George Eliot | Page 8

disagree with accepted doctrines, but she was not content
unless she could get at the facts and reach what was just and reasonable.
"It is seldom," says this person, "that a mind of so much power is so
free from the impulse to dissent, and that not from too ready
credulousness, but rather because the consideration of doubtful points
was habitually crowded out, one may say, by the more ready and
delighted acceptance of whatever accredited facts and doctrines might
be received unquestioningly. We can imagine George Eliot in youth,
burning to master all the wisdom and learning of the world; we cannot
imagine her failing to acquire any kind of knowledge on the pretext that
her teacher was in error about something else than the matter in hand;
and it is undoubtedly to this natural preference for the positive side of
things that we are indebted for the singular breadth and completeness of
her knowledge and culture. A mind like hers must have preyed
disastrously upon itself during the years of comparative solitude in
which she lived at Foleshill, had it not been for that inexhaustible
source of delight in every kind of intellectual acquisition. Languages,
music, literature, science and philosophy interested her alike; it was
early in this period that in the course of a walk with a friend she paused
and clasped her hands with a wild aspiration that she might live 'to
reconcile the philosophy of Locke and Kant!' Years afterward she
remembered the very turn of the road where she had spoken it."
The spiritual struggles of Maggie Tulliver give a good picture of
Marian Evans' mental and spiritual experiences at this time. Her friends

and relatives were scandalized by her scepticism. Her father could not
at all sympathize with her changed religious attitude, and treated her
harshly. She refused to attend church, and this made the separation so
wide that it was proposed to break up the home. By the advice of
friends she at last consented to outwardly conform to her father's
wishes, and a partial reconciliation was effected. This alienation,
however, had a profound effect upon her mind. She slowly grew away
from the intellectual basis of her old beliefs, but, with Maggie, she
found peace and strength in self-renunciation, and in the cultivation of
that inward trust which makes the chief anchorage of strong natures.
She bore this experience patiently, and without any diminution of her
affection; but she also found various friends among the more cultivated
people of Coventry, who could sympathize with her in her studies and
with her radical views in religion. These persons gave her the
encouragement she needed, the contact with other and more matured
minds which was so necessary to her mental development, and that
social contact with life which was so conducive to her health of mind.
In one family especially, that of Mr. Charles Bray, did she find the true,
and cordial, and appreciative friendship she desired. These friends
softened the growing discord with her own family, and gave her that
devoted regard and aid that would be of most service to her. "In Mr.
Bray's family," we are told by one who has written of this trying period
of her career, "she found sympathy with her ardent love of knowledge
and with the more enlightened views that had begun to supplant those
under which (as she described it) her spirit had been grievously
burdened. Emerson, Froude, George Combe, Robert Mackay, and many
other men of mark, were at various times guests at Mr. Bray's house at
Rosehill while Miss Evans was there either as inmate or occasional
visitor; and many a time might have been seen, pacing up and down the
lawn or grouped under an old acacia, men of thought and research,
discussing all things in heaven and earth, and listening with marked
attention when one gentle woman's voice was heard to utter what they
were quite sure had been well matured before the lips opened. Few, if
any, could feel themselves her superior in general intelligence; and it
was amusing one day to see the amazement of a certain doctor, who,
venturing on a quotation from Epictetus to an unassuming young lady,
was, with modest politeness, corrected in his Greek by his feminine

auditor. One rare characteristic belonged to her which gave a peculiar
charm to her conversation. She had no petty egotism, no spirit of
contradiction; she never talked for effect. A happy thought well
expressed filled her with delight; in a moment she would seize the
thought and improve upon it--so that common people began to feel
themselves wise in her presence; and perhaps years after she would
remind them, to their pride and surprise, of the good things they had
said."
She was an ardent reader of Emerson and