ELIOT 



he seems to have wandered about 

 the desert for six weeks. ', 



When Ahaziah succeeded Ahab, 

 Elijah warned him that he would 

 die as a result of an accident that 

 he had suffered. Towards the close 

 of Jehosaphat's reign Elijah was 

 still living, for he sent a letter to 

 Jehoram, the king's son. When the 

 end came, we are told that Elijah 

 passed in a chariot of fire into the 

 heavens. Jewish tradition long 

 held that he would reappear before 

 the coming of the Messiah, and the 

 chair of Elijah is still set ready at 

 the Passover meal. 



Legend points out Elijah as the 

 founder of the Carmelite Order, and 

 in the Greek Church he is regarded 

 as the patron saint of the moun- 

 tains. He appears to have had 

 some connexion with the mysteri- 

 ous religious communities known 

 as the " Sons of the Prophets," of 

 which there were a large number 

 in Palestine in his period. In the 

 N.T. he is referred to as Elias. 



Eliot , SIR CHARLES NORTONEDGE- 

 CUMBE (b. 1864). British diploma- 

 tist. He was educated at Chelten- 

 ham and Ox- 

 ford, where he 

 graduated i n 

 1885. Entering 

 the diplomatic 

 service, he 

 served in the 

 embassy at St. 

 P e t e r a b urg, 

 1888-92 and 

 Constan t i- 

 nople, 1893- 

 98. Charge 

 d'affaires at Morocco 1892-93, 

 Bulgaria 1895, Serbia 1897, he 

 became secretary at Washington 

 in 1898, and was appointed British 

 High Commissioner at Samoa in 

 1899. Knighted in 1900, he was 

 agent at Zanzibar 1900-4, in which 

 year he retired. He became vice- 

 chancellor of Sheffield University in 

 1905, and was made the first princi- 

 pal of Hong Kong University in 

 1912. In 1918 he became commis- 

 sioner for Siberia, and the following 

 year was appointed ambassador 

 to Japan. 



Eliot, CHARLES WILLIAM (b. 

 1834). American educationist. 

 Born at Boston, March 20, 1834, he 

 was educated 

 there and at 

 Harvard. In 

 1854 he became 

 a mathematical 

 tutor at Har- 

 vard, and later 

 assistant pro- 

 fessor of math- 

 ematics and 



Sir Charles Eliot, 

 British diplomatist 



Lafayette 



2866 



School. After studying in Europe 

 he was appointed in 1865 professor 

 of chemistry in the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. In 1869 

 he was chosen president of Harvard, 

 being made president emeritus on 

 his retirement hi 1909. 



At Harvard Eliot did great work. 

 He improved its teaching by 

 adopting reforms from Europe, and 



in other ways widened the aims 6f 

 the university. He became known 

 as a writer on education and as an 

 advocate of international peace. 

 In 1913 he was offered the post 

 of U.S. ambassador in London. 

 His books include Educational Re- 

 form, 1898 ; Four American 

 Leaders, 1906; and The Road 

 Towards Peace, 1915. 



GEORGE ELIOT AND HER WORK 



R. Brimley Johnson, Author of Some Contemporary Novelists (Women) 



For further information about this writer see the articles on her books 



and characters, e.g. Adam Bede, Mrs. Poyser, Middlemarch, etc. 



See also English Literature ; Lewes, G. H. 



Mary Ann, or Marian Evans, 

 known as George Eliot, was born 

 at Arbury Farm, near Nuneaton, 

 Nov. 22, 1819. The daughter 

 of a carpenter, turned estate agent, 

 living for us in Adam Bede and in 

 Caleb Garth (of Middlemarch), she 

 early became wise in all that per- 

 tains to country life in Warwick- 

 shire, of which she has given us so 

 intimate a picture. Her mother's 



Scientific educationist 



After P. D' Albert Durade 



death, and the marriage of her 

 elder sister, Christiana (also drawn 

 in Middlemarch) threw on her 

 shoulders, at 16 years old, the re- 

 sponsibility of her father's house- 

 hold. Here she was surrounded by 

 the narrowest influences of evan- 

 gelical revivalism, deeply con- 

 firmed by her aunt Elizabeth, the 

 original of Dinah Morris (in Adam 

 Bede;. 



A move to Coventry, in 1841, first 

 brought her into a wider and more 

 literary atmosphere. A student of 

 German and Italian, Latin and 

 Greek, and music, she now mingled 

 with those for whom books were 

 their most treasured companions 



and philosophy the chief staple of 

 daily talk. Though too sensible 

 and too affectionate to risk perma- 

 nently estranging her father by any 

 formal and visible break with the 

 religious observances of her child- 

 hood, she turned her mind to such 

 tasks as a translation of Strauss's 

 Life ef Jesus, and, in her own heart, 

 gave up orthodox faith for ever. 



When, however, in 1849, the old 

 man died, it was only natural that 

 she should seek further freedom of 

 intellect in London among the men 

 and women then chiefly inspired 

 by the materialistic agnosticism of 

 Herbert Spencer. She was soon 

 afterwards appointed assistant- 

 editor of The Westminster Review, 

 where she published some weighty 

 articles on ethics, and through 

 which she met George Henry 

 Lewes. The life-long union between 

 them was not lightly entered upon. 

 George Eliot's preoccupation with 

 the problems of married life, her 

 continual insistence upon the bind- 

 ing nature of promises between 

 husband and wife, are pathetic 

 testimony to her uneasiness, which 

 never left her, in a position that 

 could so easily be criticised from 

 her own standard of duty. But as 

 she had entered into it with de- 

 liberation, she never admitted dis- 

 loyalty to her own conscience ; and 

 from a literary point of view, the 

 consequences were almost an un- 

 mixed gain. 



It was Lewes who first dis- 

 covered, well-nigh by accident, her 

 genius for fiction. Instantly recog- 

 nizing a new force in literature, he 

 encouraged her somewhat diffident 

 aspirations, and himself carried out 

 all the negotiations with editors 

 and publishers, which resulted in 

 the anonymous appearance of 

 three stories in Blackwood's Maga- 

 zine, published hi 1858 as the well- 

 known Scenes of Clerical Life. 

 Being immediately popular, they 

 were followed by Adam Bede, 

 1859 , the Mill on the Floss, 1860; 

 and Silas Marner, 1861. Hence- 

 forth she lived happily and stren- 

 uously among the thinkers of the 



