Adam Bede

Adam Bede

- By George Eliot
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English novelist and poet (1819–1880) For other uses, see George Eliot (disambiguation). George EliotEliot (Mary Ann Evans) in 1850BornMary Anne Evans(1819-11-22)22 November 1819Nuneaton, Warwickshire, EnglandDied22 December 1880(1880-12-22) (aged 61)Chelsea, London, EnglandResting placeHighgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, LondonPen nameGeorge EliotOccupationNovelist, poet, journalist, translatorAlma materBedford College, LondonPeriodVictorianNotable worksScenes of Clerical Life (1857) Adam Bede (1859) The Mill on the Floss (1860) Silas Marner (1861) Romola (1862–1863) Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) Middlemarch (1871–1872) Daniel Deronda (1876)Spouse John Cross ​(m. 1880)​PartnerGeorge Henry Lewes (1854–1878) Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian[1][2]), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era.[3] She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). As with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people"[4] and by Martin Amis[5] and Julian Barnes[6] as the greatest novel in the English language. Scandalously and unconventionally for the era, she lived with the married George Henry Lewes as his conjugal partner, from 1854–1878, and called him her husband. He remained married to his wife and supported their children, even after she left him to live with another man and have children with him. In May 1880, eighteen months after Lewes's death, George Eliot married her long-time friend, John Cross, a man much younger than she, and she changed her name to Mary Ann Cross. Life[edit] Early life and education[edit] Mary Ann Evans was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, at South Farm on the Arbury Hall estate.[7] She was the third child of Robert Evans (1773–1849), manager of the Arbury Hall estate, and Christiana Evans (née Pearson, 1788–1836), daughter of a local mill-owner. Her full siblings were: Christiana, known as Chrissey (1814–1859), Isaac (1816–1890), and twin brothers who died a few days after birth in March 1821. She also had a half-brother, Robert Evans (1802–1864), and half-sister, Frances "Fanny" Evans Houghton (1805–1882), from her father's previous marriage to Harriet Poynton (1780–1809). In early 1820, the family moved to a house named Griff House, between Nuneaton and Bedworth.[8] The young Evans was a voracious reader and obviously intelligent. Because she was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence, led her father to invest in an education not often afforded to women.[9] From ages five to nine, she boarded with her sister Chrissey at Miss Latham's school in Attleborough, from ages nine to thirteen at Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, and from ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin's school in Coventry. At Mrs. Wallington's school, she was taught by the evangelical Maria Lewis—to whom her earliest surviving letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Misses Franklin's school, Evans was exposed to a quiet, disciplined belief opposed to evangelicalism.[10] After age sixteen, Evans had little formal education.[11] Thanks to her father's important role on the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall, which greatly aided her self-education and breadth of learning. Her classical education left its mark; Christopher Stray has observed that "George Eliot's novels draw heavily on Greek literature (only one of her books can be printed correctly without the use of a Greek typeface), and her themes are often influenced by Greek tragedy".[12] Her frequent visits to the estate also allowed her to contrast the wealth in which the local landowner lived with the lives of the often much poorer people on the estate, and different lives lived in parallel would reappear in many of her works. The other important early influence in her life was religion. She was brought up within a low church Anglican family, but at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters. Move to Coventry[edit] In 1836, her mother died and Evans (then 16) returned home to act as housekeeper, though she continued to correspond with her tutor Maria Lewis. When she was 21, her brother Isaac married and took over the family home, so Evans and her father moved to Foleshill near Coventry. The closeness to Coventry society brought new influences, most notably those of Charles and Cara Bray. Charles Bray had become rich as a ribbon manufacturer and had used his wealth in the building of schools and in other philanthropic causes. Evans, who had been struggling with religious doubts for some time, became intimate friends with the radical, free-thinking Brays, who had a casual view of marital obligations[13] and the Brays' "Rosehill" home was a haven for people who held and debated radical views. The people whom the young woman met at the Brays' house included Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, Harriet Martineau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through this society Evans was introduced to more liberal and agnostic theologies and to writers such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach, who cast doubt on the literal truth of Biblical texts. In fact, her first major literary work was an English translation of Strauss's Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet as The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1846), which she completed after it had been left incomplete by Elizabeth "Rufa" Brabant, another member of the "Rosehill Circle". The Strauss book had caused a sensation in Germany by arguing that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical additions with little basis in fact.[14][15][16] Evans's translation had a similar effect in England, with the Earl of Shaftesbury calling her translation "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell."[17][18][19][20] Later she translated Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). The ideas in these books would have an effect on her own fiction. As a product of their friendship, Bray published some of Evans's own earliest writing, such as reviews, in his newspaper the Coventry Herald and Observer.