LIOT 



George Eliot. Arbuty Farm, Nuneaton, where Mary 

 Ann Evans was born, Nov. 22, 1819 



day ; a professional woman of 

 letters, whose work enjoyed not 

 only critical appreciation but an 

 exceptional measure of popularity 

 and influence among thoughtful 

 middle-class readers. Her later out- 

 put embraced Romola, 1863, a 

 painstaking reconstruction of the 

 past ; Felix Holt, the Radical, 1866, 

 a political treatise . Middlemarch, 

 187 1-72, a problem novel with three 

 loosely-knit plots ; Daniel Deronda, 

 1876, a study of an alien race; 

 besides The Spanish Gypsy and 

 The Legend of Jubal in verse, and 

 the somewhat ponderous collection 

 of short essays entitled Impressions 

 of Theophrastus Such. After 

 Lewes' death in 1878, she married 

 in 1880 John W. Cross, afterwards 

 her biographer, but died on 

 December 22 of the same year. 



It was the grafting of a somewhat 

 arid philosophy upon the Calvinism 

 of early years that gave distinction 

 and popularity to George Eliot's 

 work. Always profoundly religious, 

 and mastered at all times by an un- 

 comfortably strict sense of duty, 

 she met the questionings of the 

 mid -Victorians with a rare and 

 illuminating sincerity, and awoke 

 echoes in many a young, ardent 

 spirit newly ah've to the serious 

 mysteries of life. 



She was, in fact, more receptive 

 than original or independent ; her 

 poems, and Theophrastus, and in 

 lesser degree her later no vels, reveal 

 the dangersof undigested analysis in 

 imaginative writing ; she was over- 

 much weighted with anxiety about 

 the soul of mankind. But, because 

 she was, before all things, a great 

 artist and a warm-hearted and 

 sympathetic woman, she was able 

 to create an immortal gallery of 

 human beings, whose joys and 

 sorrows can never lose their hold 

 on the affections. Her excellent 

 professional training, moreover, 

 secured fine fruit for her varied 

 powers of ordered memory, acute 

 observation, and dramatic instinct. 

 The earlier novels reach right into 



2867 



the heart of things 

 because they are 

 built on the most 

 intimate experi- 

 ences of youth, with 

 spontaneous hum- 

 our and deep 

 emotion. If the 

 style, the plot, and 

 the psychology of 

 what folio wed yield 

 somewhat to 

 affected pedantry, 

 we have, at least 

 i n Middlem arch, 

 many a revelation 

 in emotional prob- 

 lems of profound 

 interest. 



Like her great feminine prede- 

 cessors she was realistic and paro- 

 chial ; but what Charlotte Bronte 

 first bitterly proclaimed on a few 

 passionate topics became with her 

 a definite philosophy universally 

 applied. She insisted that women 

 should dare to think for them- 

 selves, establish their own moral 

 standards, follow their own con- 

 science, and even demand man's 

 acquiescence* < No writer of fiction 

 has illustrated with greater power 

 the ultimate ethical truths of life, 

 the tragic pathos of continual 

 backsliding, and the eternal sig- 

 nificance of the choice between 

 good and evil; Her passionate 

 faith, indeed, called for more than 

 reason could give to doubt. Her 

 message was not final. 



But she left an unrivalled reve- 

 lation of all that our forefathers 

 were feeling, thinking, and striving 

 for : a living picture, admirably 

 studied, of Victorian domesticity, 

 the farmer, the tradesman, and 

 their womenkind that great army 

 of hitherto inarticulate, middle- 

 class Englishmen who were to prove 

 themselves eventually the backbone 

 of the Empire. 



Bibliography. George Eliot in 

 Derbyshire, Guy Roslyn (pseud.), 

 1876 ; George Eliot's Life as related 

 in her letters and journals, ed. J. VV. 

 Cross, 3 vols., 1885; Monographs, 

 Mathilde Blind, new ed. 1888; O. 

 Browning, 1890; and L. Stephen, 1 902. 

 Eliot, Sm JOHN (1592-1632). 

 English statesman. Born at Port 

 Eliot, Cornwall, and educated at 

 Exeter College, 

 Oxford, he was 

 knighted in 

 1618, and in 

 1619 was ap- 

 pointed vice- 

 admiral of 

 Devon as a sup- 

 porter of the 

 duke of Buck- 

 Sir John Eliot, ingham. First 

 English statesman elected M.P. in 



From a painting in the 1614, he 



possession of the Earl ' , , 



of St. Germans attacked 



ELIZABETGRAD 



Buckingham in 1626, and was a 

 principal promoter of the Petition 

 of Right, 1627. On March 2, 1629, 

 Eliot read a protest against un- 

 authorised taxation, whilst he had 

 the Speaker forcibly held down 

 in his chair, and two days later he 

 was sent to the Tower. Refusing to 

 yield to Charles I, he remained in the 

 Tower until his death,Nov. 27,1632. 

 See Life, John Forster, 1864, 



Eliot, JOHN (1604-90). English 

 missionary to the Red Indians. 

 He was born at Widford, in Hert- 

 fordshire, and 

 educated at 

 Jesus College, 

 Cambridge. In 

 1631 he went as 

 a Protestant 

 missionary t o 

 the Indians in 

 Massachusetts. 

 His headquar- 

 John Eliot, ters were at 



English missionary R ox bury, near 

 Boston, where he died May 20, 

 1690. Eliot translated the Bible 

 into the native dialects, in addition 

 to preparing a grammar and cate- 

 chism. He assisted in the prepara- 

 tion of the famous Bay Psalm 

 Book(g.v.). See Life, C. Francis, 

 new ed. 1848 (in Jared Sparks' 

 Lib. of American Biog.). 



Elis. Country on the VV. coast 

 of Peloponnesus, Greece. Its chief 

 city was Elis, on the Peneus, while 

 another city, Pylos, was the seat of 

 the kingdom of the Homeric hero 

 Nestor. In Elis was the district of 

 Pisa, where the great Olympic 

 games were held every four years. 

 It forms the modern dept. of 

 Achaia and Elis, the capital of 

 which is Pyrgos. See Greece. 



Elisha. Son of Shaphat, and 

 companion of the prophet Elijah, 

 whose successor he became. At the 

 translation of Elijah, he received 

 his mantle as a sign of office. He 

 flourished in the reigns of Jehoram, 

 Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash, and 

 had considerable influence in public 

 affairs. His many miracles were 

 mainly of a beneficent character. 



Elixir (Arab, el ikslr, the philo- 

 sopher's stone). In pharmacy the 

 term is used for preparations con- 

 taining alcohol, flavouring agents, 

 sometimes active ingredients as 

 senna. It is a tincture of 

 various substances held together 

 by alcohol. 



In alchemy, the elixir of life 

 (elixir vitae) was believed to be 

 a substance which would prolong 

 indefinitely the life of anyone who 

 consumed it. 



Elizabetgrad. A town of 

 Ukrainia, in the govt. of Kherson. 

 It stands on the Ingul river, 135 

 m. N. of Kherson on the Kharkov- 

 Odessa rly. The district is fertile, 



