
the evident tendency of things to contract personal communi- 
cation within the narrowest limits makes us tremble lest some 
further development of the electric telegraph should reduce us 
to a society of mutes, or to a sort of insects, communicating 
by ingenious antennae of our own invention. Things were far 
from having reached this pass in the last century ; but even 
then, literature and society had outgrown the nursing of co- 
teries, and although many salons of that period were worthy 
successors of the Hotel de Rambouillet, they were simply a 
recreation, not an influence. Enviable evenings, no doubt, 
were passed in them ; and if we could be carried back to any 
of them at will, we should hardly know whether to choose the 
Wednesday dinner at Madame Geoffrin's, with d'Alembert, 
Mademoiselle de 1'Espinasse, Grimm, and the rest, or the 
graver society which, thirty years later, gathered round Con- 
dorcet and his lovely young wife. The salon retained its 
attractions, but its power was gone ; the stream of life had 
become too broad and deep for such small rills to affect it. 

A fair comparison between the French women of the sev- 
enteenth century and those of the eighteenth would, perhaps, 
have a balanced result, though it is common to be a partisan 
on this subject. The former have more exaltation, perhaps 
more nobility of sentiment, and less consciousness in their 
intellectual activity less of the femme auteur, which was 
Rousseau's horror in Madame d'Epinay ; but the latter have a 
richer fund of ideas not more ingenuity, but the materials 
of an additional century for their ingenuity to work upon. 
The women of the seventeenth century, when Love was on 
the wane, took to Devotion, at first mildly and by halves, as 
English women take to caps, and finally without com promise; 
with the women of the eighteenth century, Bossuet and Mas- 
sillon had given way to Voltaire and Rousseau ; and when 



68 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

youth and beauty failed, then they were thrown on their own 
moral strength. 

M. Cousin is especially enamoured of the women of the 
seventeenth century, and relieves himself from his labors in 
philosophy by making researches into the original documents 
which throw light upon their lives. Last year he gave us 
some results of these researches in a volume on the youth 
of the Duchesse de Longueville ; and he has just followed it 
up with a second volume, in which he further illustrates her 
career by tracing it in connection with that of her friend, 
Madame de Sable. The materials to which he has had re- 
course for this purpose are chiefly two celebrated collections 
of manuscript : that of Conrart, the first secretary to the 
French Academy, one of those universally curious people 
who seem made for the annoyance of contemporaries and the 
benefit of posterity ; and that of Valant, who was at once the 
physician, the secretary, and general steward of Madame de 
Sable, and who, with or without her permission, possessed 
himself of the letters addressed to her by her numerous cor- 
respondents during the latter part of her life, and of various 
papers having some personal or literary interest attached to 
them. From these stores M. Cousin has selected many doc- 
uments previously unedited ; and though he often leaves us 
something to desire in the arrangement of his materials, this 
volume of his on Madame de Sable is very acceptable to us, 
for she interests us quite enough to carry us through more 
than three hundred pages of rather scattered narrative, and 
through an appendix of correspondence in small type. M. 
Cousin justly appreciates her character as "un heureux me- 
lange de raison, d'esprit, d'agrement, et de bonte* ; " and per- 
haps there are few better specimens of the woman, who is 
extreme in nothing, but sympathetic in all things ; who af- 
fects us by no special quality, but by her entire being ; whose 
nature has no tons criards, but is like those textures which, 
from their harmonious blending of all colors, give repose to 
the eye, and do not weary us though we see them every day. 
Madame de Sable is also a striking example of the one order 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 69 

of influence, which woman has exercised over literature in 
France ; and on this ground, as well as intrinsically, she is 
worth studying. If the reader agrees with us he will per- 
haps be inclined, as we are, to dwell a little onihe chief 
points in her life and character. 

Madeline de Souvre daughter of the Marquis of Courten- 
vaux, a nobleman distinguished enough to be chosen as gov- 
ernor of Louis XIII. was born in 1599, on the threshold of 
that seventeenth century, the brilliant genius of which is 
mildly reflected in her mind and history. Thus when in 
1635 her more celebrated friend, Mademoiselle de Bourbon, 
afterwards the Duchesse de Longueville, made her appearance 
at the Hotel de Rambouillet, Madame de Sable had nearly 
crossed that table-land of maturity which precedes a woman's 
descent towards old age. She had been married, in 1614, to 
Philippe Emanuel de Laval-Montmorency, Seigneur de Bois- 
Dauphin, and Marquis de Sable", of whom nothing further is 
known than that he died in 1640, leaving her the richer by 
four children, but with a fortune considerably embarrassed. 
With beauty and high rank, added to the mental attractions 
of which we have abundant evidence, we may well believe 
that Madame de Sable's youth was brilliant. For her beauty 
we have the testimony of sober Madame de Motteville, who 
also speaks of her as having " beaucoup de lumiere et de sin- 
cerite," and in the following passage very graphically indi- 
cates one phase of Madame de Sable's character : 

" The Marquise de Sable* was one of those whose beauty made the 
most noise when the Queen came into France. But if she was amia- 
ble, she was still more desirous of appearing so j this lady's self-love 
rendered her too sensitive to the regard which men exhibited towards 
her. There yet existed in France some remains of the politeness which 
Catherine de' Medici had introduced from Italy, and the new dramas, 
with all the other works in prose and verse, which came from Mad- 
rid, were thought to have such delicacy, that she (Madame de Sable) 
had conceived a high idea of the gallantry which the Spaniards had 
learned from the Moors. 

"She was persuaded that men can, without crime, have tender 



70 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

sentiments for women that the desire of pleasing them led men to 
the greatest and finest actions, roused their intelligence, and inspired 
them with liberality, and all sorts of virtues ; but, on the other hand, 
women, who were the ornament of the world, and made to be served 
and adored, ought not to admit anything from them but their respect- 
ful attentions. As this lady supported her views with much talent and 
great beauty, she had given them authority in her time ; and the num- 
ber and consideration of those who continued to associate with her, 
have caused to subsist in our day what the Spaniards call finezas." 

Here is the grand element of the original femme precieuse, 
and it appears further, in a detail also reported by Madame 
de Motteville, that Madame de Sable had a passionate ad- 
mirer in the accomplished Due de Montmorency, and appar- 
ently reciprocated his regard ; but discovering (at what period 
of their attachment is unknown) that he was raising a lover's 
eyes towards the Queen, she broke with him at once. " I have 
heard her say," tells Madame de Motteville, " that her pride 
was such with regard to the Due de Montmorency, that at 
the first demonstrations which he gave of his change, she re- 
fused to see him any more, being unable to receive with sat- 
isfaction attentions which she had to share with the greatest 
princess in the world." There is no evidence, except the un- 
trustworthy assertion of Tallement de E-eaux, that Madame 
de Sable had any other liaison than this ; and the probability 
of the negative is increased by the ardor of her friendships. 
The strongest of these was formed early in life with Made- 
moiselle Dona d'Attichy, afterwards Comtesse de Maure ; it 
survived the effervescence of youth, and the closest intimacy 
of middle age, and was only terminated by the death of the 
latter in 1663. A little incident in this friendship is so char- 
acteristic in the transcendentalism which was then carried 
into all the affections, that it is worth relating at length. 
Mademoiselle d'Attichy, in her grief and indignation at Riche- 
lieu's treatment of her relative, quitted Paris, and was about 
to join her friend at Sable", when she suddenly discovered 
that Madame de Sable, in a letter to Madame de Rambouillet, 
had said that her greatest happiness would be to pass her 






WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 71 

life with Julie de Rambouillet, afterwards Madame de Mon- 
tausier. To Anne d'Attichy this appears nothing less than 
the crime of lese-amitie. No explanations will appease her; 
she refuses to accept the assurance that the offensive expres- 
sion was used simply out of unreflecting conformity to the 
style of the H6tel de Rambouillet, that it was mere galima- 
tias. She gives up her journey, and writes a letter, which 
is the only one Madame de Sable chose to preserve when, in 
her period of devotion, she sacrificed the records of her youth. 
Here it is : 

" I have seen this letter in which you tell me there is so much gali- 
matias, and I assure you that I have not found any at all. On the 
contrary, I find everything very plainly expressed, and among others, 
one which is too explicit for my satisfaction namely, what you have 
said to Madame de Rambouillet, that if you tried to imagine a per- 
fectly happy life for yourself, it would be to pass it all alone with 
Mademoiselle de Rambouillet. You know whether any one can be 
more persuaded than I am of her merit ; but I confess to you that that 
has not prevented me from being surprised that you could entertain a 
thought which did so great an injury to our friendship. As to believ- 
ing that you said this to one, and wrote it to the other, simply for the 
sake of paying them an agreeable compliment, I have too high an es- 
teem for your courage to be able to imagine that complaisance would 
cause you thus to betray the sentiments of your heart, especially on a 
subject in which, as they were unfavorable to me, I think you would 
have the more reason for concealing them, the affection which I have 
for you being so well known to every one, and especially to Mademoi- 
selle de Rambouillet, so that I doubt whether she will not have been 
more sensible of the wrong you have done me, than of the advantage 
you have given her. The circumstance of this letter falling into my 
hands has forcibly reminded me of these lines of Bertaut : 

' Malheureuse est 1'ignorance, 
Et plus malheureux le savoir.' 

" Having through this lost a confidence which alone rendered life 
supportable to me, it is impossible for me to take the journey so much 
thought of. For would there be any propriety in travelling sixty miles 
in this season, in order to burthen you with a person so little suited to 
you, that, after years of a passion without parallel, you cannot help 



72 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

thinking that the greatest pleasure of your life would he to pass it 
without her ? I return, then, into my solitude, to examine the defects 
which cause me so much unhappiness, and unless I can correct them, I 
should have less joy than confusion in seeing you." 

It speaks strongly for the charm of Madame de Sable's 
nature that she was able to retain so susceptible a friend as 
Mademoiselle d'Attichy in spite of numerous other friend- 
ships, some of which, especially that with Madame de Longue- 
ville, were far from lukewarm in spite too of a tendency 
in herself to distrust the affection of others towards her, and 
to wait for advances rather than to make them. We find 
many traces of this tendency in the affectionate remon- 
strances addressed to her by Madame de Longueville, now 
for shutting herself up from her friends, now for doubting 
that her letters are acceptable. Here is a little passage from 
one of these remonstrances, which indicates a trait of Madame 
de Sable", and is in itself a bit of excellent sense, worthy the 
consideration of lovers and friends in general : " I am very 
much afraid that if I leave to you the care of letting me 
know when I can see you, I shall be a long time without 
having that pleasure, and that nothing will incline you to 
procure it for me ; for I have always observed a certain luke- 
warmness in your friendship after our explanations, from 
which I have never seen you thoroughly recover ; and that 
is why I dread explanations, for however good they may be 
in themselves, since they serve to reconcile people, it must 
always be admitted, to their shame, that they are at least the 
effect of a bad cause, and that if they remove it for a time 
they sometimes leave a certain facility in getting angry again, 
which, without diminishing friendship, renders its intercourse 
less agreeable. It seems to me that I find all this in your 
behavior to me ; so I am not wrong in sending to know if 
you wish to have me to-day." It is clear that Madame de 
Sable was far from having what Saint-Beuve calls the one 
fault of Madame Necker, absolute perfection. A certain ex- 
quisiteness in her physical and moral nature was, as we shall 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 73 

see, the source of more than one weakness; but the percep- 
tion of these weaknesses, which is indicated in Madame de 
Longueville's letters, heightens our idea of the attractive 
qualities which, notwithstanding, drew from her, at the sober 
age of forty, such expressions as these : " I assure you that 
you are the person in all the world whom it would be most 
agreeable to me to see, and there is no one whose intercourse 
is a ground of truer satisfaction to me. It is admirable that 
at all times, and amidst all changes, the taste for your society 
remains in me ; and, if one ought to thank God for the joys 
which do not tend to salvation, I should thank him with all my 
heart for having preserved that to me at a time in which 
he has taken away from me all others." 

Since we have entered on the chapter of Madame de Sa- 
ble"'s weaknesses, this is the place to mention what was the 
subject of endless raillery from her friends her elaborate 
precaution about her health, and her dread of infection, even 
from diseases the least communicable. Perhaps this anxiety 
was founded as much on aesthetic as on physical grounds, on 
disgust at the details of illness as much as on dread of suffer- 
ing ; with a cold in the head or a bilious complaint, the ex- 
quisite precieuse must have been considerably less conscious 
of being " the ornament of the world," and " made to be 
adored." Even her friendship, strong as it was, was not 
strong enough to overcome her horror of contagion ; for when 
Mademoiselle de Bourbon, recently become Madame de 
Longueville, was attacked by small-pox, Madame de Sable for 
some time had not courage to visit her, or even to see Made- 
moiselle de Kambouillet, who was assiduous in her attendance 
on the patient. A little correspondence, a propos of these cir- 
cumstances, so well exhibits the graceful badinage in which 
the great ladies of that day were adepts, that we are tempted 
to quote one short letter. 

Mademoiselle de Bambouillet to the Marquise de Sable. 
Mademoiselle de Chalais [dame de compagnie to the Marquise] will 
please to read this letter to Madame la Marquise, out of a draught. 



74 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

MADAME, I do not think it possible to begin my treaty with you 
too early, for I am convinced that between the first proposition made to 
me that I should see you, and the conclusion, you will have so many re- 
flections to make, so many physicians to consult, and so many fears to 
surmount, that I shall have full leisure .to air myself. The conditions 
which I offer to fulfil for this purpose are, not to visit you until I have 
been three days absent from the Hotel de Conde [where Madame de 
Longuevillo was ill] , to choose a frosty day, not to approach you withiu 
four paces, not to sit down on more than one seat. You may also have 
a great fire in your room, burn juniper in the four corners, surround 
yourself with imperial vinegar, with rue and wormwood. If you can 
feel yourself safe under these conditions, without my cutting off my hair, 
1 swear to you to execute them religiously ; and if you want exam- 
ples to fortify you, I can tell you that the Queen consented to see M. 
Chaudebonne, when he had come directly from Mademoiselle de Bour- 
bon's room, and that Madame d'Aiguillon, who has good taste in such 
matters, and is free from reproach on these points, has just sent me 
word that if I did not go to see her, she would come to me. 

Madame de Sable betrays in her reply that she winces un- 
der this raillery, and thus provokes a rather severe though 
polite rejoinder, which, added to the fact that Madame de 
Longueville is convalescent, rouses her courage to the pitch 
of paying the formidable visit. Mademoiselle de Eambouillet, 
made aware, through their mutual friend Voiture, that her 
sarcasm has cut rather too deep, winds- up the matter by writ- 
ing that very difficult production, a perfectly conciliatory yet 
dignified apology. Peculiarities like this always deepen with 
age ; and accordingly, fifteen years later, we find Madame 
D'Orleans, in her "Princesse de Paphlagouia," a romance 
in which she describes her court, with the little quarrels and 
other affairs that agitated it, giving the following amusing 
picture, or rather caricature, of the extent to which Madame 
de Sable* carried her pathological mania, which seems to have 
been shared by her friend the Countess de Maure (Mademoi- 
selle d'Attichy). In the romance, these two ladies appear 
under the names of Princesse Parthe'nie and the Reine de 
Mionie. 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 75 

" There was not an hour in the day in which they did not confer 
together on the means of avoiding death, and on the art of rendering 
themselves immortal. Their conferences did not take place like those 
of other people ; the fear of breathing an air which was too cold or too 
warm, the dread lest the wind should be too dry or too moist in 
short, the imagination that the weather might not be as temperate as 
they thought necessary for the preservation of their health, caused 
them to write letters from one room to the other. It would be ex- 
tremely fortunate if these notes could be found, and formed into a 
collection. I am convinced that they would contain rules for the 
regimen of life, precautions even as to the proper time for applying 
remedies, and also remedies which Hippocrates and Galen, with all 
their science, never heard of. Such a collection would be very useful 
to the public, and would be highly profitable to the faculties of Paris 
and Montpellier. If these letters were discovered, great advantages of 
all kinds might be derived from them, for they were princesses who 
had nothing mortal about them but the knowledge that they were 
mortal. In their writings might be learned all politeness in style, and 
the most delicate manner of speaking on all subjects. There is noth- 
ing with, which they were not acquainted : they knew the affairs of all 
the states in the world, through the share they had in all the intrigues 
of its private members, either in matters of gallantry, as in other 
things on which their advice was necessary, either to adjust embroil- 
ments and quarrels, or to excite them, for the sake of the advantages 
which their friends could derive from them, in a word, they were 
persons through whose hands the secrets of the whole world had to 
pass. The Princess Parthenie [Madame de Sable] had a palate as 
delicate as her mind ; nothing could equal the magnificence of the en- 
tertainments she gave ; all the dishes were exquisite, and her cleanli- 
ness was beyond all that could be imagined. It was in their time that 
writing came into use ; previously, nothing was written but marriage 
contracts, and letters were never heard of; thus it is to them that we 
owe a practice so convenient in intercourse." 

Still later, in 1669, when the most uncompromising of the 
Port Royalists seemed to tax Madame de Sable with luke- 
warmness that she did not join them at Port-Royal-des- 
Champs, we find her writing to the stern M. de Sevigny: 
"En verite, je crois que je ne pourrois mieux faire que de 
tout quitter et de m'en aller la. Mais que deviendroient ces 



76 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

frayeurs de n'avoir pas de medicines h choisir, ni de chirur- 
gien pour me saigner ? " 

Mademoiselle, as we have seen, hints at the love of delicate 
eating, which many of Madame de Sable's friends numbered 
among her foibles, especially after her religious career had 
commenced. She had a genius in friandise, and knew how 
to gratify the palate without offending the highest sense of 
refinement. Her sympathetic nature showed itself in this as 
in other things ; she was always sending bonnes bouches to 
her friends, and trying to communicate to them her science 
and taste in the affairs of the table. Madame de Longue- 
ville, who had not the luxurious tendencies of her friend, 
writes : " Je vous demande, au nom de Dieu, que vous ne 
me prepariez aucun ragout. Surtout, ne me donnez point de 
festin. Au nom de Dieu, qu'il n'y ait rien que ce qu'on peut 
manger, car vous savez que c'est inutile pour moi ; de plus, 
j'en ai scruple." But other friends had more appreciation 
of her niceties. Voiture thanks her for her melons, and 
assures her that they are better than those of yesterday ; 
Madame de Choisy hopes that her ridicule of Jansenism will 
not provoke Madame de Sable to refuse her the receipt for 
salad ; and La Rochefoucauld writes : " You cannot do me a 
greater charity than to permit the bearer of this letter to 
enter into the mysteries of your marmalade and your genuine 
preserves, and I humbly entreat you to do everything you 
can in his favor. If I could hope for two dishes of those 
preserves, which I did not deserve to eat before, I should be 
indebted to you all my life." For our own part, being as far 
as possible from fraternizing with those spiritual people who 
convert a deficiency into a principle, and pique themselves 
on an obtuse palate as a point of superiority, we are not in- 
clined to number Madame de Sable's friandise amongst her 
defects. M. Cousin, too, is apologetic on this point. He 
says : 

" It was only the excess of a delicacy which can be really understood, 
and a sort of fidelity to the character of prtcieuse. As the precieuse 
did nothing according to common usage, she could not dine like an- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE\ 77 

other. We have cited a passage from Madame de Motteville, where 
Madame de Sable is represented in her first youth at the Hotel de 
Rambouillet, maintaining that woman is born to be an ornament to the 
world, and to receive the adoration of men. The woman worthy of the 
name ought always to appear above material wants, and retain, even 
in the most vulgar details of life, something distinguished and purified. 
Eating is a very necessary operation, but one which is not agreeable 
to the eye. Madame de Sable insisted on its being conducted with a 
peculiar cleanliness. According to her, it was not every woman who 
could with impunity be at table in the presence of a lover ; the first 
distortion of the face, she said, would be enough to spoil all. Gross 
meals, made for the body merely, ought to be abandoned to bourgeoises, 
and the refined woman should appear to take a little nourishment 
merely to sustain her, and even to divert her, as one takes refresh- 
ments and ices. Wealth did not suffice for this; a particular talent 
was required. Madame de Sable was a mistress in this art. She had 
transpoited the aristocratic spirit, and the genre preeieux, good-breed- 
ing, and good taste, even into cookery. Her dinners, without any 
opulence, were celebrated and sought after." 

It is quite in accordance with all this, that Madame de 
Sable should delight in fine scents, and we find that she did ; 
for being threatened, in her Port Koyal days, when she was 
at an advanced age, with the loss of smell, and writing for 
sympathy and information to Mere Agnes, who had lost that 
sense early in life, she receives this admonition from the 
stern saint : " You would gain by this loss, my very dear sister, 
if you made use of it as a satisfaction to God, for having had 
too much pleasure in delicious scents." Scarron describes 
ber as 

" La non pareille Bois-Dauphine, 
Entre dames perle tr2s fine ; " 

and the superlative delicacy implied by this epithet seems to 
have belonged equally to her personal habits, her affections, 
and her intellect. 

Madame de Sable's life, for anything we know, flowed on 
evenly enough until 1640, when the death of her husband 
threw upon her the care of an embarrassed fortune. She 
found a friend in Rene de Longueil, Seigneur de Maisons, of 



78 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

whom we are content to know no more than that he helped 
Madame de Sable to arrange her affairs, though only by 
means of alienating from her family the estate of Sable ; that 
his house was her refuge during the blockade of Paris, in 
1649 ; and that she was not unmindful of her obligations to 
him, when subsequently her credit could be serviceable to 
him. at Court. In the midst of these pecuniary troubles came 
a more terrible trial, the loss of her favorite son, the brave 
and handsome Guy de Laval, who, after a brilliant career in 
the campaigns of Conde, was killed at the siege of Dunkirk, 
in 1646, when scarcely four-and-twenty. The fine qualities 
of" this young man had endeared him to the whole army, and 
especially to Conde, had won him the hand of the Chancellor 
Seguire's daughter, and had thus opened to him the prospect 
of the highest honors. His loss seems to have been the most 
real sorrow of Madame de Sable's life. Soon after followed 
the commotions of the Fronde, which put a stop to social 
intercourse, and threw the closest friends into opposite ranks. 
According to Lenet, who relies on the authority of Gourville, 
Madame de Sable was under strong obligations to the Court, 
being in the receipt of a pension of two thousand crowns ; at 
all events, she adhered throughout to the Queen and Mazarin, 
but being as far as possible from a fierce partisan, and given 
both by disposition and judgment to hear both sides of the 
question, she acted as a conciliator, and retained her friends 
of both parties. The Comtesse de Maure, whose husband was 
the most obstinate of frondenrs, remained throughout her 
most cherished friend, and she kept up a constant corre- 
spondence with the lovely and intrepid heroine of the Fronde, 
Madame de Longueville. Her activity was directed to the 
extinction of animosities, by bringing about marriages be- 
tween the Montagues and Capulets of the Fronde, between 
the Prince de Conde, or his brother, and the niece of Maza- 
rin, or between the three nieces of Mazarin and the sons 
of three noblemen who were distinguished leaders of the 
Fronde. Though her projects were not realized, her concili- 
atory position enabled her to preserve all her friendships 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 79 

intact ; and when the political tempest was over, she could 
assemble around her, in her residence in the Place Koyal, 
the same society as before. Madame de Sable was now ap- 
proaching her twelfth lustrum; and though the charms of 
her mind and character made her more sought after than 
most younger women, it is not surprising that, sharing as 
she did in the religious ideas of her time, the concerns of 
" salvation " seemed to become pressing. A religious retire- 
ment, which did not exclude the reception of literary friends 
or the care for personal comforts, made the most becoming 
frame for age and diminished fortune. Jansenism was then, 
to ordinary Catholicism, what Puseyism is to ordinary Church- 
of-Englandism in these days ; it was a recherche form of 
piety unshared by the vulgar ; and one sees at once that it 
must have special attractions for the precieuse. Madame de 
Sable then, probably about 1655 or 1656, determined to re- 
tire to Port Royal, not because she was already devout, but 
because she hoped to become so ; as, however, she wished to 
retain the pleasure of intercourse with friends who were still 
worldly, she built for herself a set of apartments, at once dis- 
tinct from the monastery and attached to it. Here, with a 
comfortable establishment, consisting of her secretary, Dr. 
Valant ; Mademoiselle de Chalais, formerly her dame de com- 
pagnie, and now become her friend; an excellent cook; a 
few other servants ; and for a considerable time a carriage 
and coachman ; with her best friends within a moderate dis- 
tance, she could, as M. Cousin says, be out of the noise of the 
world without altogether forsaking it, preserve her dearest 
friendships, and have before her eyes edifying examples, 
" vaquer enfin & son aise aux soins de son salut et a ceux de 
sa sante." 

We have, hitherto, looked only at one phase of Madame de 
Sable's character and influence, that of the precieuse. But 
she was much more than this : she was the valuable, trusted 
friend of noble women and distinguished men ; she was the 
animating spirit of a society whence issued a new form of 
French literature ; she was the woman of large capacity and 



80 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

large heart, whom Pascal sought to please, to whom Arnauld 
submitted the Discourse prefixed to his Logic, and to whom 
La Rochefoucauld writes: "Vous savez que je ne crois que 
vous etes sur de certains chapitres, et surtout sur les replis 
du coeur." The papers preserved by her secretary, Valant, 
show that she maintained an extensive correspondence with 
persons of various rank and character; that her pen was 
untiring in the interest of others ; that men made her the 
depositary of their thoughts, women of their sorrows ; that 
her friends were as impatient, when she secluded herself, 
as if they had been rival lovers, and she a youthful beauty. 
It is into her ear that Madame de Longueville pours her 
troubles and difficulties, and that Madame de la Fayette 
communicates her little alarms, lest young Count de St. Paul 
should have detected her intimacy with La Rochefoucauld. 1 
The few of Madame de Sable's letters which survive show 
that she excelled in that epistolary style which was the spe- 
cialty of the Hotel de Rambouillet : one to Madame de Mon- 
tausier, in favor of M. Perier, the brother-in-law of Pascal, 
is a happy mixture of good taste and good sense ; but 
amongst them all, we prefer quoting one to the Duchesse 
de la Tremouille. It is light and pretty, and made out of 
almost nothing, like soap-bubbles. 

" Je crois qu'il n'y a que moi qui face si bien tout le contraire de ce 
que je veux faire, car il est vrai qu'il n'y a personne que j'honore plus 
que vous, et j'ai si bien fait qu'il est quasi impossible que vous le puis- 
siez croire. Ce n'estoit pas assez pour vous persuader que je suis in- 
digne de vos bonnes graces et de votre souvenir que d'avoir manque* 
fort longtemps & vous ecrire ; il falloit encore retarder quinze jours a 
me donner 1'honneur de repondre a votre lettre. En verite, Madame, 
cela me fait paroitre si coupable, que vers tout autre que vous j'aimeroix 
mieux 1'etre en effet que d'entreprendre une chose si difficile qu'est celle 

1 The letter to which we allude has this charming little touch : " Je 
hais comme la mort que les gens de son age puissent croire que j'ai des ga- 
lanteries. II semble qu'on leur parait cent ans des qu'on est plus vieille 
qu'eux, et Us sont tout propre a s'e'tonner qu'il y ait encore question des 
gens." 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 81 

de me justifier. Mais je me sens si innocente dans mon dine, et j'ai taut 
d'estitne, de respect, et d'affection pour vous, qu'il rne semble quo vous 
devez le connoitre a cent lieue,s de distance d'ici, encore que je ne vous 
disc pas un mot. C'est ce que me donne le courage de vous ecrire a 
cette heure, mais non pas ce qui m'en a empe'che si longtemps. J'ai 
commence a faillir par force, ayaut eu beaucoup de maux, et depuis je 
1'ai faite par houte, et je vous avoue que si je n'avois a cette heure la 
confiance que vous m'avez donne"e en me rassurant, et celle que je tire 
de mes propres sentimens pour vous, je n'oserois jamais entreprendre 
de voustaire souvenir de moi ; mais je m'assure que vous oublierez tout, 
sur la protestation que je vous fais de ne me laisser plus endurcir en 
mes fautes et de deineurer inviolablement, Madame, votre, &c.'' 