[21] As Evans began to question her own religious faith, her father threatened to throw her out of the house, but his threat was not carried out. Instead, she respectfully attended church and continued to keep house for him until his death in 1849, when she was 30. Five days after her father's funeral, she travelled to Switzerland with the Brays. She decided to stay on in Geneva alone, living first on the lake at Plongeon (near the present-day United Nations buildings) and then on the second floor of a house owned by her friends François and Juliet d'Albert Durade on the rue de Chanoines (now the rue de la Pelisserie). She commented happily that "one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree". Her stay is commemorated by a plaque on the building. While residing there, she read avidly and took long walks in the beautiful Swiss countryside, which was a great inspiration to her. François Durade painted her portrait there as well.[22] Move to London and editorship of the Westminster Review[edit] On her return to England the following year (1850), she moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer, and she began referring to herself as Marian Evans.[23] She stayed at the house of John Chapman, the radical publisher whom she had met earlier at Rosehill and who had published her Strauss translation. She then joined Chapman's ménage-à-trois along with his wife and mistress.[13] Chapman had recently purchased the campaigning, left-wing journal The Westminster Review. Evans became its assistant editor in 1851 after joining just a year earlier. Evans's writings for the paper were comments on her views of society and the Victorian way of thinking.[24] She was sympathetic to the lower classes and criticised organised religion throughout her articles and reviews and commented on contemporary ideas of the time.[25] Much of this was drawn from her own experiences and knowledge and she used this to critique other ideas and organisations. This led to her writing being viewed as authentic and wise but not too obviously opinionated. Evans also focused on the business side of the Review with attempts to change its layout and design.[26] Although Chapman was officially the editor, it was Evans who did most of the work of producing the journal, contributing many essays and reviews beginning with the January 1852 issue and continuing until the end of her employment at the Review in the first half of 1854.[27] Eliot sympathized with the 1848 Revolutions throughout continental Europe, and even hoped that the Italians would chase the "odious Austrians" out of Lombardy and that "decayed monarchs" would be pensioned off, although she believed a gradual reformist approach to social problems was best for England.[28][29] In 1850–51, Evans attended classes in mathematics at the Ladies College in Bedford Square, later known as Bedford College, London.[30] Relationship with George Henry Lewes[edit] Portrait of George Eliot by Samuel Laurence, c. 1860 The philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) met Evans in 1851, and by 1854 they had decided to live together. Lewes was already married to Agnes Jervis, although in an open marriage. In addition to the three children they had together, Agnes also had four children by Thornton Leigh Hunt.[31] In July 1854, Lewes and Evans travelled to Weimar and Berlin together for the purpose of research. Before going to Germany, Evans continued her theological work with a translation of Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity, and while abroad she wrote essays and worked on her translation of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, which she completed in 1856, but which was not published in her lifetime because the prospective publisher refused to pay the requested £75.[32] In 1981, Eliot's translation of Spinoza's Ethics was finally published by Thomas Deegan, and was determined to be in the public domain in 2018 and published by the George Eliot Archive.[33] It has been re-published in 2020 by Princeton University Press.[34] The trip to Germany also served as a honeymoon for Evans and Lewes, who subsequently considered themselves married. Evans began to refer to Lewes as her husband and to sign her name as Mary Ann Evans Lewes, legally changing her name to Mary Ann Evans Lewes after his death.[35] The refusal to conceal the relationship was contrary to the social conventions of the time, and attracted considerable disapproval.[citation needed] Career in fiction[edit] Photograph (albumen print) of George Eliot, c. 1865 While continuing to contribute pieces to the Westminster Review, Evans resolved to become a novelist, and set out a pertinent manifesto in one of her last essays for the Review, "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists"[36] (1856). The essay criticised the trivial and ridiculous plots of contemporary fiction written by women. In other essays, she praised the realism of novels that were being written in Europe at the time, an emphasis on realistic storytelling confirmed in her own subsequent fiction. She also adopted a nom-de-plume, George Eliot; as she explained to her biographer J. W. Cross, George was Lewes's forename, and Eliot was "a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word".[37] Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances or other lighter fare not to be taken very seriously.[38] She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as a translator, editor, and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with Lewes, who was married.[39] In 1857, when she was 37 years of age, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", the first of the three stories included in Scenes of Clerical Life, and the first work of "George Eliot", was published in Blackwood's Magazine.[40] The Scenes (published as a 2-volume book in 1858),[40] was well received, and was widely believed to have been written by a country parson, or perhaps the wife of a parson. Eliot was profoundly influenced by the works of Thomas Carlyle. As early as 1841, she referred to him as "a grand favourite of mine", and references to him abound in her letters from the 1840s and 1850s. According to University of Victoria professor Lisa Surridge, Carlyle "stimulated Eliot's interest in German thought, encouraged her turn from Christian orthodoxy, and shaped her ideas on work, duty, sympathy, and the evolution of the self."[41] These themes made their way into Evans's first complete novel, Adam Bede (1859).[40] It was an instant success, and prompted yet more intense curiosity as to the author's identity: there was even a pretender to the authorship, one Joseph Liggins. This public interest subsequently led to Mary Anne Evans Lewes's acknowledgment that it was she who stood behind the pseudonym George Eliot. Adam Bede is known for embracing a realist aesthetic inspired by Dutch visual art.