The Kapellmeister

Rosamond played admirably. Her master at Mrs. Lemon\u27s school (close to a county town with a memorable history that had its relics in church and castle) was one of those excellent musicians here and there to be found in our provinces, worthy to compare with many a noted Kapellmeister in a country which offers more plentiful conditions of musical celebrity. Rosamond, with the executant\u27s instinct, had seized his manner of playing, and gave forth his large rendering of noble music with the precision of an echo. It was almost startling, heard for the first time. A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from Rosamond\u27s fingers. Middlemarch Chap XVI George Eliot was always careful to point out that while there were no direct portrayals of actual people in her fiction, her characters ~ drawn from acute observation of human behaviour in all its variety. Thus, we can surmise from the nature and sequence of the events in Middlemarch (whose sub-title is A Study in Provincial Life ) that the fictional life might well be a reflection of the actual history of Coventry, which Mary Ann Evans had ample opportunity to study during her young life in the Midlands. Indeed, it is possible to get a little closer than surmise, when we find for example, the author calling a Middlemarch inn \u27The Green Dragon\u27, for there ~ an inn of that name in central Coventry, across the road from the ribbon warehouse owned by Charles Bray! There are good grounds, therefore, for the belief that there were actual people in the mind\u27 s-eye of George Eliot when she was working -and the above brief reference to a music teacher is a case in point. We know from her journals that Mary Ann was given piano lessons at Griff by Edward Simms who came over from Coventry where he was organist in St. Michael\u27s Church (later to become Coventry Cathedral). Simms was a remarkable man, a pillar of the musical scene in Coventry for over half the nineteenth century. He was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 1800, and died in Coventry ninety-two years later. He had musical ability from an early age, and at thirteen was playing the church organ at Womborne in Staffordshire. He was sixteen when he went to London to study the organ under Thomas Adams at S t. Dunstan\u27 s in the East in the City. Adams had a reputation as having noteworthy gifts of improvisation, and was known as \u27The Thalberg of the organ\u27 - a significant title, as will be seen. Simms\u27s other teacher in London, for the piano, was the eminent German pianist, composer and teacher Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785- 1849) who was in London for nine years up to 1823. Whilst studying with this famous man, who had once taught Chopin, Simms moved in the highest musical circles. He met Thomas Attwood, who had been Mozart\u27s pupil; Attwood took him to a private recital and introduced him to Mendelssohn

Chariman\u27s Address at the Annual General Meeting of the Fellowship, 11 March 2006

My Address at the AGM is usually concerned with our plans and hopes for the future but perhaps on this rather special day I may be allowed a glance at the past. Last week I chaired a Council meeting for the last time; my first one was on 6 March 1971 - 35 years ago. When I succeeded Stan Dickens as Chairman in 1971 it was just two years after the remarkable success of the Fellowship\u27s efforts to Commemorate the 150th anniversary of George Eliot\u27s birth in 1969. That event became the foundation for our optimistic growth in the 1970s which in tum enabled us to undertake what were, for us, immense tasks; in 1980 the Westminster Abbey Memorial Stone and attendant celebration, and in 1986, the statue of George Eliot here in Nuneaton. The museum recorded over 6,000 visitors to the George Eliot exhibition in 1969; from this we knew that there was widespread public interest; our own membership increased enormously as the years went by. In the 1990s our events were still well supported, but often the same faces would appear in the audience and we seemed to reach a point from which it seemed difficult to climb higher. A new effort is now required, and in the next few years there will be tremendous opportunities to renew our growth. In 2007 it will be just 150 years since George Eliot\u27s first fiction was published anonymously in Blad.wood\u27s Magazine - Scenes of Clerical Life. In 1858 the identity of George Eliot was revealed; in 1859 Adam Bede was published and in 1860 The Mill on the Floss appeared, followed in 1861 by Silas Marner

Chariman\u27s Address at the Annual General Meeting of the Fellowship, 11 March 2006

My Address at the AGM is usually concerned with our plans and hopes for the future but perhaps on this rather special day I may be allowed a glance at the past. Last week I chaired a Council meeting for the last time; my first one was on 6 March 1971 - 35 years ago. When I succeeded Stan Dickens as Chairman in 1971 it was just two years after the remarkable success of the Fellowship\u27s efforts to Commemorate the 150th anniversary of George Eliot\u27s birth in 1969. That event became the foundation for our optimistic growth in the 1970s which in tum enabled us to undertake what were, for us, immense tasks; in 1980 the Westminster Abbey Memorial Stone and attendant celebration, and in 1986, the statue of George Eliot here in Nuneaton. The museum recorded over 6,000 visitors to the George Eliot exhibition in 1969; from this we knew that there was widespread public interest; our own membership increased enormously as the years went by. In the 1990s our events were still well supported, but often the same faces would appear in the audience and we seemed to reach a point from which it seemed difficult to climb higher. A new effort is now required, and in the next few years there will be tremendous opportunities to renew our growth. In 2007 it will be just 150 years since George Eliot\u27s first fiction was published anonymously in Blad.wood\u27s Magazine - Scenes of Clerical Life. In 1858 the identity of George Eliot was revealed; in 1859 Adam Bede was published and in 1860 The Mill on the Floss appeared, followed in 1861 by Silas Marner