Was not the woman, who could unite the ease and grace in- 
dicated by this letter, with an intellect that men thought worth 
consulting on matters of reasoning and philosophy, with warm 
affections, untiring activity for others, no ambition as an au- 
thoress, and an insight into confitures and ragoHts, a rare com- 
bination ? No wonder that her salon at Port Royal was the 
favorite resort of such women as Madame de la Fayette, Ma- 
dame de Montausier, Madame de Longueville, and Madame de 
Hautefort, and of such men as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, 
Nicole, and Domat. The collections of Valant contain papers 
which show what were the habitual subjects of conversation in 
this salon. Theology, of course, was a chief topic ; but phys- 
ics and metaphysics had their turn, and still more frequently 
morals, taken in their widest sense. There were "Confer- 
ences on Calvinism," of which an abstract is preserved. 
When Rohault invented his glass tubes to serve for the ba- 
rometrical experiments in which Pascal had roused a strong 
interest, the Marquis de Sourdis entertained the society with 
a paper entitled, " Why water mounts in a glass tube." 
Cartesianism was an exciting topic here, as well as every- 
where else in France ; it had its partisans and opponents, 
and papers were read, containing " Thoughts on the opinions 
of M. Descartes." These lofty matters were varied by dis- 
cussions on love and friendship, on the drama, and on most 
of the things in heaven and earth, which the philosophy of 

6 



82 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

that day areamt of. Morals generalizations on human af- 
fections, sentiments, and conduct seem to have been the 
favorite theme ; and the aim was to reduce these generaliza- 
tions to their briefest form of expression, to give them the 
epigrammatic turn which made them portable in the memory. 
This was the specialty of Madame de Sable's circle, and was 
probably due to her own tendency. As the H6tel de Ram- 
bouillet was the nursery of graceful letter-writing, and the 
Luxembourg of " portraits " and " characters," so Madame de 
Sable's salon fostered that taste for the sententious style, to 
which we owe, probably, some of the best Pensees of Pascal, 
and, certainly, the Maxims of La Eochefoucauld. Madame 
de Sable herself wrote maxims, which were circulated among 
her friends ; and, after her death, were published by the Abbe 
d'Ailly. They have the excellent sense and nobility of feel- 
ing, which we should expect in everything of hers, but they 
have no stamp of genius or individual character ; they are, 
to the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, what the vase moulded 
in dull, heavy clay is to the vase which the action of fire has 
made light, brittle, and transparent. She also wrote a trea- 
tise on Education, which is much praised by La Rochefou- 
cauld and M. d'Andilly, but which seems no longer to be found ; 
probably it was not much more elaborate than her so-called 
"Treatise on Friendship," which is but a short string of 
maxims. Madame de Sable's forte was evidently not to write 
herself, but to stimulate others to write, to show that sym- 
pathy and appreciation which are as genial and encouraging 
as the morning sunbeams. She seconded a man's wit with 
understanding, one of the best offices which womanly intel- 
lect has rendered to the advancement of culture ; and the 
absence of originality made her all the more receptive 
towards the originality of others. 

The manuscripts of Pascal show that many of the Pensees, 
which are commonly supposed to be raw materials for a great 
work on religion, were remodelled again and again, in order 
to bring them to the highest degree of terseness and finish, 
which would hardly have been the case if they had only been 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 83 

part of a quarry for a greater production. Thoughts which 
are merely collected as materials, as stones out of which a 
building is to be erected, are not cut into facets, and polished 
like amethysts or emeralds. Since Pascal was from the first 
in the habit of visiting Madame de Sable at Port Eoyal, 
with his sister Madame Pe*rier (who was one of Madame de 
Sable's dearest friends), we may well suppose that he would 
throw some of his jewels among the large and small coin 
of maxims, which were a sort of subscription-money there. 
Many of them have an epigrammatic piquancy, which was 
just the thing to charm a circle of vivacious and intelligent 
women : they seem to come from a La Rochefoucauld who 
has been dipped over again in philosophy and wit and re- 
ceived a new layer. But whether or not Madame de Sable's 
influence served to enrich the Pensees of Pascal, it is clear 
that but for her influence the " Maxims " of La Rochefou- 
cauld would never have existed. Just as in some circles the 
effort is, who shall make the best puns (horr'ibile dictuf) or 
the best charades, in the salon of Port Royal the amusement 
was to fabricate maxims. La Rochefoucauld said, "L'envie 
de faire des maximes se gagne comme le rhume." So far 
from claiming for himself the initiation of this form of 
writing, he accuses Jacques Esprit, another habitue of Ma- 
dame de Sable's salon, of having excited in him the taste for 
maxims, in order to trouble his repose. The said Esprit 
was an academician, and had been a frequenter of the H6- 
tel de Rambouillet. He had already published "Maxims in 
Verse," and he subsequently produced a book called " La Faus- 
sete des Vertus Humaines," which seems to consist of Roche- 
foucauldism become flat with an infusion of sour Calvinism. 
Nevertheless, La Rochefoucauld seems to have prized him, 
to have appealed to his judgment, and to have concocted 
maxims with him, which he afterwards begs him to submit 
to Madame de Sable. He sends a little batch of maxims to 
her himself, and asks for an equivalent in the shape of good 
eatables: "Voila tout ce que j'ai de maximes; mais comme 
je ne donne rien pour rien, je vous demande un potage aux 



84 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

carottes, un ragout de mouton," &c. The taste and the talent 
enhanced each other, until at last La Rochefoucauld began 
to be conscious of his pre-eminence in the circle of maxim- 
mongers, and thought of a wider audience. Thus grew up 
the famous "Maxims," about which little need be said. 
Every one is now convinced, or professes to be convinced, 
that as to form, they are perfect, and that as to matter, they 
are at once undeniably true and miserably false ; true as ap- 
plied to that condition of human nature in which the selfish 
instincts are still dominant, false if taken as a representation 
of all the elements and possibilities of human nature. We 
think La Eochefoucauld himself wavered as to their univer- 
sality, and that this wavering is indicated in the qualified 
form of some of the maxims ; it occasionally struck him that 
the shadow of virtue must have a substance, but he had 
never grasped that substance ; it had never been present to 
his consciousness. 

It is curious to see La Eochefoucauld's nervous anxiety 
about presenting himself before the public as an author ; far 
from rushing into print, he stole into it, and felt his way by 
asking private opinions. Through Madame de Sable" he sent 
manuscript copies to various persons of taste and talent, both 
men and women, and many of the written opinions which she 
received in reply are still in existence. The women generally 
find the maxims distasteful, but the men write approvingly. 
These men, however, are for the most part ecclesiastics, who 
decry human nature that they may exalt divine grace. The 
coincidence between Augustinianism, or Calvinism, with its 
doctrine of human corruption, and the hard cynicism of the 
maxims, presents itself in quite a piquant form in some of the 
laudatory opinions on La Eochefoucauld. One writer says : 
" On ne pourroit faire une instruction plus propre a un cate- 
chume'ne pour convertir k Dieu son esprit et sa volonte .... 
Quand il n'y auroit que cet escrit au monde et 1'Evangile 
je voudrois etre chre'tien. L'un m'apprendroit a connoistre 
mes mise'res, et 1'autre a implorer mon liberateur." Madame 
de Maintenon sends word to La Eochefoucauld, after the 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE". 85 

publication of his work, that the " Book of Job " and the 
" Maxims " are her only reading. 

That Madame de Sable herself had a tolerably just idea 
of La Bochefoucauld's character, as well as of his maxims, 
may be gathered not only from the fact that her own maxims 
are as full of the confidence in human goodness which La 
Rochefoucauld wants, as they are empty of the style which 
he possesses, but also from a letter in which she replies to 
the criticisms of Madame de Schomberg. " The author," she 
says, "derived the maxim on indolence from his own dis- 
position, for never was there so great an indolence as his ; 
and I think that his heart, inert as it is, owes this defect as 
much to his idleness as his will. It has never permitted 
him to do the least action for others; and I think that, 
amidst all his great desires and great hopes, he is sometimes 
indolent even on his own behalf." Still she must have felt 
a hearty interest in the "Maxims," as in some degree her 
foster-child, and she must also have had considerable affec- 
tion for the author, who was lovable enough to those who 
observed the rule of Helvetius, and expected nothing from 
him. She not only assisted him, as we have seen, in getting 
criticisms, and carrying out the improvements suggested by 
them, but when the book was actually published, she pre- 
pared a notice of it for the only journal then existing the 
"Journal des Savants." This notice was originally a brief 
statement of the nature of the work, and the opinions which 
had been formed for and against it, with a moderate eulogy, 
in conclusion, on its good sense, wit, and insight into human 
nature. But when she submitted it to La Eochefoucauld he 
objected to the paragraph which stated the adverse opinion, 
and requested her to alter it. She, however, was either 
unable or unwilling to modify her notice, and returned it 
with the following note : 

" Je vous onvoie ce que j'ai pu tirer de ma teste pour mettre dans le 
' Journal des Savants.' Py ai mis cct endroit qui vous est le plus 
sensible, afin que cela vous fasse surmonter la mauvaise honte qui 
vous fit mettre la preface sans y rien retrancher, et je n'ai pas craint 



86 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

dc le mettre, parce que je suis assuree que vous ne le ferez pas im- 
primer, quand merne le reste vous plairoit. Je vous assure aussi quo 
je vous serai plus oblige"e, si vous en usez comme d'une chose qui 
servit a vous pour le corriger ou pour le Jeter au feu. Nous autres 
grauds auteurs, nous sommes trop riches pour craindre de rien perdre 
de nos productions. Mandez-rnoi ce qu'il vous seinble de ce dictum." 

La Rochefoucauld availed himself of this permission, and 
" edited " the notice, touching up the style, and leaving out 
the blame. In this revised form it appeared in the " Journal 
des Savants." In some points, we see, the youth of journal- 
ism was not without promise of its future. 

While Madame de Sable was thus playing the literary con- 
fidante to La Eochefoucauld, and was the soul of a society 
whose chief interest was the belles lettres, she was equally 
active in graver matters. She was in constant intercourse 
or correspondence with the devout women of Port Eoyal, and 
of the neighboring convent of the Carmelites, many of whom 
had once been the ornaments of the Court ; and there is a 
proof that she was conscious of being highly valued by them, 
in the fact that when the Princesse Marie-Madeline, of the 
Carmelites, was dangerously ill, not being able or not daring 
to visit her, she sent her youthful portrait to be hung up in 
the sick-room, and received from the same Mere Agnes, 
whose grave admonition we have quoted above, a charming 
note, describing the pleasure which the picture had given in 
the infirmary of " Notre bonne Mere." She was interesting 
herself deeply in the translation of the New Testament, 
which was the work of Sacy, Arnauld, Nicole, Le Maitre, and 
the Due de Luynes conjointly, Sacy having the principal 
share. We have mentioned that Arnauld asked her opinion 
on the Discourse prefixed to his " Logic," and we may con- 
clude from this that he had found her judgment valuable in 
many other cases. Moreover, the persecution of the Port 
Royalists had commenced, and she was uniting with Madame 
de Longueville in aiding and protecting her pious friends. 
Moderate in her Jansenism, as in everything else, she held 
that the famous formulary denouncing the Augustinian doc- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 87 

trine, and declaring it to have been originated by Jansenius, 
should be signed without reserve, and, as usual, she had 
faith in conciliatory measures ; but her moderation was no 
excuse for inaction. She was at one time herself threatened 
with the necessity of abandoning her residence at Port 
Eoyal, and had thought of retiring to a religious house at 
Auteuil, a village near Paris. She did, in fact, pass some 
summers there, and she sometimes took refuge with her 
brother, the Commandeur de Souvre, with Madame de Mon- 
tausier, or Madame de Longueville. The last was much 
bolder in her partisanship than her friend, and her superior 
wealth and position enabled her to give the Port Royalists 
more efficient aid. Arnauld and Nicole resided five years in 
her house ; it was under her protection that the translation 
of the New Testament was carried on and completed, and it 
was chiefly through her efforts that, in 1669, the persecution 
was brought to an end. Madame de Sable co-operated with 
all her talent and interest in the same direction ; but here, 
as elsewhere, her influence was chiefly valuable in what she 
stimulated others to do, rather than in what she did herself. 
It was by her that Madame de Longueville was first won to 
the cause of Port Eoyal ; and we find this ardent, brave 
woman constantly seeking the advice and sympathy of her 
more timid and self-indulgent, but sincere and judicious 
friend. 

In 1669, when Madame de Sable had at length rest from 
these anxieties, she was at the good old age of seventy, but 
she lived nine years longer years, we may suppose, chiefly 
dedicated to her spiritual concerns. This gradual, calm 
decay allayed the fear of death, which had tormented her 
more vigorous days, and she died with tranquillity and trust. 
It is a beautiful trait of these last moments, that she desired 
not to be buried with her family, or even at Port Koyal, 
among her saintly and noble companions, but in the cem- 
etery of her parish, like one of the people, without pomp 
or ceremony. 

It is worth while to notice that, with Madame de Sable, 



88 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

as with some other remarkable French women, the part of 
her life which is richest in interest and results is that which 
is looked forward to by most of her sex with melancholy, as 
the period of decline. When between fifty , and sixty, she 
had philosophers, wits, beauties, and saints clustering around 
her; and one naturally cares to know what was the elixir 
which gave her this enduring and general attraction. We 
think it was, in a great degree, that well-balanced develop- 
ment of mental powers which gave her a comprehension of 
varied intellectual processes, and a tolerance for varied forms 
of character, which is still rarer in women than in men. 
Here was one point of distinction between her and Madame 
de Longueville ; and an amusing passage, which Saint-Beuve 
has disinterred from the writings of the Abbe St. Pierre, so 
well serves to indicate, by contrast, what we regard as the 
great charm of Madame de Sable's mind, that we shall not 
be wandering from our subject in quoting it. 

" I one day asked M. Nicole what was the character of Madame 
de Longueville' s intellect ; he told me it was very subtle and delicate 
in the penetration of character ; but very small, very feeble, and that 
her comprehension was extremely narrow in matters of science and 
reasoning, and on all speculations that did not concern matters of sen- 
timent. For example, he added, I one day said to her that I could 
wager and demonstrate that there were in Paris at least two inhab- 
itants who had the same number of hairs, although I could not point 
out who these two men were. She told me I could never be sure of 
it until I had counted the hairs of these two men. Here is my de- 
monstration, I said : I take it for granted that the head which is 
most amply supplied with hairs has not more than 200,000, and the 
head which is least so has but one hair. Now, if you suppose that 
200,000 heads have each a different number of hairs, it necessarily 
follows that they have each one of the numbers of hairs which form 
the series from one to 200,000 ; for if it were supposed that there were 
two among these 200,000 who had the same number ofhairs, I should 
have gained my wager. Supposing, then, that these 200,000 inhab- 
itants have all a different number of hairs, if I add a single inhabitant 
who has hairs, and who has not more than 200,000, it necessarily 
follows that this number of hairs, whatever it may be, will be con- 



WOMAN IN FRANCE: MADAME DE SABLE. 89 

tained in the series from one to 200,000, and consequently will be 
equal to the number of hairs on one of the previous 200,000 inhab- 
itants. Now as, instead of one inhabitant more than 200,000, there 
are nearly 800,000 inhabitants in Paris, you see clearly that there 
must be many heads which have an equal number of hairs, though I 
have not counted them. Still Madame de Longueville could never 
comprehend that this equality of hairs could be demonstrated, and 
always maintained that the only way of proving it was to count 
them." 

Surely, the most ardent admirer of feminine shallowness 
must have felt some irritation when he found himself arrested 
by this dead wall of stupidity, and have turned with relief 
to the larger intelligence of Madame de Sable, who was not 
the less graceful, delicate, and feminine because she could 
follow a train of reasoning, or interest herself in a question 
of science. In this combination consisted her pre-eminent 
charm : she was not a genius, not a heroine, but a woman 
whom men could more than love ; whom they could make 
their friend, confidante, and counsellor, the sharer, not of 
their joys and sorrows only, but of their ideas and aims. 

Such was Madame de Sable, whose name is, perhaps, new 
to some of our readers, so far does it lie from the surface of 
literature and history. We have seen, too, that she was only 
one amongst a crowd one in a firmament of feminine stars 
which, when once the biographical telescope is turned upon 
them, appear scarcely less remarkable and interesting. Now 
if the reader recollects what was the position and average in- 
tellectual character of women in the high society of England 
during the reigns of James the First and the two Charleses, 
the period through which Madame de Sable's career extends, 
we think he will admit our position as to the early superi- 
ority of womanly development in France, and this fact, with 
its causes, has not merely an historical interest : it has an 
important bearing on the culture of women in the present 
day. Women become superior in France by being admitted 
to a common fund of ideas, to common objects of interest 
with men ; and this must ever be the essential condition at 



90 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

once of true womanly culture and of true social well-being. 
We have no faith in feminine conversazioni, where ladies 
are eloquent on Apollo and Mars ; though we sympathize 
with the yearning activity of faculties which, deprived of 
their proper material, waste themselves in weaving fabrics 
out of cobwebs. Let the whole field of reality be laid open 
to woman as well as to man, and then that which is peculiar 
in her mental modification, instead of being, as it is now, a 
source of discord and repulsion between the sexes, will be 
found to be a necessary complement to the truth and beauty 
of life. Then we shall have that marriage of minds which 
alone can blend all the hues of thought and feeling in one 
lovely rainbow of promise for the harvest of human hap- 
piness. 



MARGARET FULLER. 

OUR prediction as to the rich harvest of American biog- 
raphy that is now ripening finds a beautiful fulfilment 
in the " Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli." Reading this 
book after Carlyle's " Life of Sterling," we are reminded, by 
their similarity of subject and authorship, as well as by their 
simultaneous preparation, that it is "the same spirit which 
worketh all in all." There is a noticeable resemblance be- 
tween these two gifted beings : their studies, aspirations, 
endeavors, and influence were of a similar nature ; they had 
the same unsettled career and the same premature end. But 
Margaret Fuller had a deeper, stronger, richer life, and wielded 
a mightier power over her companions and contemporaries. 
If her aim was not higher, it was clearer ; and what she aimed 
at she accomplished. It is not, however, in contrast with 
Sterling, but in the midst of her friends, that we must view 
her. Considering the remarkable influence she exercised over 
the circle which ultimately acknowledged her as its ruling 
spirit, we are at a loss whether to regard her as the parent or 
child of New England transcendentalism. Perhaps neither 
the one nor the other. It seems to have been a movement on 
the part of different minds, as spontaneous and independent 
in each as it was simultaneous in all, a movement flowing 
from the undying vernal impulse of nature. It was essen- 
tially an intellectual, moral, and spiritual regeneration ; a 
renewing of the whole man; a kindling of his aspirations 
after full development of faculty and perfect symmetry of 
being. Then followed the fruits of this spirit, faith, hope, 
and love ; self-sacrifice, mutual sympathy, fellowship, and 
earnest endeavor. "Thus, by mere attraction of affinity," 



92 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

says Mr. Charming, "grew together the brotherhood of the 
'like-minded/ as they were pleasantly nicknamed by out- 
siders and by themselves, on the ground that no two were of 
the same opinion." Of this sect Margaret Fuller was the 
priestess. In conversation she was as copious and oracular 
as Coleridge, brilliant as Sterling, pungent and paradoxical as 
Carlyle ; gifted with the inspired powers of a pythoness, she 
saw into the hearts and over the heads of all who came near 
her ; and, but for a sympathy as boundless as her self-esteem, 
she would have despised the whole human race ! Her frailty, 
in this respect, was no secret either to herself or her friends. 
She quizzed them and boasted of herself to such an excess as 
to turn disgust into laughter, yea., so right royally did she 
carry herself that her arrogance became a virtue, worshipful 
as the majesty of the gods ! Yet along with all this there 
was much self -scrutiny ; and underneath it all much womanly 
tenderness, which ripened and mellowed till, after all, few 
women were more womanly than Margaret Fuller. "Very 
early," she says, "she perceived that the great object of life 
was to grow ; " and with rare courage she put no check even 
upon the growth of her infirmities, convinced, no doubt, that 
it required only a corresponding growth of some other quali- 
ties to constitute them her glory and her crown. That sup- 
plementary growth subsequent events tended to foster. The 
two sides of her more mature character the tender and the 
strong were harmonized and tested by the peculiar position 
into which she was thrown during her sojourn at Koine, at 
the time of the Revolution. We have not space to explain 
our allusions to those who have not read, or do not intend 
to read, these Memoirs for themselves ; but in indicating our 
general opinion of her character, we must say that from the 
time she became a mother till the final tragedy when she 
perished with her husband and child within sight of her na- 
tive shore, she was an altered woman, and evinced a greatness 
of soul and heroism of character so grand and subduing that 
we feel disposed to extend to her whole career the admira- 
tion and sympathy inspired by the closing scenes. While her 



MARGARET FULLER. 93 

reputation was at its height in the literary circles of Boston 
and New York, she was so self-conscious that her life seemed 
to be a studied act, rather than a spontaneous growth ; but this 
was the mere nutter on the surface. The well was deep, and 
the spring genuine ; and it is creditable to her friends, as well 
as to herself, that such at all times was their belief. 

We have already spoken of her in connection with Sterling. 
Both have found kindred spirits to write their biographies ; 
but Emerson and his colleagues must yield to Carlyle in 
mastery of the pencil. The " Life of Sterling," though made 
up of fragments and reminiscences, is a finished portrait. 
But the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller" is a book of reminis- 
cences merely. No attempt is made at symmetry of form or 
color ; nor are even the outward events of her life presented 
in their consecutive order. Something like an appropriation 
of periods and localities seems to have been prearranged, but 
not attended to ; and according to the caprice of the writer's 
memory you are carried hither and thither, backwards and 
forwards, over the scenes of her history. A little more atten- 
tion to chronology and geography would have mended the 
matter considerably, and made the mechanism of the narra- 
tive as good as the material. " Memoirs," then, memo- 
randa, not a life, yet full of life and full of thought, 
these volumes will be read and prized by all truth-loving, 
sympathetic souls. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 

WE do not know a more touchingly tragical history than 
that of George Forster, who closed in so- lonely and 
wretched a manner that life which, as a boy, he began so daz- 
zlingly ; leaping, when yet in his teens, into startling fame, 
and winning the lively interest of all Europe as the compan- 
ion of Cook, and the recounter of his second expedition to 
those blessed isles of the Southern Sea. Other lives have been 
more violently checkered, or rent by abrupter incidents ; but 
the web of none has been so altogether spun with the threads 
of straitened penury and grinding distress. It t is curious 
to observe the course of lives : there are some whose very 
accidental adventures are pitched into such wondrous tune 
with their owners' tempers, that fancy might stray to the 
thought of a moulding destiny designing their career from 
womb to death, lives the turns and meetings of which 
strike so into their tendencies, that they foster them, whether 
for weal or woe, as it were out of necessity, and beyond 
any aid or power of repression of their own. Doubtless, 
when closely viewed, the mystery proves to be only that 
such souls, endowed with lively quickness, seize on every- 
thing akin to their promptings, while dullards stumble blindly 
on their way, and mysterious destiny resolves itself into a 
goodly dose of enterprise. There are other lives which offer 
analogies more worthy of consideration: the lives of the 
children of their age, showing its sum total in their thoughts 
and doings as the blood and type of family come out in its 
offspring ; the chance adventurers, who are transformed and 
diverted to their own purposes and feelings, as deluges turn 



GEORGE FORSTER. 95 

to flooded lakes or rivers, according to the nature of the 
country that takes them in. Such men exist at all times ; 
for times are the work of men, and in the summary of the 
man we learn to know mankind. George Forster was one 
of these. All his thoughts and doings are the utterings of 
that strange eighteenth century; as a boy turned into a 
mighty traveller suiting his age's spirit of inquiry, he remains 
his whole life long an eager, restless wanderer, an Ishmaelite 
on the face of his century, ever seeking and peering on to a 
brighter future ; his temper is marked by that simple and 
undoubting trust in new perfections and coming certainties, 
with a credulous leaning to all novel and hidden truths, prev- 
alent in his age, when man awoke to belief after centuries of 
slumber ; his heart is honest and generous, his spirit eager, 
and freed from all he considers prejudice, allowing itself to 
soar into regions, the subtle air of which is too rare to live 
in ; a sufferer by his father's unbridled humors, in married 
life not slightly tried, and if not wholly wrecked then, saved 
only by a lifeboat of most thorough eighteenth-century build ; 
renowned as a sailor round the world, and as the man who 
had brought to Europe knowledge of friendly savages, and 
who could, from personal acquaintance, describe new realms 
of nature and mankind to the sickened age yearning for fan- 
cied archetypes of man and the world ; all these characteris- 
tics give a special zest to poor George Forster's life. In short, 
we see mirrored in his history the whole painful lot and so- 
cial shackling of a man of science of those days in Germany, 
and how a thinking and feeling mind became drifted athwart 
them into perilous rapids and breakneck eddies; we see a 
man gifted with the highest abilities and soundest learning, 
strong in spirit and heart, moreover privileged with a hold 
on the tastes of the public from the very nature of his fame, 
we see this man, in spite of his advantages, doomed to 
toil his whole life long beneath a weight of trammels, unable 
to find the hand that might drag him out of the choking mud- 
sloughs of rotten petty courts, until at last he topples over 
the mighty chasm of the French Revolution. To the English 



96 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

public he is wholly unknown, to that of his own country, 
by a freak of destiny, he was until lately only notorious ; for 
while straitened circumstances deprived his fine intellect of 
that repose, as necessary to its nurture as light and space are 
to a tree to enable it to put forth perfect fruit, the peculiari- 
ties of his political adventures exposed him to an ill wind 
which blasted his memory. Almost all Forster's writings par- 
take of a fragmentary nature and hasty slightness of design, 
which were imparted to them of a necessity from the enforced 
circumstances of their production. They are mostly essays, 
contributed regularly to journals, or prefaces to translations of 
travels, undertaken at the bidding of publishers ; but as soon 
as we look at them, we perceive a fund of learning, lively feel- 
ing, and suggestive thought set forth in wording so full of 
natural charm, that we at once guess a mind of no common 
power to be at work here. Twice only in the course of his 
hard-working life did he get respite enough to be able to un- 
dertake a connected production, the first time, when, hardly 
past his boyhood, he wrote that account of his voyage with 
Cook, which at once made his name known all over the world ; 
the second time, just before the close of his career, when he 
began, but did not finish, his journey through Brabant and 
England. The two volumes he accomplished are his most 
perfect literary work, and show what would have been the 
fulness of Forster. Here is a mass of thoughtful observa- 
tion and rich suggestion. The whole tone and scope of his 
writing were wholly different from the abstractness and 
vagueness from which no German thinker of his day was 
free ; it had the life of reality about it, and his truthful feel- 
ing and keen eye made him so lively an expounder of nature, 
that his method and style were the chosen model of Hum- 
boldt, as Forster's example was his first incentive to scientific 
exploration. 

The youth he had spent in his country had accustomed his 
mind to the ways of public life, and imparted to it habits of 
practical thought, which impregnated his whole being, and 
distinguished him for readiness of bearing amidst the dim 



GEORGE FORSTER. 97 

haziness of his countrymen. His turn of mind found in the 
study of natural science the only nurture which the arid so- 
cial system of Germany left for it ; but as soon as the great 
French Revolution loosened the stoniness in which he had 
been bound, the promptings of his nature made him strike at 
once into the genial soil of politics. In truth, the quickenings 
of his mind were those that stamp the citizen ; he was public- 
spirited in the true sense of the word; and bred in self- 
governing England, accustomed to public enterprise and rule, 
he stood before his countrymen, in the delicately organized 
manifoldness of his constitution, in the sparkle of his renown, 
and in charm of writing, like a prophet whose words, passing 
their understanding, were coarsely maligned. Therefore 
people's minds turned away from Forster until, when after 
near half a century the growth of enlightenment stirred up 
feelings of independence, men found that in him they had 
possessed one whose sound and patriotic aspirations had been 
altogether calumniated, and who combined the qualities of a 
noble intellect with the virtues of the citizen. 

It is the interesting history of this man that Heinrich 
Konig recounts in a book undertaken under the inspiration 
of times in many respects akin to those of his hero, and writ- 
ten with a most intimate knowledge of the scenery of the 
story's plot. For many years he has studied every detail, 
however petty, of German history of the end of the last cen- 
tury ; and before he entertained any thought of this book, he 
had already written a novel on the Revolution of Mayence, 
which is a wonderfully accurate picture of the times, and 
the close researches for which had made him intimately ac- 
quainted with many parts of Forster's life. 

George Forster was born on the 26th November, 1754, at 
the poor village of Nassenhuben, near Danzig, where his 
father, whose Christian names were John Reinhold, was the 
Calvinistic minister. He had been driven to this calling by 
his father, who had been highly displeased on learning that 
his son, while a student at Halle, had taken the liberty to 
desert the law for medicine and the natural sciences, in which 

7 



98 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

he had made considerable progress. It thus happened that 
he was, as it were, turned off cramped from the very starting- 
post, and all through life's race he limped. Though ever an 
honest Protestant, science was more his love than theology, 
and the straits of his position chafed his temper to that iras- 
cibility which afterwards so marred his good and sterling 
parts. His son, who amidst all his trials never laid aside a 
most dutiful bearing towards him, strikes off the following 
sketch of him once in a letter to Jacobi : 

" My father is, in every respect, a useful man for the sciences, 
possessed of solid learning, choice reading, and book-lore, besides being 
a good naturalist, antiquary, and also theologian, although the last 
study does not occupy him any more, nor can it interest him scientifi- 
cally, as I think. His warmth, hot temper, and eager battling for 
his ideas, have done him immeasurable harm, as it is also his misfor- 
tune that he does not know, and never will know, mankind, always 
suspicious and credulous exactly there where he should not be so." 