[42] The revelations about Eliot's private life surprised and shocked many of her admiring readers, but this did not affect her popularity as a novelist. Her relationship with Lewes afforded her the encouragement and stability she needed to write fiction, but it would be some time before the couple were accepted into polite society. Acceptance was finally confirmed in 1877 when they were introduced to Princess Louise, the daughter of Queen Victoria. The queen herself was an avid reader of all of Eliot's novels and was so impressed with Adam Bede that she commissioned the artist Edward Henry Corbould to paint scenes from the book.[43] Blue plaque, Holly Lodge, 31 Wimbledon Park Road, London When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Eliot expressed sympathy for the Union cause, something which historians have attributed to her abolitionist sympathies.[28][29] In 1868, she supported philosopher Richard Congreve's protests against governmental policies in Ireland and had a positive view of the growing movement in support of Irish home rule.[28][29] She was influenced by the writings of John Stuart Mill and read all of his major works as they were published.[44] In Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869) she judged the second chapter excoriating the laws which oppress married women "excellent."[29] She was supportive of Mill's parliamentary run, but believed that the electorate was unlikely to vote for a philosopher and was surprised when he won.[28] While Mill served in parliament, she expressed her agreement with his efforts on behalf of female suffrage, being "inclined to hope for much good from the serious presentation of women's claims before Parliament."[45] In a letter to John Morley, she declared her support for plans "which held out reasonable promise of tending to establish as far as possible an equivalence of advantage for the two sexes, as to education and the possibilities of free development", and dismissed appeals to nature in explaining women's lower status.[45][29] In 1870, she responded enthusiastically to Lady Amberley's feminist lecture on the claims of women for education, occupations, equality in marriage, and child custody.[29] However, it would not be correct to assume that the female protagonists of her works can be considered "feminist", with the sole exception perhaps of Romola de' Bardi, who resolutely rejects the State and Church obligations of her time.[46] After the success of Adam Bede, Eliot continued to write popular novels for the next fifteen years. Within a year of completing Adam Bede, she finished The Mill on the Floss, dedicating the manuscript: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21 March 1860." Silas Marner (1861) and Romola (1863) soon followed, and later Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) and her most acclaimed novel, Middlemarch (1871–1872). Her last novel was Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, after which she and Lewes moved to Witley, Surrey. By this time Lewes's health was failing, and he died two years later, on 30 November 1878. Eliot spent the next six months editing Lewes's final work, Life and Mind, for publication, and found solace and companionship with longtime friend and financial adviser John Walter Cross, a Scottish commission agent[47] 20 years her junior, whose mother had recently died. Marriage to John Cross and death[edit] Eliot's grave in Highgate Cemetery On 16 May 1880, eighteen months after Lewes' death, Eliot married John Walter Cross (1840–1924)[43] and again changed her name, this time to Mary Ann Cross. While the marriage courted some controversy due to the 21 year age differences, it pleased her brother Isaac that she was married in this relationship. He had broken off relations with her when she had begun to live with Lewes, and now sent congratulations. While the couple were honeymooning in Venice, Cross, in a suicide attempt, jumped from the hotel balcony into the Grand Canal. He survived, and the newlyweds returned to England. They moved to a new house in Chelsea, but Eliot fell ill with a throat infection. This, coupled with the kidney disease with which she had been afflicted for several years, led to her death on 22 December 1880 at the age of 61.[48][49] Due to her denial of the Christian faith and her relationship with Lewes,[citation needed] Eliot was not buried in Westminster Abbey. She was instead interred in Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, in the area reserved for political and religious dissenters and agnostics, beside the love of her life, George Henry Lewes.[a] The graves of Karl Marx and her friend Herbert Spencer are nearby.[51] In 1980, on the centenary of her death, a memorial stone was established for her in the Poets' Corner between W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas, with a quote from Scenes of Clerical Life: "The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second something to reverence". Personal appearance[edit] George Eliot was considered by contemporaries to be a physically unattractive woman; she herself knew this and made jokes about her appearance in letters to friends.[52] Yet somehow the force of her personality overcame her ugliness. This was noted by numerous acquaintances.[52] Of his first meeting with her on 9 May 1869, Henry James wrote: ... To begin with she is magnificently ugly — deliciously hideous. She has a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth, full of uneven teeth & a chin & jawbone qui n'en finissent pas ["which never end"] ... Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth & charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her.[53] Spelling of her name[edit] She spelled her name differently at different times. Mary Anne was the spelling used by her father for the baptismal record and she uses this spelling in her earliest letters. Within her family, however, it was spelled Mary Ann. By 1852, she had changed to Marian,[54] but she reverted to Mary Ann in 1880 after she married John Cross.[55] Her memorial stone reads[56] Here lies the body of'George Eliot'Mary Ann Cross Memorials and tributes[edit] Several landmarks in her birthplace of Nuneaton are named in her honour. These include the George Eliot Academy, Middlemarch Junior School, George Eliot Hospital (formerly Nuneaton Emergency Hospital),[57] and George Eliot Road, in Foleshill, Coventry. Also, The Mary Anne Evans Hospice in Nuneaton. Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery, in Riversley Park, home of collection on writer George Eliot A statue of Eliot is in Newdegate Street, Nuneaton, and Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery has a display of artifacts related to her. A tunnel boring machine constructing the Bromford Tunnel on High Speed 2 was named in honour of her.[58] Literary assessment[edit] Portrait by Frederick William Burton, 1864 Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen. From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution. Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch, in which she presents the stories of a number of inhabitants of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832; the novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits. The roots of her realist philosophy can be found in her review of John Ruskin's Modern Painters in Westminster Review in 1856. Eliot also express proto-Zionist ideas in Daniel Deronda.[59] Readers in the Victorian era praised her novels for their depictions of rural society. Much of the material for her prose was drawn from her own experience. She shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was much value and beauty to be found in the mundane details of ordinary country life. Eliot did not, however, confine herself to stories of the English countryside. Romola, an historical novel set in late fifteenth century Florence, was based on the life of the Italian priest Girolamo Savonarola. In The Spanish Gypsy, Eliot made a foray into verse, but her poetry's initial popularity has not endured. Working as a translator, Eliot was exposed to German texts of religious, social, and moral philosophy such as David Friedrich Strauss's Life of Jesus and Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity; also important was her translation from Latin of Jewish-Dutch philosopher Spinoza's Ethics. Elements from these works show up in her fiction, much of which is written with her trademark sense of agnostic humanism. According to Clare Carlisle, who published a new biography on George Eliot in 2023,[60] the overdue publication of Spinoza's Ethics was a real shame, because it could have provided some illuminating cues for understanding the more mature works of the writer.[34] She had taken particular notice of Feuerbach's conception of Christianity, positing that our understanding of the nature of the divine was to be found ultimately in the nature of humanity projected onto a divine figure. An example of this philosophy appeared in her novel Romola, in which Eliot’s protagonist displayed a "surprisingly modern readiness to interpret religious language in humanist or secular ethical terms."[61] Though Eliot herself was not religious, she had respect for religious tradition and its ability to maintain a sense of social order and morality. The religious elements in her fiction also owe much to her upbringing, with the experiences of Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss sharing many similarities with the young Mary Ann Evans. Eliot also faced a quandary similar to that of Silas Marner, whose alienation from the church simultaneously meant his alienation from society. Because Eliot retained a vestigial respect for religion, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche excoriated her system of morality for figuring sin as a debt that can be expiated through suffering, which he demeaned as characteristic of "little moralistic females à la Eliot."[62] She was at her most autobiographical in Looking Backwards, part of her final published work Impressions of Theophrastus Such. By the time of Daniel Deronda, Eliot's sales were falling off, and she had faded from public view to some degree. This was not helped by the posthumous biography written by her husband, which portrayed a wonderful, almost saintly, woman totally at odds with the scandalous life people knew she had led. In the 20th century she was championed by a new breed of critics, most notably by Virginia Woolf, who called Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".[4] In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Eliot among the most important Western writers of all time.[63] In a 2007 authors' poll by Time, Middlemarch was voted the tenth greatest literary work ever written.[64] In 2015, writers from outside the UK voted it first among all British novels "by a landslide".[65] The various film and television adaptations of Eliot's books have re-introduced her to the wider reading public. Works[edit] Novels[edit] Adam Bede (1859) The Mill on the Floss (1860) Silas Marner (1861) Romola (1863) Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) Middlemarch (1871–1872) "Quarry for Middlemarch", MS Lowell 13, Houghton Library, Harvard University (A digital facsimile of the manuscript of research notes) Daniel Deronda (1876) Short story collection and novellas[edit] Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton Mr Gilfil's Love Story Janet's Repentance The Lifted Veil (1859) Brother Jacob (1864) Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) Translations[edit] Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined) Volume 2 by David Strauss (1846) Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity) by Ludwig Feuerbach (1854) The Ethics of Benedict de Spinoza by Benedict de Spinoza (1856) Poetry[edit] Knowing That I Must Shortly Put Off This Tabernacle (1840) In a London Drawingroom (1865) A Minor Prophet (1865) Two Lovers (1866) The Choir Invisible (1867) The Spanish Gypsy (1868) Agatha (1868) Brother and Sister (1869) How Lisa Loved the King (1869) Armgart (1870) Stradivarius (1873) Arion (1873) The Legend of Jubal (1874) I Grant You Ample Leave (1874) Evenings Come and Go, Love (1878) Self and Life (1879) A College Breakfast Party (1879) The Death of Moses (1879) Non-fiction[edit] "Three Months in Weimar" (1855) "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" (1856) "The Natural History of German Life" (1856) Review of John Ruskin's Modern Painters in Westminster Review, April 1856 "The Influence of Rationalism" (1865) Explanatory notes[edit] ^ While the biographical consensus is that Lewes and Eliot had a perfect partnership, this view has been somewhat modified by Beverley Park Rilett, who argued in 2013 and 2017 that Lewes's protective love may have amounted to coercive control.[50] References[edit] Citations[edit] ^ Ashton, Rosemary (1996). George Eliot: A Life. London: Hamish Hamilton. p. 255. ISBN 978-0241134733. ^ Jacobs, Alexandra (13 August 2023). "George Eliot's Scandalous Answer to 'The Marriage Question'". