Home Life of Great Authors Part 28

Mr. Forster describes him thus:--

"The features were very good. He had a capital forehead, a firm nose, with full, wide nostril, eyes wonderfully beaming with intellect and running over with humor and cheerfulness, and a rather prominent mouth, strongly marked with sensibility. The head was altogether well-formed and symmetrical, and the air and carriage of it extremely spirited. The hair, so scant and grizzled in later days, was then of a rich brown and the most luxuriant abundance, and the bearded face of the last two decades had hardly a vestige of hair or whisker, but there was that in the face, as I first recollect it, which no time could change, and which remained implanted on it unalterably to the last. This was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the eager, restless, energetic look on each several feature, that seemed to tell so little of a student or writer of books, and so much of a man of action and business in the world. Light and motion flashed from every part of it."

Another keen observer writes:--

"The French painter's remark that 'he was more like one of the old Dutch admirals we see in picture galleries than a man of letters,'

conveyed an admirably true idea to his friends. He had, indeed, much of the quiet, resolute manner of command of a captain of a s.h.i.+p. He trod along briskly as he walked; as he listened, his searching eye rested on you, and the nerves in his face quivered, much like those in the delicately formed nostrils of a finely bred dog. There was a curl or two in his hair at each side, which was characteristic; and the jaunty way he wore his little morning hat, rather on one side, added to the effect. But when there was anything droll suggested, a delightful sparkle of lurking humor began to kindle and spread to his mouth, so that, even before he uttered anything, you felt that something irresistibly droll was at hand."

Mr. Mackenzie tells us:--

"d.i.c.kens's personal taste in dress was always 'loud.' He loved gay vests, glittering jewelry, showy satin stocks, and everything rather _p.r.o.nonce_; yet no man had a keener or more unsparing critical eye for these vulgarities in others. He once gave to a friend a vest of gorgeous shawl pattern. Soon after, at a party, he quizzed his friend most unmercifully for his stunning vest, although he had on him at that very moment its twin brother or sister, whichever s.e.x vests belong to."

There was an almost morbid restlessness in the man, out of which arose his habit of excessive walking. When he was writing one of his great books he could not be away from London streets, and he used to walk about in them at night for hours at a time, until his body was completely exhausted; in this way only could he get sleep. When not composing he loved long country walks, and probably injured his health much in later life by the great length of these tramps across country.

His restlessness showed itself also in many other ways. The element of repose was not in him. "My last special feat," he writes once when unable to sleep, "was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast."

The story is told, too, of a night spent in private theatricals, following a very laborious day for d.i.c.kens, and of his being so much fresher than any of his companions that towards morning he jumped leap-frog over the backs of the whole weary company, and was not willing to go to bed even then. His animal spirits were really inexhaustible, and this was the great unfailing charm of his companions.h.i.+p. He never drooped or lagged, but was always alert, keen, and ready for any emergency. Out-of-door games he entered into with great hilarity, and was usually the youngest man in the party. There was a positive sparkle and atmosphere of holiday suns.h.i.+ne about him, and to no man was the word "genial" ever more appropriately applied.

He carried an atmosphere of good cheer with him in person as he did in his books, and was fond of the sentiment of joviality; wrote, indeed, a great deal about feasting, but was really abstemious himself, though he liked to brew punch and have little midnight suppers with his friends.

Yet at these same suppers he ate and drank almost nothing, though he furnished the hilarity for the whole party.

His powers of microscopic observation have seldom been equalled. As Arthur Helps said of him, he seemed to see and observe nine facts while his companion was seeing the tenth. His books are full of the results of this accurate observation. Comparatively little in them is invention; the major part of everything is description of something he has seen and noted. When he was engaged in reporting, among eighty or ninety reporters, he occupied the very highest rank, not merely for accuracy in observing, but for marvellous quickness in transcribing. His wonderful ability as an actor is known to all. Probably he would have been the greatest comedian of his day if he had not been one of its greatest writers. His love for the theatre was an absorbing pa.s.sion. He was quite as good a manager as actor, and could bring order out of the chaos of rehearsals for private theatricals, as no other man has ever been known to do. Carlyle, who was one of the keenest observers of men our time has produced, said: "d.i.c.kens's essential faculty, I often say, is that of a first-rate play-actor." Macready also gave it as his opinion that d.i.c.kens was the only amateur with any pretensions to talent that he had ever seen.