We can fancy the quarrelsome divine plagued by his boor- 
ish parishioners in the midst of his study of Buffon, and fly- 
ing into whims of wrongs under the friction of such daily 
worries. The living was not a fat one, while his family 
for he early married a cousin was the contrary of meagre ; 
seven children required feeding, and the means to do so were 
not ready at hand. Under these circumstances the elder 
Forster, with his hankering for the sciences and his discon- 
tent with his parish, jumped at an offer made to him by the 
Russian Government to inspect and report on the new colo- 
nies founded on the banks of the Volga. Taking his son 
George, then eleven years old, with him, he spent the sum- 
mer of 1765 in performing the journey and returning to St. 
Petersburg ; in the autumn he handed in his report, the mat- 
ter of which is said to have been so good as to have given the 
Empress suggestions for her great code of laws. His blus- 
tering temper, however, which often proved his worst enemy, 
closed his promising career in Russia ; and he spent the win- 
ter in St. Petersburg, urging obstinate claims for recompense 



GEORGE FORSTER. 99 

and imperturbably refusing to accept the offers made. Dur- 
ing this time his wants drove him to the shifts of a translator, 
in which he called his boy to his aid, who was following the 
course of lessons at the high-school, and who thus early was 
broken in to his life-long drudgery of an overworked literary 
hack. At last the priest-sage gave vent to his anger with 
the Eussian Government, and left St. Petersburg with the 
satisfaction of having at least had his will, if not the very 
sum of money, and none other than that which he had made 
his mind up to have. But if St. Petersburg and the Russias 
were well behind him and his son, it was not very clear what 
land lay ahead. The good Christians of Nassenhuben had 
provided themselves, during their high-priest's gaddings 
about on the Volga, with some ghostly vice-regent, who seems 
to have been unwilling to give up his realm on his lord's 
advent ; and so John Eeinhold, who perhaps rather liked the 
chance, conscious of his real acquirements and sphere of ac- 
tion, took the sudden resolve to seek his fortune in England, 
and, without even visiting his wife or family, sailed thither 
with his son. They sturdily fought off the dreariness of the 
voyage, lengthened by storms, with the study of English ; and 
soon after their arrival, the father's solid scientific knowledge 
having gained him the good-will of many distinguished men 
in London, he was appointed teacher of natural history at an 
educational institution for dissenting clergymen, at Warring- 
ton in Lancashire. George was apprenticed to a Kussian 
merchant named Lewin ; but the sedentary application of this 
life so pulled the youth down, that when, on his mother and 
sisters' arrival, he escorted them to Warrington, his father 
became alarmed at his favorite child's looks, and kept him 
by him. George was thus brought back to the study of the 
natural sciences under his father's immediate influence ; and 
as the latter soon embroiled himself, as usual, with his supe- 
riors, while the wants of his large family caused him to feel 
sorely pinched in his resources, the son had to put himself 
into the family traces, and help sturdily to keep the house- 
hold van going. We find him, therefore, not only combining 






100 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

the parts of scholar and teacher, learning botany and zoology 
from his restless father, and teaching French and German in 
a neighboring school to those who ought to have been his 
playfellows, but the poor youth's strength was still further 
strained by continual translations of foreign books of travels 
into English. Thus early was the boy brought to encounter 
those hardships of life whose freaks, in spite of his bold 
struggle, it was never his lot to be able to say that he was 
freed from. From this time of his life a story remains which 
is told by all his biographers, as foreshadowing in its small 
burden the haphazards which so often befell him, and the 
temper with which he took them. The pygmy professor's road 
to his lecture-chair lay past a pastry-cook's savory stall of 
sweet cakes, and the tale of this temptation ended as tempta- 
tions will end when brought to bear on lively flesh and blood ; 
the savor tingled through his veins, till, wholly rapt by its 
witchery, he swallowed as many cakes as he could cram. 
The cook, however, like a crafty worldly cook, only consid- 
ered his pies' sweetness as the means of barter ; and before 
their taste was off poor George's lips, the horror of dunnery 
and dismay of debt cut short his relish. Shame made him 
skulk along back ways ; but the sharp cook's twinkling eyes 
would flash on him still, until his little heart burst forth its 
bitter distress in a fervent prayer, when, lo ! on crossing the 
next fence on his hiding by-path, his eye caught sight of a 
guinea embedded in a horse's tread, and, having run to pay 
his debts, he bought with the remainder a gilt thimble for 
his sister. Painful troubles and dribbling windfalls of luck 
are indeed the tissue of his whole life ; but if a lowness of 
spirit did come over him for a season in his gloomy times, 
one sunny ray was ever enough to lighten his heart and make 
it beat high and bold. 

Under all these circumstances, and with the peculiar keen 
temper of Dr. John Reinhold Forster, it will be easily believed 
that he clutched at the sudden offer to accompany Cook as 
naturalist on his expedition. He only bargained to be allowed 
to take with him his son, then seventeen years of age ; and so 



GEORGE FORSTER. 101 

hurried was their departure that only nine days intervened 
between decision on the journey and embarkation. The his- 
tory of this voyage is known to most persons. At that time all 
Europe eagerly watched its result ; for since the discovery of 
America, no geographical riddles had so whetted its curiosity 
as those of the great Southern Sea. The fashionable idyllic 
sentimentalism of those times, so fostered by the hothouse 
breathings of B. de St. Pierre and Bousseau, was fascinated 
by the gentle savages and peaceful virgin isles of whose real- 
ity Cook's first voyage had given the certainty ; and all the 
smirking skirmishers of enlightenment were on the eager 
look-out for new and startling confirmation of their yearning 
dreams. How the many and large views of nature such a 
journey brought with it must have impressed the quick mind 
of young Forster, already so given to a wandering, shifting 
life, can be easily conceived. The driest man could not have 
met with such a chance at such an age of his life without 
learning from it somewhat which lasted for the remainder 
of it. George Forster bore away with him that largeness of 
views on nature and man which so nobly marked his thoughts 
in all stages of his life ; he got his mind enriched with a ten- 
der, yet a large and manly sense of nature's beauty, whose 
healthy freshness contrasted as vividly with the mawkish 
feeling of those times as a peasant girl's ruddy cheek with a 
painted face ; but he also bore away from these three roving 
years a hankering after travel which never left him, and to 
which, under the weight of trouble, he was too apt to give 
himself up, as the drinker grasps at his dram, while the seeds 
of lasting illness were laid in his body by an attack of 
scurvy. 

The enjoyment of these pleasures was somewhat marred by 
painful embarrassments arising from fresh outbursts of his 
father's wild temper, which chafed at the discipline of a man- 
of-war, entailing on the commander the necessity of severe 
measures to repress his mutinous freaks. The youth him- 
self was, however, a favorite with Cook ; and the language in 
which he speaks of him in a biographical sketch, written 



102 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

many years later, shows how thoroughly he knew the worth 
of that daring seaman's character. But when, on the return 
of the expedition, the Doctor, with headstrong stubbornness, 
ran foul of the Admiralty itself, George was dragged into the 
quarrel, or from filial love rushed into it to a degree which 
had a lasting influence. It seems that the elder Forster had 
not fully understood the meaning of his engagement with 
the Government, according to which no account of the voy- 
age was to be published before the official one : the Admi- 
ralty, therefore, stopped the publication of a work he was 
preparing ; and in consequence of the fiery naturalist's per- 
sistence in contesting its right to do so, it proceeded to an act 
which seems harsh, and might have maddened many a quieter 
man so laden with troubles, who saw his hopes of gain van- 
ish, and nothing before him but poverty, debts, and a starv- 
ing family, it despoiled him of any share in the proposed 
Government publication. The blow was a desperate one. 
Yet even now the old man could not curb his temper ever so 
little, or matters would still have come to run more smoothly : 
George himself says as much in a letter of later date, al- 
though at all times he held his father to have been unjustly 
and most cruelly treated. As no mention of his own name 
had been made in the engagement with Government, he 
balked the Admiralty's precautions (probably at his father's 
desire) by writing himself an account of the voyage, a pro- 
ceeding which at the time exposed him to much abuse, and 
poisoned the quarrel beyond remedy. In this work the jour- 
ney and the countries visited are described with simple truth, 
and a color which shows how thoroughly his soul had become 
impregnated with the sunny warmth of the tropics. The 
artlessness of the account has a charm which carries the 
reader away, and is sufficient proof that, although the father 
looked over the scientific description of animals and flowers, 
the bulk of the work is entirely George's own. The success 
of the book was great; the author's name became at once 
well known, and the poor family garrets in Percy Street were 
enlivened by the hail of many a foreigner, anxious to see the 



GEORGE FORSTER. 103 

lucky travellers who had, beyond doubt, beheld and been in 
the happy South Sea Isles. It was on the occasion of such 
a pilgrimage that George was first brought together with a 
young German physician, whose name was Sommering. He 
had come over to England to attend its medical schools ; and 
that attraction which had drawn him unto his renowned coun- 
trymen grew quickly into the tightest bonds of friendship 
with the younger of them, fastened by kinship in studies, 
and probably also by ties of masonic brotherhood, which 
then, and for many years after, largely took hold of their 
minds in that alchemistic form under which it so mightily 
swayed the thought of Europe of that century. 

The proceeds of the book were, unfortunately, small in 
money ; starvation daily haunted the wretched dwelling, 
barely staved off by petty gifts from a friend, or some Ger- 
man princeling, coaxed into dribbling forth scanty alms by a 
present of South Sea rarities ; the sale of the latter also came 
to an absolute standstill, and the Admiralty was deaf to the 
roar of claims, till at last hard-hearted creditors came down 
on the forlorn family, and bore away its mainstay and pillar, 
and dreary King's Bench shut on the chafing Doctor. It was 
indeed a bleak and starving future which George had then to 
look upon, his father imprisoned and no prospect of re- 
lief, his mother sick and his sisters weak and helpless, 
while he himself was racked by continued ill-health maim- 
ing the sinews of his good-will to work. He soon had to yield 
to the conviction that in England there was no chance of ob- 
taining aid ; so, with the one thought of straining his utmost 
nerve for his parents, he turned himself to his native coun- 
try, from which sundry cheers of fellow-feeling had at times 
gladdened the wretchedness of Percy Street. Making up, 
therefore, a bale of dried plants and other specimens of nat- 
ural history, in the hope some continental museums might 
buy them, he, whose name was then trumpeted forth as the 
foremost of explorers, embarked at Harwich, to cross to 
Holland as an anxious pedler and seeker of alms. Noth- 
ing can be more touching than to read in Ms letters to his 



104 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

parents his grief at their sorrows, and his unflinching trust 
in Providence: 

" I am well and fresh '' (he writes to his father), " resigned, and full 
of trust that God will not forsake us ; he has often proved his exceed- 
ing goodness, and will deliver us out of our present evil chances and 
hardships, which have weighed us down for these last years. I sub- 
mit to all trials with the firm trust that they are meant for our best, 
and believe that, while I leave everything to the ordaining of the 
most perfect Being, I act neither unrighteously nor forwardly if I 
beseech him daily for the peace and earthly welfare of us all ; for also 
here on earth we can reach to a certain pitch of happiness, and why, 
then, should we not pray for it 1 " 

In these words we meet with two thoughts, which are the 
groundwork of Forster's belief and lively trust in the happy 
ending of all chances, which, through every distress, kept him 
from continued hopelessness, yet never stiffened into dull 
fatalism, and a strong religious feeling, full of devout yearn- 
ings, but with an inborn loathing of all strained asceticism. 

Though he was received by the learned men of Holland 
with the most nattering kindness, and every sort of civil 
attention was paid him, he soon saw that he could have no 
hopes of bettering his family by any help from that country. 
In his letter to his mother he pours out the sorrow of his 
heart : 

" My hopes to dispose of something here have been driven to the 
winds. There is, in plain speaking, no possibility of doing so. I am 
in the hands of Almighty God, and yield myself to his ordaining. 
Before me I see nothing but darkness; but let his will be done. 
Amen ! Oh, alas, my poor heart ! I can write no more. . . . The 
thought on mine in England has given me many a troubled moment. 
Are you well, dearest mother? are you at all at rest? Does God 
send you comfort and courage in the tribulation which you have to 
undergo? Has no new need befallen our sorely pressed house? " 

Driven on by such painful thoughts, George hastened to 
Germany, reproaching himself with the slightest delay. At 
Dusseldorf, then renowned for its galleries of art, he was. 
however, waylaid by Jacobi, who, with enthusiastic kindness, 



GEORGE FORSTER. 105 

as soon as he heard of the famed traveller's arrival, wrote him 
before daybreak a pressing invitation to spend a whole day 
with him. Forster was fascinated by the society he was 
introduced to, and that spell in Jacobi's bearing which had 
ravished Goethe with delight. One of the lords of the Ger- 
man commonwealth of letters, the bosom friend of Goethe 
and of its chief leaders, whom he loved to gather around him 
at his country-seat at Pempelfort, he enthralled the loving 
temper of young Forster by the welling forth of his speech, 
which he would let flow in the full stream of enthusiasm. 
Forster found himself transferred, as it were by a wizard's 
wand, into the very midst of the choicest spirits of Germany, 
while the charm of Jacobi's kindly hospitality soothed his 
aching heart like balm. The latest poems of Goethe ; snatches 
from " Woldemar," which Jacobi was then writing ; freshly 
received letters from the stars of literature, were the treats 
which, during four days, were thrust on Forster, spiced by 
the touching kindness of his host and his sisters ; he tore 
himself from Dusseldorf, enraptured with his new friends. 
" Such people as these we shall not meet again on our whole 
journey," was his exclamation to Alexander von Humboldt, 
when, twelve years later, on their trip to England, they 
turned out of their way to visit Jacobi. 

Cassel was the goal of his immediate expectations. He 
had hopes that the new Landgrave, Frederick II., who partook 
of the fashionable taste for dallying with enlightenment, pro- 
vided it could be done cheaply, might be tempted to gain a 
man of his father's fame for his new high-school. This sov- 
ereign, who, during his father's lifetime, had forsaken his 
Protestant faith and ancestral views in politics, had, since his 
accession to his states, calmed the lively fears of the old 
servants of his house by steadily settling down into all the 
good old family ways. Although remaining a Catholic him- 
self, he swore, as a true son of Hesse, to the maintenance of 
Protestantism in his country ; and, quitting forthwith the 
Austrian Court, with which while heir apparent he had been 
unmindful enough of his blood to flirt, he left off all new- 



106 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

fangled whims, to the delight of his gray-haired ministers, 
ruling as his father had ruled before him, to the comfort of 
himself and the fattening of his exchequer, which he shrewdly 
enriched by selling twenty-two thousand true Hessians to 
England for 7,000,000. If the sum seemed large, it also 
appears that the Landgrave had many calls for it. But 
George soon saw his hopes vanish afresh ; the whole of the 
funds allotted for the mental enlightenment of such Hessians 
as were not gaining it in another way in America, had been 
sunk in a parcel of rubbishy marbles, which were their 
owner's joy and pride. A sum that might have freed the 
starving traveller from King's Bench, and have allowed him 
and his family to live at Cassel, could not possibly be made 
forthcoming; but, in its stead, his Highness deigned to 
admit George to a gracious audience in his statue gallery, 
and insisted on his delaying his filial researches till after the 
next sitting of his Academy of Antiquities, at which he accord- 
ingly held a discourse ; and at last the Landgrave not only 
accepted a copy of the father's books, but even strained his 
poverty to the disbursing of a gift of fifty louis, besides thrust- 
ing on the unwilling son the appointment of professor of 
natural history at the University of Cassel, with the dazzling 
salary of seventy pounds. It is touching to read how anxiously 
Forster debated with his conscience, whether he would be 
justified in accepting anything for himself as long as he had 
not achieved that relief for his parents which he had set out 
to seek ; and when at last he> did accept, it was with the ex- 
press understanding that he should be allowed certain months 
of absence, wherein he might bring his endeavors to a satis- 
factory result. At Gottingen he made acquaintances which 
afterwards ripened into friendship, especially that of 
Heyne ; and he wrote a letter to his father who he evi- 
dently feared might misinterpret his proceedings in which 
he tried to enliven his gloom by the friendly greetings of the 
leading members of that University ; but such kindly wishes 
were all he reaped, both here and at Berlin, with the excep- 
tion of a pittance of one hundred louis from the Prince of 



GEORGE FORSTER. 107 

Dessau, bestowed in a warm-hearted manner, and coupled 
with the promise to use his influence in England with the 
Admiralty, to obtain some recompense, which, however, 
proved vain. Such painful disappointments did not allow 
Forster to begin his stay at Cassel, in the spring of 1779, 
with a light heart ; and his correspondence reveals his writh- 
ing efforts to burst his father's prison bars, when, in the 
forlorn midnight of this gloom, a hidden hand all of a sudden 
thrust comfort and freedom on the wretched family. The 
masonic lodges of Germany, at the call of the Duke of Bruns- 
wick, their grand-master, paid the father's debts, while the 
chair of natural history at Halle was to provide for his main- 
tenance. True, however, to his self-willed temper, he nearly 
marred his own luck ; for he could not for a long while be 
brought to give up the character of a victim, and insisted on 
his just claims, spurning what he deemed a dishonorable 
compromise, till the earnest entreaties of his family and the 
smarting reminiscences of imprisonment at last softened his 
resolve. If this happy event freed George's mind from a 
load of care, the spring of his spirits was now still further 
braced by a new piece of luck. Sommering, the brother of 
his heart, he to whom in the heyday of betrothal he wrote, 
" Love itself yields to the bond of soul which links me to 
thee," obtained the professorship of anatomy at Cassel, 
by dint of sundry diplomatic wiles which his eager friend 
suggested to him ; for the Landgrave had snatched up the 
crotchet, that only Frenchmen knew the science, and it 
wanted no little knack to master his whims. With such in- 
tercourse to encourage him, he set to his duties with eager- 
ness, employing his leisure hours with a translation of Buff on, 
to the account of which were put sundry trips to the library of 
Gottingen, which were perhaps suggested, if the whole truth 
were known, by other promptings than those of absolute 
literary research. Nor was the society of Cassel wanting 
in interest ; besides many men of more or less distinction 
who were attached to its high-school, it counted the illustri- 
ous historian, Johannes von Miiller, amongst its residents, 



108 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

between whom and Forster an intimacy sprang up ; so that, 
had it not been for other discomforts, he might have con- 
tentedly endured the petty worries of Court attendance ; for 
the Landgrave regarded his University, with its staff, as his 
toys, and Forster found, on promotion to the inspectorship 
of a most threadbare cabinet of natural history, that he 
shared with the statue gallery the honor of being his High- 
ness's chief entertainer. But the want of money, the canker 
of his life, soon made its gnawings felt. The pittance of his 
salary, and the loss by shipwreck of all his little property on 
its way from England, had made it impossible for the fam- 
ished youth to start his establishment, however frugally, 
without a loan the cost of which shackled him like a galley- 
chain. Jacobi, with whom he kept a close correspondence, 
in which he poured forth his sorrow into his kind and sym- 
pathetic heart, had already of himself devised how to help 
his friend to ease, by procuring for him the administrator- 
ship of the proposed new customs board for the Duchy of 
Berg, intending to pay from his own purse the required se- 
curity of thirty thousand thalers, when his hopes were dis- 
appointed by the abandonment of the whole plan. He now, 
therefore, on hearing of his friend's straits, came forward at 
once with his generous feeling, and thrust on him a loan of 
twenty-five pistoles in so brotherly a manner, that Forster 
was forced to yield all misgivings about its acceptance. But 
this sum was far from enough to insure him from further 
difficulties. In consequence of the miserable resources of the 
University, he found himself obliged to provide books at his 
own outlay, and, in spite of convulsive attempts at thriftiness, 
debt dogged him like a spectre. " Fy ! fy ! I can't get a 
book tp look at here, unless I buy it," he writes to Jacobi. 
" Cassel is a perfect wilderness, as regards new books, for the 
annual sum allotted for procuring such for the Prince's library 
does not amount to 60." Under such circumstances it is 
easy to feel that alchemistic notions, if once allowed to be at 
all entertained, must have involuntarily lured him on with 
absorbing temptations. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 109 

Freemasonry, in the garb of Illumination and Rosicrucian- 
ism, at that time had largely laid hold of the mind of Ger- 
many. Its many interturnings are not easy to unravel 
through the mazes of its stealthy course ; but in every court 
and in every high-school its high-priests were then to be 
found, for the catholic tone of its mystic language had 
charms for the most varied tempers, and thus, at the dawn 
of the sunrise of modern science, we see the smouldering 
embers of the alchemist's nightly furnaces flare through the 
breadth of the land once more into flame, fanned by the 
adroit breathings of jugglers on that vein of faith which ran, 
as it were, in irony so fully through an age boastful that the 
amulet of enlightenment shielded it from reach of dupery 
and superstition. The Rosicrucians were especially devoted 
to this scientific dressing up of mysticism ; and the possibil- 
ity of finding prime matter endowed with the virtues of an 
universal medicine and the transmutation of metals was seri- 
ously entertained by men of learning, and its research fol- 
lowed by many. We know that both the Forsters were keen 
freemasons ; and a letter from George to Heyne informs 
us that it was through masonry that he became intimately 
acquainted with the Rosicrucians. Summering, his bosom 
friend, had joined the brotherhood, which counted amongst 
its active members most of the leading professors of Cassel ; 
and even the great Johannes von Miiller had allowed the 
shrewd twinkle of his keen sight to be hoodwinked for the 
nonce. Eagerly and fervently did these associates stimulate 
each other in the prosecution of what they held to be the 
great work, conjointly with their brethren spread on the sur- 
face of the globe. At this time an event happened which 
startled the scientific world, and the tidings of which were 
caught up with nervous eagerness by the brethren of Cassel. 
The witheringly sarcastic Lichtenberg, that keen intellect the 
bolts of whose wit loved to split the very heart of humbug, 
seriously communicated to his friend Forster trustworthy 
accounts of transmutations of metals by Dr. Price, in Eng- 
land, in the presence of competent witnesses. The doings 



110 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

of this man were, indeed, such as to attract general atten- 
tion. A member of the Royal Society, and a wealthy prac- 
titioner in Guildford, he believed or professed to have 
discovered a powder able to change silver or mercury into 
gold; and after two years spent in doubt (as he averred) 
whether to publish or keep secret his discovery, he spoke of 
it to some friends, one of whom was Grose the antiquary, and 
to whom he even showed proofs of his skill. Success em- 
boldened him to lay aside his fears, so that during several 
months of the year 1782 he exhibited before anybody who 
chose to visit him at Guildford, evidence of his power to 
change mercury into gold and silver by means of certain 
white and reddish powders ; and at last, on the 30th of May 
of that year, he produced an ingot of silver weighing two 
ounces, which he offered as a present to the King. All this 
he described in a pamphlet, containing numerous testimonials 
signed by unexceptionable witnesses, amongst them Lords 
Onslow, King, and Palmerston. On the demand, however, of 
the Eoyal Society, that its fellow should renew his marvels 
before a chosen board, Price refused to do so, on the ground 
that he had exhausted his stock of philosopher's powder, the 
preparation of which required much time; and that, as a 
Rosicrucian, he was bound to maintain the secrets of the 
craft. Finding, however, that by such excuses his credit 
was thoroughly shaken, he retired, in January, 1783, to his 
laboratory at Guildford, announcing that he would be back 
in London in a month ; and, having first prepared a large 
decoction of laurel juice and written his will, he shut him- 
self up in his study, when six months passed by before the 
world again heard of him. The Royal Society, at the end of 
that time, received an invitation to visit him in a body on a 
certain day ; but when, instead of the whole society, he saw 
but one or two of his colleagues arrive, he was so stung at 
the contempt shown for him and his discovery, that, entering 
his closet, he destroyed himself with the poison he had pre- 
pared. Before the melancholy end happened, the announce- 
ment of Price's success excited the greatest interest; and 



GEORGE FORSTER. Ill 

was not Forster's heart made to leap with a fevered heat, 
when the hope of escape from poverty seemed to be visibly 
beckoning to him ? It is nowhere clearly stated how far he 
allowed himself to be practically inveigled into great loss of 
time. Forster acknowledges in letters, and Kb'nig supposes, 
that both he and Sommering melted away much useful money 
in their Rosicrucian crucibles. It was not, however, a greedy 
want of gold which had been our friend's snare ; his heart, 
in mysticism, was noble as in everything else. The mystic 
piety of language and the cosmogonic professions of the soci- 
ety had enticed his religious feeling and his inquiring mind. 
In letters to Sommering, he prays that the Spirit of Jesus 
might lead them in holiness, forbearance, and love ; and in 
the following extract from a letter, written to his bride after 
his breaking off with all secret brotherhoods, will be found a 
picture of his hopes and delusions : 

"You know that I was a dreamy enthusiast; hut few people could 
be aware how far I was one, and to what degree I had allowed myself 
to be carried away, for I held it as a duty to keep it hidden. I have 
believed everything. The conviction that those who had misled me 
into this faith were morally bad themselves, opened my eyes. I thought, 
then, that I saw the whole pile of this fabric of faith resting on the 
point of a needle, which on inquiry I found to be itself rusted and 
crumbling. I was like one who awakes from a heavy dream, and finds 
that he has escaped danger of death. . . . Nothing is more intoxicating 
for one so vain as I was, as to look upon the great interlinkings in the 
plan of creation ; to be drawn near to God, viewing, as it were, 
through him to read and overlook that universe in concentration which 
seems to lie before us in disorder that baffles understanding ; to he the 
familiar of the world of spirits, one's self a little demigod, whole lord 
of the creation ; and to know all, even the yet hidden powers of nature ; 
all this by the easiest means in the world, through boundless se- 
raphic love of the most perfect Being, intimate communion in spirit 
with him, self-denial in the highest degree, a forsaking of all vanity, 
continued ascetic intercourse with him, and a contemplative as well as 
practical spying by experiments into nature, &c. From such a height 
as this, the fall, as can be foreseen, was far from soft." 



112 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

It is the greatest proof of Forster's healthy soundness, that 
when he did wake to the self-knowledge of his trance, it was 
to renewed strength, as illness cleanses a strong body of a 
surfeit of bad humors. He wished himself joy that he had 
thrown off such a change of dreaminess before his thirtieth 
year ; and, taking up his studies with no loss of true enthu- 
siasm, he zealously tried to lessen the heap of debt which his 
mistakes had probably helped to pile up, by renewed transla- 
tions and active contributions to literary journals. He, who 
by the chances of his early life had seemed to have been born 
at once to manhood, had proved how all must pay Nature's 
debts, and, having cheated her of his childishness in his teens, 
she had exacted from his manhood payment of her calls. But 
now Forster the man was born, and he was a goodly and a 
noble man. " The past is behind me," he says in the letter 
last quoted, " and I still retain a burning desire to arrive at 
the best possible insight of what we call truth, which my 
nature is able to arrive at." 

In spite, however, of this sturdy spirit, Cassel and all be- 
longing to it had become loathsome to him. The remem- 
brance of his errors was there continually thrust upon his 
thoughts, and all social enjoyment poisoned by Sommering's 
trouble of mind, who, a true comrade to the last, had left at 
the same time with him the brotherhood which they had 
entered together, but bore away so trembling a fear of the 
wrath of its fellows, that it haunted his every step, and kept 
such a hold of his mind, even until his death in 1830, that 
when Forster's widow was preparing his letters for publica- 
tion in 1829, Sb'mmering not only refused to contribute those 
in his keeping, but entreated her, even by threats, not to 
broach a hint, in her sketch of her husband's life, as to any 
connection with secret societies. Against such daily wrong 
of life neither learned dissertations on the bread-fruit and 
other points of natural history, nor translations of books of 
travels, proved sufficient antidotes ; and he who had already 
feverishly exclaimed that a great journey alone could restore 
him to usefulness, can be well believed to have felt quicken- 



GEORGE FORSTER. 113 

ings of joy at the sudden chance of removal to a new world. 
He was offered the professorship of natural history at Wilna 
in Poland, and accepted it, not merely on his own hasty 
promptings, but by the counsel of such wary friends as Lich- 
tenberg and Heyne. The conditions were, in fact, such as 
might have tempted many a literary man : besides a fair sal- 
ary, a sum was settled for correspondence and the purchase 
of specimens of natural history, while the flattering language 
of the Primate Poniatowsky's letter was backed by subscrip- 
tions which freed him from his liabilities at Cassel, and pro- 
vided for his travelling outlay. Thus, at a moment when the 
atmosphere of Cassel choked his manly vigor, luck seemed to 
shower on him the very windfall befitting his wants ; and 
with the good cheer with which he had formerly run to buy 
his sister a thimble with the chance sovereign that saved him 
from his boyish scrapes, he now leapt forward to snatch the 
happiness which seemed to be beckoning him. 

