22 December: Boreham on George Eliot

Psychology in Fiction
We mark this weekend the 77th anniversary of the sudden death of the greatest feminine novelist of all time.[1] Born on a farm and reared under rural conditions, George Eliot was passionately attached to the idyllic beauty of the English countryside. She delighted in the village green, the rectory garden, the fields glowing with golden buttercups, and the shady woods in which the primroses twinkled. It is amid this enchanting framework that all her fancies are conceived. Her pages represent the condensed essence of England.

The work of George Eliot is marked by the mingling of two elements seldom found in unity. Psychology rarely assumes a rustic setting, but George Eliot compels it to do so. For she stands in our literature as the audacious pioneer of introspective romance. She lays the soul bare. She was instinctively an analyst, a scientist, a philosopher. She knew better than any other English writer how to dissect a character whilst seeming only to tell a tale. Her predecessors had told their stories as though they were spectators witnessing the pageant which they so graphically described. George Eliot seems to be in the secrets of the actors. She scrutinises their motives, their sensations, their passions; she tells the tale from the inside. Others wrote from the circumference; she wrote from the centre.

A Hand Which Lost Its Cunning
In her day, her vogue was prodigious. The fact that she received from her publisher as much as £12,000 on a single work speaks for itself. Critics like R. H. Hutton laid aside their placid and judicial calm when a new book by George Eliot was submitted to their judgment, and each fresh production was acclaimed in terms of ecstasy. Even Dickens, who seldom went out, of his way to express an opinion on the work of his contemporaries, fell under the wand of the magician, and capitulated unconditionally to her charm. "I have never seen," he wrote, "anything to compare with the exquisite truth and delicacy both of the humour and of the pathos of these stories." Froude was scarcely less enthusiastic. These transports relate, it must be added, to her earlier works, and to these alone.

Her later writings were less successful for the simple reason that they were less her own. She fell under the dominating influence of George Henry Lewes. Until then she had woven her stories from the magic web of her own fancy. Inspired by her girlish memories, they abounded in the quaint personalities and simple scenes with which she was so perfectly familiar. But, as the years crept on, the subtle influence of Lewes' abstract and metaphysical mentality became more and more apparent; and, simultaneously, the books became less and less appealing. In her early days she wrote a few English tales that have evoked more tears and more laughter than any other novels written at that time, and it is as the authoress of those bewitching idylls of the countryside that posterity, for centuries to come, will affectionately cherish her name.

An Excess Of Introspection
Spiritually, her story is a tragedy. One wonders why. Her early days were spent in the quietude of the countryside. Perhaps, as she wandered about those winding lanes and lovely bridlepaths, she became too contemplative, too introspective, too much addicted to the analysis of feelings. Perhaps, dwelling so exclusively on the abstract and the ideal, her fresh young spirit became unfitted for its rude impact with the actual and the real. At the age of 21 she formed the friendship of Charles Bray and, shortly afterwards, undertook the translation into English of the works of Strauss and Feuerbach. These studies froze her faith. Like a ship that breaks from its moorings, as Principal Fairbairn puts it, she drifted imperceptibly away. Charming as the novels are, it is difficult to resist the conviction that, had she concontrived to preserve the crystal faith of her girlhood, her pages would have been still more enticing.

Still, her novels will always be treasured as the works of one who, more than any other writer, pierces the exterior and gets to the quivering heart of things. And just because, beneath the surface, people are pretty much the same, the tales that she has so skilfully unfolded will always find appreciative readers wherever the English language is spoken.

F W Boreham

Image: George Eliot

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart Mercury on December 21, 1957. George Eliot died on December 22, 1880.