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2023. ^ "George Eliot (…) is the most earnestly imperative and the most probingly intelligent of the great mid-Victorian novelists". In: Sanders, Andrew The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Clarendon Press, 1994. p. 440 ^ a b Woolf, Virginia. "George Eliot." The Common Reader. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1925. pp. 166–176. ^ Long, Camilla.Martin Amis and the sex war[dead link], The Times, 24 January 2010, p. 4: "They've [women] produced the greatest writer in the English language ever, George Eliot, and arguably the third greatest, Jane Austen, and certainly the greatest novel, Middlemarch..." ^ Guppy, Shusha. "Interviews: Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165". The Paris Review (Winter 2000). Retrieved 26 May 2012. ^ Cooke, George Willis. George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy. Whitefish: Kessinger, 2004. [1] ^ "George Eliot Biography – life, childhood, children, name, story, death, history, wife, school, young". www.notablebiographies.com. Retrieved 23 July 2018. ^ Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. Norton, 1995. pp. 24–25 ^ Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. Norton, 1995. p. 31 ^ Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. Norton, 1995. p. 52 ^ Christopher Stray Classics Transformed, p. 81 ^ a b "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. 6 August 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2023. ^ The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 ISBN 1-61640-309-8 pp. 39–43, 87–91 ^ The Making of the New Spirituality by James A. Herrick 2003 ISBN 0-8308-2398-0 pp. 58–65 ^ Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth by Michael J. McClymond (2004) ISBN 0802826806 p. 82 ^ The historical Jesus question by Gregory W. Dawes 2001 ISBN 0-664-22458-X pp. 77–79 ^ Mead, James K. (2007). Biblical Theology: Issues, Methods, and Themes. Presbyterian Publishing Corp. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-664-22972-6. ^ Hesketh, Ian (2017). Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity. University of Toronto Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-4426-6359-6. ^ Tearle, Oliver (2016). The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History. Michael O'Mara Books. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-78243-558-7. ^ McCormick, Kathleen (Summer 1986). "George Eliot's Earliest Prose: The Coventry "Herald" and the Coventry Fiction". Victorian Periodicals Review. 19 (2): 57–62. JSTOR 20082202. ^ Hardy, Barbara. George Eliot: A Critic's Biography. Continuum. London: 2006, pp. 42–45. ^ Eliot, George (4 April 1851). "Marian Evans". Letter to John Chapman. The George Eliot Letters, Ed. Gordon S. Haight, Vol. I, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press (RE: First known instance of George Eliot signing her name as ′Marian Evans′). 348. ^ Mackenzie, Hazel (2014). "A Dialogue of Forms: The Display of Thinking in George Eliot's 'Poetry and Prose, From the Notebook of an Eccentric' and Impressions of Theophrastus Such" (PDF). Prose Studies. 36 (2): 117–129. doi:10.1080/01440357.2014.944298. S2CID 170098666. ^ Bodenheimer, Rosemarie (2014). "Review of Before George Eliot: Marian Evans and the Periodical Press; Modernizing George Eliot: The Writer as Artist, Intellectual, Proto-Modernist, Cultural Critic, by Fionnuala Dillane & K. M. Newton". Victorian Studies. 56 (4): 714–717. doi:10.2979/victorianstudies.56.4.714. ^ Dillane, Fionnuala (2013). Before George Eliot: Marian Evans and the Periodical Press. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-10703565-2. ^ Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot: A Life. London: Penguin, 1997. 88ff. [110]. ^ a b c d Fleishman, Avrom (2010). George Eliot's Intellectual Life. Cambridge University Press. pp. 140–142. ^ a b c d e f Szirotny, June (2015). George Eliot's Feminism: The Right to Rebellion. Springer. pp. 26–28. ^ Ladies College UCL Bloomsbury Project ^ Henry, Nancy (2008). The Cambridge Introduction to George Eliot. Cambridge: Cambridge. p. 6. ^ Hughes, Kathryn, George Eliot: The Last Victorian, p. 168. ^ de Spinoza, Benedict (2018) [1981]. "The Ethics of Benedict de Spinoza, Translated by George Eliot". The George Eliot Archive. Retrieved 12 June 2022. ^ a b Spinoza, Benedictus de (2020). Carlisle, Clare (ed.). Spinoza's Ethics. Translated by Eliot, George. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691193236. ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1968). George Eliot: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 523. ^ "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" Archived 5 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine text from The Westminster Review Vol. 66 old series, Vol. 10 new series (October 1856): 442–461. ^ Cross (1885), vol 1, p. 431 ^ There were a few exceptions, such as Nature and Art, by Elizabeth Inchbald, published under the name "Mrs. Inchbald" in 1796. ^ Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. Norton, 1995. pp. 237–238. ^ a b c Craigie, Pearl Mary Teresa (1911). "Eliot, George" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 275–277. ^ Surridge, Lisa (2004). "Eliot, George". In Cumming, Mark (ed.). The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 141–144. ISBN 978-0-8386-3792-0. ^ Rebecca Ruth Gould, "Adam Bede's Dutch Realism and the Novelist's Point of View," Philosophy and Literature 36:2 (October 2012), 404–423. ^ a b Rosemary Ashton, "Evans, Marian [George Eliot] (1819–1880)", (Later Works) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 ^ Fleishman, Avrom (2010). George Eliot's Intellectual Life. Cambridge University Press. p. 59. ^ a b Newton, K. M. (2018). George Eliot for the Twenty-First Century: Literature, Philosophy, Politics. Springer. pp. 23–24. ^ Sanders, Andrew The Short Oxford History of English Literature. Clarendon Press, 1994. p. 442 ^ 1881 census ^ "George Eliot". BBC History. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2009. ^ "George Eliot (Obituary Notice, Friday, December 24, 1880)". Eminent Persons: Biographies reprinted from the Times. Vol. II (1876–1881). London: Macmillan and Co. 1893. pp. 232–239. hdl:2027/osu.32435022453492. ^ Rilett, Beverley Park (2017). "The role of George Henry Lewes in George Eliot's career: A reconsideration". George Eliot–George Henry Lewes Studies. 