Among the weaknesses of his character were his love of display, which amounted to ostentation sometimes; his fear of being slighted; his vanity, which was prodigious, and a certain hardness, which at times amounted to aggressiveness and almost to fierceness. The displays of this latter quality were very rare; but they left an ineffaceable impression upon all witnesses.

The only political questions which deeply moved him were those social problems to which his sympathy for the poor had always directed his attention,--the Poor Law, temperance, Sunday observance, punishment and prisons, labor and strikes. But that he much influenced the legislation of his country by his writings, no man can doubt. In religion he was a Liberal. Born in the Church of England, we are told by Professor Ward that he had so strong an aversion for what seemed dogmatism of any kind, that for a time--in 1843--he connected himself with a Unitarian congregation, and to Unitarian views his own probably continued during his life most nearly to approach.

In his will he says:--

"I commit my soul to the mercy of G.o.d through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament, in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or there."

Although a man of deep emotional nature, his religion was, after all, mostly a religion of good deeds. Helpfulness, kindliness,--these were to him the supreme things. One who knew him well wrote after his death:--

"I frankly confess that having met innumerable men and had dealings with innumerable men, I never met one with an approach to his genuine, unaffected, unchanging kindness, or one that ever found so suns.h.i.+ny a pleasure in doing one a kindness. I cannot call to mind that any request I ever made to him was ungranted, or left without an attempt to grant it."

Upon this point all who ever knew the man are well agreed. It will suffice. To him who loved so much, if need be much will be forgiven.

As we close this paper, how softly pa.s.s before us the long procession of the men and women he has created,--for they all seem thus to us,--not characters, but people, many of them personal acquaintances of our own.

There are actual tears in our eyes as the little company of children pa.s.s in review, led by David Copperfield, and followed by Oliver Twist, with Paul Dombey in his wake, and little Nell timidly pressing near; while trooping after, sad, tearful, or grotesque, come Florence Dombey, poor Joe, Pip and Smike, Sloppy and Peepy, Little Dorrit and Tiny Tim, and many more of those with whose sorrows we have sympathized, and over each and all of whom we have wept hot tears in the days that are no more. Dream-children, he calls them; but the great world acknowledges them as real beings, and sorrows and rejoices with them, even more, it is to be feared, than it does sometimes with the children of flesh and blood, homeless and forsaken as many of them are. But for the sake of Tiny Tim many an old Scrooge has softened his hard heart somewhat; and in memory of poor Joe many a hardened city man has been a little less imperious to the beggar-boy about "moving on." Even poor Smike has served the purpose of ameliorating a trifle the hard lot of such unfortunates as he, who are tyrannized over in public inst.i.tutions; and, altogether, d.i.c.kens's dream-children can be said to have been useful in their day and generation.

How the other old friends come following on! We have our own peculiar greeting for each. We cannot help holding our sides as Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller go by, followed by Captain Cuttle with his hook, the finest gentleman of them all; by the Major and Mrs. Bagnet, by whom discipline is maintained in the group; by Micawber, with his large outlines and flowing periods; and by Mrs. Micawber and her relations, senseless imbeciles or unmitigated scoundrels all, as her husband testifies; by Mrs. Gamp, by Barkis, and even the young man by the name of Guppy. A smile spreads over the face of the whole reading world at the bare mention of their names. How the smiles deepen into tears as we think over the other friends to whom he has introduced us,--mutual friends of us all; of whom we talk when we congregate together, with just as much of real feeling and interest as we do of other friends of flesh and blood, laugh over their foibles and follies, pity their sorrows, blame their acts, and all with no other feeling than that of utter reality.

Will little Nell's friend, the old schoolmaster, ever cease to draw tears from our eyes? Shall we ever weary of gentle Tom Pinch? Shall we not always touch our hats to Joe Gargery? Shall we ever cease loving Mr.

