open arms

George Eliot George Eliot, pseudonym of Marian Evans (1819-1880) This article appeared in The Times Literary Supplement of 20 November 1919, and was reprinted in The Common Reader: First Series. Virginia Woolf also wrote on George Eliot in the Daily Herald of 9 March 1921 and the Nation and Athenaeum of 30 October 1926. To read George Eliot attentively is to become aware how little one knows about her. It is also to become aware of the credulity, not very creditable …

… Triumphant was the issue for her, whatever it may have been for her creations, and as we recollect all that she dared and achieved, how with every obstacle against her - sex and health and convention - she sought more knowledge and more freedom till the body, weighted with its double burden, sank worn out, we must lay upon her grave whatever we have it in our power to bestow of laurel and rose.