69 (1): 2–34. doi:10.5325/georelioghlstud.69.1.0002. Retrieved 23 August 2021. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3rd ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 14016). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition. ^ a b Mead, Rebecca (19 September 2013). "George Eliot's Ugly Beauty". The New Yorker. ^ Ashton, Rosemary (20 March 2020). "Henry James Visits the Priory". 19 (29). doi:10.16995/ntn.1919. ^ Hardy, Barbara. George Eliot: A Critic's Biography. Continuum. London: 2006, pp. 1–2, 8. ^ "George Eliot: Biography". Archived from the original on 23 August 2009. Retrieved 24 August 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) ^ Banerjee, Jacqueline (29 July 2017). "George Eliot's grave: Highgate Cemetery, London". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 21 August 2023. ^ BIRMINGHAM REGIONAL HOSPITAL BOARD GROUP 20 HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE. Birmingham Regional Hospital Board Group 20 Hospital Management Committee. 1944–1974.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) ^ "Bromford Tunnel". HS2. Retrieved 18 September 2023. ^ Stanislawski, Michael (2017). Zionism: a very short introduction. Very short introductions. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-062520-7. ^ Carlisle, Clare (2023). The Marriage Question. George Eliot's Double Life. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0241447178. ^ Bidney, Martin (2002). "Philosophy and the Victorian Literary Aesthetic". In Baker, William; Womack, Kenneth (eds.). A Companion to the Victorian Novel. Westport: Greenwood Press. pp. 100–101. ^ Thomas J. Joudrey. "The Defects of Perfectionism: Nietzsche, Eliot, and the Irrevocability of Wrong." Philological Quarterly 96.1 (2017): 77–104. ^ Bloom, Harold. 1994. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. p. 226. New York: Harcourt Brace. ^ Grossman, Lev (15 January 2007). "The 10 Greatest Books of All Time". Time. Retrieved 9 February 2017. ^ Flood, Alison (8 December 2015). "The best British novel of all time: have international critics found it?". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2017. General and cited sources[edit] Ashton, Rosemary (1997). George Eliot: A Life. London: Penguin, 1997. Bloom, Harold. (1994). The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York: Harcourt Brace. Cross, J. W. (ed.), (1885). George Eliot's life as related in her letters and journals, 3 vols. London: William Blackwood and Sons. Fleishman, Avrom (2010). George Eliot's Intellectual Life. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511691706. ISBN 9780511691706. Haight, Gordon S. (1968). George Eliot: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. Henry, Nancy (2008). The Cambridge Introduction to George Eliot. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511793233. ISBN 9780511793233. Karl, Frederick R. (1995). George Eliot: Voice of a Century: A Biography, New York, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1995, ISBN 0-393-31521-5. Szirotny, June Skye (2015). George Eliot's Feminism. doi:10.1057/9781137406156. ISBN 978-1-349-48784-4. Further reading[edit] Library resources about George Eliot Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries By George Eliot Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Haight, Gordon S., ed., George Eliot: Letters, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1954, ISBN 0-300-01088-5. Henry, Nancy, The Life of George Eliot: A Critical Biography, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 Stephen, Leslie. George Eliot, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-108-01962-0 (1st ed. 1902). Context and background[edit] Beer, Gillian, Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, ISBN 0-521-78392-5. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Gubar, Susan, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1979, ISBN 0-300-08458-7. Hughes, Kathryn, George Eliot: The Last Victorian, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998, ISBN 0-374-16138-0. Maddox, Brenda, George Eliot in Love, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0230105188. Mintz, Steven. A Prison of Expectations: The Family in Victorian Culture, New York University Press, 1983. Pinney, Thomas, ed., Essays of George Eliot, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963, ISBN 0-231-02619-6. Rignall, John, ed., Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot, Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-860099-2 Shuttleworth, Sally, George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science: The Make-Believe of a Beginning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-521-25786-7. Speaight, Robert, George Eliot, London, Arthur Barker, 1954. (The English Novelists series) Uglow, Jenny, George Eliot, London, Virago Press, 1987, ISBN 0-86068-400-8. Critical studies[edit] Alley, Henry, The Quest for Anonymity: The Novels of George Eliot, University of Delaware Press, 1997. Beaty, Jerome, Middlemarch from Notebook to Novel: A Study of George Eliot's Creative Method, Champaign, Illinois, University of Illinois, 1960. Calder, Simon. "George Eliot, Spinoza, and the Ethics of Literature" in Spinoza Beyond Philosophy, Beth Lord, ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2012, 268–187. Carlisle, Clare, The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023. Carroll, Alicia, Dark Smiles: Race and Desire in George Eliot, Ohio University Press, 2003. Carroll, David, ed., George Eliot: The Critical Heritage, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971. Daiches, David, George Eliot: Middlemarch, London, Edward Arnold, 1963. Arnold, Jean, ed., Marz Harper, Lila, ed., George Eliot: Interdisciplinary Essays, Springer International Publishing, 2019. Gatens, Moira. "The Art and Philosophy of George Eliot". Philosophy and Literature 33(1) 2009, pp. 74–90. Graver, Suzanne, George Eliot and Community: A Study in Social Theory and Fictional Form, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1984. Hardy, Barbara Nathan, The Novels of George Eliot: A Study in Form. Oxford UP, 1967. Harvey, W J, The Art of George Eliot, London, Chatto & Windus, 1961. Leavis, F R, The Great Tradition, London, Chatto & Windus, 1948. External links[edit] George Eliot at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from WikisourceData from Wikidata George Eliot Archive George Eliot Review Online George Eliot Scholars The George Eliot Fellowship The Victorian Web: George Eliot George Eliot Archived 18 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine