The Times Great Women's Lives

by Sue Corbett

  About this time her health, which was never of the strongest, appears to have suffered so much from the continual strain of her literary exertions, that she was obliged to lay aside her pen, and Lord Melbourne offered and, we believe, even pressed upon her acceptance a literary pension. But she was either too proud or too independent to accept it; and possibly also even a higher motive came into play; at all events in declining it she was largely influenced by a feeling that “she could not conscientiously share in the proceeds of a system of taxation which she had reprobated in her published works.” Her illness lasted several years; but she found means to turn even sickness to account by writing and publishing her “Life in a Sick-room,” — a book suggested by her own experiences of suffering, and, therefore, appealing powerfully to the sympathies of many of her readers.

  In 1844, soon after her restoration to health and strength, we find Miss Martineau once more at work upon her favourite themes — social subjects — and publishing three volumes of tales and sketches illustrative of the evil effects of our “Forest and Game Laws,” which she followed up with a more fanciful work, “The Billow and the Rock.” In 1846 she varied the monotony of her quiet and laborious life by a visit to the East; and she recorded her impressions of the scenes and countries through which she travelled in a book which she published in 1848, and which is still most justly popular — namely, “Eastern Life, its Past and Present.”

  In 1850 or 1851 appeared a work by Miss Martineau of a totally different character from all its predecessors — namely, a volume of “Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development,” which had passed between herself and a philosophic friend named Atkinson; and it was this work which first gave the public a hint that when she had reached something more than middle life she was inclined to adopt the teachings of the “Positive” school of philosophy, founded by Auguste Comte. Two or three years later she still more thoroughly identified herself with this school of thought and faith by giving to the world a condensed version of Comte’s “Positive Philosophy.” But while thus employed in the study of scientific and semi-religious subjects, she found time to devote to her “History of England during the Thirty Years Peace,” a book which is to be admired for its singular clearness and the studied impartiality of its views.

  We next find the indefatigable pen of Miss Martineau employed in contributing to the “People’s Journal,” and her essays in that periodical soon came to be so widely in demand that they were subsequently republished under the title of “Household Education.” About the same time she employed her leisure hours in compiling a work of less pretension — we mean her “Complete Guide to the Lakes,” which appeared in 1854, and for which her long residence at the pretty cottage near Ambleside, which she made her home during her declining years, eminently qualified her. From and after this date it was mainly as a contributor of leading articles, and of biographical and other literary papers to the Daily News, and as a writer of social articles, “historiettes” and graphic personal reminiscences of the celebrities of the present century, in the early volumes of “Once a Week,” that we must look mainly for evidence of Miss Martineau’s literary activity; but the weight of increasing years began to tell heavily upon her, and after a long illness in or about the year 1865 she almost entirely withdrew from those engagements. Her biographical contributions to the Daily News and “Once a Week” were republished in a collected form in the early part of 1869.

  In this brief sketch we have had no space to mention the other works, mostly of a more or less ephemeral character, which are identified with the name of Harriet Martineau. Of these the best known, perhaps, are her “Essay on British India” (1851); “The Factory Controversy; a Warning against Meddling Legislation” (1855); “Corporate Tradition” and “National Rights and Local Dues on Shipping” (1857); “Endowed Schools in Ireland” (1859); “England and her Soldiers” — a work on the vexed question of Army reform (1859) — and “Health, Husbandry, and Handicraft,” a collection of stray papers contributed to some of the leading serials of the day.

  At her charming home near Ambleside, so long as health and strength remained to her, Miss Martineau rejoiced to entertain a circle of attached literary and political friends, and to receive the visits of such strangers, both English and foreign, as cared to travel in order to gratify some higher interests than those of mere pleasure. From mere pleasure, apart from the business of life, and to mere pleasure-seekers and idlers and triflers, she had an unconquerable aversion; but if any one sought to benefit his fellow creatures, high or low, rich or poor, and to lead a useful life as a social being, and a member of the busy hive of English labour, or, indeed, of humanity at large, to him or to her the doors of Miss Martineau’s house and of her heart were at once open. To the last, in spite of a painful chronic illness, she took the greatest interest in every movement which had for its object the social, physical, and moral improvement of the world in which her lot was cast, and she corresponded largely with the various leaders of such movements, who seldom sought in vain for her counsel and advice. If any lady of the 19th century, in England or abroad, may be allowed to put in a claim for the credit of not having lived in vain, that woman, we honestly believe was Harriet Martineau.