Happiness this time appeared to him in the guise of a 
young girl of twenty. During his visits to Gottingen he had 
learnt to know Theresa Heyne, and had been struck by her 
feeling disposition and artless liveliness. She had been 
brought up in early youth at a distance from home ; and a 
freedom of carriage, thus contracted from habit, was increased 
by the enthusiasm of her temperament, while daily intercouse 
with the distinguished men who frequented her father's 
house fostered a feverish liking for all which partook of 
intellectual superiority and excellence. Her feelings with 
regard to "Forster are told by herself in the following words, 
written when the reflection of age threw its clear, steady 
light upon the dark eddies of her life : 

"The girl had seen Forster repeatedly on his visits to Gottingen 
during his stay at Cassel ; and the most heartfelt regard, which lasted 
till his death, gave her trust in him, while compassion for the forlorn 
position which awaited him in lonely Poland, hearty feeling, youthful 
spirit, and pride, spurred her to share the stern lot of the famed man ; 
and thus she gave Forster the preference over other prospects." 

8 



114 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

A certain easily fanned rapture, and something which par- 
took of a love of frolic, were therefore, in truth, rather the 
spurs of her resolve than a thorough love passion. George, 
on his part, with his susceptibility and generous feeling, was 
strongly drawn to the lively girl ; and although the kindly old 
father, with his wary forethought, would not allow himself to be 
edged into express sanction of the marriage, as long as Forster's 
worldly means were so doubtful, the eager girl soon dragged 
his good-will into a tacit understanding that the wedding 
should come off as soon as Polish pledges proved trust- 
worthy ; and he started for his new home with the conscious- 
ness of being betrothed. He passed through Vienna on his 
way ; when, what with the flow of his spirits at this the hey- 
day of his life, when he saw gloom and error behind him, while 
happiness and ease were awaiting him in the future, and what 
with the flattering attention paid him by high and low, his 
delight was such, that his letters overflow with enthusiastic 
praise of that capital, which for a long while remained the 
Elysian paradise of his fancy. The Emperor Joseph received 
him in his closet, with his well-known friendliness, and on dis- 
missing him, after much talk, foretold him laughingly that 
he would not long stay in the wilderness of Poland ; while 
invitations from the mighty Kaunitz, and choice meetings at 
the house of the celebrated Countess Theresa' Thum, whose 
pride and joy it was to gather together the picked spirits of 
Vienna, showed in what esteem the traveller was held by 
all. 

The first impression of Polish bleakness was indeed gloomy, 
and he owns that what he saw on crossing the frontier filled 
his soul with dismay, although he had tuned his expectations 
down to the -lowest pitch. The rawness of October weather 
fretted his sickly frame, which always suffered cruelly from 
cold and damp; while all the endless discomforts of jolted 
travel through fathomless roads, and lodging at filthiest 
hovels, crowded on him, yet revelling in the fresh memory 
of Vienna. 

At Grodno he found himself in the very heart of the life 



GEORGE FORSTER. 115 

and Court of Poland. The first free diet which had met 
since many years, was then holding its sittings there ; and 
the mean huts and filthy lanes of the so-called city were 
thronged by the motley crush of Polish aristocracy, from the 
King and magnificent magnates with their dazzling follow- 
ings, down to the equally haughty peasant nobles swaggering 
about with their big swords (the badge of their rank), while 
they floundered through the mammoth sloughs of mire in 
huge boots lined with dirty straw, in their proud disdain of 
the effeminacy of stockings and linen. Amongst the higher 
classes, however, he found many persons possessed of much 
elegant culture, which was, moreover, set off by a lordly hos- 
pitality, in which they vied with each other to show how 
highly they valued the gain of so noteworthy a man to their 
country. The King's sister, commonly called Madame de 
Cracovie, because her deceased husband, Marshal Branicki, 
had been Castellan of Cracow, received him with the most 
marked kindliness, and presented him herself to her brother, 
whom he often saw in the familiarity of her evening meetings. 
That worn-out lover of the great Catherine, by whose bounty 
he had been pensioned with the royalty of Poland, had a 
mind whose dainty and over-refined taste delighted in the 
society of literary men, and Forster experienced the courtesy 
of his bearing, while the assurances of good-will which he 
gathered from the King and Primate for himself and the 
University encouraged his hopes for the future. It was, 
therefore, with pleasurable feelings that he continued his 
journey in November, on the closing of a diet with the un- 
wonted open-handedness and even flow of which the Govern- 
ment expressed itself delighted, though Forster writes that 
not a day passed but the Marshal of the Lower House smashed 
sundry staves of office in trying to allay uproar. 

The first acquaintance with Wilna did not discourage him. 
It was true that "the cabinet of natural history proved not 
only a child in its cradle, but not even a fine child, while the 
library was most meagre ; " but then he had the assurance 
that their wants were acknowledged, and would be made 



116 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

good. The University, as most of the schools in Poland, had 
been founded by the Jesuits, in consequence of whose sup- 
pression the whole system of education was being remod- 
elled. His lodging was in the old palace of the Order, and, 
though wretchedly bleak and bare, he comforted himself by 
comparing it with those of his fellow-teachers, and by the 
readiness with which such changes as he asked for were 
granted. Many of the Jesuits remained attached to the high- 
school as laymen ; and although he arrived by no means well 
disposed towards them, having been fully warned by the 
great Jesuit-croaker, Nicolai, against their wiles, his first 
letters speak the praise of their unselfish behavior, so tha.t he 
even utters his conviction that the Jesuits of Wilna, at least, 
do not deserve the suspicion under which their brethren gener- 
ally labor. The difficulties of his position showed themselves 
immediately on entering upon his duties, when he had to de- 
liver his lectures in Latin ; for though a master in German 
style, and able to write English and French with wonderful 
correctness, Latin composition was a labor which cost him 
" an everlasting time ; " while the unwonted tongue ham- 
pered his speech, which was at all times highly embarrassed 
in the professor's chair, although its flow in conversation 
was astounding. But athwart the wintry cloudiness of his 
horizon there was the light of his love to cheer him on ; so, 
sturdily attacking the hardness of the Polish tongue, he hotly 
tried to overcome all bars between himself and happiness. 
The winter was thus employed by him in preparations for 
his marriage, which was fixed for the summer ; and so en- 
grossed was his mind in this one thought, that at first he 
overlooked how sundry impediments were being slyly thrown 
in the way of his university career. The fears he felt for 
Theresa's comfort in the dreary banishment of Wilna were 
laughed at by her eager temper, and her lively fancy rejoiced 
at the prospect of hardships to be overcome ; in spite of which 
Forster's tender care for her ease would not rest content 
with any but a home of such snugness, that the nakedness of 
Polish shops and the dull sloth of Polish workmen could not 



GEORGE FORSTER. 117 

be got to fit it up, and in the warmth of his heart he launched 
into the outlay of getting furniture and servants from abroad. 
Forster always had a love for household comfort which was 
above his means, and is startling in a man of so roving a turn 
of mind. He would have spent lordly incomes had he pos- 
sessed them ; and with all his zeal for thriftiness, the close 
spirit of reckoning was not in him. Not that he had a bent 
for squandering, but with his scientific occupations he could 
never resist the purchase of books, charts, and instruments ; 
and his only taste which could be chid as partaking of ex- 
travagance was this love of snugness, which, from repeated 
change of dwelling, brought heavy pulls on his purse. So 
little did any fondness for show enter into this, liking, that 
to save money for it he even refused himself horses, which, 
according to Polish ideas of respectability, were nearly as 
necessary household articles as clean linen with us. As all 
such bits of economy were, however, altogether insufficient 
to mend the hole made in his income, he restlessly sought 
means of repairing it, and at last decided on perfecting him- 
self in the study of medicine. There was a great want of 
physicians in the country, and the skill of such as there were 
was eagerly sought and richly paid by noble Poles, who 
seemed to have pinned their faith in health on the multitude 
of doctors ; for we are told that as soon as anything like ail- 
ing was felt, the sick man called all the leeches together he 
could lay hold of, when he himself would preside, and ad- 
judge their debate. With feverish looking forward to spring 
and happiness, he thus fretted through the dreariness of his 
first Polish winter' in utter loneliness and daily worry ; for, as 
time wore on, he saw that none of the pledges made to him 
were kept, while painful rheumatisms and weakened eye- 
sight, brought on by climate, racked his poor body, until, at 
the very moment of his start on his longed-for journey, a 
putrid fever laid him for several weeks on a sick-bed, and 
threatened to cut short his life in its bloom. Convalescence, 
like all other things, is helped by a stout heart ; thus, as soon 
as the crisis was surmounted, his eagerness quickened his 



118 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

recovery, so that he reached Gottingen in August, 1785 ; and, 
having been married in the beginning of the following month, 
he hastened back with his wife to his bleak banishment. 

Henceforth Forster's household was the sanctuary wherein 
alone, during the remaining two years of his stay in Poland, 
he found refuge from endless teasing and annoyance. If 
fancy rather than thorough love had made Theresa become 
his wife, acquaintance with her husband at all events at first 
confirmed and increased her good opinion of him. Forster 
always maintained in his daily bearing so chaste a delicacy 
that his widow declares never to have seen him guilty of an 
unseemly outburst ; and this overwrought unwillingness to 
ruffle her peace of mind was such, that he never brought him- 
self to unfold his many straits to her, until this very silence 
produced the misunderstanding which it had been meant to 
avoid. Thus, while in his generous fear lest she should not 
be fully aware of the lot she was encountering, he had always 
dwelt much on the privations awaiting her in Poland, this 
nice feeling had kept him from alluding to the pet home he 
had prepared ; so that the young woman was quite rapt 
with joy to find so snug a dwelling on her arrival at Wilna. 
It was, in truth, not more than they wanted; for beyond it 
they found no comfort. If Cassel was loathsome, yet how 
grand was it when compared with the Polish University, 
which had not even one bookseller. Intercourse with the 
world was slow and difficult ; he could not often even hear 
of new books, much less get a sight of them ; so that his 
letters to Lichtenberg piteously beg for the crumbs which 
might be swept from the fulness of his literary table. The 
want of all congenial society was the bitterest hardship to 
him ; for the revels of the Lithuanian nobles had no charms, 
and his Jesuit fellows, on closer knowledge, had come out 
in their true light. Having failed in their stealthy stalking 
for the father and mother's souls, they hoped to net that of 
George's first-born child ; but their wiles were roughly torn 
by a gruff sally, " that, as baptism must be, it should be done 
according to Calvinism," and henceforth their friendship was 



GEORGE FORSTER. 119 

at an end. The turmoils of the State and the ill-will discov- 
ered to be borne to the University by the Primate, who even 
applied its funds to the one of Cracow, abashed his trust in 
promised improvements which would have enabled him to 
make himself practically useful ; yet every time that in a fit 
of anguish he eagerly jumped at a chance of escape from this 
forlorn banishment, he was quickly dragged back by the feel- 
ing of its impossibility. By agreement he had bound him- 
self to serve for eight years, in consideration of the payments 
whereby he had been freed from his Cassel debts ; and no 
literary labor in his present wilderness, obliged as he was to 
buy at great expense every book he might require, could 
ever enable him to pay off this loan. Thus was there noth- 
ing for him but patience, rendered doubly irksome by con- 
tinued attacks of painful illness. His courage, nevertheless, 
never nagged for any length of time ; and as soon as health 
buoyed up his good cheer, his letters showed him even dwell- 
ing on the advantages of his abode in Poland. 

" The experience which I have gained through this change of resi- 
dence has been dearly bought, but is withal worth much; I was 
obliged to see black against white, that I might know what white 
was. I owe it to my journey hither that I am aware of the full worth 
of many things, and chiefly of friendship. My mind has also obtained 
much growth and enlightenment which I should not have gained by 
staying at Cassel. Oh ! a good shove, which thrusts us all at once out 
of the centre wherein we have long been resting, or in which we have 
been moving around our own pivot, gives us so thorough a shaking 
that one gets to espy countless new things in one's self and others. . . . 
Here, at all events, I can become wise through my faults, in perfect 
peace, for I can commit my faults and mend them unperceived. I look 
at Wilna as my caterpillar's case, I am bound for eight years, after 
that come my wings, and the perfect insect will follow its destination." 

He even produced, besides sundry translations, two little 
works which deserve notice, to the writing of which he de- 
voted himself so assiduously, that long before daybreak he 
sat at his desk, and his health began to suffer from the strain. 
The one was a dissertation on " The Human Kace," intended 



120 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

as an answer to an essay by Kant on the same subject, in 
which mistaken statements had been made about the South 
Sea Islanders. The dogmatic boldness with which the meta- 
physician laid down the law in matters of science displeased 
Forster, who in general had little liking for speculative phi- 
losophy, and even called Kant, in a private letter, " the arch- 
sophist and arch-scholastic of the age." In this dissertation, 
which is written with great moderation, he maintained the 
existence of distinct races of men, though he did not deny 
their belonging to one kind. The other work was a " Life of 
Cook," already alluded to, the dedication of which was gra- 
ciously acknowledged by the Emperor Joseph a fact ren- 
dered highly remarkable by the broad freedom of thought 
running through the whole book, which contains, as in a sum- 
mary, the political faith which guided Forster's future con- 
duct. It has often been noticed, that there is not a single 
passage in any of the French writers of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, which shows any foreknowledge of the revolution which 
was coming over their country, although many travellers 
(amongst them Goldsmith) foretold it ; but there is no man 
whose prophecies can vie in clearness with those of Forster. 
As early as 1782, he exclaimed in a letter to his father, 
" Europe seems to be on the point of a fearful overthrow ; " 
and in a remarkable fragment amongst his writings, the pre- 
cise date of which is not known, the following striking words 
occur : 

" We stand at the close of the century ; this universal longing for 
change in our present forms, for relief from our many defects, the 
searching hither and thither, this revolt of reason against political 
pressure, this supremacy of understanding over feeling, these educa- 
tional institutions for the rearing of sensible machines, these convul- 
sive clutchings of faith at miraculous powers heyond the realm of 
understanding, this struggle between enlightenment and religion, this 
universal leavening, herald a new teacher and a new doctrine." 

Yielding to his heart's ever warm interest in his fellow- 
beings' weal, he had been steadily growing in his age's politi- 



GEORGE FORSTER. 121 

cal thought, so that it was ever engrossing the better part of 
his mind ; and while, therefore, it is not wonderful that in 
1787 he should have arrived at writing as he then did, it is 
most wonderful that the head of the Holy Roman Empire 
should have nodded approbation to such words as these : 

lt Human infallibility is disappearing before the dawn of knowledge. 
Tolerance and freedom of conscience proclaim the victory of reason, 
and make the way for freedom of the press and free search into all 
those relations which, under the name of truth, are of value to man. 
Lastly, luxury and industry are giving new worth to life; the arts are 
attaining the height of perfection and simplicity ; observation and ex- 
perience are enlarging and combining all knowledge, and all political 
powers are tending to an equality ; in short, it is, or is about to be, 
the season of flowering." 

It is well to recollect these words in connection with Fors- 
ter's after life ; for they prove how he was not then whirled 
away by a sudden puff of rapture, but obeyed the long-flowing 
stream of his thoughts. 

Early one morning in the month of June, 1787, Forster 
was disturbed at his desk by the entry of a Russian naval 
officer, who, presenting him with a letter from the ambas- 
sador, Stackelberg, made the startling announcement that 
he had full power to settle all terms, if he would agree to 
accompany a voyage of discovery in the Southern Ocean. 
What a leap for Forster from dreariest banishment into the 
very Eden of dreams ! The open-handedness of the Russian 
Government removed all difficulties about the repayment of 
his loans, and an ample salary was assigned to him, as also 
a pension for his wife in the event of his death ; while his 
delight with luck was raised in the highest pitch by the 
promised companionship of Sommering, whom the Empress 
immediately appointed physician to the expedition, on Fors- 
ter's recommendation ; and as soon as ever he had brought 
his affairs to a close, he hastened away, traversing with six 
post-horses the space between Poland and Gottingen, which 
he reached on the 16th September. His hopes were fated 
to meet with a sad dash : the outbreak of the Turkish war 



122 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

caused the voyage to be laid aside for the present ; and as 
Forster would not accept an appointment at St. Petersburg 
just after his escape from Polish winters, he was turned 
adrift on the world with a year's salary, but free from debt, 
so that, though pleasant visions had come to nought, he yet 
blessed the wondrous luck which alone had been able to 
snatch him from Poland and set him down in the heart of 
Europe. A vague chance of employment in the Philippine 
Isles also proved vain, and is only worth remembering for a 
letter he wrote with a description of himself, which shows 
that practical matters had so laid hold of his attention that 
he held himself to be more fitted for affairs than for science 
proper, while he thought himself free from the usual preju- 
dices of "learned men, who, having small knowledge of 
the world, seldom understood how to fit their theories and 
hypotheses on to the real business of life." 

While Forster was thus anxiously looking around him for 
some opening suitable to his wants, his attention was drawn to 
the electoral city of Mayence, where his old friend Johannes 
von Miiller had just vacated the librarianship, on promotion 
to be the Elector's private secretary, while the prospect 
of the society of Sommering, who had for several years 
taught anatomy there, was a most powerful attraction. By 
the counsel of friends he went thither, that his presence 
might draw attention to him ; and, having been presented to 
the Elector by Miiller, his appointment was decided on with 
a speed unwonted for the lazy sluggishness of spiritual 
courts. The salary was small ; but then there was the ad- 
vantage of a central position, which the portly Elector, with 
sly shrewdness, pointed out to him when, throwing open the 
casement of his closet, he showed him the view over the 
Rhine and its rich banks, asked him to compare it with Po- 
land, and went on to reckon the cheapness of provisions, 
backing the whole with promise of regular payment. 

It is as well shortly to describe the soil into which Forster 
was now transplanted ; for it was owing to its nature that 
his life took the turn it did. The ancient German Empire 



GEORGE FORSTER. 123 

was dying the death of corruption, and the very death- 
slumbers of its elders were being broken in upon by forward 
heirs ; foremost among whom was Prussia, who, like a night- 
mare, bestrode and pinched them, even at the point of death. 
Everywhere there was silent dissolution of the powers that 
had been ruling, while popular spirit and enlightenment as 
yet only flitted here and there through the land, like the will- 
o'-the-wisps that flicker about churchyards. German Courts 
lay lazily bedded in a woof of wiles and tricks whose toils 
entangled the strength of the whole land, out of whose rich- 
ness it had been spun for the enjoyment of a few sly cozen- 
ers. In looking at their doings and lives, so fevered and so 
bloated, one might think them creations banded by spells to 
a hectic existence, and who could not but fade away as soon 
as the healthy air of truth stole upon their pampered being. 
The time-honored See of Mayence, with whose spiritual elec- 
torate was coupled the arch-chancellorship of the empire, as 
it had ever been one of the chief pleasure-haunts of the lusti- 
ness of Rhenish prelacy, so was it in its decay the hotbed of 
corruption. The predecessors of the reigning Elector had, 
like the Emperor Joseph, partaken of the reforming fashion 
of his time, and had foolishly thought that the worn-out 
body might be quickened again into youth. The Elector 
simple, good-natured man, the chief feature of whose temper 
was kindly trustful feeling, and a fondness for plain burgher- 
like life forsook the wonted pomp of a high prince of the 
empire, to follow the bent of his homely likings. Instead of 
having courtly feasts, he not only mingled in the holiday 
gambols of the citizens, but he forfeited the indulgence of 
his courtiers, who with shrugs would have winked at these 
whims of a sovereign, by his harmful meddling in the olden 
habits of the State. Saints were curtailed of their dues, 
monkish trickery was checked ; and when, in 1773, the Jesuits 
were suppressed by the Pope, Eusmerich Joseph seemed like 
a man who felt a load off his chest, and launched forth into 
plans for setting up sound schools in his lands. The Jesuit 
party was, however, not crushed, though beaten ; and on the 



124 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Elector's suspicious death in the following year, before he 
had time to carry out all his plans, they carried by a push the 
election of Canon Erthal as his successor. Shrewd, ambi- 
tious, and thoroughly worldly, he had graduated in the 
schools of courtly diplomacy, where he had acquired that 
varnish whereby poor wits can for a time pass themselves 
off as minds of superior stuff. As the party had worked the 
strong Catholic feeling of the population, the new Elector 
began his reign with a mighty show of piety and devotion 
that edified the mob, but which were laid aside for more con- 
genial pastimes, as soon as their need was less apparent ; the 
banqueting halls of the archiepiscopal pleasure palaces rang 
with the revelry of feasts, the spice of whose cheer was set 
off by ribald wit. 

" The Prince's spirit of thrift was changed into the wantonest court 
pomp, pious cant into voluptuous sensuality, and church zeal into a 
little freethinking. Instead of evening devotions, a late hour brought 
with it a refined supper for a knot of chosen fellows, to which some- 
times artists and witty heads were admitted. The knee-cushions re- 
mained as footstools, before the pleasure-couches brought from Paris 
and London. Foot-washings and layings on of hands had been with- 
drawn (who knows with what ceremonies) into the innermost cham- 
bers of the castle of St. Martin, beyond the whispering Rhine and the 
gaze of the public. Father Goldhageu's theological discussions had 
been exchanged for talk with Heinse about his novel, * Ardinghelle ; ' 
in the room of the Deacon's service in the Missal, Madame de Couden- 
hoven read Voltaire's ' Pucelle,' and the ' Lettres Persanes ' to her 
French-talking friend, herself so clothed that the listener could easily 
attach himself to the visible instead of the edifying, and kiss the fair 
reader himself, in lieu of the gospels formerly offered by the Deacon." * 

Altogether, as far as bedding and nursing will go, the rev- 
erend prelate, Erthal, should have been snugly off in this 
world, well fed, softly bedded, and gently cherished by 
two willing damsels ; so that when the stately Coudenhoven 
found that she palled on his old heart, her charity loved to 
find her cousin Ferette at hand as a safe cordial to warm it. 

1 " Haus und Welt," vol. ii. p. 14. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 125 

Around this foul carcase as the main pier of this Augean 
stable, the inmates of its stalls stood ranged and grouped. The 
throng was choicely noble ; for the utmost that was given to a 
burgher in Mayence was the gift of a clerkship. The nobil- 
ity was, however, far from being all on an equality within 
itself, and the highest class, whose string of ancestors enabled 
them to stand the tests required for canonries, looked down 
as haughtily on their lower fellows as those again on the 
mob of burghers at large ; while besides, and above all hered- 
itary rank, there was the consecration of holy orders, whereby, 
first, only even the highest-born nobility became entitled to 
share fully the fatness of the State. Gluttony, wassailing, 
and a greedy craving for rich prebends, were the main quali- 
ties of these servants of the Church ; and it was well when, 
in the revelry of their drinking-bouts over flagons of old 
Rhenish, which in summer time they loved to hold in the 
pleasure-grounds of their lordly abbeys scattered along the 
stately river's banks, their wanton humor would be content 
with such harmless freaks as wagering whether this or that 
lady's calves could be encircled by the ribbons of their gold 
canon's crosses. 

Yet were there some men amongst them who, athwart all 
this overcoat of fashionable dross, were not without stuff, 
and who learned, in the shifts and wiles of this evil haunt, 
that great skill in statecraft which enabled them to juggle 
the world at large. Thus Forster found here Stadion, who, 
from a gay and enterprising canon, became one of the lead- 
ing ministers of Austria ; while the master of modern states- 
men, Prince Metternich, took his first lesson in cunning in 
this high school of human worthlessness. High above these 
in nobleness of nature, as in the splendor of his birth, but so 
hampered by the contradictions between his position and his 
likings, that he never mastered their difficulties, and thus 
through life had an awkward hesitation in his public conduct 
which looked almost like wilful trimming, was Dalberg, 
Bishop of Erfurt, coadjutor and expected successor of the 
Elector ; but who afterwards, under Napoleon, became Duke 



120 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

of Frankfort, and died as Bishop of Ratisbon. His love of 
letters was great ; and so zealously had he devoted his fine 
intelligence to study, especially of metaphysics, that his 
works ranked him amongst his country's leading writers, 
while his position and prospects caused him to be looked to, 
by such men as Schiller, as the coming Lorenzo de' Medici of 
Germany. Everything without the circle of nobility was 
held to be mob ; and at most a sort of half recognition was 
now and then extended as a favor to the professors, though 
never so far as to admit them with their wives to the houses 
of the aristocracy. The mass of burghers and the country 
people were inert, listless, and stolid, and their dull faint- 
heartedness was frightened as soon as they caught them- 
selves but grumbling at a tax their only idea of the State ; 
but in Mayence itself there were a few citizens whose Ehenish 
light-mindedness had been unwittingly rapt by the political 
freethinking of the professors. These latter were, indeed, 
a body by themselves, whose opinions, probably whetted by 
daily grinding against the world around, were so wholly at 
variance with its whole creed, that in their compactness they 
looked like a set of pioneers thrust forward into the enemy's 
country in advance of the coming revolution. This circle 
was the only one which offered Forster any chance of society. 
The old Jesuit party, which had already declaimed often 
against the Protestant Johannes von Miiller, looked with no 
friendly eyes on the new librarian ; and such was the bigoted 
feeling fomented against everything that came from him, 
that his bare proposal to sell the duplicate copies of books 
was met by the cry that desecration was threatening the 
work of the fathers, every single book gathered by whom 
deserved being treasured as a relique. In truth, as far as pub- 
lic enterprise was concerned, there was nothing gained by 
change from Poland ; for the Elector and his Court, like a 
host of locusts, ate up the wealth of the land in their lavish 
luxury, while the jealous ill-will of the Jesuit swarms stifled 
every undertaking which smacked of enlightenment or free 
thought. Mayence, therefore, had no resources beyond the 



GEORGE FORSTER. 127 

society of a few friends, foremost amongst whom was Sb'm- 
mering, and its position in the heart of Germany. The 
neighborhood of Dusseldorf reawakened the intimacy with 
Jacobi, which had slacked in distant Poland, while the lit- 
erary activity of Heyne spurred Forster to share it by be- 
coming a regular contributor to the " Gottingen Advertiser," 
and the kindly old man's fatherly love filled that gap in his 
heart which had been made by his wilful sire's estrangement. 
How this last came about is not plainly stated : occasional 
letters passed between them from time to time, and those of 
the son are marked by the most reverential respect ; but time 
and distance had accomplished a work which it is wonderful 
that so headstrong a temper had not brought about long 
ago. 

The family-ghost, poverty, showed itself in the household 
as soon as its tent had been pitched on the banks of the 
Rhine. Although he had been urged by the Elector to give 
lessons in natural history, the best of reasons stayed his 
doing so for no pupils were to be found ; and his duties as 
librarian were easy, since the fifteen thousand works which 
formed the boasted fifty thousand volumes of the library, 
were stowed away in a lumber-room beyond reach or use. 
Thus he found his literary activity arrested at every turn by 
an impassable slough of sluggishness ; and as his desultory 
writings barely sufficed to enable him to live from hand to 
mouth, his mind reverted to his favorite plan of a History of 
the Geographical Discoveries in the Southern Seas, and a 
Flora of its Islands; when, as no German publisher could 
defray such an undertaking, he turned his thoughts to Eng- 
land. His old claim on the Admiralty presented itself as an 
incentive to a plan, the travel of which already allured his 
roving turn ; and so, having obtained three months' leave of 
absence, he started, in the end of March, 1790, with Alexan- 
der von Humboldt, on a trip, in the course of which they 
passed through Brabant to England, and on their way home 
took a hasty look at Paris, then in the glory of its new-won 
freedom. It is an interesting connection which thus brings 



128 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

together the famed explorer Forster, in the evening of his 
renown as traveller, with the youth of that man who was to 
carry out scientific journeying and research to the furthest 
limit that has yet been reached by one man ; and thus what 
seemed to the partakers thereof but the heedless chatting 
of a pleasure trip, takes for us the look of world-important 
intercommunings between two souls, the burden of which 
yet rings in our ears through the clear-spoken words of the 
aged seer. A private pupil a certain Mr. Thomas Brand 
was the only pecuniary advantage brought by the journey, 
beyond a crowd of vivid impressions ; for he had seen the two 
chief events on which the attention of Europe was fastened. 
In England he had attended Warren Hastings's trial, where 
he had heard and beheld all the oratory and the genius of 
the country ; while in Paris he had looked on the pageantry 
of its strange liberty, in the enthusiastic preparations for the 
great feast of the Champs de Mars. The result he gave to 
the world in his " Views of the Rhine and Brabant ; " a work 
which, written in the gloomiest period of his life, is a mas- 
terpiece of racy writing, both as regards clearness of wording 
as well as the ease with which an array of deep thought is 
marshalled. " I tell you I hold your ( Views ' to be one of 
the best books in our language/' is the opinion pronounced 
by Lichtenberg. 