at the British Library Online editions[edit] Works by George Eliot at the George Eliot Archive, Works about George Eliot at the George Eliot Archive, George Eliot Review Online, and George Eliot Scholars Works by George Eliot in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by George Eliot at Project Gutenberg Works by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) at Faded Page (Canada) Works by or about George Eliot at the Internet Archive Works by George Eliot at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) vteGeorge EliotNovels Adam Bede (1859) The Mill on the Floss (1860) Silas Marner (1861) Romola (1862–1863) Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) Middlemarch (1871–1872) Daniel Deronda (1876) Short story collections Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) The Lifted Veil (1859) Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) Related Griff House George Henry Lewes vteGeorge Eliot's Silas MarnerFilms Silas Marner (1916) Silas Marner (1922) Bangaru Papa (1955) A Simple Twist of Fate (1994) Television Dan'l Druce, Blacksmith (1876 play) Other Michael (poem) Authority control databases InternationalISNIVIAFFASTWorldCatNationalGermanyUnited StatesFrance2BnF data2JapanItalyAustraliaCzech RepublicSpainPortugalNetherlandsNorwayLatviaCroatiaChileGreeceArgentinaKoreaSwedenPolandVaticanIsraelFinlandCataloniaBelgiumAcademicsCiNiiArtistsULANMusicBrainzPeopleTrove2Deutsche BiographieOtherIdRefSNAC2RISM
The Workshop
With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.
The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tentlike pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall. On a heap of those soft shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing-
Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run; Shake off dull sloth...
Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it presently broke out again with renewed vigour-
Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear.
Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.
It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in form and face. Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his brother's; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benign. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is not thick and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very decidedly over the brow.
The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam. The concert of the tools and Adam's voice was at last broken by Seth, who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed it against the wall, and said, "There! I've finished my door to-day, anyhow."
The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known as Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp glance of surprise, "What! Dost think thee'st finished the door?" "Aye, sure," said Seth, with answering surprise; "what's awanting to't?" A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before, "Why, thee'st forgot the panels."
The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head, and coloured over brow and crown. "Hoorray!" shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running forward and seizing the door. "We'll hang up th' door at fur end o' th' shop an' write on't 'Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.' Here, Jim, lend's hould o' th' red pot."
"Nonsense!" said Adam. "Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You'll mayhap be making such a slip yourself some day; you'll laugh o' th' other side o' your mouth then." "Catch me at it, Adam. It'll be a good while afore my head's full o' th' Methodies," said Ben. "Nay, but it's often full o' drink, and that's worse." Ben, however, had now got the "red pot" in his hand, and was about to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an imaginary S in the air.
"Let it alone, will you?" Adam called out, laying down his tools, striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. "Let it alone, or I'll shake the soul out o' your body." Ben shook in Adam's iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was, he didn't mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against the wall. But now Seth spoke.
"Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he's i' the right to laugh at me-I canna help laughing at myself." "I shan't loose him till he promises to let the door alone," said Adam. "Come, Ben, lad," said Seth, in a persuasive tone, "don't let's have a quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may's well try to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you'll leave the door alone, and make an end on't."
"I binna frighted at Adam," said Ben, "but I donna mind sayin' as I'll let 't alone at your askin', Seth." "Come, that's wise of you, Ben," said Adam, laughing and relaxing his grasp. They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm.
"Which was ye thinkin' on, Seth," he began-"the pretty parson's face or her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?" "Come and hear her, Ben," said Seth, good-humouredly; "she's going to preach on the Green to-night; happen ye'd get something to think on yourself then, instead o' those wicked songs you're so fond on. Ye might get religion, and that 'ud be the best day's earnings y' ever made."
"All i' good time for that, Seth; I'll think about that when I'm a-goin' to settle i' life; bachelors doesn't want such heavy earnin's. Happen I shall do the coortin' an' the religion both together, as YE do, Seth; but ye wouldna ha' me get converted an' chop in atween ye an' the pretty preacher, an' carry her aff?"
"No fear o' that, Ben; she's neither for you nor for me to win, I doubt. Only you come and hear her, and you won't speak lightly on her again." "Well, I'm half a mind t' ha' a look at her to-night, if there isn't good company at th' Holly Bush. What'll she take for her text? Happen ye can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i' time for't. Will't be-what come ye out for to see? A prophetess? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophetess-a uncommon pretty young woman."
"Come, Ben," said Adam, rather sternly, "you let the words o' the Bible alone; you're going too far now." "What! Are YE a-turnin' roun', Adam? I thought ye war dead again th' women preachin', a while agoo?" "Nay, I'm not turnin' noway. I said nought about the women preachin'. I said, You let the Bible alone: you've got a jest-book, han't you, as you're rare and proud on? Keep your dirty fingers to that."