An Echo of The Holy War

George Eliot\u27s \u27Holy War\u27 began on 2 January 1842 and lasted for four and a half months. That day her father made a significant entry in his Journal: \u27Went to Trinity Church in the forenoon ... Mary Ann did not go\u27. In the protracted dispute with her father that followed this refusal to accompany him to church, her friends the Sibrees arranged for her to meet the Rev. Francis Watts, Professor of Theology at Spring Hill College, Birmingham, to try to help her resolve her difficulties. Their meeting probably took place in March 1842, and subsequently she wrote him six letters between April 1842 and February 1843. All of these letters are published from typewritten copies held in the National Library of Scotland. These copies were made sometime during the last hundred or so years, after which the originals disappeared from view into unknown private hands. In 1998 the George Eliot Fellowship was approached for advice on behalf of a lady wishing to dispose of a letter thought to have been written by George Eliot from Solihull. Since there is no known connection between the novelist and Solihull we asked for a photocopy to enable the handwriting and other details to be checked. When the copy came it was clearly in George Eliot\u27s hand, and headed not \u27Solihull\u27, but \u27Foleshill\u27. Mary Ann began all her letters in this way when she was living at Bird Grove with her father from 1841 to 1849. There was no date on the letter, but an accompanying envelope was endorsed (in a different hand) \u27M. A. Evans to Frs Watts (11th April 1842),. The next check revealed that there was indeed a letter to him written that day and published in The George Eliot Letters from a manuscript at Yale University - but the text was entirely different! However, a further search of the published letters soon revealed the truth: the \u27new\u27 letter was the original of the one dated \u27[4 July 1842]\u27. Using funds from the generous legacy from the estate of the late Daphne Carrick, the Fellowship was able to negotiate the purchase of the letter itself for presentation on loan to Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery to ensure its proper preservation and display. There is one small but significant difference between the published version and the original. In the penultimate paragraph, the phrase \u27It gives me much pain to think\u27 I should read \u27It gives me acute pain to think\u27. The difference might be said to reflect the \u27acuteness\u27 with which the great novelist always chooses words in her correspondence

Review of The Leavises on Fiction: An Historic Partnership

Trying to follow the polemics of literary criticism is rather like trying to understand the progress of an aerial battle from the ground. One is aware of much noise and the incomprehensible twistings of the vapour trails of argument. However, anyone having the least interest in English literature cannot fail to have heard of the battling Leavises, or indeed, to recognise the spare features and uncompromising expressions of both spouses. It was this vague layman\u27s interest which led me to open Dr. Robertson\u27s book, with the thought - how can anyone looking as pugnacious as F.R. Leavis have the delicacy of thought necessary to appreciate great literature? The Introduction was sufficient to convince me that I must read on. It is concise and informative and leads with a clear light into the succeeding chapters. It must be said that to appreciate the latter fully one should have read the Leavises\u27 own work, but there is guidance enough given by Dr. Robertson to make that reading a very enlightening task

Westminster Abbey Wreath-Laying

It seems incredible that it is now eleven years since the very exciting and moving day in June 1980 when a great congregation of some seven hundred people witnessed the consecration of this memorial to George Eliot. In the years before, the Fellowship Council had to make some momentous decisions. Among the most important was the choice of an inscription for the stone - words which would be on view here in the Abbey to millions of visitors for perhaps hundreds of years into the future. We needed to find a phrase which came as close as possible to an expression of George Eliot\u27s philosophy. According to our records, the choice was made at a meeting in September 1975; I read with interest and not a little frisson of pride, that the Chairman made two suggestions, one of which was adopted. This is the reason why Michael Forrest was asked to read to you today the passage from \u27Janees Repentance\u27 containing the quotation, \u27The first condition of human goodness is something to love, the second something to reverence\u27. I want to consider whether we achieved our aim. In the story George Eliot is clearly talking about the effect of a religious faith on human behaviour. She herself, as a young girl, had ardently embraced religion as a foundation of her life, and at this most impressionable age she witnessed at first hand the plight of the very poor in Nuneaton and Bedworth. We are often temporarily upset by the sanitised version of poverty and starvation shown on our TV screens; it is different actually to be amongst those in dire need, and I think we should remember that the condition of the poorest people in the early nineteenth century was akin to that of those in the so-called Third World today. The religious ardour of Mary Ann Evans faded, but there remained perhaps the most powerful emotion which influenced her adult life - compassion. This awareness of the need to give love and to receive it was strengthened both by her innate reticence and her painful conviction of her own ugliness