Forster's household had been hitherto his stronghold, 
wherein he defied all evil chances ; but now this also began 
to fail him. The story is a strangely painful one, and of 
such woven intricacy as to be almost beyond unravelling, for 
never was there any show of strife ; and this not from a 
cloaking guardedly worn against the world's insight, because, 
wondrously enough, the tightest friendship and esteem con- 
tinued between husband and wife, when by the flight of that 
happy contentment which springs from love, the once cheer- 
ful homestead had been left bare and lonely. The truth 
seems that the warmth of Forster's temper, which had never 
known the sprightliness of boyhood, was mellowed to an 
even glow, less fitted for love's frenzy than for steady friend- 



GEORGE FORSTER. 129 

ship, against which the fluttering heart of the woman mauled 
itself as a bird against its cage's bar, until, all forlorn, and 
innerly bruised and bleeding, the kindly nursing bestowed 
by a chance passer-by was taken with thankfulness. That 
passer-by was ready at hand in Huber, Secretary to the Saxon 
Mission, a slim, simpering, scrofulous fellow, whose rather 
petty powers of mind were akin to his body's slightness ; a 
man, the intertwinings of whose life with that of Forster, 
and the upshot thereof, remind one how, as well as the eagle, 
the reptile by crawling reaches the pyramid's summit. With 
the feverish trembling of sickly nervousness he tells us him- 
self that he always felt the want of something to close his 
day, " so that on going to bed the last sounds might not be 
wanting to him as in unfinished accords." Possessed of that 
painful perseverance which is often found in small minds, he 
had wormed himself into the intimacy of Forster's home by 
dint of painstaking ; and so anxious had he been for this ac- 
quaintance, especially for that of the wife, from the accounts 
he had heard of her, that, having learnt to know George on 
his first visit to Mayence, his nervous impatience drove him 
to meet him at Frankfort on his coming with his wife ; and 
in a letter which marks the sickly anxiety with which he 
watched himself, he tells his delight that the interview went 
off well, "because desire to please strangers often gave his 
bearing something wavering and unsteady." So insignificant 
a man would never have enthralled the love of a spirited 
woman like Theresa, had not her loneliness made her feel 
herself drawn towards one who wholly merged his existence 
and feelings in her. There was no forethought on the part 
of any one in this business. Forster's large soul knew not 
what was meant by jealousy ; and, moreover, in accordance 
with his own and his age's philosophy, he favored close 
friendships as a duty, so that when the cautious Sommering, 
before his marriage, once expressed some dislike of a free- 
dom in Theresa's bearing towards men, he answered that 
every sympathetic quickening of her heart gave him pleas- 
ure, and that he felt himself happy every time she heartily 

9 



130 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

loved some one whom he believed to be good and noble. " I 
hate everything which bars freedom, everything which hin- 
ders a seed or bud from sprouting," are his words in an early 
letter to her. His honest soul, all glowing with fellow-feel- 
ing and steady devotion, had no inkling how such thoughts 
might get twisted by others ; for his own healthy being was 
free from any sickly taint. 

The household straits, together with Forster's overwrought 
reserve about them, daily brought fresh worries, more and 
more inflaming a covert misunderstanding, which found its 
chief food in that very silence beneath which it was foolishly 
thought to stifle its quickenings. Huber appeared, on the 
occasion of these embarrassments, as the beam that propped 
the tumbling homestead ; for while his simpering feeling had 
a charm for Theresa under the circumstances of her situation, 
he not only actually helped Forster in the toils of transla- 
tion, but, from his many connections with leading publishers 
and literary journals, was enabled to be in many ways of 
real service to him. It was, therefore, in that state of inner 
strife which is brought about by want of happiness, that dur- 
ing her husband's absence the wife was, as it were, thrust to 
rest herself in Huber, who naturally redoubled his nursing 
care, sanctioned, as it was, by Forster's knowledge thereof ; 
while, on the other hand, Theresa's undisturbed attention 
fastened itself more and more on his devotion until it came 
out to her sight in striking relief against the dim canvas 
of household disappointment. Thus Forster returned from 
England after failure in his hopes, while the irresistible 
temptations of books and charts had largely added to the 
heavy outlay of his journey, to find that he had lost the 
greatest blessing of his life, the peace of a loving home. 
His exceeding delicacy probably never allowed him to broach 
his knowledge of his loss to his wife, but henceforth regard 
carefully maintained the chastity of a bond which hitherto 
had been the happy delight of love. Probably, had Sommer- 
ing been at a distance, the facts of this strange misunder- 
standing would be somewhat laid bare in the letters that then 



GEORGE FORSTER. 131 

would have passed between the two ; but as it is, there is 
nothing in the affectionate correspondence with Heyne which 
hints that the father had the least inkling of his children's 
unhappiness. Forster shrouded the barrenness of his home 
from every one, fighting, with a brave heart, the throng of ' 
his painful disappointments and the ever-growing load of 
poverty and debt. Once only, in a letter to Jacobi, after 
speaking of efforts to obtain relief from his embarrassments, 
he added : 

"Call it weakness, or an insurmountable artlessuess, that I could 
not break myself from some expressions which have caused you anx- 
iety or, as it is better to touch all the cords of my heart, which set 
it a-going, excuse the sallies of peevishness, spleen, and sadness there- 
with, that I have moments when another sort of misfortune lets me 
feel still more deeply the oppressiveness of my circumstances." 

Happiness had gone from him ; yet in the midst of his sad 
loneliness, how deeply touching is it to see the thoughtful 
care for the peace of mind of those about him, which is re- 
vealed by the following prayer in another letter to Jacobi, 
wherein he had been dwelling on his gloomy prospects : 

" One thing I beg of you, if you touch on this point in your letter, 
then do so on a separate bit of paper. Whatever I have to suffer, I 
like to suifcr alone ; and as your dear letters are that which we all 
love to snatch at, I could wish that no one who is dear to me but 
myself should find anything in them which might cause anxiety and 
pain.'' 

The household was not the only thing which had changed : 
time had borne Mayence itself along with it. The great world- 
drama in France was progressing in its mighty working ; and 
all Europe was watching it, some with hearty sympathy, 
others with hatred and fear. The Elector and his pampered 
courtiers, too rotten at heart to be quickened into a manly 
outburst of hate, kept shooting from over their cups a 
shower of wit-bolts at King Mob. Soon a throng of noble ex- 
iles began to crowd the neighborhood of the Rhine, who loved 
rather to eat goodly messes in other men's homes than to try 



132 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

to save their own ; and great was the soul's delight of the 
Electoral Court that chance should allow them to fawn in 
daily intimacy on so high and illustrious a brood. The town 
and country were literally overrun by boastful runaways, in 
pandering to whose whims it was felt to be an honor to squan- 
der the exchequer; and the general ill-will at these new- 
comers, which was powerfully fomented in the first instance 
by the dearness of food, was heightened into exasperation by 
the swaggering effrontery of their behavior. While every 
branch of the administration was neglected and its hard- 
working servants were being starved, every fund and re- 
source of the country was drained to its uttermost farthing 
that the Electoral Court might not be stinted in its pomp. 
The Prince de Conde" was splendidly lodged, with his mis- 
tress, the Princesse de Monaco, in the Episcopal Palace of 
Worms, which belonged to the Elector ; and on Comte d'Ar- 
tois' visit to Mayence, his private household was defrayed 
by the impoverished principality at a daily cost of 200. 
Wherever money could be found, it was laid hold of by the 
clutches of the pilfering Court ; and thus about a million of 
florins, which belonged to the University, out of the sale of 
church lands, were swallowed up in gormandizing and riot. 
NOT did the Elector even reap hearty thankfulness from the 
beggars whom he was thus stripping himself bare to clothe 
and feed ; for while in public they showered on him the titles 
of father arid protector till they made the dulled blood of his 
head tiugle with delight, as soon as his back was turned the 
graceless crew would nickname him Sir Upstart, and Mon- 
sieur 1'Abbe de Mayence. Meanwhile the tide of German 
politics was rising, and rapidly bearing away the little 
princes who were unguardedly disporting themselves in its 
heavy swell. There was a mighty plotting of statecraft 
going on between Austria and Prussia; and the Elector of 
Mayence was puffed up and full of importance, for he had 
been admitted to look on in that innermost closet where the 
secretest designs were being concocted by wily heads, too 
glad to buy with a little flattery a cat's-paw willing to pick 



GEORGE FORSTER. 133 

for them the burning brands out of the fire. As he found 
his old ministers too awkward to handle such nice devices, he 
procured from Vienna Baron Albini as a master in statesman- 
ship, and bestowing on him the title of Grand Chancellor, 
with a salary befitting his high dignity, he trustfully had 
himself launched, under his steering, upon the sea of politi- 
cal machination. The first fruits of such superior guidance 
was the glorious honor of holding Liege at a cost of three 
millions of florins, as a conqueror, with the Mayence army, 
as soon as the two heads of the empire decided that German 
troops should quash the revolutionary movement in that 
bishopric. This army was of a piece with the whole fabric 
of the State ; for while it barely counted three thousand ill- 
appointed and worse-fed soldiers, its army list counted no less 
than twelve noble and richly paid generals. But when the 
coronation of the new Emperor Francis had come off at Frank- 
fort, which the Elector, of course, attended with the pomp 
and state befitting his high rank, then it was that the flock of 
princely brains there assembled and laboring in the birth- 
throes of subtlest State thought, accepted the invitation to 
the hospitable retreat of Mayence as best suited to their 
deep councillings ; and its sovereign gloated with delight at 
seeing himself the pivot around which the princes of Europe 
moved. Never had anything been beheld like the endless 
changes of dazzling revelry which followed on each other 
during the stay of princes and statesmen, so that it was a 
wonder at what time they snatched bare minutes for those 
cunning designs which it was whispered were being woven 
in a poor hut, away from din and distraction, on the shrouded 
islet of Weissanau. At last the high-born wiseacres were 
delivered, and the printing-presses of the Court published 
the Duke of Brunswick's famous manifesto. " These are the 
men whose measures one is told to approve of," Forster ex- 
claimed. " That man is happy who has found a nook whence 
he can quietly look on the mad turmoil." 

The French Revolution could not otherwise than power- 
fully interest one who was so alive to the welfare and doings 



134 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

of his fellow-beings. His letters to Heyne show how closely 
he watched its course, and that, keenly aware of its blem- 
ishes, he yet ever felt such sympathy for its struggles that 
he would become quite enraged at the fashion of overlooking 
its world-meaning in the flippant judgments currently passed 
upon it after flurried glances at some of its wild incidents. 
So, on the occasion of a book full of abuse of everything con- 
nected with France, he exclaimed : 

" Mr. Girtaner is impassioned for the old system, because, under 
the new constitution, he received sundry digs between the ribs on the 
14th July, in the Champs de Mars. Who taught him the wrong 
conclusion that a democratic crowd is not just the same sort of crowd 
as any other ? Had he stood on the scaffolding which fell in on the 
occasion of the rejoicings of the Dauphin's birth, and had he sprained 
his toe or finger, he would have written an apology of regicide." 

Injustice and selfishness were things so hateful to him, 
that his soul could never desist from battling against them ; 
and the daily sights and haps of his Mayence life were such 
as to be always stirring up his otherwise peace-loving heart. 
Not that he was minded to preach overthrow and change in 
Germany ; over and over again he utters his belief, in letters, 
that public feeling and enlightenment were yet a century or 
two behind a want of political freedom, so that he bewails 
the blindness of princes, who, by wilful goadings, hasten an 
unseasonable discharge of ill-humors, which thus must burst 
forth with the acrid pungency of unripeness. Heyne, whose 
thoroughly humane feeling was being constantly shocked by 
the wanton temper of German aristocracy, but whose charac- 
ter partook of a certain painful caution, kept hovering about 
his outspoken son-in-law with timid hints and prudent coun- 
sels. It is amusing to see how the old man is surprised into 
expressing his heart's joy at every fine burst of public feel- 
ing in France ; and how again, in his next letter, frightened 
at his own daring, he pours out a string of saws meant to 
quench the fire of revolutionary enthusiasm. Already, while 
Forster was writing his " Views," Heyne had given vent to 



GEORGE FORSTER. 135 

i 

his fears as to how he would treat the political and religious 
considerations which would be suggested by the events of 
the countries he described, and Forster had felt so discour- 
aged by his exceeding timidity, that he had given himself 
much trouble to explain away the meaning of his warnings. 
Soon after this, however, he was thrown into a mightier fit 
of alarm, on hearing that his son-in-law was translating a 
work of Brissot's, of which he had written a review for the 
" Gottingen Advertiser," in language which had attracted 
such attention that the name of its author had been repeat- 
edly asked. In the trouble of his mind he posted off a letter 
of earnest warning as to the consequences likely to ensue from 
so rash an undertaking, when Forster answered as follows : 

" I am not translating Brissot, and never thought of doing so. 
There is as much aristocratizing going on in my house as there is 
spoken on the other side ; and as for myself, I certainly belong as lit- 
tle to the enrages of the one party as of the other. It is this very 
fairness which is hateful to all the fools and rogues who have espoused 
a party. . . . How should I tumble on the thought of wishing to 
preach an overthrow which I myself do not desire, bat rather hold to 
be go great a mishap for Germany, that I make every effort to ward 
it off, and on this account chiefly blame all the lying reviewers, who 
only embitter the public by their partiality, inasmuch as they give 
themselves the appearance as if it must needs trust them on their 
word. ... I can remain silent, but I cannot write against my insight 
and conviction." 

While such feelings animated him with regard to the great 
movement going on everywhere around, his own private cir- 
cumstances were getting more and more engulfed in gloom. 
His courage bore gallantly up against his adversity as long 
as health lasted; for in the end of 1790 he wrote that he 
felt the courage of a lion in him. His literary labors at this 
period brought his latterly somewhat forgotten name with 
fresh vividness to the memory of the general public. Be- 
sides his " Views," which he wrote in such sunny moments 
as he could snatch, he translated the Sanscrit drama, " Sa- 
contala," from Sir W. Jones's English version. This glow- 



136 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

ing flower, picked from the tropical garden of Indian poetry, 
excited such intense interest in Germany, that Goethe, in an 
epigram, styled it the embodiment of all beauty. All this 
was, however, far from enough to shield him from the em- 
barrassments which kept tormenting him from without, while 
at home there was cold comfort, to all which trouble there 
came besides the rack and wear of bodily sickness, and at 
last the sorrow of losing his youngest child, a boy to whose 
growth and training he had fondly looked forward. " The 
whole year through I have ceaselessly worked with iron ap- 
plication and great strain of mind. My powers are worn out, 
my body is incapable of any more exertion, my mind is pal- 
sied, and I have the gloomiest prospect before me for the 
winter and coming year. It is as if all my hopes should run 
to water, nothing succeeds ; the more I work, the more I 
hope to earn, so much the more do things come to nought in 
my hands ; and now I stand empty-handed, unable to work 
as hitherto, and yet in a position that I cannot make the two 
ends meet in my housekeeping without a continuation of my 
former application." In vain he would recur to his proposed 
work on the " Botany of the South Sea," for which, when 
last in England, he had launched into the outlay of having 
the drawings colored by skilled artists : there was no one 
who would pay for the work. " I could find a publisher in 
Germany, but none who would pay me. Fruitlessly do I look 
about me for a Maecenas amongst our magnates and princes, 
who would pay with a couple of hundred louis for being 
paraded in a dedication as the protector of the work, and be- 
coming immortal in the world of science." Soon after these 
sad bewailings, in a letter written late in 1791, it was the 
mockery of his lot, that just when they were too late, two 
chances were thrown to him, which a little earlier might have 
proved the cables of his rescue from shipwreck. Prospects 
of enlarged activity were opened to him in Mayence by the 
sudden decision of the Elector to assign the Jesuit church 
to the library, while on the death of the Professor of Natural 
History, his salary was added to Forster's pay. On the 



GEORGE FORSTER. 137 

other hand, a man of the highest standing and name, unex- 
pectedly put himself in friendly communication with him. 
Amongst his literary jobs, he had received from the well- 
known Berlin publisher, Voss, the commission to write an 
account of the events of 1790, with an especial view to the 
part played in them by the Prussian statesman, Herzberg, 
between whom and Pitt he wished a parallel to be drawn. 
Herzberg, the old minister of Frederick the Great, and at 
that moment pretty much out of favor at the Court of his 
successor, felt himself too much interested in this work not 
to wish that an account bearing the name of such an author 
and publisher should be trustworthy. He wrote Forster a 
letter, marked by honorable esteem, in which, after sending 
him some printed documents, he offered, if the manuscript 
were communicated to him, to look through it, and see that 
its statements were historically true, " as the King had posi- 
tively forbidden him to make known a collection of State 
Papers he had prepared, and which would have thrown much 
light on these events." Forster thankfully accepted the offer ; 
and Herzberg expressed himself highly satisfied with his 
exposition of his ministry. Before this business had, how- 
ever, gone thus far, Mayence had been occupied by the French, 
and Forster had embarked in the new state-vessel, as he 
thought, beyond possibility of an honorable return. Herz- 
berg wrote him, through Voss, a letter in which he expressed 
his hope that Forster would continue a well-intentioned 
Prussian, and accompanied it not only with a batch of books 
having reference to the history of the said times, but also 
with the silver medal of the Berlin Academy (of which Fors- 
ter was a member and Herzberg curator), and sent him a con- 
siderable sum of money. It is plain that the statesman, who 
knew of Forster's embarrassed circumstances, thought that 
he might by these means save a man, whose worth and abili- 
ties he had learnt to know, from following a path which he 
believed would lead to his destruction. Forster thought he 
saw an attempt at bribery, and wrote the following answer, 
at a time when he was smarting under the direst want : 



138 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

" If I understand aright the wish that I should remain a good Prus- 
sian, it is a suggestion wholly incompatible with my principles, and 
with that love of freedom spoken out in so many of my writings, 
although certainly with some caution, because of despotism. I was 
bom in Polish Prussia, an hour's distance from Danzig, and left iny 
birthplace before it came under Prussian rule. Thus far, therefore, I 
am no Prussian subject. I have lived as a man of science in England, 
have made a voyage round the world, and, furthermore, have tried to 
impart my poor knowledge at Cassel, Wilna, and Mayence. Through- 
out my life I have always tried to be a good citizen ; and wherever I 
was, I worked for the bread I received. Ubi bene ibi patria must re- 
main the motto of the man of science ; and it must also remain that 
of the free mau, who must meanwhile live isolated in lands which 
have no constitution. If to be a good Prussian means as much as 
when one is in Mayence under French lordship, to wish for a speedy 
peace and recovery from all the ills of war, then I am a good Prussian 
as I am a good Turk, Chinese, Moor; but if it means that I am to 
deny in Mayence rny well-known principles that I should not re- 
joice at its having a free constitution that, being called upon, I 
should not help to work for it that in a time of fermentation and 
crisis, when one must absolutely take a decision, I should either re- 
main undecided, or should try to talk over the people of Mayence, 
that they had better keep their old outrages than be free with the 
French, if then to be a good Prussian, means to take principles 
which never were mine, and which are, not to keep in view the weal 
of the inhabitants of Prussia, but the weal of the Cabinet, the Court, 
the ghost-seers of Mayence, then one asks me to do something for 
which I should deserve to be strung up on the next lamp-post. You 
will understand now, that it is my most pressing duty wholly to re- 
nounce the offered advances of money although I never was so poor 
as now, and have become poorer through disappointed hopes. I would 
rather that every wretchedness came over me, than that I should be- 
come untrue to my principles. How could I take, under such circum- 
stances, an advance of ... dollars, when I would scorn half a million 
as a bribe ? " 

Yet had Herzberg only known Forster some few months 
earlier, and had he by such means entered that sphere of 
business and historical writing into which he only got this 
late peep, how different might his end have been! The 



GEORGE FORSTER. 139 

throng of princes and statesmen had left Mayence behind 
them in the progress of their crusade ; and the sultriness of 
suspense had followed on riotous revelry ; for the nobility 
was daily awaiting tidings how the revolutionary snake had 
been scotched by their lucky brethren who were happy par- 
takers of the great royal pageant. As thus hope and good 
cheer were in the hearts of all the swarm, and their boastful 
trust knew no bounds, a fearful blow came upon their rejoic- 
ings. Custine had suddenly passed the Rhine at Spiers, and 
was in full march on Mayence, having thoroughly beaten the 
Electoral troops under Colonel Winkelmann, an officer of 
such excellent sentiments that the bare words of freedom 
and the rights of man were enough to send him into a fit of 
raving. It was as if a pack of wild beasts had been suddenly 
let loose on a tea-party; the whole nobility of Mayence 
thought of nothing but to snatch up as much of their wealth 
as they could carry, and betake themselves with it beyond 
the Rhine. It was an endless bustle and trooping by day 
and night across the bridge and through the town gates : 
laden skiffs covered the river, and the roads were blocked 
with every sort of cart and wagon ; while runaways on foot 
and horse hurried along in selfish haste to their hiding-places, 
thoughtless of all but their own safety. It is said that two 
hundred thousand florins were spent in means of transport 
out of the town in these few days. The Elector scurried 
into the town, to take a glimpse at it, but left it again se- 
cretly, after dark, on the day of his arrival, in well-closed 
chariots, with his mistress and his jewels, having first seen 
that his arms were well erased from his carriage-panels, after 
which he bethought himself of duly naming Chancellor Al- 
bini as Regent. The treasures of the churches were also 
packed up and got safely out of the town; and then the 
High Chancellor called the burghers (in truth, the only inhab- 
itants who remained) to a meeting, at which he urged them 
not to lose courage, but, abiding by the town, to defend it to 
the last, and, addressing them as his brethren, read a procla^ 
mation, forbidding flight and removal of goods, on pain of 



140 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

severest punishment. The fraternal title, we are told, so 
dumfoundered the burgher brains, that a rough journey- 
man unwittingly gave vent to his astonishment by a thun- 
dering rap of his big fist on the table, accompanied by a 
monstrous oath ; when, just as brotherly affection was about 
to make them all strike into that stream of bravery let loose 
by the Cha.ncellor, an ill-timed meddler dashed this flow of 
mind by the shout that their most gracious brother, the 
Chancellor, in his heavily laden chariot, had just safely passed 
the gates. His Excellency General von Gymnich, Master- 
General of the Ordnance, swore loudly he would defend the 
town to his last shirt; and truly endless was the clatter and 
the bustle of warlike preparations during the next few days. 
The burgher-guard were even under arms ; all horses were 
put in requisition to drag artillery, and the full-dressed gen- 
erals of the Mayence army inspected the raising of batteries 
by panting citizens, who were praying God to put a speedy 
end to such troubles, before worse came of them. Now and 
then a bit of news would come how Custine had advanced 
another march ; and once the sight of a cloud of dust sent 
such a thrill of fear through the town, that the garrison 
nearly crushed itself to atoms in scampering across the 
bridge on the Ehine ; until, on the 19th of October, the 
French arrived bodily under the walls of Mayence, and sum- 
moned the town to surrender ; when General von Gymnich 
gathered his splendidly clad brother generals about him, 
amongst them the Elector's relative, Count Hatzfeldt, to 
consider in council whether they should desert or defend the 
town. To desert was the decision they quickly came to; so, 
having bargained that each officer should be allowed to take 
away a horse out of the Elector's stable, while he himself 
received six famous cream-colored steeds, his Excellency-in- 
Chief rode over to the opposite bank with the proud bearing of 
one who had worthily taken care of his master's dearest inter- 
ests ; and, having received each officer's pledge to restore his 
animal to its owner, he hastened to present himself, his horses, 
and his report, at Erfurt, whither his sovereign had retired. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 141 

It was no wish to abet French conquest which made Forster 
remain in Mayence. His post was there ; the world without 
was all strange to him, and offered him no home which he 
could make for in these troubles ; and while his duty and his 
interests both told him to stay, his generous mind was, more- 
over, deeply shocked at the selfishness of the higher classes, and 
of every one connected with the Government. The very last 
act of the Elector was to pilfer and bear away with him the 
saving fund of widows and orphans, so that Forster could well 
exclaim, " The last quivering of despotism is one more piece 
of unrighteousness, which calls to Heaven for vengeance." He 
determined, therefore, to abide events, a resolve in which 
he was strengthened at the time by Theresa's good cheer and 
encouragement. So active a mind, with its love of practical 
employment, could not, however, remain long without being 
drawn into the eddy which was spinning around him ; and thus 
his great knowledge of French made him the University's 
natural spokesman with Custine, on the occasion of its being 
threatened with loss of funds by new decrees concerning 
tithes and dues. In those days events marched rapidly ; and 
while the memory of the Elector, in his distant retirement, 
or from the selfish abandonment of everything by him and 
his own, had faded in a few weeks, as if years had elapsed 
since his departure (so that all believed, come what might, 
the old Government at least could not return), every day 
brought with it new situations, which not only loudly called 
on a man of Forster's knowledge and parts to seize as a duty 
the occasion thrust on him, of warding ill from off his fellow- 
citizens, but which often, from the nature of their complica- 
tions and his peculiar position, pointed him out as the man 
who could alone unravel and straighten them. Thus, from 
being his fellow-professors' champion for their dues and 
rights, he came to have to do with the equitable allotment of 
the demands of the French Commissariat, until step by step 
he was drawn into being the heart and soul of the new 
administration, and, on the appointment of a provisional 
government, allowed himself to be named one of its nine 



142 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

members. His motives are manfully stated in a letter to 
Heyne, whose fears at his son-in-law's conduct were becoming 
excessive. 

(t It is the duty of every honest inhabitant, I think, to take thought, 
when called upon to do so, for the ease and property of the inhabitants 
in general ; for, let Mayence come into whose hands it may, it must 
always he pleasing to the sovereign of the day to have a country 
which is not exhausted, and which is in the enjoyment of its resources. 
I have no other principle of action, and this one is as simple as it is 
true. No one will deny that if the people of Mayence can become 
free on this occasion, they would be great fools not to become so, and 
they really seem possessed of enough sound sense to do it." 

This step was final ; it tore almost all his ties of friend- 
ship ; and even Sommering was so overcome with fear and 
horror, that, turning away from one who loved him so dearly, 
he henceforth would have no further knowledge of him. 
Traitor and low designer were the names showered upon him ; 
and the Duke of Brunswick's remark, on hearing of Forster's 
doings, was astonishment that one who had so many means 
of earning a livelihood should have sought a rebel's calling ! 
Yet if Forster proved wrong in his political belief, he shared 
his mistake with many keen thinkers ; for even the shrewd 
Johannes von Muller, initiated as he was into all the springs 
and workings of German statecraft, gave it as his opinion, 
on a hasty visit to Mayence for matters of private business 
(where he was beset by hundreds of doubtful burghers seek- 
ing to steady their minds by the wisdom of so deep an ora- 
cle), that under the circumstances they would do best to 
rally round the republican Government. In the midst of 
the bustle of convening the assembly which was to decide 
whether Mayence would become independent or not, affairs 
without the walls grew dark and threatening. 

The French had been driven back from Frankfort, and 
the allies were hovering about the town. Business now 
overwhelmed Forster; his fluent French made him neces- 
sary everywhere, and, after working all day in offices, he 



GEORGE FORSTER. 143 

had to take the chair of an evening in the Jacobin Club, 
while the editorship of a journal left him not a spare mo- 
ment to himself. It was in the turmoil of such troubled 
times, when every day the look-out became more and more 
threatening, that he determined Theresa should no longer 
encounter the risks of his lot. She had been entirely de- 
prived of society by the universal emigration (Huber, as 
Saxon agent, had been forced to leave the town), and hard- 
ships which would formerly have excited her romantic tem- 
per, now only tended to depress it ; so it was decided that 
Thomas Brand, the English pupil, should take her to Stras- 
burg, where she was to reside with good Jacobin friends of 
her husband. Thus was the knot of Forster's marriage 
noiselessly untied, although it is certain that neither hus- 
band nor wife was fully aware that they were then un- 
loosening it so completely forever. Much deep and earnest 
thought had Forster held within himself as to what it was 
his honest duty to do for his wife's happiness ; that secret 
about Huber weighed upon him, in spite of his philosophy ; 
yet, seeing himself and the ship of his household becoming 
more and more engulfed in an eddy, he wished to see his 
wife at least landed beyond its reach ; and thus this severing 
was, in truth, a renunciation on his part. Huber soon after 
vowed that as long as he lived Theresa should never suffer 
want, and, forsaking his diplomatic calling, advancement in 
which was barred by his well-known friendship for the Jaco- 
bins, he went to Switzerland, whither she had gone from 
Strasburg with her children. Strange to say, a happier and a 
better understanding between all three was the immediate re- 
sult of this unwonted settlement. Forster had lost much, but 
he had won a devoted friendship which, freed from the re- 
straint of late doubt and fear, now revealed itself in its full 
strength ; and his letters show how at this time, at least, it 
did not enter his thoughts that the new order of things would 
cut him off from personal intercourse with his wife ; while 
she again manifests the liveliest sympathy and interest in his 
career, and fully approves of his pursuing it. In truth, this 



144 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

is one of the most wonderful complications woven out of the 
smallest and pitiablest misunderstandings with the highest and 
noblest self-denial, so that it passes comprehension how they 
could be dovetailed together; and not least strange is the 
artless bearing and true childlike affection shown by all the 
sharers in this odd union. 

