She had the misfortune at seventeen to
lose her mother, and for years after she managed her father's house.
Evidently the old farmer, whom his daughter has sketched with loving
hand in _Adam Bede_, took great pride in the mental superiority of his
daughter, for he hired tutors for her in Latin, Greek, Italian and
German. All four languages she mastered as few college men master
them. She read everything, both old and new, and her intimacy with the
wife of Charles Bray of Coventry led her to refuse to go to church.
This free thinking angered her father and caused him to demand that
she leave his house. After three weeks her love and her keen sense of
duty led her to conform to her father's wishes and to resume the
church-going, which in his eyes was a part of life that could not be
dropped.
But that early departure from the established religion carried her
into the field of German skepticism. She translated Strauss' _Life of
Jesus_. For three years her studies were interrupted by the serious
illness of her father. When he died she went to Geneva and remained on
the Continent a year. Then she came home and took up her residence
with the Brays. The development of her mind was very rapid. She served
for some time as editor of the WESTMINSTER REVIEW. She then formed
a strong friendship with Herbert Spencer, and through Spencer she met
George Henry Lewes, who made a special study of Goethe and the German
philosophers, and who was the editor of the LEADER, the organ of the
Free Thinkers.
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