Part 17 (1/2)

In 1854 she resigned her position on the _West a union which thousands who love her reat life

Mr Leas collecting materials for his _Life of Goethe_ This took them to Goethe's home at Weimar ”By the side of the bed,” she says, ”stands a stuffed chair where he used to sit and read while he drank his coffee in theIt was not until very late in his life that he adopted the luxury of an armchair From the other side of the study one enters the library, which is fitted up in a very h deal shelves, and bits of paper, with Philosophy, History, etc, written on the such memorials one breathes deeply, and the tears rush to one's eyes”

George Eliot met Liszt, and ”for the first time in her life beheld real inspiration,--for the first tireat sculptor, called upon thenant and intelligent charm of his conversation”

Both writers were hard at work George Eliot riting an article on _Wei_ for _Westned to these productions, as it would not do to have it known that a wore that the articles would have been considered of little value Happily Girton and Newnha this estiarded as inferior; then they hly as the best men are educated

Mr Leas not well ”This is a terrible trial to us poor scribblers,” she writes, ”to who” They had but one sitting-roo of another pen so affected her nerves, as to drive her nearly wild Pecuniarily, life was a harder struggle than ever, for there were four more mouths to be fed,--Mr Lewes' three sons and their mother

”Our life is intensely occupied, and the days are far too short,”

she writes They were reading in every spare moment, twelve plays of Shakespeare, Goethe's works, _Wilhelenia, Wanderjahre, Italianische Reise_, and others; Heine's poe's _Laocoon_ and _Nathan the Wise_; Macaulay's _History of England_; Moore's _Life of Sheridan_; Brougham's _Lives of Men of Letters_; White's _History of Selborne_; Whewell's _History of Inductive Sciences_; Boswell; Carpenter's _Codom_; Alison's _History of Europe_; Kahnis' _History of Gersley's _Greek Heroes_; and the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ in the original She says, ”If you want delightful reading, get Lowell's _My Study Windows_, and read the essays called _My Garden Acquaintances_ and _Winter_” No wonder they were busy

On their return from Gerht perfect his _Sea-side Studies_ George Eliot entered heartily into the work ”We were immensely excited,” she says, ”by the discovery of this little red ht e found a 'strawberry,' and a _fortissimo_ when I, for the first time, saw the pale, fawn-colored tentacles of an _Anthea cereus_ viciously waving like little serpents in a low-tide pool”

They read here Gosse's _Ray_, Harvey's sea-side book, and other scientific works

And now at thirty-seven George Eliot was to begin her creative work

Mr Lewes had often said to her, ”You have wit, description, and philosophy--those go a good way towards the production of a novel”

”It had always been a vague dreaht write a novelbut I never went further toward the actual writing than an introductory chapter, describing a Staffordshi+re village, and the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in ht I was deficient in draue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts”

After she had written a portion of _Amos Barton_ in her _Scenes of Clerical Life_, she read it to Mr Leho told her that noas sure she could write good dialogue, but not as yet sure about her pathos One evening, in his absence, she wrote the scene describing Milly's death, and read it to Mr Lewes, on his return ”We both cried over it,” she says, ”and then he ca, 'I think your pathos is better than your fun!'”

Mr Lewes sent the story to Blackwood, with the signature of ”George Eliot,”--the first name chosen because it was his own name, and the last because it pleased her fancy Mr Lerote that this story by a friend of his, showed, according to his judgment, ”such humor, pathos, vivid presentation, and nice observation as have not been exhibited, in this style, since the _Vicar of Wakefield_”

Mr John Blackwood accepted the story, butanother Mr Lerote him the effects of his words, which he hastened to withdraw, as there was so much to be said in praise that he really desired more stories from the same pen, and sent her a check for two hundred and fifty dollars

This was evidently soothing, as _Mr Gilfil's Love Story_ and _Janet's Repentance_ were at once written Much interest began to be expressed about the author Some said Bulrote the sketches Thackeray praised thereat writer” Copies of the stories bound together, with the title _Scenes of Clerical Life_, were sent to Froude, dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Ruskin, and Faraday dickens praised the huht the author was a woht it ”a _human_ book, written out of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an author, full of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of sentimatism, of earnestness without twaddle--a book that makes one feel friends at once and for alith the uessed the author was ”a ot those beautiful _fe that he has as much fondness for as I have for hted, and said, ”Her fa happier, for her nature had been so disappointments is the only form of hope hich I a done a bit of faithful work that will perhaps reladden and chasten huoes to the ha is part of ion, and I can write no word that is not prompted from within

At the same time I believe that almost all the best books in the world have been written with the hope of getting money for the the last year: I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual enjoyment, a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the past, aduties”

For _Scenes of Clerical Life_ she received six hundred dollars for the first edition, and much more after her other books appeared

And now another work, a longer one, was growing in her erm of which, she says, was an anecdote told her by her aunt, Elizabeth Evans, the Dinah Morris of the book A very ignorant girl had murdered her child, and refused to confess it Mrs Evans, as a Methodist preacher, stayed with her all night, praying with her, and at last she burst into tears and confessed her crime

Mrs Evans ith her in the cart to the place of execution, and irl till death caes of _Adam Bede_ were shown to Mr Blackwood, he said, ”That will do” George Eliot and Mr Leent to Munich, Dresden, and Vienna for rest and change, and she prepared much of the book in this time When it was finished, she wrote on the e Henry Lewes, I give the Ms of a hich would never have been written but for the happiness which his love has conferred on my life”

For this novel she received four thousand dollars for the copyright for four years Fa about it John Murray said there had never been such a book

Charles Reade said, putting his finger on Lisbeth's account of her coe, ”the finest thing since Shakespeare” A working you to give us a cheap edition You would confer on us a great boon I can get plenty of trash for a few pence, but I am sick of it” Mr Charles Buxton said, in the House of Commons: ”As the farmer's wife says in _Adaain and hatched different'” This of course greatly helped to popularize the book

To George Eliot all this was cause for the deepest gratitude They were able now to rent a home at Wandworth, and ery of life seenificat in a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments of success I often think of ht then how happy fame would make ,--worth living through those long years to write But now it seeood and true again” Up to this tie Eliot was; but as a ins laid claim to the authorshi+p, and tried to borrow money for his needs because Blackould not pay hied