Daniel Deronda

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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 Welshman 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 (1814–59), Isaac (1816–1890), and twin brothers who died a few days after birth in March 1821. She also had a half-brother, Robert Evans (1802–64), and half-sister, Frances "Fanny" Evans Houghton (1805–82), 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 (1817–78) 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 Marian 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. She was much older than he, likely generating comments, but it pleased her brother Isaac. 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 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, 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. "Henry James Visits the Priory". 19. ^ 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 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 Stephen, Leslie. George Eliot, Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-108-01962-0 (1st ed. 1902). 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 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 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 International FAST ISNI VIAF National Norway Chile Spain France 2 BnF data 2 Argentina Catalonia Germany Italy Israel Finland Belgium United States Sweden Latvia Japan Czech Republic Australia Greece Korea Croatia Netherlands Poland Portugal Vatican Academics CiNii Artists MusicBrainz ULAN People Deutsche Biographie Trove 2 Other RISM SNAC 2 IdRef
DEAREST CHILD.-I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child-I wish I could prepare you for it better-but a dreadful calamity has befallen us all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally ruined-your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory-there is not a corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us, and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in the cloud-I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put yourself under some one else's care for the journey. But come as soon as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,
FANNY DAVILOW- The first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The implicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease, where any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for, had been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there by her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a large part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to believe suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of humiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong current of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would really come. She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off her hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth light-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room; and as on other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at herself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took no conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right before her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting for any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw herself in the corner of the red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice deliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested her clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no tears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than to wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of "Poor mamma!" Her mamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if Gwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have bestowed it on herself-for was she not naturally and rightfully the chief object of her mamma's anxiety too? But it was anger, it was resistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost her gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this one day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might have gone on playing and won enough to support them all. Even now was it not possible? She had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she possessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in stylish society at German baths that there was no need to be ashamed of it; and even if she had not received her mamma's letter, she would probably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she happened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might have done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some intensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her disposal and a return of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do better than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home disapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly would, still the money would be there. Gwendolen's imagination dwelt on this course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken confidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been touched with the gambler's mania. She had gone to the roulette-table not because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely capable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of winning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with alternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank sensitively. For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any misfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way indebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry to any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and remonstrances. The course that held the least risk of intolerable annoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell the Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving a reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid with her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning home, but her will was peremptory.
Instead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and began to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the scenes that might take place on the coming day-now by the tiresome explanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed home, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing again at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was the presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony, and-the two keen experiences were inevitably revived together-beholding her again forsaken by luck. This importunate image certainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate departure, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a change of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve when she came into her room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left out only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the white blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of going to bed? Her cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace of fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting. Before six o'clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling dress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she could count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a naïve delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest saintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day seen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as well as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles, while for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in the growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the cheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great or small.
Madame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen could safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the Obere Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after seven. At that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on their walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their bedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the Czarina from which eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener's door. This was a chance to be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had struck her fancy? This implicit falsehood passed through her mind as she remembered that the Czarina was Deronda's hotel; but she was then already far up the Obere Strasse, and she walked on with her usual floating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in gentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in them too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the revival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which gave little Mr. Wiener nothing to remark except her proud grace of manner, and the superior size and quality of the three central turquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a chain once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the necklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently part with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be superstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a romantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most prosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of raising needful money. Gwendolen's dominant regret was that after all she had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew dealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians unfortunate at play! But she was the Langens' guest in their hired apartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more than take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the remaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right on, day and night. As she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated herself in the salon to await her friends and breakfast, she still wavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to tell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma desiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should start. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one enter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes shut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens-the words which might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed to pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for Miss Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen took it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She looked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma's letter. Something-she never quite knew what-revealed to her before she opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just parted with. Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric handkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on which was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting-"A stranger who has found Miss Harleth's necklace returns it to her with the hope that she will not again risk the loss of it."
Gwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner of the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid of a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of "the stranger" that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must have seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after and repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and had dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she do?-Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent her the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to face the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the "stranger" were he and no other, it would be something too gross for her to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again with that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was entangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling at her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor. Gwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling down her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony and contempt. One thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to quit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the public salon, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of seeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast was ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace, cambric, scrap of paper, and all into her nécessaire, pressed her handkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to summon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such signs of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with the account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing, instead of waiting for help from her friend's maid. There was much protestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she persisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be put into the ladies' compartment and go right on. She could rest exceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing.
In this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the roulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels, and on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and her family were soon to say a last good-bye.

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Word Lists:

Importunate : persistent, especially to the point of annoyance or intrusion

Humdrum : lacking excitement or variety; dull; monotonous

Turquoise : a greenish-blue color

Supercilious : behaving or looking as though one thinks one is superior to others

Implicit : implied though not plainly expressed

Exasperating : intensely irritating and frustrating

Vexation : the state of being annoyed, frustrated, or worried

Rationalism : a belief or theory that opinions and actions should be based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious belief or emotional response

Stylish : fashionably elegant and sophisticated

Complacency : a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements

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Additional Information:

Rating: Words in the Passage: 2769 Unique Words: 905 Sentences: 96
Noun: 592 Conjunction: 285 Adverb: 183 Interjection: 2
Adjective: 176 Pronoun: 353 Verb: 533 Preposition: 352
Letter Count: 12,110 Sentiment: Positive Tone: Conversational Difficult Words: 545
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