Jarndyce, even when the wind is in the east? And will Agnes and Esther ever pall upon our taste? Not, we verily believe, until the sources of feeling are dried up in us forever, and we have grown indifferent to all of earth. What an array of them there are, too! The bare catalogue of their names would fill a volume, and it would not be bad reading to the genuine d.i.c.kens lover,--recalling, as each name would, so much of vivid portrayal, and starting so many a.s.sociations in the mind. But there is no need to repeat the names; the big, dull old world long ago learned them by heart. Nor will they soon be relegated to the shades. While the tide of English speech flows on, they will linger, component parts of the language itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

GEORGE ELIOT.

While the great woman who wrote under the _nom de plume_ of George Eliot was alive, there was much appreciative interest and much unlawful curiosity felt regarding her private life. This as a matter of course.

No such striking personality as hers could project itself into a time of dulness and mediocrity without exciting unusual interest and attention.

And the half-knowledge which had been gained of her life and character served as an active stimulus to this curiosity. One or two leading facts in her history had become known and had been made the most of by a gossip-loving time; but aside from these isolated facts there was very little known of George Eliot, except by a little close circle of personal friends, who seem to have refrained in a remarkable manner from writing of her in the newspapers. That modern and almost purely American inst.i.tution, the interviewer, allowed her to escape, and even up to the time of her death comparatively little was said of her except as a writer of books. But the interest in her as a woman has been deepening constantly since her death, fed by some half-revelations which have been made; and few books of our own time have been so eagerly antic.i.p.ated and so universally sought after as the biography by her husband, which lately appeared. Here at last we have that wonderful woman painted by her own hand; not in an autobiography, where a person poses for the public, but in the private letters and journals of a lifetime. Like Mrs. Carlyle, she had unconsciously drawn her own portrait from day to day. An admiring world looks upon the work, and with one voice must p.r.o.nounce it well done. For it is easy to gather from these unconscious touches everything of real importance in regard to the character and life of this woman. Much as we should have enjoyed the letters and journals in a complete form, untouched by pruning fingers, we cannot but heartily approve the wisdom of Mr. Cross in carefully selecting and editing them. He has shown himself a person of excellent taste and judgment, and one could scarcely ask to fall into better hands, if one's life must be given to the public at all when one has travelled away from the things of time and sense.

Let us see, then, what manner of woman this was who held a world entranced by the splendor of her genius for so many years. Here is one of the earliest glimpses of the child:--

"Any one who happened to look through the windows of Griff House would have seen a pretty picture in the dining-room Sat.u.r.day evening after tea. The powerful, middle-aged man, with the strongly marked features, sits in his deep leather-covered arm-chair at the right-hand corner of the ruddy fire-place, with the head of the 'little wench' between his knees. The child turns over the book with pictures which she wishes her father to explain to her, or that perhaps she prefers explaining to him. Her rebellious hair is all over her eyes, much vexing the pale, energetic mother who sits on the opposite side of the fire, c.u.mbered with much service, letting no instant of time escape the inevitable click of the knitting-needles. The father is already proud of the astonis.h.i.+ng and growing intelligence of his little girl. An old-fas.h.i.+oned child, already living in a world of her own imagination, impressible to her finger-tips, and ready to give her views upon any subject."

To readers of "The Mill on the Floss" little description of her child-life will be necessary. She has, in Maggie, pictured herself as nearly as possible during childhood. Here is her own description:--

"A creature full of eager, pa.s.sionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away, and would not come to her; with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life and give her soul a sense of home in it. No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the inward, that painful collisions come of it."

In Adam Bede we have a partial portrait of her father, and there are other striking resemblances to him in Caleb Garth, although neither character is to be really identified with him. Mrs. Poyser bears the same partial relation to her mother. With these people for the _dramatis personae_, the drama could scarcely fail to be a striking one. The relation existing between herself and her sister is described in "Dorothea and Celia,"--no intellectual affinity, but strong family affection. The repression of these early years she afterwards refers to in saying,--

"You may try, but you can never imagine, what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl."