It was time for women to get out of Mayence when The- 
resa left. Merlin de Thionsville, Haussmann, and Eewbell 
arrived from Paris, as commissioners, when all doubt as to 
the future constitution of the country was laid aside. End- 
less was now the racket of Forster's daily life ; and especially 
was he worried by the labor of presiding at the club sittings, 
which were violently disturbed by unseemly brawls. Then 
were there also patriotic banquets, followed by long-winded 
orations, so that he might well groan over the part he was 
made to go through ; yet his health was wonderfully borne 
up by excitement, until a four hours' bath of snow and sleet, 
on the solemn planting of the tree of freedom on the 4th of 
January, nearly ended the patriot's days. The loss of so 
useful a man was borne impatiently ; so no sooner was he 
able to move than he was made to travel through the coun- 
try districts, as Government Commissioner, to watch the elec- 
tions of deputies for the Constituent Assembly of Mayence, 
an office which brought him into collision with the nobles 
on their estates. The Union was voted at once, when Fors- 
ter, with two other citizens, was sent to bear to the Conven- 
tion the decree which he himself had drawn up. So little 
did he foresee, in the eagerness of that hour, how events 
were upon the point of turning, that he expected to be back 
before the end of three weeks, and even neglected to take 
any care for his books and papers. On the 30th of March 
he was admitted to the bar of the Convention, where he was 
received with the enthusiastic cheers of that France to which 
he was sent as the spokesman of its new brethren, although 
one short week was sufficient to prove how unstable and tot- 
tering was the Union he heralded. 

The allied armies had crossed the Rhine the day before 



GEORGE FORSTER. 145 

Forster's departure, and since then had advanced upon the 
town, so as to invest it completely. Under such circum- 
stances, return was for the present out of the question; so 
to shift for himself as he best could in the heaving surf 
of Paris, on the pittance of eighteen assignat livres a day, 
was all the look-out left to him, and he tried to make it 
as cheery a one as good-will would allow. A large world 
suited Forster's temper; the many shiftings of his early 
life had given him habits of largeness, and there was in 
the nature of Paris and its world-movement abundance to 
fasten and powerfully interest the peculiar tastes of his 
mind. Moreover, he came thither with a lively trust and 
belief in the great Revolution, which the excitement of par- 
tisanship had worked up into passionate liking ; and yet the 
first impression of what he saw, when he began to sift and 
order the crush of sight which thronged on him, was disap- 
pointment, which, in spite of himself, stole with clammy 
chill over his boiling enthusiasm. He saw the ugly under- 
workings of parties and of party-chiefs, and his gossamer 
visions threatened absolutely to fade away at the strong 
glare of Paris light. " The only thing still wanting, after 
all I have suffered of late, is to have the conviction forced 
on me, that I have offered up my best strength to a monster, 
and have worked with honest zeal for a cause with which no 
one else will work honestly, and which is a cloak for the 
maddest passions." Forster's political faith, and keen glance 
into the workings of men and times, were, however, far too 
steady to be shaken or blinded by any sudden gust. He had 
become enamored of the Revolution for herself ; and through 
the throng of low suitors who had jostled and dragged her 
along into the filth of their debaucheries, his eye, disregard- 
ing the harlotry of foisted fashion, dwelt ever lovingly on 
the beauty with which she had been born. Thus, while 
goaded to despair by the excesses and horrors of the violent 
party, he yet proclaimed himself a Jacobin, because he saw 
in extreme measures the State's only safeguard against a re- 
turn of old abuses. " I do not deny that the men of the 

10 



146 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Mountain often show themselves from a disadvantageous 
and impolitic side ; but they seem withal to be freer from 
prejudice than the others, and, beyond doubt, they have more 
power and decision." Thus Forster remained true to his 
convictions, for with him they were the clear light of be- 
lief, which no chance storm could lastingly trouble, for he 
knew that, in the heaven of his world, certain seasons must 
have passing storms, and that the big darkness was but the 
shadow which must come along with the mighty lightning 
that would clear the firmament. 

Eighteen paper livres a day (of which a hundred went to 
make one gold louis) were slender rations to fatten on, espe- 
cially for a man who found himself unable to pick up any 
scrap of means for himself, being yet so thorough a stranger 
in the wild chaos he had got into, that, in spite of all his 
efforts, he could pitch on no standing ground whatsoever in 
its rocking whirligig. Affairs in Mayence grew daily worse ; 
for not only were a hundred ducats put upon his outlawed 
head, about which he could afford to joke from his Paris gar- 
ret, but what was infinitely more alarming, a thorough rain 
of shells and cannon-balls had been hurled upon the town, 
great part of which, and especially of his own neighborhood, 
had been burned ; while, even if his house escaped destruc- 
tion, there was small chance that he would be able to recover 
his papers, which he had so thoughtlessly forgotten to stow 
away. Without his papers he was like a palsied man pilfered 
of his crutches ; for his hopes of active employment in the 
service of France did not wear a promising look. All France 
was then bustling about Paris and the office haunts of the 
ministers ; and unless a man had big shoulders, and a strong 
will to make others afraid of him, there was small likelihood 
for his luck irt picking up anything. Lebrun, Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, had indeed received him in a friendly man- 
ner, and he had the justest claims on the State for whose 
benefit he had risked and lost his all; yet, if such hopes 
were worth aught, their value was as yet to come, and so far 
not even in sight. 



GEORGE FORSTER. 147 

"After so many years' hard work, everything which I have un- 
dertaken for my advancement has failed, and I begin the world, as it 
were, afresh, without knowing how or wherewith, as cut off from all 
Europe and overladen with debt. I am here without means, without 
any support, and almost without prospects. I have pledged myself to 
accept everything which may be offered to me. Scientific merit, and 
even the skill of the man of business, are now of no avail here. 
Whoever floats uppermost sits at the helm, until the next man, being 
the strongest for the moment, dislodges him. In short, for the first 
time in my life, all my means prove utterly useless ; and I stand as 
forlorn as a child which has not the strength to nourish itself." 

This dreary view of his circumstances did not, however, 
long cast down his spirits. Summer always invigorated 
Forster ; it was as if this season ever quickened the throb of 
his tropical heart ; and so, as it came on, his courage began 
to plan designs which smacked of its temper and his roving 
disposition. He thought of studying Eastern languages, and 
of going to India for some years. 

" If I could only scrape together 400 or 500, and were it only 
300, I would learn Persian and Arabic, and go overland to India to 
gather new experience, and besides make my fortune as a physician 
in a few years. Wholly new objects, foreign sights, movement, oc- 
cupation, discomfort, and even danger, all this together, with the 
consciousness that I am busy in the enjoyment and pursuit of such 
human work as suits my powers, knowledge, and taste, must infallibly 
prove healing balm to my wounded feelings. I might stay away from 
four to six years, or still longer, and then return not yet too old to 
enjoy the end of my days in my children's arms; while, finding them 
happy, I should bring back to you a friend thankful for the fulfilment 
of your motherly duties." 

Is not this the same old Forster, good, generous, and 
never allowing himself to be long downcast? This last- 
spoken hope of seeing his wife and children remained bright 
through all his summer visions, although resignation had 
been steadily growing on him, so that he saw now clearly 
enough that it would not do for him to live in the neighbor- 
hood of Theresa, and any longings for such a life passed only 



148 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

like the death-quivers of his lone existence. The intimacy 
of their correspondence was extreme ; it was a continual out- 
pouring of friendliest love and sympathy, and he seemed but 
to feel the pains of his straitened circumstances in the palsy 
they brought on that helping hand he was always wishing to 
thrust to those he was so fond of. Even in his uttermost 
poverty he screwed together a little money for some present 
when a trusty opportunity of sending it offered ; and the only 
occasion when his letters showed any displeasure with his 
wife, was when she chanced to lag behind his zeal and faith 
in the Revolution. 

At times Lebrun threw out a sign which buoj^ed up his 
hope, and made him look nearer home than India for a beam 
whereon to float from drowning ; until at last, in October, he 
really was named a French envoy, and was sent to Cambrai 
to negotiate an exchange of prisoners with the allied gener- 
als. On the very day of his appointment, the Angel of Blood 
had passed close by him with his sword. Lux, one of his two 
fellow-deputies from Mayence, and who had been the com- 
rade of all his Paris penury, had been arrested that morning 
to be dragged before the revolutionary tribunal. The poor 
youth, crazed with admiration of Charlotte Corday's heroism, 
had loudly said that he would hold it as his highest honor to 
be doomed to share her death, and wrote an apotheosis of 
her, in which he proposed that a statue should be erected 
to her as greater than Brutus. Nor was the mission itself 
a pleasant and comfortable thing, whatever visions friends 
abroad made to themselves of Forster's mightiness ; in truth, 
the Republican Envoy was wofully off in every way, wor- 
ried by the dullest of business, which during three months 
he in vain tried to see make some progress, without a friend 
or an amusement to cheer weary days, while he ruefully shiv- 
ered in a reeking garret (and even there in his wretched bed 
he was robbed of comfort by hosts of vermin), for the meas- 
ure of wood cost one hundred and twenty livres, and, as he 
says himself, " he did not understand the art of swelling his 
income of three thousand into forty thousand livres." Still 



GEORGE FORSTER. 149 

this mission may well be put down amongst the lucky wind- 
falls of his life ; for at this time Paris was at the highest 
pitch of its mistrust of foreigners, and but for his absence, 
Forster would hardly have escaped suspicion, with his open, 
outspoken honesty, and his intimate connection with poor 
Lux, who, when brought before the tribunal and in prison, 
bore himself like one rapt with frenzy, and at last leapt up 
the steps of the scaffold as lightly as if they led to a bri- 
dal chamber. 

It is very noteworthy what calm, unruffled courage Fors- 
ter shows during all these sad times ; it is as if the thought 
of danger to himself never crossed him for an instant ; and 
from his garret at Arras (whither the approach of the allies 
had driven him rather hastily from Cambrai), as from the 
heart of Paris, he looks unflinchingly on the terrible things 
going on around him, and passes his judgment as quietly 
and unguardedly on men and matters as if he himself 
were wholly beyond their power and reach. There is liter- 
ally not one word in his correspondence which betrays the 
thought that he might be drawn down by the wild eddy he 
was so close to. The only uneasiness which worried him 
was the uncertainty of his prospects, by which he found him- 
self kept in continued fever ; for while he saw that his for- 
eign origin and sturdy independence were stumbling-blocks 
in the way of employment, the absence of his papers and 
books rendered him unable to undertake any literary labor. 
Yet with all this his brave spirit was not abashed ; and in- 
deed at this period of his life he seemed to have been ani- 
mated with unwonted courage. In the outer world there 
was only one spot for him where he hoped to find soothing 
comfort; and daily, on returning from long, lonely walks 
along the poplar-edged canals of Flanders, his mind spinning 
with schemes for the future, the perusal of Theresa's letters, 
or chafing disappointment when his expectation of such 
was balked, made him turn with impassioned longing to the 
thought of once more seeing her and his children. The diffi- 
culty was great ; for even if he could find the requisite money, 



150 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

public mistrust was ever watching the goings and comings on 
the frontier, and Forster in his peculiar position could easily 
come to be denounced as a traitor who held intercourse with 
the enemy's spies. Theresa was staying at Neufchatel, which, 
being under Prussian supremacy, was forbidden ground to the 
outlaw. Yet for her to come over into France was even more 
dangerous than for Forster to break the decree of the Con- 
vention, which forbade any one to cross the boundaries with- 
out the Government's express permission. The first petty 
police-officer might cheaply show his zeal by laying hold of her 
as a skulking emigrant ; while Huber, as an enemy's subject, 
could never be admitted. 

About the middle of October, being at last relieved from 
his diplomatic functions, Forster moved heaven and earth in 
Paris to be able to obtain his wishes. It was resolved that 
Theresa should come with Huber to Travers, a poor village 
in the Jura, a few miles from the French frontier, whither 
Forster was to cross from Pontarlier. He obtained a loan 
of one thousand livres from an old Mayence friend. He 
reckoned on his official character to overcome any diffi- 
culties on the frontier, while he hoped to shield himself 
against the penalty of death which was attached to the 
transport of coin out of the country, by bringing back a 
paper in Huber's possession, which, written by Clermont 
Tonnerre, contained matters of high importance about Gen- 
eral Luckner's supposed treason, and which, if subjected to 
inquiry, Forster would pretend to have been bought with 
the money he had, in truth, carried to his children. At last 
the arrangements were ready, and early in November he 
left Paris for Pontarlier. The chief of the frontier post 
proved a friendly man, who willingly agreed to help him as 
far as he could ; so, riding across the snowy ridges of the 
Jura, he reached unobserved the appointed hamlet on a No- 
vember morning. What passed between the three, what 
overwhelming thoughts, what flashes of hope and pangs of 
disappointment, shot across their minds in those three days, 
when all the floodgates of their hearts were opened, and their 



GEORGE FORSTER. 151 

fulness flowed so fast to choking, there is no account ; for 
how could any cunning words set forth such a throng of 
emotion ? It is a meeting worth thinking about. Forster 
seemed to his friends to have grown stouter in health, and 
his complexion appeared to have a freshness, which was prob- 
ably but the flush of joyous excitement, while he also ex- 
pressed himself pleased with what he saw. Thus did these 
few days fly past but too swiftly in the enjoyment of the 
highest and most heartfelt bliss, and the three were again 
torn asunder so suddenly and so rapidly that all was like a 
dream, had not the tingling throbs of memory continued to 
heave and flush their frames. 

" I thank Heaven," he writes, the day after the separation, "that I 
have carried out coming to you; these three days have strengthened 
me for a long while, and have perhaps poised me rightly forever. I 
feel myself like Antaeus, the son of Earth, who received new strength 
when he touched his mother. My courage to hold out is firmer and 
more decided, and my resignation (if I may so call it) to everything 
which may happen, has now no struggle more to overcome. We 
could still be happy, and live with and near each other some twenty 
or thirty years. As for our starving, that is out of the question; 
and the more so if we are together, and restrict ourselves to that 
which is simply necessary. Would that be any suffering for us, espe- 
cially after all we have experienced, seen, and heard, after all that 
happens and takes place about us? I can reckon that I shall always 
have an income of six thousand livres ; could I only find four thou- 
sand for Huber, then I would pledge myself that we might live per- 
fectly well in Paris. Why, it must go ! Kiss my sweet children. 
How I scanned the mail-guard to-day who had seen them yesterday. 
Good-by." 

Poor Forster ! who, reckoning on thirty years of happiness, 
had bare nine weeks of nether life allotted to him, and most 
of these to be passed in racking torments ! 

For a fortnight Forster still remained by himself at Pon- 
tarlier, for what reason does not appear unless it were that 
he feared to leave the neighborhood of those he loved until 
want of money drove him away. The journey was made in 



152 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

the wretchedest winter weather, so that he reached Paris in 
sad plight, where he put up at the Hotel des Patriotes Hol- 
landais, in the Rue des Moulins. He had been attacked on 
the way with rheumatic spasms in the chest, which, however, 
yielded to remedies, and allowed him to run about Paris, 
where, as he wrote, he found not a few new things. Chebot 
and Bazire's imprisonment, which had just happened, were 
startling tidings even in those days ; while Danton's mighty 
voice, after long silence, was beginning to let itself be heard 
again within the walls of the Convention. Poor Chamfort, 
the librarian, whom he had left dealing out books in the Rue 
Richelieu, was lying in the Luxembourg prison, being care- 
fully nursed of his razor-gashes that he might be reserved 
for the guillotine, which, in the interval of his absence, had 
been at work on many known heads, amongst them, Man- 
uel and Bailly and Egalite. Careless exposure to wintry 
weather did him, however, fresh harm; for, on the llth De- 
cember, he had to write that for three days he had been 
obliged to keep his bed, but that things were mending, and 
before three other days were over he would be able to go out 
again as usual. His old disease, the scurvy, brought on, in 
the first instance, by the wet and cold he had encountered on 
his journey, had taken the shape of rheumatic gout, and was 
flying about his body, having been violently increased by his 
careless neglect of precautions. Still gradually he began to 
recover, though sleepless nights and exhausting torments 
required a longer convalescence than the three days he had 
been hopefully looking to as enough. With his inborn eager- 
ness, at this time heightened by the lively spirit of enter- 
prise which had come over him since his visit to Travers, he 
forthwith went out as soon as ever he could, in cold and bit- 
ter weather ; and so, having visited some friends on the even- 
ing of the 19th December, he found himself obliged to walk 
home late at night, as no carriage could be found. The con- 
sequence was an immediate and violent return of his malady. 
" I have fared ill in this undertaking. My chest became as 
sore and tired as if a scraper had been passed over it ; and 



GEORGE FORSTER. 153 

even now my whole inside is still one sore." Two days 
later, however, he already wrote a more hopeful account ; for 
though so weak as to be unable to walk a hundred steps with- 
out violent coughing and faintness, while his joints were 
painfully swollen, he yet declared himself without fear of the 
consequences of his illness ; and so duped were Theresa and 
Huber by the cheerful tone of his letters, that, accustomed, 
on the one hand, to know Forster continually ailing, while, 
on the other, trustful in the healthy look he had at Travers, 
they felt no serious alarm about his state. The improve- 
ment announced in every letter would not come. The gouty 
swellings spread more and more over the whole body, rack- 
ing it with ceaseless torments, which baffled all soothing 
medicines, though they did not overcome his sturdy cour- 
age. On the 4th January he wrote the following letter to 
Theresa : 

" But a few lines from my bed of pain, that my darlings be not 
without tidings. My sickness has now lasted thirteen days. I do not 
shut an eye, and until this night I have always had more or less vio- 
lent pain. Now it seems to be venting itself, the fourth day after two 
blisters. At the same time I have that fearful scorbutic flow of saliva 
which I had at Mayence when your father came to see us. Danger 
there is none. Strength exists still, although so lessened that rny 
recovery will be slow. Believe me, that in the account of my sick- 
ness there is neither a word too much nor too little. The pains have 
left the stomach and bowels ; they were the chief thing. You will 
understand that I can do no work. I can only save myself. I can- 
not continue this scrawl, therefore, only be without anxiety. I beg 
of you, dear Huber, take care that our Theresa does not create herself 
any fancies. It is true that I am very and painfully ill; but once 
more there is no danger. Your letters, my dear child, which I have 
all received, have been a dear gift to me in my illness ; be sure to 
continue writing assiduously ! We have everywhere been victorious 
like lions; the Frankfort call has been full of augury. I am curious 
to learn how public spirit will express itself on the other side of the 
Rhine, now that the truth of the news is undoubted. Is it not true, 
my children a few words are better than nothing? I have no more 
strength to write. Farewell ! Guard yourselves against illness, 
kiss my darlings." 



154 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

It was the last letter ever written by George Forster ; and 
with what a healthy flow of unaffected feeling does it teem, 
and how thoroughly warm and lively is his heart's throb to 
the last ! He had a few friends who at first watched at his 
bedside ; but, becoming tired with waiting for his death, they 
all of them forsook him, except one old messmate from May- 
ence. The gout by degrees conquered the body bit by bit. 
until at five o'clock in the afternoon of the 12th January, 
1794, the brave soul breathed its last. The Mayence friend 
immediately informed Huber of what had happened in the 
following words : 

" My tears announce to you, dear friend, a melancholy event. Our 
poor Forster is dead; he died in his room an hour ago of apoplexy, 
after a long gouty illness. I rendered him the last duties of a friend, 
and closed his eyes. ... Of the last hours of our poor dead friend I 
can, in truth, say nothing, but that the proverb proved itself true : 

' Donee eris felix multos numerabis amicos, 
Tempora si fuerint nubila solus eris.' 

Ovid was quite right. In the last eight days, as Forster's illness be- 
came more serious, all his many friends French, Germans, Poles 
forsook him ; I alone remained to succor him in his sufferings. I sel- 
dom left him ; and on the day of his death I was with him till four in 
the afternoon. At that time his illness did not yet threaten death ; 
business called me away, and when I returned at five in the evening, 
nature's struggle between existence and cessation had already begun, 
and my poor friend was at the point of death. The gout had got into 
the chest, an apoplectic stroke came thereto, and his last words were 
of his children. Quiverings snapped the fetters of life ; his two watch- 
men and myself were present at his last breath, and I then immediately 
took care about the sealing up of all he had left behind him, and the 
proces verbal which the juge depaix arranged." 

Little indeed was it that he left behind him ; for the jour- 
ney to Travers had not yet been paid for, and even that lit- 
tle got frittered away by dishonest handling. An ex-count 
at that time Citizen Joguet thrust himself, with much show 
and bustle of friendship, on Theresa, and offered, by his 



GEORGE FORSTER. 155 

influence and knowledge of Paris, to settle her husband's 
affairs, if she would furnish him with the authority to do so. 
What became of the man himself does not appear, beyond 
that he tried to turn to his own best possible advantage the 
trust which had been blindly reposed in his assurances. 
Theresa sent such of Forster's papers as he had with him in 
Paris, as a donation from his children to the Committee for 
Education, without ever receiving any acknowledgment, un- 
til, many years later, a friend of the family found a bundle of 
old papers in the lumber-room of the National Institute, and 
on scrutiny it proved to be the remains of this donation, 
which figured as a patriotic gift of the said citizen. So for- 
saken was the end of one who had begun life so dazzlingly. 
Hardly a word was spoken about his death ; and if so, then 
was it mostly a curse, for pity was barely dared to be whis- 
pered. Sommering, peevish and fretting at the chattels he 
had lost during the Mayence outbreak, started back from the 
very name of Forster as from the Evil One. Lichtenberg 
timidly bewailed that his married state imposed caution, so 
that all he could afford to do for his friend's memory was to 
think freely of him. Jacobi's delicate nature did not mingle 
in the low choir of hooters, but still he stood silently aloof ; 
and, most shocking of all, the old father at Halle, in the 
mad frenzy of hoary age, belched forth a yell of outrage 
against his George, to have seen whom swing on the gallows 
he declared would have been the closing pleasure of his life. 
One man alone dared to weep openly for him, and tenderly 
he wept over his loss, kindly old Heyne, who, in the fulness 
of his honest heart, cast aside all his caution and regard for 
consequences, to let its sorrow pour itself forth. 

"Since yesterday's news, which has altogether confounded me" 
(he wrote to Huber on the 31st of January), " I cannot collect iny 
thoughts. I cannot console myself for the loss of rny Forster. Truly 
was he my Forster. I loved him beyond expression ; so many feel- 
ings were mingled in him. His worth ah ! he will never be re- 
placed for the world. The knowledge that was gathered in him 
will not soon again be found in one man. The noblest nature the 



156 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

noblest heart ; and for me ever the object of sorrow, of pity. I always 
thought of him with emotion; he deserved to be happy more than thou- 
sand others, and yet was never so, was so deeply unhappy ! It is as 
yet impossible for me to think that I am never to see him again ! I 
shall never be able to forget him ; always will he float before my eyes, 
thou noblest, best man ! What would I give for one hour which I 
might have conversed with him ! Rest in peace, my dear, my cher- 
ished Forster ! " 

The man who had borne the name of Germany all over the 
world, whose writings were amongst the masterpieces of 
its language, whose feelings were so true and whose thought 
so national, that he first coined a thorough German word 
for public spirit (gemeingeist), that man's memory was 
tracked and hunted down as of the vilest traitor ; so that, 
nearly forty years after his death, his wife did not dare 
to publish his letters without prefixing an apology. Four 
months after Forster's death Theresa and Huber were mar- 
ried, and the remainder of their lives was at least happy and 
contented. 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 

SILLY Novels by Lady Novelists are a genus with many 
species, determined by the particular quality of silliness 
that predominates in them, the frothy, the prosy, the pious, 
or the pedantic. But it is a mixture of all these, a composite 
order of feminine fatuity, that produces the largest class of 
such novels, which we shall distinguish as the mind-and-mil- 
linery species. The heroine is usually an heiress, probably a 
peeress in her own right, with perhaps a vicious baronet, an 
amiable duke, and an irresistible younger son of a marquis 
as lovers in the foreground, a -clergyman and a poet sighing 
for her in the middle distance, and a crowd of undefined 
adorers dimly indicated beyond. Her eyes and her wit are 
both dazzling ; her nose and her morals are alike free from 
any tendency to irregularity ; she has a superb contralto and 
a superb intellect ; she is perfectly well dressed and perfectly 
religious ; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in 
the original tongues. Or it may be that the heroine is not 
an heiress, that rank and wealth are the only things in 
which she is deficient ; but she infallibly gets into high 
society, she has the triumph of refusing many matches and 
securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other 
as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Kakish men 
either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, 
or are touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appro- 
priate occasions, rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric ; indeed, 
there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, and to 
rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom. 
In her recorded conversations she is amazingly eloquent, and 



158 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

in her unrecorded conversations amazingly witty. She is un- 
derstood to have a depth of insight that looks through and 
through the shallow theories of philosophers, and her supe- 
rior instincts are a sort of dial by which men have only to 
set their clocks and watches, and all will go well. The men 
play a very subordinate part by her side. You are consoled 
now and then by a hint that they have affairs, which keeps 
you in mind that the working-day business of the world is 
somehow being carried on ; but ostensibly the final cause of 
their existence is that they may accompany the heroine on 
her " starring " expedition through life. They see her at a 
ball, and are dazzled ; at a flower-show, and they are fasci- 
nated ; on a riding excursion, and they are witched by her noble 
horsemanship ; at church, and they are awed by the sweet 
solemnity of her demeanor. She is the ideal woman in feel- 
ings, faculties, and flounces. For all this, she as often as not 
marries the wrong person to begin with, and she suffers ter- 
ribly from the plots and intrigues of the vicious baronet; 
but even death has a soft place in his heart for such a para- 
gon, and remedies all mistakes for her just at the right mo- 
ment. The vicious baronet is sure to be killed in a duel, and 
the tedious husband dies in his bed, requesting his wife, as a 
particular favor to him, to marry the man she loves best, 
and having already despatched a note to the lover informing 
him of the comfortable arrangement. Before matters arrive 
at this desirable issue our feelings are tried by seeing the 
noble, lovely, and gifted heroine pass through many mauvais 
moments; but we have the satisfaction of knowing that her 
sorrows are wept into embroidered pocket-handkerchiefs, that 
her fainting form reclines on the very best upholstery, and 
that whatever vicissitudes she may undergo, from being 
dashed out of her carriage to having her head shaved in a 
fever, she comes out of them all with a complexion more 
blooming and locks more redundant than ever. 

We may remark, by the way, that we have been relieved 
from a serious scruple by discovering that silly novels by 
lady novelists rarely introduce us into any other than very 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 159 

lofty and fashionable society. We had imagined that desti- 
tute women turned novelists, as they turned governesses, be- 
cause they had no other " lady -like " means of getting their 
bread. On this supposition, vacillating syntax and improb- 
able incident had a certain pathos for us, like the extremely 
supererogatory pin-cushions and ill-devised nightcaps that 
are offered for sale by a blind man. We felt the commodity 
to be a nuisance, but we were glad to think that the money 
went to relieve the necessitous, and we pictured to ourselves 
lonely women struggling for a maintenance, or wives and 
daughters devoting themselves to the production of " copy " 
out of pure heroism, perhaps to pay their husband's debts 
or to purchase luxuries for a sick father. Under these im- 
pressions we shrank from criticising a lady's novel : her Eng- 
lish might be faulty, but we said to ourselves her motives are 
irreproachable ; her imagination may be uninventive, but her 
patience is untiring. Empty writing was excused by an 
empty stomach, and twaddle was consecrated by tears. But 
no ! This theory of ours, like many other pretty theories, 
has had to give way before observation. Women's silly nov- 
els, we are now convinced, are written under totally different 
circumstances. The fair writers have evidently never talked 
to a tradesman except from a carriage window ; they have no 
notion of the working-classes except as " dependants ; " they 
think five hundred a year a miserable pittance; Belgravia 
and "baronial halls" are their primary truths; and they 
have no idea of feeling interest in any man who is not at 
least a great landed proprietor, if not a prime minister. It 
is clear that they write in elegant boudoirs, with violet-col- 
ored ink and a ruby pen ; that they must be entirely indiffer- 
ent to publishers' accounts, and inexperienced in every form 
of poverty except poverty of brains. It is true that we are 
constantly struck with the want of verisimilitude in their 
representations of the high society in which they seem to 
live; but then they betray no closer acquaintance with 
any other form of life. If their peers and peeresses are im- 
probable, their literary men, tradespeople, and cottagers are 



160 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

impossible ; and their intellect seems to have the peculiar 
impartiality of reproducing both what they have seen and 
heard, and what they have not seen and heard, with equal 
unfaithfulness. 

