Amos, Milly, and the Countess, under their real names, were a familiar tradition of the place, and Milly's grave is still pointed out in the quiet country churchyard. These portraits of places and people were soon recognized, and the only question remaining to be solved was, who among the residents of the regions described was capable of writing such a story?
The popular voice soon fixed upon a gentleman by the name of Liggins, who had once run through a fortune at Cambridge and was accordingly considered a person of marked accomplishments. Mr. Liggins at first denied the authorship imputed to him, but he was not believed, and made no very earnest endeavors to convince his admiring neighbors of their mistake. At last, indeed, he ceased altogether to make denials, and a claim was put forward in the Times in his behalf. It ran as follows:
"Sir,—The author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede,' is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. You may easily satisfy yourself of my correctness by inquiring of any one in that neighborhood. Mr. Liggins himself and the characters whom he paints are as familiar there as the twin spires of Coventry. Yours obediently, H. Anders, Rector of Kirkby."
The next day, appeared George Eliot's reply:
"Sir,—The Rev. H. Anders has with questionable delicacy and unquestionable inaccuracy assured the world through your columns that the author of Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede' is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuneaton. I beg distinctly to deny that statement. I declare on my honor that that gentleman never saw a line of those works until they were printed, nor had he any knowledge of them whatever. Allow me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen? If not, the attempt to pry into what is obviously meant to be withheld—my