During her early youth she writes thus to a friend:--

"I really feel for you, sacrificing as you are your own tastes and comforts for the pleasure of others, and that in a manner the most trying to rebellious flesh and blood; for I verily believe that in most cases it requires more of a martyr's spirit to endure with patience and cheerfulness daily crossings and interruptions of our petty desires and pursuits and to rejoice in them, if they can be made to conduce to G.o.d's glory and our own sanctification, than even to lay down our lives for the truth."

Deep religious feeling was one of the most striking characteristics of this period of her youth. On her nineteenth birthday she writes:--

"May the Lord give me such an insight into what is truly good that I may not rest contented with making Christianity a mere addendum to my pursuits, or with tacking it as a mere fringe to my garments!

May I seek to be sanctified wholly!"

This religious feeling she carried with her throughout life, although she soon left behind her the tenets and creeds of the church in which she was born and for which she had so strong an affection. In later life, although placing herself entirely outside of historic Christianity, and becoming a rationalist of the rationalists, the fervor of strong religious feeling never left her, and to her latest days she loved to read the Scriptures and to feel the glow of devotional feeling which belonged to her nature. The strong and powerful motive of her life in youth and age was the intense desire to aid and help the world, for which she felt a compa.s.sion so strong as to remind one of the descriptions given of Buddha in Eastern song and story. In every period of her life, in her most private letters and journals, this burden of the world's sorrow seemed to find expression, and her pitying love was almost Christ-like in its tenderness.

In forming an estimate of the woman we must never lose sight of this predominating feeling. Next to it in intensity is to be placed the longing for love and sympathy, the strength of the affections. No such deeply loving human heart has been pictured to the world in all the realm of books. To those who have been accustomed to think of George Eliot as the master-mind of her time, the greatest intellect of her generation, the revelation of her heart will be a great surprise and delight. A deep, strong, pa.s.sionate, loving human soul, with heights and depths of devotion and tenderness unthinkable even to the poorer natures around her,--it was in this that both her strength and her weakness lay.

This affectionateness was shown in her youth in her devotion to her father, whose home she kept for several years, and in lavish regard for the few friends who were near her, all of whom she retained and loved to her dying day. It was shown later on in the pa.s.sionate and absorbing love she gave to Mr. Lewes throughout a lifetime, and which seemed but to deepen and widen with the years; and in the tenderness and thoughtfulness of the mother-love she gave to his children, and which seem to lack not one of the elements of real maternal feeling. This strong, pitying, pa.s.sionate love of hers--a love hardly to be conceived of by cold and self-contained natures--is the key to the one action of her life requiring apology and charitable construction. In the first place, she pitied Mr. Lewes for the sorrows of his life and for the unfaithfulness of the wife upon whom he had lavished his heart's devotion, and whom he had forgiven for the first offence, only to be deceived the second time. Next, the strong feeling for justice which characterized her nature rebelled against that law which bound him to this unfaithful wife simply because he had once forgiven her; and, finally, the desire she felt to comfort his loneliness and redeem his life overcame all the scruples which the integrity of her nature must have confronted her with, and she defied the law which was odious to her and the conventionalities which were dear to her, in the same act, and a.s.sumed the tie which held her in such loyal allegiance until death severed it. Here is the only allusion she made to it in all her correspondence, as far as we know. This was written to one of her oldest friends, Mrs. Bray.

"If there is any one action or relation of my life which is, and always has been, profoundly serious, it is my relation to Mr.

Lewes. It is, however, natural enough that you should mistake me in many ways, for not only are you unacquainted with Mr. Lewes's real character, and the course of his actions, but also it is several years since you and I were much together, and it is possible that the modifications my mind has undergone may be quite in the opposite direction of what you imagine. No one can be better aware than yourself that it is possible for two people to hold different opinions on momentous subjects with equal sincerity and an equally earnest conviction that their respective opinions are alone the truly moral ones. If we differ on the subject of the marriage laws, I at least can believe that you cleave to what you believe to be good, and I don't know of anything in the nature of your views that should prevent you from believing the same of me. How far we differ I think we neither of us know; for I am ignorant of your precise views, and apparently you attribute to me both feelings and opinions which are not mine. We cannot set each other right in letters; but one thing I can tell you in few words. Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done. That any unworldly, unsuperst.i.tious person who is sufficiently acquainted with the realities of life can p.r.o.nounce my relation to Mr. Lewes immoral, I can only understand by remembering how subtle and complex are the influences which mould opinion. But I do remember this, and I indulge in no arrogant or uncharitable thoughts about those who condemn us, even though we might have expected a somewhat different verdict. From the majority of persons we never, of course, looked for anything but condemnation. We are leading no life of self-indulgence, except, indeed, that being happy in each other we find everything easy. We are working hard to provide for others better than we provide for ourselves, and to fulfil every responsibility that lies upon us."