  Harriet Martineau, critic and novelist, was born on June 12, 1802. She died on June 27, 1876, aged 74

  GEORGE ELIOT

  * * *

  NOVELIST WHO BECAME A HOUSEHOLD NAME WITH NOVELS SUCH AS THE MILL ON THE FLOSS AND MIDDLEMARCH

  DECEMBER 24, 1880

  A great English writer has suddenly passed away. “George Eliot,” to give her the name by which Mrs Cross was known wherever the English language is spoken or English literature is prized, died on Wednesday evening, after only three days’ illness. On Sunday evening last she received the visits of several old friends at the house in Cheyne-walk which she and her husband (to whom she was only married last May) had lately occupied, and when they left her she was apparently in good health and spirits. That night, however, she was seized with a sudden chill, which first attacked the larynx. On the following day, at Dr Andrew Clark’s request, Dr G. W. Mackenzie, of Lowndes-square, saw Mrs Cross, that he might report on the case, and not until Wednesday evening, about 6 o’clock, when Dr Andrew Clark visited her for the first time with Dr Mackenzie, did the case appear to assume an alarming aspect. It was discovered in the course of their examination that since the morning inflammation had arisen in the pericardium and heart, and that death was not only inevitable, but near at hand. The heart rapidly losing power, Mrs Cross became insensible, and died about 10 o’clock, without either agitation or pain.

  For the biography of George Eliot, to give her the name by which Mrs Cross was known wherever the English language is spoken or English literature is prized, few materials exist. Many apocryphal stories have been told, not the least remarkable of which is one concerning the authorship of “Adam Bede,” to which we shall presently refer, and some few of these can be corrected; but the time has not yet come for that full record of her private life and literary history which, as we may hope, may some day be given to the world.

  Marian Evans — whom all the world knew as “George Eliot” — was born, we believe, in Warwickshire, little short of sixty years ago. She was not, as has often been stated, the daughter of a poor clergyman, nor is it true that she was adopted in early life by another clergyman of greater wealth, who gave her a first-class education. Her father, Robert Evans, was a land agent and surveyor, who lived in the neighbourhood of Nuneaton, and served for many years as agent for the estates of more than one old Warwickshire family; he is still remembered as a man of rare worth and character by many neighbours in the Midlands. The father of George Eliot is the prototype of more than one character in the writings of his daughter. Of these “Caleb Garth” in “Middlemarch” will be recognized as the chief example; but the same note of character — the craftsman’s keen delight in perfect work — is struck in “Adam Bede” and in the little poem on Stradivarius.


  George Eliot’s early years were spent in the country of Shakespeare. The sleepy life of the rural Midlands before the time of the Reform Bill, their rich and tranquil scenery, their homely and old-world inhabitants all left an indelible impress on her imagination — most strongly felt, perhaps, in “Adam Bede” and “The Mill on the Floss,” but reappearing with a difference in “Middlemarch,” and inspiring one or two passages as tender and graceful as anything she ever wrote in “Theophrastus Such.” It is not very clear when she left her father’s home, nor where her education was acquired, but she seems to have come to London almost as a girl, and to have devoted herself to serious literature in a manner far more common among women of the present day than it was nearly 40 years ago. She became associated with many of the writers in the Westminster Review, with John Stuart Mill, Mr Herbert Spencer, George Henry Lewes, Mr John Chapman, and others. She was a frequent contributor to the Review, and at one time, we believe, she edited the section devoted to “Contemporary Literature” in that periodical. Her first serious work was a translation of the celebrated Strauss’s “Life of Jesus,” published in 1846, when she must have been barely 25 years of age. Of this almost forgotten effort it was said at the time that it exhibited an equal knowledge and mastery of the German and English languages. Seven years afterwards, in 1853, Miss Evans published a translation of Feuerbach’s “Essence of Christianity,” the intervening period being that of her greatest activity as a contributor to the Westminster Review.

  Soon after this Miss Evans began to turn her attention to fiction. It is said that the manuscript of “Scenes of Clerical Life,” her first imaginative work, was sent anonymously to Blackwood’s Magazine by George Henry Lewes, and was eagerly accepted by the editor, who discerned in it the promise, since abundantly fulfilled, of rare and pre-eminent genius. It was not, however, until “Adam Bede” was published in 1859 that the world at large discerned that a new novelist of the first rank had appeared. “Adam Bede” made the name of George Eliot a household word throughout England, and set curiosity at work to discover the real name and sex of the author. Those who had studied “Scenes of Clerical Life” at all closely felt sure that the writer was a woman, notwithstanding the masculine tone and breadth conspicuous in “Adam Bede.” A singular controversy arose in our columns on the subject. On April 15, 1859, a few days after we had reviewed “Adam Bede,” and conjectured that the author, whether man or woman, could neither be young nor inexperienced, we received and published the following letter:—

  “Sir,—The author of ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’ and ‘Adam Bede’ is Mr Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. You may easily satisfy yourself of my correctness by inquiring of any one in that neighbourhood. Mr Liggins himself and the characters whom he paints are as familiar there as the twin spires of Coventry. Yours obediently H. ANDERS, Rector of Kirkby.”

  This produced on the next day the following rejoinder from the real George Eliot:—

  “Sir,—The Rev. H. Anders has with questionable delicacy and unquestionable inaccuracy assured the world through your columns that the author of ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’ and ‘Adam Bede’ is Mr Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton. I beg distinctly to deny that statement. I declare on my honour that that gentleman never saw a line of those works until they were printed, nor had he any knowledge of them whatever. Allow me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen? If not, the attempt to pry into what is obviously meant to be withheld — my name — and to publish the rumours which such prying may give rise to, seems to me quite indefensible, still more so to state these rumours as ascertained truths. — I am, Sir, yours, &c., GEORGE ELIOT.”