There are few women, we suppose, who have not seen 
something of children under five years of age, yet in "Com- 
pensation," a recent novel of the mind-and-millinery species, 
which calls itself a " story of real life," we have a child of 
four and a half 3 r ears old talking in this Ossianic fashion : 

" ' Oh, I am so happy, dear gran'mamma! I have seen I have 
seen such a delightful person j he is like everything beautiful, like 
the smell of sweet flowers, and the view from Ben Lomond ; or no, 
better than that, he is like what I think of and see when I am very, 
very happy ; and he is really like mamma, too, when she sings ; and 
his forehead is like that distant sea,' she continued, pointing to the 
blue Mediterranean ; ' there seems no end, no end ; or like the clus- 
ters of stars I like best to look at on a warm fine night. . . . Don't 
look so ... your forehead is like Loch Lomond, when the wind is 
blowing and the sun is gone in ; I like the sunshine best when the 
lake is smooth. ... So now I like it better than ever ... it is 
more beautiful still from the dark cloud that has gone over it, when the 
sun suddenly lights up all the colors of the forests and shining purple 
rocks, and it is all reflected in the waters below.' " 

We are not surprised to learn that the mother of this in- 
fant phenomenon, who exhibits symptoms so alarmingly like 
those of adolescence repressed by gin, is herself a phoenix. 
We are assured, again and again, that she had a remarkably 
original mind, that she was a genius, and " conscious of her 
originality," and she was fortunate enough to have a lover 
who was also a genius and a man of " most original mind." 

This lover, we read, though " wonderfully similar " to her 
" in powers and capacity," was " infinitely superior to her in 
faith and development," and she saw in him " ' Agape,' so 
rare to find, of which she had read and admired the mean- 
ing in her Greek Testament ; having, from her great facility 
in learning languages, read the Scriptures in their original 
tongues." Of course ! Greek and Hebrew are mere play to 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 161 

a heroine ; Sanscrit is no more than a b c to her ; and she can 
talk with perfect correctness in any language, except English. 
She is a polking polyglot, a Creuzer in crinoline. Poor 
men ! There are so few of you who know even Hebrew ; 
you think it something to boast of if, like Bolingbroke, you 
only "understand that sort of learning and what is writ 
about it;" and you are perhaps adoring women who can 
think slightingly of you in all the Semitic languages succes- 
sively. But, then, as we are almost invariably told that a 
heroine has a " beautifully small head," and as her intellect 
has probably been early invigorated by an attention to cos- 
tume and deportment, we may conclude that she can pick up 
the Oriental tongues, to say nothing of their dialects, with 
the same aerial facility that the butterfly sips nectar. Be- 
sides, there can be no difficulty in conceiving the depth of 
the heroine's erudition, when that of the authoress is so 
evident. 

In " Laura Gay," another novel of the same school, the her- 
oine seems less at home in Greek and Hebrew, but she makes 
up for the deficiency by a quite playful familiarity with the 
Latin classics, with the "dear old Virgil," "the graceful 
Horace, the humane Cicero, and the pleasant Livy ; " indeed, 
it is such a matter of course with her to quote Latin, that 
she does it at a picnic in a very mixed company of ladies and 
gentlemen, having, we are told, " no conception that the no- 
bler sex were capable of jealousy on this subject. And if, 
indeed," continues the biographer of Laura Gay, " the wisest 
and noblest portion of that sex were in the majority, no such 
sentiment would exist ; but while Miss Wyndhams and Mr. 
Redfords abound, great sacrifices must be made to their exist- 
ence." Such sacrifices, we presume, as abstaining from Latin 
quotations, of extremely moderate interest and applicability, 
which the wise and noble minority of the other sex would be 
quite as willing to dispense with as the foolish and ignoble 
majority. It is as little the custom of well-bred men as of 
well-bred women to quote Latin in mixed parties ; they can 
contain their familiarity with "the humane Cicero" without 

11 



162 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

allowing it to boil over in ordinary conversation, and even 
references to " the pleasant Livy " are not absolutely irrepres- 
sible. But Ciceronian Latin is the mildest form of Miss 
Gay's conversational power. Being on the Palatine with a 
party of sight-seers, she falls into the following vein of well- 
rounded remark : 

" Truth can only be pure objectively ; for even in the creeds where 
it predominates, being subjective, and parcelled out into portions, each 
of these necessarily receives a hue of idiosyncrasy, that is, a taint of 
superstition more or less strong; while in such creeds as the Roman 
Catholic, ignorance, interest, the basis of ancient idolatries, and the 
force of authority have gradually accumulated on the pure truth, and 
transformed it, at last, into a mass of superstition for the majority of 
its votaries; and how few are there, alas! whose zeal, courage, and 
intellectual energy are equal to the analysis of this accumulation, and 
to the discovery of the pearl of great price which lies hidden beneath 
this heap of rubbish." 

"We have often met with women much more novel and 
profound in their observations than Laura Gay, but rarely 
with any so inopportunely long-winded. A clerical lord, 
who is half in love with her, is alarmed by the daring re- 
marks just quoted, and begins to suspect that she is inclined 
to free-thinking. But he is mistaken; when in a moment 
of sorrow he delicately begs leave to "recall to her mem- 
ory a depot of strength and consolation under affliction, 
which, until we are hard pressed by the trials of life, we are 
too apt to forget," we learn that she really has " recurrence 
to that sacred depot" together with the tea-pot. There is a 
certain flavor of orthodoxy mixed with the parade of for- 
tunes and fine carriages in " Laura Gay," but it is an ortho- 
doxy mitigated by study of " the humane Cicero " and by an 
" intellectual disposition to analyze." 

"Compensation" is much more heavily dosed with doc- 
trine ; but then it has a treble amount of snobbish worldliness 
and absurd incident to tickle the palate of pious frivolity. 
Linda, the heroine, is still more speculative and spiritual 
than Laura Gay, but she has been " presented," and has more 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 163 

and far grander lovers ; very wicked and fascinating women 
are introduced, even a French lionne; and no expense is 
spared to get up as exciting a story as you will find in the 
most immoral novels. In fact, it is a wonderful pot-pourri of 
Almack's, Scotch second-sight, Mr. Rogers's breakfasts, Italian 
brigands, death-bed conversions, superior authoresses, Ital- 
ian mistresses, and attempts at poisoning old ladies, the whole 
served up with a garnish of talk about " faith and develop- 
ment " and " most original minds." Even Miss Susan Bar- 
ton, the superior authoress, whose pen moves in a " quick, 
decided manner when she is composing," declines the finest 
opportunities of marriage ; and though old enough to be 
Linda's mother (since we are told that she refused Linda's 
father), has her hand sought by a young earl, the heroine's 
rejected lover. Of course, genius and morality must be 
backed by eligible offers, or they would seem rather a dull 
affair ; and piety, like other things, in order to be comme il 
faut, must be in " society," and have admittance to the best 
circles. 

" Rank and Beauty " is a more frothy and less religious 
variety of the mind-and-millinery species. The heroine, we 
are told, " if she inherited her father's pride of birth and her 
mother's beauty of person, had in herself a tone of enthusi- 
astic feeling, that, perhaps, belongs to her age even in the 
lowly born, but which is refined into the high spirit of wild 
romance only in the far descended, who feel that it is their 
best inheritance." This enthusiastic young lady, by dint of 
reading the newspaper to her father, falls in love with the 
prime minister, who, through the medium of leading articles 
and " the resume of the debates," shines upon her imagina- 
tion as a bright particular star, which has no parallax for her 
living in the country as simple Miss Wyndham. But she 
forthwith becomes Baroness Umfraville in her own right, as- 
tonishes the world with her beauty and accomplishments 
when she bursts upon it from her mansion in Spring Gar- 
dens, and, as you foresee, will presently come into contact 
with the unseen objet aime. Perhaps the words "prime min- 



164 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

ister " suggest to you a wrinkled or obese sexagenarian ; but 
pray dismiss the image. Lord Rupert Conway has been 
" called, while still almost a youth, to the first situation which 
a subject can hold in the universe" and even leading articles 
and a resume of the debates* have not conjured up a dream 
that surpasses the fact. 

" The door opened again, and Lord Rupert Conway entered. Eve- 
lyn gave one glance. It was enough ; she was not disappointed. It 
seemed as if a picture on which she had long gazed was suddenly in- 
stinct with life, and had stepped from its frame before her. His tall 
figure, the distinguished simplicity of his air it was a living Van- 
dyke, a cavalier, one of his noble cavalier ancestors, or one to whom 
her fancy had always likened him, who long of yore had with an Um- 
fraville fought the Paynim far beyond the sea. Was this reality ? " 

Very little like it, certainly. 

By and by it becomes evident that the ministerial heart is 
touched. Lady Umfraville is on a visit to the Queen at 

Windsor, and, 



" The last evening of her stay, when they returned from riding, Mr. 
Wyndham took her and a large party to the top of the keep, to see 
the view. She was leaning on the battlements, gazing from that 
' stately height ' at the prospect beneath her, when Lord Rupert was 
by her side. 

11 ' What an unrivalled view ! ' exclaimed she. 

" 'Yes, it would have been wrong to go without having been up 
here. You are pleased with your visit ? ' 

" ' Enchanted ! A Queen to live and die under, to live and die for ! ' 

" ' Ha ! ' cried he, with sudden emotion and with a eureka expres- 
sion of countenance, as if he had indeed found a heart in unison with 
his own." 

The " eureka expression of countenance," you see at once 
to be prophetic of marriage at the end of the third volume ; 
but before that desirable consummation, there are very com- 
plicated misunderstandings, arising chiefly from the vindic- 
tive plotting of Sir Luttrel Wycherley, who is a genius, a 
poet, and in every way a most remarkable character indeed. 
He is not only a romantic poet, but a hardened rake and a 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 1G5 

cynical wit ; yet his deep passion for Lady Umfraville has 
so impoverished his epigrammatic talent, that he cuts an ex- 
tremely poor figure in conversation. When she rejects him, 
he rushes into the shrubbery and rolls himself in the dirt ; 
and on recovering, devotes himself to the most diabolical and 
laborious schemes of vengeance, in the course of which he 
disguises himself as a quack physician and enters into gen- 
eral practice, foreseeing that Evelyn will fall ill, and that 
he shall be called in to attend her. At last, when all his 
schemes are frustrated, he takes leave of her in a long letter, 
written, as you will perceive from the following passage, 
entirely in the style of an eminent literary man : 

" Oh, lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, will you ever cast one 
thought upon the miserable being who addresses you ? Will you 
ever, as your gilded galley is floating down the unruffled stream of 
prosperity, will you ever, while lulled by the sweetest music, 
thine own praises, hear the far-off sigh from that v/orld to which I 
am going? " 

On the whole, however, frothy as it is, we rather prefer 
" Rank and Beauty " to the two other novels we have men- 
tioned. The dialogue is more natural and spirited ; there is 
some frank ignorance and no pedantry ; and you are allowed 
to take the heroine's astounding intellect upon trust, without 
being called on to read her conversational refutations of 
sceptics and philosophers, or her rhetorical solutions of the 
mysteries of the universe. 

Writers of the mind-and-millinery school are remarkably 
unanimous in their choice of diction. In their novels there 
is usually a lady or gentleman, who is more or less of a upas 
tree; the lover has a manly breast; minds are redolent 
of various things; hearts are hollow; events are utilized; 
friends are consigned to the tomb; infancy is an engaging 
period ; the sun is a luminary that goes to his western couch, 
or gathers the rain-drops into his refulgent bosom ; life is a 
melancholy boon ; Albion and Scotia are conversational epi- 
thets. There is a striking resemblance, too, in the character 
of their moral comments, such, for instance, as that " it is a 



166 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

fact, no less true than melancholy, that all people, more or less, 
richer or poorer, are swayed by bad example ; " that " books, 
however trivial, contain some subjects from which useful in- 
formation may be drawn ; " that " vice can too often borrow 
the language of virtue ; " that " merit and nobility of nature 
must exist, to be accepted, for clamor and pretension cannot 
impose upon those too well read in human nature to be easily 
deceived ; " and that, " in order to forgive, we must have been 
injured." There is doubtless a class of readers to whom these 
remarks appear peculiarly pointed and pungent ; for we often 
find them doubly and trebly scored with the pencil, and deli- 
cate hands giving in their determined adhesion to these hardy 
novelties by a distinct tres vrai, emphasized by many notes 
of exclamation. The colloquial style of these novels is often 
marked by much ingenious inversion, and a careful avoidance 
of such cheap phraseology as can be heard every day. Angry 
young gentlemen exclaim, " 'T is ever thus, methinks ; " and 
in the half-hour before dinner a young lady informs her 
next neighbor that the first day she read Shakspeare she 
" stole away into the park, and beneath the shadow of the 
greenwood tree devoured with rapture the inspired page of 
the great magician." But the most remarkable efforts of the 
mind-and-millinery writers lie in their philosophic reflections. 
The authoress of " Laura Gay," for example, having married 
her hero and heroine, improves the event by observing that 
" if those sceptics, whose eyes have so long gazed on matter 
that they can no longer see aught else in man, could once 
enter with heart and soul into such bliss as this, they would 
come to say that the soul of man and the polypus are not of 
common origin or of the same texture." Lady novelists, it 
appears, can see something else besides matter ; they are not 
limited to phenomena, but can relieve their eyesight by oc- 
casional glimpses of the noumenon, and are therefore natu- 
rally better able than any one else to confound sceptics, even 
of that remarkable but to us unknown school, which main- 
tains that the soul of man is of the same texture as the 
polypus. 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 167 

The most pitiable of all silly novels by lady novelists are 
what we may call the oracular species, novels intended to 
expound the writer's religious, philosophical, or moral theo- 
ries. There seems to be a notion abroad among women, 
rather akin to the superstition that the speech and actions of 
idiots are inspired, and that the human being most entirely 
exhausted of common sense is the fittest vehicle' of revela- 
tion. To judge from their writings, there are certain ladies 
who think that an amazing ignorance, both of science and of 
life, is the best possible qualification for forming an opinion 
on the knottiest moral and speculative questions. Appar- 
ently, their recipe for solving all such difficulties is some- 
thing like this : Take a woman's head, stuff it with a 
smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and 
with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a 
desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble Eng- 
lish, when not required. You will rarely meet with a lady 
novelist of the oracular class who is diffident of her ability 
to decide on theological questions, who has any suspicion 
that she is not capable of discriminating with the nicest ac- 
curacy between the good and evil in all church parties, 
who does not see precisely how it is that men have gone 
wrong hitherto, and pity philosophers in general that they 
have not had the opportunity of consulting her. Great writ- 
ers, who have modestly contented themselves with putting 
their experience into fiction, and have thought it quite a 
sufficient task to exhibit men and things as they are, she 
sighs over as deplorably deficient in the application of their 
powers. " They have solved no great questions ; " and she 
is ready to remedy their omission by setting before you a 
complete theory of life and manual of divinity, in a love 
story, where ladies and gentlemen of good family go through 
genteel vicissitudes, to the utter confusion of Deists, Pusey- 
ites, and ultra-Protestants, and to the perfect establishment 
of that peculiar view of Christianity which either condenses 
itself into a sentence of small caps or explodes into a cluster 
of stars on the three hundred and thirtieth page. It is true, 



168 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

the ladies and gentlemen will probably seem to you remark- 
ably little like any you have had the fortune or misfortune 
to meet with for, as a general rule, the ability of a lady nov- 
elist to describe actual life and her fellow-men is in inverse 
proportion to her confident eloquence about God and the 
other world, and the means by which she usually chooses to 
conduct you to true ideas of the invisible is a totally false 
picture of the visible. 

As typical a novel of the oracular kind as we can hope to 
meet with, is " The Enigma : a Leaf from the Chronicles of 
the Wolchorley House." The " enigma " which this novel is 
to solve, is certainly one that demands powers no less gigan- 
tic than those of a lady novelist, being neither more nor less 
than the existence of evil. The problem is stated, and the 
answer dimly foreshadowed on the very first page. The 
spirited young lady, with raven hair, says, "All life is an 
inextricable confusion ; " and the meek young lady, with 
auburn hair, looks at the picture of the Madonna which she is 
copying, and " There seemed the solution of that mighty 
enigma." The style of this novel is quite as lofty as its pur- 
pose ; indeed, some passages on which we have spent much 
patient study are quite beyond our reach, in spite of the 
illustrative aid of italics and small caps, and we must await 
further "development" in order to understand them. Of 
Ernest, the model young clergyman, who sets every one right 
on all occasions, we read, that " he held not of marriage in 
the marketable kind, after a social desecration ; " that, on 
one eventful night, " sleep had not visited his divided heart, 
where tumultuated, in varied type and combination, the ag- 
gregate feelings of grief and joy ; " and that, " for the mar- 
ketable human article he had no toleration, be it of what sort 
or set for what value it might, whether for worship or class, 
his upright soul abho'rred it, whose ultimatum, the self-de- 
ceiver, was to him THE great spiritual lie, ' living in a vain 
show, deceiving and being deceived ; ' since he did not sup- 
pose the phylactery and enlarged border on the garment to 
be merely a social trick." (The italics and small caps are the 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 169 

author's, and we hope they assist the reader's comprehension.) 
Of Sir Lionel, the model old gentleman, we are told that 
" the simple ideal of the middle age, apart from its anarchy 
and decadence, in him most truly seemed to live again, when 
the ties which knit men together were of heroic cast. The 
first-born colors of pristine faith and truth engraven on the 
common soul of man, and blent into the wide arch of brother- 
hood, where the primeval law of order grew and multiplied 
each perfect after his kind, and mutually interdependent." 

You see clearly, of course, how colors are first engraven on 
the soul, and then blent into a wide arch, on which arch of 
colors apparently a rainbow the law of order grew and 
multiplied, each apparently the arch and the law perfect 
after his kind? If, after this, you can possibly want any 
further aid towards knowing what Sir Lionel was, we can 
tell you that in his soul "the scientific combinations of 
thought could educe no fuller harmonies of the good and the 
true, than lay in the primeval pulses which floated as an 
atmosphere around it ! " and that, when he was sealing a let- 
ter, " Lo ! the responsive throb in that good man's bosom 
echoed back in simple truth the honest witness of a heart 
that condemned him not, as his eye, bedewed with love, 
rested, too, with something of ancestral pride, on the un- 
dimmed motto of the family, ' LOIAUTE.' ". 

The slightest matters have their vulgarity fumigated out of 
them by the same elevated style. Commonplace people would 
say that a copy of Shakspeare lay on a drawing-room table ; 
but the authoress of " The Enigma," bent on edifying periph- 
rasis, tells you that there lay on the table "that fund of 
human thought and feeling which teaches the heart through 
the little name, 'Shakspeare.'" A watchman sees a light 
burning in an upper window rather longer than usual, and 
thinks that people are foolish to sit up late when they have 
an opportunity of going to bed ; but, lest this fact should 
seem too low and common, it is presented to us in the follow- 
ing striking and metaphysical manner: "He marvelled as 
a man will think for others in a necessarily separate person- 



170 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

ality, consequently (though disallowing it) in false mental 
premise, how differently he should act, how gladly he 
should prize the rest so lightly held of within." A footman 
an ordinary Jeames, with large calves and aspirated vow- 
els answers the door-bell, and the opportunity is seized to 
tell you that he was a " type of the large class of pampered 
menials who follow the curse of Cain, ' vagabonds ' on the 
face of the earth, and whose estimate of the human class va- 
ries in the graduated scale of money and expenditure. . . . 
These, and such as these, England, be the false lights of 
thy morbid civilization ! " We have heard of various " false 
lights," from Dr. Gumming to Robert Owen, from Dr. Pusey 
to the Spirit-rappers, but we never before heard of the false 
light that emanates from plush and powder. 

In the same way very ordinary events of civilized life are 
exalted into the most awful crises, and ladies in full skirts 
and manches a la Chinoise, conduct themselves not unlike the 
heroines of sanguinary melodramas. Mrs. Percy, a shallow 
woman of the world, wishes her son Horace to marry the 
auburn-haired Grace, she being an heiress ; but he, after 
the manner of sons, falls in love with the raven-haired Kate, 
the heiress's portionless cousin ; and, moreover, Grace herself 
shows every symptom of perfect indifference to Horace. In 
such cases, sons are often sulky or fiery, mothers are alter- 
nately manoeuvring and waspish, and the portionless young 
lady often lies awake at night and cries a good deal. We 
are getting used to these things now, just as we are used to 
eclipses of the moon, which no longer set us howling and 
beating tin kettles. We never heard of a lady in a fashion- 
able " front " behaving like Mrs. Percy under these circum- 
stances. Happening one day to see Horace talking to 
Grace at a window, without in the least knowing what they 
are talking about, or having the least reason to believe 
that Grace, who is mistress of the house, and a person of 
dignity, would accept her son if he were to offer himself, 
she suddenly rushes up to them and clasps them both, say- 
ing, " with a flushed countenance and in an excited manner," 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 171 

"This is indeed happiness; for may I not call you so, 
Grace ? my Grace, my Horace's Grace ! my dear chil- 
dren ! " Her son tells her she is mistaken, and that he is 
engaged to Kate, whereupon we have the following scene and 
tableau : 

"Gathering herself up to an unprecedented height (!), her eyes 
lightening forth the fire of her anger, 

" ' Wretched boy ! ' she said, hoarsely and scornfully, and clenching 
her hand, ' take then the doom of your own choice ! Bow down your 
miserable head and let a mother's ' 

"'Curse not! 'spake a deep, low voice from behind; and Mrs. 
Percy started, scared, as though she had seen a heavenly visitant ap- 
pear, to break upon her in the midst of her sin. 

" Meantime Horace had fallen on his knees at her feet, and hid his 
face in his hands. 

"Who, then, is she who! Truly his 'guardian spirit' hath 
stepped between him and the fearful words, which, however unmer- 
ited, must have hung as a pall over his future existence; a spell 
which could not be unbound, which could not be unsaid. 

" Of an earthly paleness, but calm with the still, iron-bound calm- 
ness of death, the only calm one there, Katherine stood ; and her 
words smote on the ear in tones whose appallingly slow and separate 
intonation rung on the heart like the chill, isolated tolling of some 
fatal knell. 

' ' ' He would have plighted me his faith, but I did not accept it ; 
you cannot, therefore, you dare not curse him. And here,' she con- 
tinued, raising her hand to heaven, whither her large dark eyes also 
rose with a chastened glow, which, for the first time, suffering had 
lighted in those passionate orbs, ' here I promise, come weal, come 
woe, that Horace Wolchorley and T do never interchange vows with- 
out his mother's sanction, without his mother's blessing ! ' 7 

Here, and throughout the story, we see that confusion of 
purpose which is so characteristic of silly novels written by 
women. It is a story of quite modern drawing-room society 
a society in which polkas are played and Puseyism dis- 
cussed ; yet we have characters, and incidents, and traits of 
manner introduced, which are mere shreds from the most 
heterogeneous romances. We have a blind Irish harper, 



172 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

"relic of the picturesque bards of yore," startling us at a 
Sunday-school festival of tea and cake in an English village ; 
we have a crazy gypsy, in a scarlet cloak, singing snatches of 
romantic song, and revealing a secret on her deathbed which, 
with the testimony of a dwarfish miserly merchant, who 
salutes strangers with a curse and a devilish laugh, goes to 
prove that Ernest, the model young clergyman, is Kate's 
brother; and we have an ultra-virtuous Irish Barney, dis- 
covering that a document is forged, by comparing the date of 
the paper with the date of the alleged signature, although 
the same document has passed through a court of law and 
occasioned a fatal decision. The "Hall" in which Sir 
Lionel lives is the venerable country-seat of an old family, 
and this, we suppose, sets the imagination of the authoress 
flying to donjons and battlements, where " lo ! the warder 
blows his horn ; " for, as the inhabitants are in their bed- 
rooms on a night certainly within the recollection of Pleace- 
man X., and a breeze springs up, which we are at first told 
was faint, and then that it made the old cedars bow their 
branches to the greensward, she falls into this mediaeval 
vein of description (the italics are ours) : 

" The banner unfurled it at the sound, and shook its guardian wing 
above, while the startled owl flapped her in the ivy; the firmament 
looking down through her ' argus eyes,' 

' Ministers of heaven's mute melodies.' 

And lo ! two strokes tolled from out the warder tower, and ' Two 
o'clock' re-echoed its interpreter below." 

Such stories as this of " The Enigma " remind us of the pic- 
tures clever children sometimes draw " out of their own head," 
where you will see a modern villa on the right, two knights 
in helmets fighting in the foreground, and a tiger grinning in 
a jungle on the left, the several objects being brought to- 
gether because the artist thinks each pretty, and perhaps still 
more because he remembers seeing them in other pictures. 

But we like the authoress much better on her mediaeval 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 173 

stilts than on her oracular ones, when she talks of the Ich 
and of "subjective " and "objective," and lays down the ex- 
act line of Christian verity, between " right-hand excesses and 
left-hand declensions." Persons who deviate from this line 
are introduced with a patronizing air of charity. Of a certain 
Miss Inshquine she informs us, with all the lucidity of italics 
and small caps, that "function, not form, AS the inevitable 
outer expression of the spirit in this tabernacled age, weakly 
engrossed her." And apropos of Miss Mayjar, an evangelical 
lady who is a little too apt to talk of her visits to sick women 
and the state of their souls, we are told that the model clergy- 
man is "not one to disallow, through the super crust, the 
undercurrent towards good in the subject, or the positive 
benefits, nevertheless, to the object" We imagine the double- 
refined accent and protrusion of chin which are feebly repre- 
sented by the italics in this lady's sentences ! We abstain 
from quoting any of her oracular doctrinal passages because 
they refer to matters too serious for our pages just now. 

The epithet "silly" may seem impertinent, applied to a 
novel which indicates so much reading and intellectual activ- 
ity as "The Enigma;" but we use this epithet advisedly. 
If, as the world has long agreed, a very great amount of 
instruction will not make a wise man, still less will a very 
mediocre amount of instruction make a wise woman. And 
the most mischievous form of feminine silliness is the liter- 
ary form, because it tends to confirm the popular prejudice 
against the more solid education of women. When men see 
girls wasting their time in consultations about bonnets and 
ball-dresses, and in giggling or sentimental love-confidences, 
or middle-aged women mismanaging their children, and sol- 
acing themselves with acrid gossip, they can hardly help 
saying, " For Heaven's sake, let girls be better educated ; let 
them have some better objects of thought, some more solid 
occupations." But after a few hours' conversation with 
an oracular literary woman, or a few hours' reading of her 
books, they are likely enough to say, "After all, when a 
woman gets some knowledge, see what use she makes of it ! 



174 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

Her knowledge remains acquisition, instead of passing into 
culture ; instead of being subdued into modesty and sim- 
plicity by a larger acquaintance with thought and fact, she 
has a feverish consciousness of her attainments ; she keeps 
a sort of mental pocket-mirror, and is continually look- 
ing in it at her own ' intellectuality ; ' she spoils the taste of 
one's muffin by questions of metaphysics ; ' puts down ' men 
at a dinner-table with her superior information ; and seizes 
the opportunity of a soiree to catechise us on the vital ques- 
tion of the relation between mind and matter. And then, 
look at her writings ! She mistakes vagueness for depth, 
bombast for eloquence, and affectation for originality ; she 
struts on one page, rolls her eyes on another, grimaces in a 
third, and is hysterical in a fourth. She may have read 
many writings of great men, and a few writings of great 
women; but she is as unable to discern the difference be- 
tween her own style and theirs as a Yorkshireman is to dis- 
cern the difference between his own English and a London- 
er's : rhodomontade is the native accent of her intellect. 
No the average nature of woman is too shallow and fee- 
ble a soil to bear much tillage ; it is only fit for the very 
lightest crops." 

It is true that the men who come to such a decision on such 
very superficial and imperfect observation may not be among 
the wisest in the world ; but we have not now to contest their 
opinion we are only pointing out how it is unconsciously 
encouraged by many women who have volunteered them- 
selves as representatives of the feminine intellect. We do not 
believe that a man was ever strengthened in such an opinion 
by associating with a woman of true culture, whose mind had 
absorbed her knowledge instead of being absorbed by it. A 
really cultured woman, like a really cultured man, is all the 
simpler and the less obtrusive for her knowledge ; it has 
made her see herself and her opinions in something like just 
proportions ; she does not make it a pedestal from which 
she flatters herself that she commands a complete view of 
men and things, but makes it a point of observation from 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 175 

which to form a right estimate of herself. She neither spouts 
poetry nor quotes Cicero on slight provocation ; not because 
she thinks that a sacrifice must be made to the prejudices of 
men, but because that mode of exhibiting her memory and 
Latinity does not present itself to her as edifying or grace- 
ful. She does not write books to confound philosophers, 
perhaps because she is able to write books that delight them. 
In conversation she is the least formidable of women, because 
she understands you, without wanting to make you aware 
that you can't understand her. She does not give you in- 
formation, which is the raw material of culture, she gives 
you sympathy, which is its subtlest essence. 