These responsibilities were not light, for they were poor and not yet famous, and must support by their pens not only themselves, but three boys of Mr. Lewes, and their mother. This they found no easy thing to do at first; but when the great success of George Eliot's novels had been attained, their financial affairs became easy, and continued so to the end.

Their life together seemed to be one of unbroken love and confidence, their delight in each other increasing, if possible, with time. The letters and journals of George Eliot are full of expressions of this love and trust, and give us very pleasing pictures of the character and life of Mr. Lewes. He seems to have been an eminently genial, kind, loving, and appreciative man; a man, too, of fascinating manners and wonderfully keen intellect, though totally lacking in any such genius as that which has made George Eliot immortal. Charming glimpses of their home life occur on every page,--a home life that was sweet and well ordered, pervaded by such a spirit of love and devotion as would sanctify any home. George Eliot was the most womanly of women, despite what is often called her masculine intellect; and she made a genuine home, after the true and womanly fas.h.i.+on, delighting in good order and neatness and such attention to details as is an absolute necessity in the formation of a happy home. She never allowed her literary work to prevent her from overseeing that home, and in her younger days seems to have had a real taste for executing these housekeeping details herself.

There was no remote hint of Mrs. Jellyby in her, but strong, practical common-sense in all the management of her family affairs, and a real delight in having all things well ordered and agreeable in her home.

This is one of the most pleasing of the many revelations of this book.

We love to know that she was a true woman, and no intellectual monstrosity. The glimpses that are given of her nursing her father through his long last sickness are very sweet and touching, and everything connected with her devotion to Mr. Lewes's children, down to poor Thornie's death, makes us love her more and more. Indeed, it is a strong, pure, loving, and n.o.ble woman that is brought out on every page of this Life. But a very sad and deep-thoughted woman, too; one to whom pity goes out as naturally as love. She was afflicted with ill health all her life, and the record of all this suffering is at times oppressive. One cannot help wis.h.i.+ng that we might have had the same woman strong and well, and wondering what sort of books would have been the result. Far pleasanter and more cheering, no doubt, for some of them are heart-breakingly sad as it is, but perhaps no deeper or truer. Then, too, she suffered keenly through her sympathies, feeling for all loss and wrong with the acutest pain; and her lack of faith intensified all her suffering. So did lack of hope; for she was almost as dest.i.tute of this cheering friend of man as Carlyle himself, and was given to despondency as the sparks fly upward. In her earlier writing the tears and smiles are blended, her humor lighting up the dark places; but the deepening years deepened her gloom, and her later writing is sombre almost throughout. Yet she had great capacity for joy as well as for sorrow, and enjoyed with the utmost intensity the brighter parts of life, and retained this sense of the pleasure of life even to the end.

She speaks much of the intense happiness of her life with Mr. Lewes, and they seem never to have been separated, taking all journeys and holidays together, and never wearying of what she calls their "_solitude a deux_." Such expressions as these are very frequent throughout the book:--

"I never have anything to call out my ill-humor or discontent,--which you know was always ready enough to come on slight call,--and I have everything to call out love and grat.i.tude.

I am very happy,--happy in the highest blessing life can give us, the perfect love and sympathy of a nature that stimulates my own to healthful activity. My life has deepened unspeakably during the last year. I feel a greater capacity for moral and intellectual enjoyment, a more acute sense of my deficiencies in the past, a more solemn desire to be faithful to coming duties, than I remember at any former period of my life. And my happiness has deepened, too; the blessedness of a perfect love and union grows daily. Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long, sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age."

And this extract from the journal of Mr. Lewes leaves us his thought about their life, which is so like her own:--