"Why, y' are gettin' as big a saint as Seth. Y' are goin' to th' preachin' to-night, I should think. Ye'll do finely t' lead the singin'. But I don' know what Parson Irwine 'ull say at his gran' favright Adam Bede a-turnin' Methody." "Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I'm not a-going to turn Methodist any more nor you are-though it's like enough you'll turn to something worse. Mester Irwine's got more sense nor to meddle wi' people's doing as they like in religion. That's between themselves and God, as he's said to me many a time."
"Aye, aye; but he's none so fond o' your dissenters, for all that." "Maybe; I'm none so fond o' Josh Tod's thick ale, but I don't hinder you from making a fool o' yourself wi't." There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam's, but Seth said, very seriously. "Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody's religion's like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the Methodists have got the root o' the matter as well as the church folks."
"Nay, Seth, lad; I'm not for laughing at no man's religion. Let 'em follow their consciences, that's all. Only I think it 'ud be better if their consciences 'ud let 'em stay quiet i' the church-there's a deal to be learnt there. And there's such a thing as being oversperitial; we must have something beside Gospel i' this world. Look at the canals, an' th' aqueduc's, an' th' coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon. But t' hear some o' them preachers, you'd think as a man must be doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's agoing on inside him. I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and the Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all times-weekday as well as Sunday-and i' the great works and inventions, and i' the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o' jobs out o' working hours-builds a oven for 's wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o' one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning."
"Well done, Adam!" said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to shift his planks while Adam was speaking; "that's the best sarmunt I've heared this long while. By th' same token, my wife's been a-plaguin' on me to build her a oven this twelvemont." "There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth, gravely. "But thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un. It's the preacher as empties th' alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll do his work none the worse for that."
"On'y he'll lave the panels out o' th' doors sometimes, eh, Seth?" said Wiry Ben. "Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again' me as 'll last you your life. But it isna religion as was i' fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more's the pity." "Ne'er heed me, Seth," said Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as is mayhap cliverer."
"Seth, lad," said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself, "thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in what I said just now. Some 's got one way o' looking at things and some 's got another." "Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean'st me no unkindness," said Seth, "I know that well enough. Thee't like thy dog Gyp-thee bark'st at me sometimes, but thee allays lick'st my hand after."
All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver into his tool-basket; Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was putting out his hand towards his paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with his work as if nothing had happened. But observing the cessation of the tools, he looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, "Look there, now! I can't abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much."
Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said, "Aye, aye, Adam lad, ye talk like a young un. When y' are six-an'-forty like me, istid o' six-an'-twenty, ye wonna be so flush o' workin' for nought." "Nonsense," said Adam, still wrathful; "what's age got to do with it, I wonder? Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon. I hate to see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in 's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it."
"Bodderation, Adam!" exclaimed Wiry Ben; "lave a chap aloon, will 'ee? Ye war afinding faut wi' preachers a while agoo-y' are fond enough o' preachin' yoursen. Ye may like work better nor play, but I like play better nor work; that'll 'commodate ye-it laves ye th' more to do." With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by Mum Taft and Sandy Jim. Seth lingered, and looked wistfully at Adam, as if he expected him to say something.
"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked, looking up. "Nay; I've got my hat and things at Will Maskery's. I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from Poyser's, thee know'st." "Then I'll tell mother not to look for thee," said Adam.
"Thee artna going to Poyser's thyself to-night?" said Seth rather timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop. "Nay, I'm going to th' school." Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his head and watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other workmen departing. But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his pocket, and begin to twist his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his master's face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear more phlegmatic than nature had made him.
"What! Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?" said Adam, with the same gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth. Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, "Of course." Poor fellow, he had not a great range of expression. The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam's and Seth's dinner; and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his basket, trotting at his master's heels.
On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out, and carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard. It was a low house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking pleasant and mellow in the evening light. The leaded windows were bright and speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb tide. On the door-stone stood a clean old woman, in a dark-striped linen gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap, talking to some speckled fowls which appeared to have been drawn towards her by an illusory expectation of cold potatoes or barley. The old woman's sight seemed to be dim, for she did not recognize Adam till he said, "Here's the key, Dolly; lay it down for me in the house, will you?"
"Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam? Miss Mary's i' th' house, and Mester Burge 'ull be back anon; he'd be glad t' ha' ye to supper wi'm, I'll be's warrand." "No, Dolly, thank you; I'm off home. Good evening." Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of the workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and down to the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted stockings.
Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struck across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day long been running in his head:
Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear; For God's all-seeing eye surveys Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.

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Word Lists:

Text : a book or other written or printed work, regarded in terms of its content rather than its physical form

Workshop : a room or building in which goods are manufactured or repaired.

Modulation : the exertion of a modifying or controlling influence on something

Illusory : based on illusion; not real

Phlegmatic : (of a person) having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition

Allay : diminish or put at rest (fear, suspicion, or worry)

Stalwart : loyal, reliable, and hardworking

Panel : a flat or curved component, typically rectangular, that forms or is set into the surface of a door, wall, or ceiling

Relaxing : reducing tension or anxiety

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Additional Information:

Rating: C Words in the Passage: 3324 Unique Words: 1,034 Sentences: 164
Noun: 1443 Conjunction: 298 Adverb: 189 Interjection: 10
Adjective: 257 Pronoun: 354 Verb: 487 Preposition: 313
Letter Count: 12,988 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral (Slightly Conversational) Difficult Words: 597
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