Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/102

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
94
GEORGE ELIOT.

novels. The Red Deeps which figure so prominently in the Mill on the Floss were a favorite resort of hers close to her own home. Cheveril Manor, so beautifully depicted in Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, was Arbury Hall, the seat of the Newdegate family, her father's early employers. Knebley, described in the same story, was Astley Church. The Shepperton of Amos Barton was Chilvers Coton, and Milby, in Janet's Repentance, was Nuneaton itself.

When Miss Evans was fifteen her mother died, and the family removed to Foleshill, near Coventry, where she remained until the death of her father in 1849. Her education had been commenced at Nuneaton under the charge of Mrs. Wallingford, an excellent teacher, to whom she probably owed much of her beauty of intonation in reading poetry. It was continued at Coventry, where she received instruction from Miss Franklin, a lady of whom she always spoke with deep gratitude and respect, and from Mr. Sheepshanks, the head-master of the grammar-school, who taught her Greek and Latin. She also received lessons in French, German, and Italian, and acquired through her own unaided efforts a considerable knowledge of Hebrew, and studied music, of which she was passionately fond, with the organist of a neighboring church. Later in life she played well upon the piano.

It is a satisfaction to be assured by her biographer that her education was not merely an affair of the brain. Her hands acquired skill, and she learned in early life the priceless art of laboring with patient cheerfulness at homely tasks. Miss Blind tells us, that,

"For some years after her mother's death, Miss Evans and her father remained alone together at Griff House. He offered to get a housekeeper, as not the house only, but farm matters, had to be looked after, and he was