Book reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Guest Editorial Special Issue on Using Enquiry-and-Design-Based Learning to Spur Epistemological and Identity Development of Engineering Students

This Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Education focuses on using enquiry-based design projects to spur engineering students’ development, so as to increase understanding and application of the relevant theories, foster higher rates of student development and achieve this in healthy and productive ways

Recommendations to improve wildlife exposure estimation for development of soil screening and cleanup values

An integral component in the development of media-specific values for the ecological risk assessment of chemicals is the derivation of safe levels of exposure for wildlife. Although the derivation and subsequent application of these values can be used for screening purposes, there is a need to identify the threshold for effects when making remedial decisions during site-specific assessments. Methods for evaluation of wildlife exposure are included in the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) ecological soil screening levels (Eco-SSLs), registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemicals (REACH), and other risk-based soil assessment approaches. The goal of these approaches is to ensure that soil-associated contaminants do not pose a risk to wildlife that directly ingest soil, or to species that may be exposed to contaminants that persist in the food chain. These approaches incorporate broad assumptions in the exposure and effects assessments and in the risk characterization process. Consequently, thresholds for concluding risk are frequently very low with conclusions of risk possible when soil metal concentrations fall in the range of natural background. A workshop held in September, 2012 evaluated existing methods and explored recent science about factors to consider when establishing appropriate remedial goals for concentrations of metals in soils. A Foodweb Exposure Workgroup was organized to evaluate methods for quantifying exposure of wildlife to soil-associated metals through soil and food consumption and to provide recommendations for the development of ecological soil cleanup values (Eco-SCVs) that are both practical and scientifically defensible. The specific goals of this article are to review the current practices for quantifying exposure of wildlife to soil-associated contaminants via bioaccumulation and trophic transfer, to identify potential opportunities for refining and improving these exposure estimates, and finally, to make recommendations for application of these improved models to the development of site-specific remedial goals protective of wildlife. Although the focus is on metals contamination, many of the methods and tools discussed are also applicable to organic contaminants. The conclusion of this workgroup was that existing exposure estimation models are generally appropriate when fully expanded and that methods are generally available to develop more robust site-specific exposure estimates. Improved realism in site-specific wildlife Eco-SCVs could be achieved by obtaining more realistic estimates for diet composition, bioaccumulation, bioavailability and/or bioaccessibility, soil ingestion, spatial aspects of exposure, and target organ exposure. These components of wildlife exposure estimation should be developed on a site-, species-, and analyte-specific basis to the extent that the expense for their derivation is justified by the value they add to Eco-SCV development

The effect of temperature and salinity on growth rate and azaspiracid cellquotas in two strains ofAzadinium poporum (Dinophyceae)from PugetSound, Washington State

Azaspiracids (AZA) are novel lipophilic polyether marine biotoxins associated with azaspiracid shellfish poisoning (AZP). Azaspiracid-59 (AZA-59) is a new AZA that was recently detected in strains of Azadinium poporum from Puget Sound, Washington State. In order to understand how environmental factors affect AZA abundances in Puget Sound, a laboratory experiment was conducted with two local strains of A. poporum to estimate the growth rate and AZA-59 (both intra- and extracellular) cell quotas along temperature and salinity gradients. Both strains of A. poporum grew across a wide range of temperatures (6.7 °C to 25.0 °C), and salinities (15 to 35). Growth rates increased with increasing temperature up to 20.0 °C, with a range from 0.10 d−1 to 0.42 d−1. Both strains of A. poporum showed variable growth rates from 0.26 d−1 to 0.38 d−1 at salinities from 15 to 35. The percentage of intracellular AZA-59 in both strains was generally higher in exponential than in stationary phase along temperature and salinity gradients, indicating higher retention of toxin in actively growing cells. Cellular toxin quotas varied by strain in both the temperature and salinity treatments but were highest at the lowest growth rates, especially for the faster growing strain, NWFSC1011. Consistent with laboratory experiments, field investigations in Sequim Bay, WA, during 2016–2018 showed that A. poporum was detected when salinity and temperature became favorable to higher growth rates in June and July. Although current field data of A. poporum in Puget Sound indicate a generally low abundance, the potential of local A. poporum to adapt to and grow in a wide range of temperature and salinity may open future windows for blooms. Although increased temperatures, anticipated for the Puget Sound region over the next decades, will enhance the growth of A. poporum, these higher temperatures will not necessarily support higher toxin cell quotas. Additional sampling and assessment of the total toxicity of AZA-59 will provide the basis for a more accurate estimation of risk for azaspiracid poisoning in Puget Sound shellfish