  Notwithstanding this protest, the secret soon leaked out. Long before “The Mill on the Floss,” the second great novel of the series which has immortalized the name of George Eliot, was published in 1860, it was well known, in literary circles at least, that George Eliot was none other than Marian Evans, the Westminster Reviewer and translator of Strauss, better known to her intimates as Mrs Lewes; for by this time was established that close association and literary friendship with the gifted George Henry Lewes, which terminated only with the death of the latter a little more than two years ago. “The Mill on the Floss,” in which some critics discerned a falling-off from “Adam Bede,” and others the richer maturity of a splendid genius, was followed, in 1861, by “Silas Marner,” the shortest, but as many think, the most perfect, of all George Eliot’s novels. “Romola” — that marvellous tale of Florence in the time of Savonarola, in which the author essayed a task harder by far than that of Thackeray in “Esmond,” and accomplished it triumphantly — followed in 1863. In “Felix Holt,” published in 1866, George Eliot returned to English life, but somehow failed to recover that sureness of touch and blitheness of humour which gave Mrs Poyser and Mrs Tulliver to the world.

  After a silence of five years, broken only by several poems, not, indeed, unworthy of her genius, but still deriving more repute from her name than they conferred upon it, George Eliot returned to fiction with “Middlemarch,” which was published in numbers during 1871 and 1872. “Middlemarch” carried the reader back once more to the Midlands, and gave us the family portrait of Caleb Garth, and perhaps a sketch in his daughter of the early life of the author herself; but the satire was more copious and less kindly than in the earlier novels, and the humour, though still abundant, was not so genial as it had been. “The Legend of Jubal,” with other poems, followed in 1874, and “Daniel Deronda,” the author’s last novel, was published in 1876. “Daniel Deronda” was “caviare to the general;” none but George Eliot could have written it, perhaps, but we almost may hazard the conjecture that if any other had written it few would have read it. It is the great work of a great writer, very instructive and profound, but regarded as a novel it commits the unpardonable sin of failing to entertain. The last work of George Eliot was “Theophrastus Such,” published in the course of last year. Fiction, in its ordinary sense, is here abandoned for the heavier and less attractive style of the essayist and thinker. Here and there occurs a gem of humour or of thought worthy of the author of “Adam Bede,” but the imagination is cold and no longer attempts to fuse the mass of thought into a luminous and consistent creation.

  The life of George Eliot is, as we have said, little more than the history of her literary activity. A mere catalogue of her writings will stir many memories, and far better than a critical estimate of their value will remind her innumerable readers of the keen and innocent pleasure she has afforded them, of the stirring and elevated thoughts she has lavished on their entertainment. Those who only knew her books will deplore an irreparable loss to English letters, while those who also knew the writer will feel that a great and noble spirit, supreme in intellect as in culture, as tender as it was strong, has passed away from the world. The friends of George Eliot have long recognized her rare and commanding gifts both of intellect and character, and it was impossible even for casual acquaintances to pass a few minutes in her society without falling under the spell of a strangely fascinating and sympathetic personality. Her gracious manner, condescending as became her genius, but never either patronizing or indifferent, overcame at once the diffidence of any who approached her, and her winning smile irradiated and softened features that were too strongly marked for feminine beauty. Those who have seen her either in private or in public, as at the Popular Concerts, at which she was a constant attendant, cannot but have been struck with her resemblance to Savonarola as he appears in the portrait by Fra Bartolommeo at Florence. She is gone, and the pen which drew Savonarola with all the strength of a man, and Romola with all the tenderness of a woman, which has produced a gallery of English portraits almost unrivalled in fiction, is laid aside for ever. But her memory lives in the gratitude of countless thousands of readers, and the thought of the life of a great and noble woman suddenly cut off in the promise of renewed happiness will sadden many a household in the midst of
Christmas rejoicings.

  George Eliot, novelist, was born on November 22, 1819. She died on December 22, 1880, aged 61

  JENNY LIND

  * * *

  OPERA SINGER WHO WAS KNOWN AS “THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE”

  NOVEMBER 3, 1887

  We regret to announce the death, early yesterday morning, at Malvern, of Madame Lind-Goldschmidt, who is better known and will be remembered in history by the name of Jenny Lind. Her health had been failing for some time, and she was compelled not long ago to resign her post as professor of singing at the Royal College of Music — the last link still connecting her with the practice of an art which she had loved from girlhood and in which her successes had been equalled by few. From the stage she had retired at a comparatively early age and while still in the zenith of her power, and her last important appearance on the concert platform abroad took place in 1870, when she sang the soprano part in her husband’s oratorio, Ruth, at Düsseldorf. Since then she was occasionally heard at charitable concerts and in private; but to the present generation of amateurs she had become a stranger and an honoured name. Seventeen years of retirement are apt to dim the brightest fame of an executive artist in the minds of living men. If Madame Goldschmidt had died 30 or 40 years ago, when the “Jenny Lind fever” was at its highest, the news would have sent a thrill through musical Europe. As it is, the loss will be felt chiefly by the large circle of friends who loved and esteemed her in private life.