Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/213

 9"-s.x. SEPT. 13,1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tion that Theresa who is altogether an exceptionally fine character, equally in in- tellect and heart is a portrait of George Eliot, or, rather, Miss Evans, I cite the following parallel passages :

' Bookman ' A rticle. ' A utobiography.'

She [George Eliot] had My own room was at a dark room at the end the top of the house, of a long dark passage, warm, quiet, and com- and in that room I have fortable, although the read proofs to her. My view >was nothing but a own room, the quietest I wide * reaching assem- have known in London, blage of chimney - pots.

I wont to Theresa's

study and began to read. She took the manuscript and 1 took the proof.

She had yellowish hair, which was naturally waved, a big arched head, greyish-blue eyes, so far as I could make out, and a mouth which, although it had curves in it, was compressed and indica- tive of great force of character.

or out of it, was over hers, and looked across the river to the Norwood hills.

She was attractive personally. Her hair was particularly beauti- ful, and in her grey eyes there was a curiously shifting light, generally soft and tender, but con- vertible into the keenest flash.

one evening, as I shall never forget, to me alone. She was not, I suppose, a first-rate per- former, but she more than satisfied me, and I was, I am afraid, a little incoherent in my thanks.

She was generous to a

She delighted in music, She was fond of music, and played Beethoven and occasionally I asked her to play to me. She had a great contempt for bungling, and not being a professional player, she would never try a piece in my presence of which she was not perfectly

master On my asking

her once to play Beet- hoven, she turned round upon me and said : " You like Beethoven best. I knew you would."

I found by the merest

degree which nobody now accident that nearly all living can measure, and her earnings were given she not only gave money to necessitous friends, but took pains to serve

them It was foolish of

me to let my intercourse with her drop. Its cessa- tion was mainly due to that careless, wasteful indifference of youth which leads us to neglect the most precious oppor- tunities.

The foregoing passages, even if they do not, in the opinion of some readers, strengthen my supposition that Theresa and Miss Evans are identical, will be regarded, at any rate, as interesting and suggestive. JOHN GRIGOR.

GRASS WIDOW. The following appears in the Athenaeum, for 16 August :

"More than once letters have appeared in your columns on the history and antiquity of the term 'grass widow.' Hitherto, I believe, the earliest known instance of its use was in an article in the

with utmost secrecy to support a couple of poor

relatives I had a mind

to write to her ; but I felt, as I have often felt before in great crises, a restraint which was gentle and incompre- hensible, but neverthe- less unmistakable.

Calcutta Review in the forties. I have now found it in Hickey's Bengal Gazette for August 12th to 19th, 1780. It occurs in a bogus advertisement alleged to be copied from a Dublin paper, and purporting to be inserted by a French schoolmistress. The pas- sage, in what is intended to be French-English, runs as follows : 'Me be de grass widow, and mai Hus- ban he de very great scoundril and be runna away from me.' The phrase was evidently well known, and it is possible that some other investigator may be able to discover a still earlier instance, and throw some light on its genesis. SYDNEY C. GRIER."

For very much earlier instances of its use I may refer to ' N. & Q.,' 8 th S. vi. 495, wherein your correspondents have given extracts from the church registers of Halstead, Essex, dated 9 October, 1654, and of St. Nicholas's, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1627. Again, in the parish registers of St. I ves, Cornwall, under the year 1741, the marriage is recorded of "Elizabeth Williams, a 'grass widow.'"

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

[" Grasse wydowes " is used by More in 1528 ; see'H.E.D.']

FRANCISCAN AND* MASON. On the death of Liszt a singular contention arose between the Franciscans and the Freemasons for the possession of his remains. The uncompromis- ing attitude of Roman Catholics towards Freemasonry is well known. It has been expressly condemned by bulls from five Popes, as noted in 'Chambers's Encyclopaedia,' and yet Liszt succeeded in remaining openly a distinguished member of both communities. Liszt joined the Masons in 1841 at Frank- fort. From 1845 he was an honorary member of the lodge Modestia cum Libertate at Zurich. In 1870 he was named Master by the Union Lodge at Budapest, and the Masonic journal announcing the fact observed, " If ever there was a Freemason who could boast of the good graces of Pius IX. and Leo XIII. it is Brother Franz Liszt, who was made Abbe at Home in 1865." The Franciscans at Budapest main- tained that Liszt had always expressed a desire to repose in their midst, and in sup- port of their claims they produced letters with his signature in which he described himself as " Tertii Ordinis Sancti Francisci." For these details I am indebted to Le Figaro, 20 Dec., 1886. B. D. MOSELEY.

"WHIPPING THE CAT." The following notes on this phrase contained in the Daily Chronicle of 3 and 4 July seem to me to deserve permanent record in 'N. & Q.' :

" On Saturday last we inquired the meaning of the phrase 'whipping the cat.' A correspondent, himself a tailor, with an aged father and a grand- father who whipped the cat, explains it as an old- fashioned term in the tailoring trade, in former