Dodsons, The

Mrs. Tulliver's family, whose superiority is felt by all its members. "The Dodsons were a very respectable family indeed--as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or the next to it…. There were particular ways of doing everything in that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottle gooseberries; so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege of having been born a Dodson rather than a Gibosn or a Watson... When one of the family was in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated." "A conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was its genuineness: its vices and virtues alike were phases of a proud, honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be frankly hard of speech to inconvenient 'kin', but would never forsake or ignore them —would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs." George Eliot's mother, Mrs. Robert Evans, was a Pearson, and it is admitted that her family, the Pearsons, were the originals of the Dodsons. There were three other sisters married and living near Mrs. Evans--Mrs. Everard, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Garner, the originals of Aunt Glegg, Aunt Pullet, and Aunt Deane. (See Cross, George Eliot's Life, vol. i, pp. 13-14.)

<em>The Mill on the Floss</em>

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