George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy by George Willis Cooke
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page 27 of 513 (05%)
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teaching of her childhood. Not less important was her humble home and her
association with the common life of the people. Through all her work these influences appear, coloring her thought, shaping her views of life, and increasing her sympathies and affections. Her tender, enthusiastic love of humble life never lost any of its quickening power. The faith of childhood was lost, but its memory was left in a warm appreciation of all phases of religious life and a heartfelt sympathy with all the sorrows and aspirations of men. Her father's health becoming very poor, Marian spent the next two or three years in the care of him. She read to him most of Scott's novels, devoting several hours each day to this task. During this period she made a visit to the Isle of Wight, and there read the novels of Richardson. Her father died in 1849, and she was very much affected by this event. She grieved for him overmuch, and could find no consolation. Her friends, the Brays, to divert and relieve her mind, invited her to take a continental tour with them. They travelled extensively in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Her grief, however, was so excessive as to receive little relief, and her friends began to fear the results. On their return to England they left her at Geneva, where she remained for nearly a year. After some months in a boarding-house near Geneva she became an inmate of the family of M. d'Albert Durade, a Swiss water-color painter of some reputation, who afterwards became the translator of her works into French. She devoted the winter of 1849-50 to the study of French and its literature, to mathematics and to reading. Her teacher in mathematics soon told her that she was able to proceed without his aid. She read Rousseau and studied the French socialists. M. Durade painted her portrait, making a remarkable picture. The softness of the clear blue eyes, in which is expressed a profound depth of thought, is one of its characteristics. M. Durade accompanied her to England in the spring of 1850, and she went to live with her brother, where |
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