A more numerous class of silly novels than the oracular 
(which are generally inspired by some form of High Church 
or transcendental Christianity) is what we may call the 
white neckcloth species, which represent the tone of thought 
and feeling in the Evangelical party. This species is a kind 
of genteel tract on a large scale, intended as a sort of medici- 
nal sweetmeat for Low Church young ladies ; an Evangelical 
substitute for the fashionable novel, as the May Meetings 
are a substitute for the Opera. Even Quaker children, one 
would think, can hardly have been denied the indulgence of 
a doll ; but it must be a doll dressed in a drab gown and a 
coal-scuttle bonnet, not a worldly doll, in gauze and span- 
gles. And there are no young ladies, we imagine, unless 
they belong to the Church of the United Brethren, in which 
people are married without any love-making, who can dis- 
pense with love stories. Thus, for Evangelical young ladies 
there are Evangelical love stories, in which the vicissitudes 
of the tender passion are sanctified by saving views of 
Kegeneration and the Atonement. These novels differ from 
the oracular ones, as a Low Churchwoman often differs from 
a High Churchwoman : they are a little less supercilious and 
a great deal more ignorant, a little less correct in their syn- 
tax and a great deal more vulgar. 

The Orlando of Evangelical literature is the young curate, 
looked at from the point of view of the middle class, where 



176 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

cambric bands are understood to have as thrilling an effect 
on the hearts of young ladies as epaulettes have in the classes 
above and below it. In the ordinary type of these novels, 
the hero is almost sure to be a young curate, frowned upon, 
perhaps, by worldly mammas, but carrying captive the hearts 
of their daughters, who can " never forget that sermon ; " 
tender glances are seized from the pulpit stairs instead of 
the opera-box ; tete-a-tetes are seasoned with quotations from 
Scripture, instead of quotations from the poets ; and ques- 
tions as to the state of the heroine's affections are mingled 
with anxieties as to the state of her soul. The young curate 
always has a background of well-dressed and wealthy, if not 
fashionable society ; for Evangelical silliness is as snobbish 
as any other kind of silliness, and the Evangelical lady nov- 
elist, while she explains to you the type of the scapegoat 
on one page, is ambitious on another to represent the man- 
ners and conversation of aristocratic people. Her pictures 
of fashionable society are often curious studies, considered as 
efforts of the Evangelical imagination ; but in one particular 
the novels of the White Neckcloth School are meritoriously 
realistic, their favorite hero, the Evangelical young curate, 
is always rather an insipid personage. 

The most recent novel of this species that we happen to 
have before us, is "The Old Gray Church." It is utterly 
tame and feeble ; there is no one set of objects on which the 
writer seems to have a stronger grasp than on any other; 
and we should be entirely at a loss to conjecture among what 
phases of life her experience has been gained, but for certain 
vulgarisms of style which sufficiently indicate that she has 
had the advantage, though she has been unable to use it, of 
mingling chiefly with men and women whose manners and 
characters have not had all their bosses and angles rubbed 
down by refined conventionalism. It is less excusable in an 
Evangelical novelist than in any other, gratuitously to seek 
her subjects among titles and carriages. The real drama of 
Evangelicalism and it has abundance of fine drama for any 
one who has genius enough to discern and reproduce it lies 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 177 

among the middle and lower classes ; and are not Evangeli- 
cal opinions understood to give an especial interest in the 
weak things of the earth, rather than in the mighty ? Why, 
then, cannot our Evangelical lady novelists show us the oper- 
ation of their religious views among people (there' really are 
many such in the world) who keep no carriage, " not so much 
as a brass-bound gig," who even manage to eat their dinner 
without a silver fork, and in whose mouths the authoress's 
questionable English would be strictly consistent ? Why 
can we not have pictures of religious life among the indus- 
trial classes in England, as interesting as Mrs. Stowe's pic- 
tures of religious life among the negroes ? Instead of this, 
pious ladies nauseate us with novels which remind us of what 
we sometimes see in a worldly woman recently " converted ; " 
she is as fond of a fine dinner-table as before, but she 
invites clergymen instead of bsaux ; she thinks as much of 
her dress as before, but she adopts a more sober choice of 
colors and patterns ; her conversation is as trivial as before, 
but the triviality is flavored with gospel instead of gossip. 
In " The Old Gray Church " we have the same sort of Evan- 
gelical travesty of the fashionable novel, and of course the 
vicious, intriguing baronet is not wanting. It is worth while 
to give a sample of the style of conversation attributed to 
this high-born rake, a style that, in its profuse italics and 
palpable innuendoes, is worthy of Miss Squeers. In an even- 
ing visit to the ruins of the Colosseum, Eustace, the young 
clergyman, has been withdrawing the heroine, Miss Lushing- 
ton, from the rest of the party, for the sake of a tete-a-tete. 
The baronet is jealous, and vents his pique in this way : 

" There they are, and Miss Lushington, no doubt, quite safe ; for 
she is under the holy guidance of Pope Eustace the First, who has, of 
course, been delivering to her an edifying homily on the wickedness of 
the heathens of yore, who, as tradition tells us, in this very place let 
loose the wild beastises on poor St. Paul ! Oh, no ! by-the-by, I 
believe I am wrong, and betraying my want of clergy, and that it was 
not at all St. Paul, nor was it here. But no matter, it would equally 
serve as a text to preach from, and from which to diverge to the de- 

12 



178 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

generate heathen Christians of the present day, and all their naughty 
practices, and so end with an exhortation to ' come out from among 
them, and be separate ; ' and I am sure, Miss Lushington, you have 
most scrupulously conformed to that injunction this evening, for we 
have seen nothing of you since our arrival. But every one seems 
agreed it has been a charming party of pleasure, and I am sure we all 
feel much indebted to Mr. Grey for having suggested it; and as he seems 
so capital a cicerone, I hope he will think of something else equally 
agreeable to all." 

This drivelling kind of dialogue, and equally drivelling 
narrative, which, like a bad drawing, represents nothing, and 
barely indicates what is meant to be represented, runs 
through the book ; and we have no doubt is considered by 
the amiable authoress to constitute an improving novel, 
which Christian mothers will do well to put into the hands 
of their daughters. But everything is relative ; we have met 
with American vegetarians whose normal diet was dry meal, 
and who, when their appetite wanted stimulating, tickled it 
with wet meal ; and so we can imagine that there are Evan- 
gelical circles in which " The Old Gray Church " is devoured 
as a powerful and interesting fiction. 

But, perhaps, the least readable of silly women's novels 
are the modern-antique species, which unfold to us the domes- 
tic life of Jannes and Jambres, the private love affairs of 
Sennacherib, or the mental struggles and ultimate conversion 
of Demetrius the Silversmith. From most silly novels we 
can at least extract a laugh ; but those of the modern-antique 
school have a ponderous, a leaden kind of fatuity, under 
which we groan. What can be more demonstrative of the 
inability of literary women to measure their own powers, than 
their frequent assumption of a task which can only be justi- 
fied by the rarest concurrence of acquirement with genius ? 
The finest effort to reanimate the past is of course only ap- 
proximative, is always more or less an infusion of the mod- 
ern spirit into the ancient form, 

" Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, 
Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist, 
In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln." 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 179 

Admitting that genius which has familiarized itself with all 
the relics of an ancient period can sometimes, by the force of 
its sympathetic divination, restore the missing notes in the 
" music of humanity," and reconstruct the fragments into a 
whole which will really bring the remote past nearer to us, 
and interpret it to our duller apprehension, this form of 
imaginative power must always be among the very rarest, 
because it demands as much accurate and minute knowledge 
as creative vigor. Yet we find ladies constantly choosing to 
make their mental mediocrity more conspicuous, by clothing 
it in a masquerade of ancient names ; by putting their feeble 
sentimentality into the mouths of Roman vestals or Egyp- 
tian princesses, and attributing their rhetorical arguments to 
Jewish high-priests and Greek philosophers. A recent ex- 
ample of this heavy imbecility is, " Adonijah, a Tale of the 
Jewish Dispersion," which forms part of a series, " uniting," 
we are told, " taste, humor, and sound principles." " Adoni- 
jah," we presume, exemplifies the tale of " sound principles ; " 
the taste and humor are to be found in other members of 
the series. We are told on the cover, that the incidents of 
this tale are " fraught with unusual interest," and the pref- 
ace winds up thus : " To those who feel interested in the dis- 
persed of Israel and Judaea, these pages may afford, perhaps, 
information on an important subject, as well as amusement." 
Since the " important subject " on which this book is to af- 
ford information is not specified, it may possibly lie in some 
esoteric meaning to which we have no key ; but if it has re- 
lation to the dispersed of Israel and Judaea at any period of 
their history, we believe a tolerably well-informed school-girl 
already knows much more of it than she will find in this 
" Tale of the Jewish Dispersion." " Adonijah " is simply the 
feeblest kind of love story, supposed to be instructive, we 
presume, because the hero is a Jewish captive, and the heroine 
a Roman vestal ; because they and their friends are converted 
to Christianity after the shortest and easiest method ap- 
proved by the " Society for Promoting the Conversion of the 
Jews ; " and because, instead of being written in plain Ian- 



180 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

guage, it is adorned with that peculiar style of grandiloquence 
which is held by some lady novelists to give an antique col- 
oring, and which we recognize at once in such phrases as 
these : " the splendid regnal talent, undoubtedly possessed by 
the Emperor Nero," " the expiring scion of a lofty stem," 
" the virtuous partner of his couch," " ah, by Vesta ! " 
and "I tell thee, Roman." Among the quotations which 
serve at once for instruction and ornament on the cover of 
this volume, there is one from Miss Sinclair, which informs 
us that " works of imagination are avowedly read by men of 
science, wisdom, and piety 5" from which we suppose the 
reader is to gather the cheering inference that Dr. Daubeny, 
Mr. Mill, or Mr. Maurice may openly indulge himself with 
the perusal of " Adonijah," without being obliged to secrete 
it among the sofa cushions, or read it by snatches under the 
dinner-table. 

" Be not a baker if your head be made of butter," says a 
homely proverb, which, being interpreted, may mean, Let no 
woman rush into print who is not prepared for the conse- 
quences. We are aware that our remarks are in a very dif- 
ferent tone from that of the reviewers who, with perennial 
recurrence of precisely similar emotions, only paralleled, we 
imagine, in the experience of monthly nurses, tell one lady 
novelist after another that they " hail " her productions " with 
delight." We are aware that the ladies at whom our criticism 
is pointed are accustomed to be told, in the choicest phrase- 
ology of puffery, that their pictures of life are brilliant, their 
characters well drawn, their style fascinating, and their senti- 
ments lofty. But if they are inclined to resent our plainness 
of speech, we ask them to reflect for a moment on the chary 
praise, and often captious blame, which their panegyrists 
give to writers whose works are on the way to become clas- 
sics. No sooner does a woman show that she has genius or 
effective talent, than she receives the tribute of being mod- 
erately praised and severely criticised. By a peculiar ther- 
mometric adjustment, when a woman's talent is at zero, 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 181 

journalistic approbation is at the boiling-pitch ; when she at- 
tains mediocrity, it is already at no more than summer heat ; 
and if ever she reaches excellence, critical enthusiasm drops to 
the freezing-point. Harriet Martineau, Currer Bell, and Mrs. 
Gaskell have been treated as cavalierly as if they had been 
men. And every critic who forms a high estimate of the 
share women may ultimately take in literature will, on prin- 
ciple, abstain from any exceptional indulgence towards the 
productions of literary women. For it must be plain to 
every one who looks impartially and extensively into femi- 
nine literature, that its greatest deficiencies are due hardly 
more to the want of intellectual power than to the want of 
those 'moral qualities that contribute to literary excellence, 
patient diligence, a sense of the responsibility involved 
in publication, and an appreciation of the sacredness of 
the writer's art. In the majority of women's books you 
see that kind of facility which springs from the absence 
of any high standard ; that fertility in imbecile combination 
or feeble imitation which a little self-criticism would check 
and reduce to barrenness ; just as with a total want of mu- 
sical ear people will sing out of tune, while a degree more 
melodic sensibility would suffice to render them silent. The 
foolish vanity of wishing to appear in print, instead of being 
counterbalanced by any consciousness of the intellectual or 
moral derogation implied in futile authorship, seems to be 
encouraged by the extremely false impression that to write 
at all is a proof of superiority in a woman. On this ground, 
we believe that the average intellect of women is unfairly 
represented by the mass of feminine literature, and that while 
the few women who write well are very far above the ordi- 
nary intellectual level of their sex, the many women who write 
ill are very far below it. So that, after all, the severer crit- 
ics are fulfilling a chivalrous duty in depriving the mere fact 
of feminine authorship of any false prestige which may give 
it a delusive attraction, and in recommending women of 
mediocre faculties as at least a negative service they can 
render their sex to abstain from writing. 



182 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

The standing apology for women who become writers with- 
out any special qualification is, that society shuts them out 
from other spheres of occupation. Society is a very culpa- 
ble entity, and has to answer for the manufacture of many 
unwholesome commodities, from bad pickles to bad poetry. 
But society, like " matter," and her Majesty's Government, 
and other lofty abstractions, has its share of excessive blame 
as well as excessive praise. Where there is one woman who 
writes from necessity, we believe there are three women who 
write from vanity ; and, besides, there is something so anti- 
septic in the mere healthy fact of working for one's bread, 
that the most trashy and rotten kind of feminine literature 
is not likely to have been produced under such circum- 
stances. " In all labor there is profit ; " but ladies' silly 
novels, we imagine, are less the result of labor than of busy 
idleness. 

Happily, we are not dependent on argument to prove that 
Fiction is a department of literature in which women can, 
after their kind, fully equal men. A cluster of great names, 
both living and dead, rush to our memories in evidence that 
women can produce novels not only fine, but among the very 
finest ; novels, too, that have a precious specialty, lying 
quite apart from masculine aptitudes and experience. No 
educational restrictions can shut women out from the mate- 
rials of fiction, and there is no species of art which is so free 
from rigid requirements. Like crystalline masses, it may take 
any form, and yet be beautiful ; we have only to pour in the 
right elements, genuine observation, humor, and passion. 
But it is precisely this absence of rigid requirement which 
constitutes the fatal seduction of novel-writing to incompe- 
tent women. Ladies are not wont to be very grossly deceived 
as to their power of playing on the piano ; here certain posi- 
tive difficulties of execution have to be conquered, and incom- 
petence inevitably breaks down. Every art which has its 
absolute technique is, to a certain extent, guarded from the 
intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel- 
writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble 



SILLY NOVELS BY LADY NOVELISTS. 183 

against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mis- 
taking foolish facility for mastery. And so we have again 
and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass, who puts his 
nose to the flute, and, finding that he elicits some sound, ex- 
claims, "Moi, aussi, je joue de la flute;" a fable which 
we commend, at parting, to the consideration of any feminine 
reader who is in danger of adding to the number of " silly 
novels by lady novelists." 



CARLYLE'S LIFE OF STERLING. 

AS soon as the closing of the Great Exhibition afforded a 
reasonable hope that there would once more be a read- 
ing public, " The Life of Sterling " appeared. A new work 
by Carlyle must always be among the literary births eagerly 
chronicled by the journals and greeted by the public. In a 
book of such parentage we care less about the subject than 
about its treatment, just as we think the "Portrait of a 
Lord " worth studying if it come from the pencil of a Van- 
dyck. The life of John Sterling, however, has intrinsic 
interest, even if it be viewed simply as the struggle of a 
restless aspiring soul, yearning to leave a distinct impress 
of itself on the spiritual development of humanity, with 
that fell disease which, with a refinement of torture, height- 
ens the susceptibility and activity of the faculties, while 
it undermines their creative force. Sterling, moreover, 
was a man thoroughly in earnest, to whom poetry and phi- 
losophy were not merely another form of paper currency or 
a ladder to fame, but an end in themselves, one of those 
finer spirits with whom, amidst the jar and hubbub of our 
daily life, 

" The melodies abide 
Of the everlasting chime." 

But his intellect was active and rapid, rather than powerful, 
and in all his writings we feel the want of a stronger electric 
current to give that vigor of conception and felicity of ex- 
pression, by which we distinguish the undefinable something 



CARLYLE'S LIFE OF STERLING. 185 

called genius 5 while his moral nature, though refined and 
elevated, seems to have been subordinate to his intellectual 
tendencies and social qualities, and to have had itself little 
determining influence on his life. His career was less excep- 
tional than his character : a youth marked by delicate health 
and studious tastes, a short-lived and not very successful 
share in the management of the Athenceum, a fever of sym- 
pathy with Spanish patriots, arrested before it reached a 
dangerous crisis by an early love affair ending in marriage, 
a fifteen months' residence in the West Indies, eight months 
of curate's duty at Herstmonceux, relinquished on the ground 
of failing health, and through his remaining years a succes- 
sion of migrations to the South in search of a friendly cli- 
mate, with the occasional publication of an " article," a tale, 
or a poem in " Blackwood " or elsewhere, this, on the pro- 
saic background of an easy competence, was what made up 
the outer tissue of Sterling's existence. The impression of 
his intellectual power on his personal friends seems to have 
been produced chiefly by the eloquence and brilliancy of his 
conversation ; but the mere reader of his works and letters 
would augur from them neither the wit, nor the curiosa felici- 
tas of epithet and imagery, which would rank him with the 
men whose sayings are thought worthy of perpetuation in 
books of table-talk and " ana." The public, then, since it is 
content to do without biographies of much more remarkable 
men, cannot be supposed to have felt any pressing demand 
even for a single life of Sterling; still less, it might be 
thought, when so distinguished a writer as Archdeacon Hare 
had furnished this, could there be any need for another. But, 
in opposition to the majority of Mr. Carlyle's critics, we agree 
with him that the first life is properly the justification of 
the second. Even among the readers personally unacquainted 
with Sterling, those who sympathized with his ultimate 
alienation from the Church rather than with his transient 
conformity, were likely to be dissatisfied with the entirely 
apologetic tone of Hare's Life, which, indeed, is confessedly 
an incomplete presentation of Sterling's mental course after 



186 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

his opinions diverged from those of his clerical biographer ; 
while those attached friends (and Sterling possessed the 
happy magic that secures many such) who knew him best 
during this latter part of his career, would naturally be 
pained to have it represented, though only by implication, 
as a sort of deepening declension ending in a virtual retrac- 
tion. Of such friends Carlyle was the most eminent, and 
perhaps the most highly valued ; and, as co-trustee with Arch- 
deacon Hare of Sterling's literary character and writings, he 
felt a kind of responsibility that no mistaken idea of his de- 
parted friend should remain before the world without correc- 
tion. Evidently, however, his "Life of Sterling" was not 
so much the conscientious discharge of a trust as a labor of 
love, and to this is owing its strong charm. Carlyle here 
shows us his " sunny side." We no longer see him breathing 
out threatenings and slaughter, as in the Latter-Day Pam- 
phlets, but moving among the charities and amenities of life, 
loving and beloved, a Teufelsdrockh still, but humanized 
by a Blumine worthy of him. We have often wished that 
genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the 
biographer, that when some great or good personage dies, 
instead of the dreary three or five volumed compilations of 
letter and diary and detail, little to the purpose, which two 
thirds of the reading public have not the chance, nor the 
other third the inclination, to read, we could have a real 
" Life," setting forth briefly and vividly the man's inward 
and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make 
clear the meaning which his experience has for his fellows. 
A few such lives (chiefly, indeed, autobiographies) the world 
possesses, and they have, perhaps, been more influential on 
the formation of character than any other kind of reading. 
But the conditions required for the perfection of life writing 
personal intimacy, a loving and poetic nature which sees 
the beauty and .the depth of familiar things, and the artistic 
power which seizes characteristic points and renders them 
with lifelike effect are seldom found in combination. 
"The Life of Sterling" is an instance of this rare conjunction. 



CARLYLE'S LIFE OF STERLING. 187 

Its comparatively tame scenes and incidents gather pictu- 
resqueness and interest under the rich lights of Carlyle's mind. 
We are told neither too little nor too much ; the facts noted, 
the letters selected, are all such as serve to give the liveliest 
conception of what Sterling was and what he did ; and though 
the book speaks much of other persons, this collateral matter 
is all a kind of scene-painting, and is accessory to the main 
purpose. The portrait of Coleridge, for example, is precisely 
adapted to bring before us the intellectual region in which 
Sterling lived for some time before entering the Church. 
Almost? every review has extracted this admirable descrip- 
tion, in which genial veneration and compassion struggle with 
irresistible satire ; but the emphasis of quotation cannot be 
too often given to the following pregnant paragraph : 

"The truth is, I now see Coleridge's talk and speculation was the 
emblem of himself. In it, as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration 
struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree, with the weakness of flesh 
and blood. He says once, he ' had skirted the howling deserts of infi- 
delity.' This was evident enough ; but he had not had the courage, 
in defiance of pain and terror, to press resolutely across said deserts to 
the new, firm lands of faith beyond ; he preferred to create logical fata- 
morganas for himself on this hither side, and laboriously solace him- 
self with these." 

The above-mentioned step of Sterling his entering the 
Church is the point on which Carlyle is most decidedly at 
issue with Archdeacon Hare. The latter holds that had Ster- 
ling's health permitted him to remain in the Church, he would 
have escaped those aberrations from orthodoxy which, in the 
clerical view, are to be regarded as the failure and shipwreck 
of his career, apparently thinking, like that friend of Arnold's 
who recommended a curacy as the best means of clearing up 
Trinitarian difficulties, that " orders " are a sort of spiritual 
backboard, which, by dint of obliging a man to look as if he 
were strait, end by making him so. According to Carlyle, on 
the contrary, the real "aberration" of Sterling was his choice 
of the clerical profession, which was simply a mistake as to 
his true vocation : 



188 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

" Sterling," he says, " was not intrinsically, nor had ever been in 
the highest or chief degree, a devotional mind. Of course all excel- 
lence in man, and worship as the supreme excellence, was part of the 
inheritance of this gifted man ; but if called to define him, I should 
say artist, not saint, was the real bent of his being." 

Again : 

" No man of Sterling's veracity, had he clearly consulted his own 
heart, or had his own heart been capable of clearly responding, and 
not been bewildered by transient fantasies and theosophic moonshine, 
could have undertaken this function. His heart would have answered, 
' No, thou canst not. What is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at 
thy soul's peril, attempt to believe ! Else-whither for a refuge, or die 
here. Go to perdition if thou must, but not with a lie in thy mouth; 
by the eternal Maker, no ! " 

From the period when Carlyle's own acquaintance with 
Sterling commenced, the Life has a double interest, from the 
glimpses it gives us of the writer as well as of his hero. We 
are made present at their first introduction to each other ; we 
get a lively idea of their colloquies and walks together, and 
in this easy way, without any heavy disquisition or narrative, 
we obtain a clear insight into Sterling's character and mental 
progress. Above all, we are gladdened with a perception of 
the affinity that exists between noble souls, in spite of diver- 
sity in ideas, in what Carlyle calls " the logical outcome " 
of the faculties. This "Life of Sterling" is a touching 
monument of the capability human nature possesses of the 
highest love, the love of the good and beautiful in character, 
which is, after all, the essence of piety. The style of the 
work, too, is for the most part at once pure and rich ; there 
are passages of deep pathos which come upon the reader like 
a strain of solemn music, and others which show that aptness 
of epithet, that masterly power of close delineation, in which, 
perhaps, no writer has excelled Carlyle. 

We have said that we think this second " Life of Sterling " 
justified by the first; but were it not so, the book would 
justify itself. 



THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT. 



inventor of movable types," says the venerable 
Teuf elsdrockh, " was disbanding hired armies, cashier- 
ing most kings and senates, and creating a whole new demo- 
cratic world." Has any one yet said what great things are 
being done by the men who are trying to banish ugliness from 
our streets and our homes, and to make both the outside and 
the inside of our dwellings worthy of a world where there are 
forests, and flower-tressed meadows, and the plumage of birds ; 
where the insects carry lessons of color on their wings, and 
even the surface of a stagnant pool will show us the wonders 
of iridescence and the most delicate forms of leafage ? They, 
too, are modifying opinions, for they are modifying men's 
moods and habits, which are the mothers of opinions, having 
quite as much to do with their formation as the responsible 
father, Eeason. Think of certain manufacturing towns where 
the piety is chiefly a belief in copious perdition, and the pleas- 
ure is chiefly gin. The dingy surface of wall pierced by the 
ugliest windows, the staring shop-fronts, paper-hangings, car- 
pets, brass and gilt mouldings, and advertising placards, have 
an effect akin to that of malaria ; it is easy to understand 
that with such surroundings there is more belief in cruelty 
than in beneficence, and that the best earthly bliss attainable 
is the dulling of the external senses. For it is a fatal mis- 
take to suppose that ugliness which is taken for beauty will 
answer all the purposes of beauty ; the subtle relation be- 
tween all kinds of truth and fitness in our life forbids that 
bad taste should ever be harmless to our moral sensibility or 
our intellectual discernment ; and, more than that, as it is 



190 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

probable that fine musical harmonies have a sanative influ- 
ence over our bodily organization, it is also probable that 
just coloring and lovely combinations of lines may be neces- 
sary to the complete well-being of our systems apart from 
any conscious delight in them. A savage may indulge in dis- 
cordant chuckles and shrieks and gutturals, and think that 
they please the gods, but it does not follow that his frame 
would not be favorably wrought upon by the vibrations of a 
grand church organ. One sees a person capable of choosing 
the worst style of wall-paper become suddenly afflicted by its 
ugliness under an attack of illness. And if an evil state of 
blood and lymph usually goes along with an evil state of 
mind, who shall say that the ugliness of our streets, the fal- 
sity of our ornamentation, the vulgarity of our upholstery, 
have not something to do with those bad tempers which 
breed false conclusions ? 

On several grounds it is possible to make a more speedy 
and extensive application of artistic reform to our interior 
decoration than to our external architecture. One of these 
grounds is that most of our ugly buildings must stand; we 
cannot afford to pull them down. But every year we are 
decorating interiors afresh, and people of modest means may 
benefit by the introduction of beautiful designs into stucco 
ornaments, paper-hangings, draperies, and carpets. Fine 
taste in the decoration of interiors is a benefit that spreads 
from the palace to the clerk's house with one parlor. 

All honor, then, to the architect who has zealously vindi- 
cated the claim of internal ornamentation to be a part of the 
architect's function, and has labored to rescue that form of 
art which is most closely connected with the sanctities and 
pleasures of our hearts from the hands of uncultured trades- 
men. All the nation ought at present to know that this ef- 
fort is peculiarly associated with the name of Mr. Owen 
Jones ; and those who are most disposed to dispute with the 
architect about his coloring must at least recognize the high 
artistic principle which has directed his attention to colored 
ornamentation as a proper branch of architecture. One 



THE GRAMMAR OF ORNAMENT. 191 

monument of his effort in this way is his " Grammar of Orna- 
ment," of which a new and cheaper edition has just been is- 
sued. The one point in which it differs from the original 
and more expensive edition, namely, the reduction in the size 
of the pages (the amount of matter and number of plates are 
unaltered), is really an advantage ; it is now a very manage- 
able folio, and when the reader is in a lounging mood may be 
held easily on the knees. It is a magnificent book ; and those 
who know no more of it than the title should be told that they 
will find in it a pictorial history of ornamental design, from 
its rudimentary condition, as seen in the productions of savage 
tribes, through all the other great types of art, the Egyptian, 
Assyrian, Ancient Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ara- 
bian, Moresque, Mohammedan-Persian, Indian, Celtic, Medi- 
aeval, Eenaissance, Elizabethan, and Italian. The letter-press 
consists, first, of an introductory statement of fundamental 
principles of ornamentation, principles, says the author, 
which will be found to have been obeyed more or less in- 
stinctively by all nations in proportion as their art has been 
a genuine product of the national genius ; and, secondly, of 
brief historical essays, some of them contributed by other 
eminent artists, presenting a commentary on each character- 
istic series of illustrations, with the useful appendage of bib- 
liographical lists. 

The title " Grammar of Ornament " is so far appropriate 
that it indicates what Mr. Owen Jones is most anxious to be 
understood concerning the object of his work, namely, that 
it is intended to illustrate historically the application of prin- 
ciples, and not to present a collection of models for mere 
copyists. The plates correspond to examples in syntax, not 
to be repeated parrot-like, but to be studied as embodiments 
of syntactical principles. There is a logic of form which 
cannot be departed from in ornamental design without a 
corresponding remoteness from perfection; unmeaning, ir- 
relevant words or clauses, that tend no whither. And as a 
suggestion towards the origination of fresh ornamental de- 
sign, the work concludes with some beautiful drawings of 



192 ESSAYS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 

leaves and flowers from nature, that the student, tracing in 
them the simple laws of form which underlie an immense 
variety in beauty, may the better discern the method by 
which the same laws were applied in the finest decorative 
work of the past, and may have all the clearer prospect of 
the unexhausted possibilities of freshness which lie before 
him, if, refraining from mere imitation, he will seek only such 
likeness to existing forms of ornamental art as arises from 
following like principles of combination. 



University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



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