Morris, Dinah

Mrs. Poyser's niece, a beautiful and saintly young Methodist preacher whose one thought is to obey and imperative call to preach the gospel and to spend herself in the service of those who need her. "She stood and turned her grey eyes on the people. There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations; they had the liquid look which tells that the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by external objects. She stood with her left hand towards the descending sun, and leafy boughs screened her from its rays; but in this sober light the delicate colouring of her face seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening. It was a small oval face, of a uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and a low perpendicular brow, burmounted by a rising arch of parting between smooth locks of pale reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears, and covered, except for an inch or two, above the brow, by a net Quaker cap. The eyebrows, of the same colour as the hair, were perfectly horizontal and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and abundant; nothing was left blurred or unfinished. It was one of those faces that make one think of white flowers with light touches of colour on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar beauty, beyond that of expression; they looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their glance." She lives at Snowfield, where she works in a mill, but at the opening of the story she is visiting her aunt at Hayslope, where she preaches movingly on the village Green. Seth Bede has long been in love with her, but Adam Bede has never seen her until, at the time of his father's death, she comes to his cottage to help his grief-stricken mother. Her sense of religious duty causes her to try to lead vain little Hetty Sorrel to a higher life, and while she produces no religious impression on Hetty, she leaves with her a sense of love which makes the girl turn to her later in her despair. Dinah is away from home when Hetty is tried for murder and sentenced to death, but she hurries to Hetty's prison as soon as the news reaches her, and there prays and talks with the stricken girl until she touches her heart and induces her to make the confession which she had obstinately refused to make. She goes with Hetty to the place of execution, and is with her when the reprieve arrives at the last minute. When his grief about Hetty has been somewhat softened, Adam Bede discovers that he is in love with Dinah, and eventually she marries him. The original of Dinah
Morris was Elizabeth Evans, the wife of George Eliot's uncle, Samuel Evans, al though, as George Eliot herself says, the character is not an exact portrait. Mrs. Evans, whom George Eliot speaks of as "my Methodist Aunt Samuel", was an eloquent and well-known Wesleyan preacher, and some of her characteristics and experiences appear in Dinah Morris. One of Elizabeth Evans's striking experiences, when she induced an ignorant girl who had been convicted of child-murder to make a confession, and afterwards rode in the cart with her to the place of execution, gave George Eliot the idea for the climax of Adam Bede. Her connexion with Dinah Morris has been commemorated in the table erected to her memory in the Ebenezer Wesleyan Chapel in Wirksworth ("Snowfield") which reads "Elizabeth Evans, known to the world as Dinah Bede". (See Cross, George Eliot's Life, vol. 2, pp. 65-7 ; for a detailed account of the life of Elizabeth Evans, see Mottram, True story of George Eliot in relation to Adam Bede.)

<em>Adam Bede</em>

Text