George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings and PhilosophyCooke, George Willis
General
George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings and Philosophy
Cooke, George Willis
Eliot, George, 1819-1880; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
were very acute. We rode with her in the cart to the awful place. Our
people sang with her all the way, which I think was a mile and a half. We
were enabled to lift up our hearts unto the Lord in her behalf, and she was
enabled to bear a public testimony that God in mercy had pardoned all her
sins. When the cap was drawn over her face, and she was about to be turned
off, she cried, 'Glory! glory! glory! the angels are waiting around me.'
And she died almost without a struggle. At this awful spot I lost a great
deal of the fear of man, which to me had been a great hindrance for a long
time. I felt if God would send me to the uttermost parts of the earth I
would go, and at intervals felt I could embrace a martyr's flame. Oh, this
burning love of God, what will it not endure? I could not think I had an
enemy in the world. I am certain I enjoyed that salvation that if they had
smote me on one cheek, I could have turned to them the other also. I lived
"'The life of heaven above,
All the life of glorious love.'
"I seemed myself to live between heaven and earth. I was not in heaven
because of my body, nor upon earth because of my soul. Earth was a scale to
heaven, and all I tasted was God. I could pray without ceasing, and in
everything give thanks. I felt that the secret of the Lord is with them
that fear Him. If I wanted to know anything I had only to ask, and it was
given, generally in a moment. Whether I was in the public street, or at my
work, or in my private room, I had continued intercourse with my God; and
many, I think I may say hundreds of times, He shone upon His Word, and
showed me the meaning thereof, that is, texts of scripture, so as to
furnish me with sufficient matter to speak to poor sinners for a sufficient
length of time."
The life of Elizabeth Evans was only a hint to the mind of the author of
_Adam Bede_. Dinah was not intended as a portrait, and the resemblances
between the two were probably not the result of a conscious purpose on the
part of George Eliot. Soon after the publication of _Adam Bede_, when
gossip had begun to report that Dinah Morris was an accurate sketch of
Elizabeth Evans, and even that her sermon and prayers had been copied from
the writings of the aunt, George Eliot wrote a letter to her intimate
friend, Miss Sara Hennell, in which she explained to what extent she was
indebted to Elizabeth Evans for the portrait of Dinah Morris.
HOLLY LODGE, Oct. 7, 1850.
Dear Sara,--I should like, while the subject is vividly present with me, to
tell you more exactly than I have ever yet done, _what_ I knew of my aunt,
Elizabeth Evans. My father, you know, lived in Warwickshire all my life
with him, having finally left Staffordshire first, and then Derbyshire, six
or seven years before he married my mother.... [Footnote: What is here
omitted of this letter will be found on page 12.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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