[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_Jan. 1._--I have set myself many tasks for the year--I wonder how
many will be accomplished?--a novel called "Middlemarch," a long poem
on Timoleon, and several minor poems.
_Jan. 23._--Since I wrote last I have finished a little poem on old
Agatha. But the last week or two I have been so disturbed in health
that no work prospers. I have made a little way in constructing my new
tale; have been reading a little on philology; have finished the 24th
Book of the "Iliad," the 1st Book of the "Faery Queene," Clough's
poems, and a little about Etruscan things, in Mrs. Grey and Dennis.
Aloud to G. I have been reading some Italian, Ben Jonson's "Alchemist"
and "Volpone," and Bright's speeches, which I am still reading,
besides the first four cantos of "Don Juan." But the last two or three
days I have seemed to live under a leaden pressure--all movement,
mental or bodily, is grievous to me. In the evening read aloud
Bright's fourth speech on India, and a story in Italian. In the
_Spectator_ some interesting facts about loss of memory and "double
life." In the _Revue des Cours_, a lecture by Sir W. Thomson, of
Edinburgh, on the retardation of the earth's motion round its axis.
_Jan. 27._--The last two days I have been writing a rhymed poem on
Boccaccio's story of "Lisa." Aloud I have read Bright's speeches, and
"I Promessi Sposi." To myself I have read Mommsen's "Rome."
_Feb. 6._--We went to the third concert. Madame Schumann played finely
in Mendelssohn's quintet, and a trio of Beethoven's. As a solo she
played the sonata in D minor. In the evening I read aloud a short
speech of Bright's on Ireland, delivered twenty years ago, in which he
insists that nothing will be a remedy for the woes of that country
unless the Church Establishment be annulled: after the lapse of twenty
years the measure is going to be adopted. Then I read aloud a bit of
the "Promessi Sposi," and afterwards the _Spectator_, in which there
is a deservedly high appreciation of Lowell's poems.
_Feb. 14._--Finished the poem from Boccaccio. We had rather a numerous
gathering of friends to-day, and among the rest came Browning, who
talked and quoted admirably _à propos_ of versification. The Rector of
Lincoln thinks the French have the most perfect system of
versification in these modern times!
_Feb. 15._--I prepared and sent off "How Lisa Loved the King" to
Edinburgh.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Feb. 1869.]
I have looked back to the verses in Browning's poem about Elisha, and
I find no mystery in them. The foregoing context for three pages
describes that function of genius which revivifies the past. Man, says
Browning (I am writing from recollection of his general meaning),
cannot create, but he can restore: the poet gives forth of his own
spirit, and reanimates the forms that lie breathless. His use of
Elisha's story is manifestly symbolical, as his mention of Faust
is--the illustration which he abandons the moment before to take up
that of the Hebrew seer. I presume you did not read the context
yourself, but only had the two concluding verses pointed out or quoted
to you by your friends. It is one of the afflictions of authorship to
know that the brains which should be used in understanding a book are
wasted in discussing the hastiest misconceptions about it; and I am
sure you will sympathize enough in this affliction to set any one
right, when you can, about this quotation from Browning.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_Feb. 20._--A glorious concert: Hallé, Joachim, and Piatti winding up
with Schubert's trio.
_Feb. 21._--Mr. Deutsch and Mrs. Pattison lunched with us--he in
farewell before going to the East. A rather pleasant gathering of
friends afterwards.
_Feb. 24._--I am reading about plants, and Helmholtz on music. A new
idea of a poem came to me yesterday.
_March 3._--We started on our fourth visit to Italy, viâ France and
the Cornice.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1869, from Paris.]
I found your letter at Florence on our arrival there (on the 23d); but
until now bodily ease and leisure enough to write to you have never
happened to me in the same moments. Our long journey since we left
home on the 3d March, seen from a point of view which, happily, no one
shares with me, has been a history of ailments. In shunning the
English March, we found one quite as disagreeable, without the
mitigation of home comforts; and though we went even as far as Naples
in search of warmth, we never found it until we settled in Rome, at
the beginning of April. Here we had many days of unbroken sunshine,
and enjoyed what we were never able to enjoy during our month's stay
in 1860--the many glorious views of the city and the mountains. The
chief novelty to us in our long route has been the sight of Assisi and
Ravenna; the rest has been a revisiting of scenes already in our
memories; and to most of them we have probably said our last
good-bye. Enough of us and our travels. The only remarkable thing
people can tell of their doings in these days is that they have stayed
at home.
The _Fortnightly_ lay uncut at Mr. Trollope's, and Mr. Lewes had
nothing more pressing to do than to cut it open at the reply to
Professor Huxley.[6] He presently came to me, and said it was
excellent. It delighted him the more because he had just before, at
Rome, alighted on the _Pall Mall_ account of the article, which
falsely represented it as entirely apologetic. At the first spare
moment I plunged into an easy-chair, and read, with thorough
satisfaction in the admirable temper and the force of the reply. We
intend to start for Calais this evening; and as the rain prevents us
from doing anything agreeable out of doors, I have nothing to hinder
me from sitting, with my knees up to my chin, and scribbling, now that
I am become a little sounder in head and in body generally than
beautiful Italy allowed me to be. As beautiful as ever--more
beautiful--it has looked to me on this last visit; and it is the fault
of my _physique_ if it did not agree with me. Pray offer my warmest
sympathy to Dr. Congreve in the anxieties of his difficult task. What
hard work it seems to go on living sometimes! Blessed are the dead.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_May 5._--We reached home after our nine weeks' absence. In that time
we have been through France to Marseilles, along the Cornice to
Spezia, then to Pisa, Florence, Naples, Rome, Assisi, Perugia,
Florence again, Ravenna, Bologna, Verona; across the Brenner Pass to
Munich; then to Paris _viâ_ Strasburg. In such a journey there was
necessarily much interest both in renewing old memories and recording
new; but I never had such continuous bad health in travelling as I
have had during these nine weeks. On our arrival at home I found a
delightful letter from Mrs. H. B. Stowe, whom I have never seen,
addressing me as her "dear friend."
It was during this journey that I, for the first time, saw my
future wife, at Rome. My eldest sister had married Mr. W. H.
Bullock (now Mr. W. H. Hall), of Six-Mile-Bottom,
Cambridgeshire, and they were on their wedding journey at
Rome when they happened to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lewes by chance
in the Pamfili Doria Gardens. They saw a good deal of one
another, and when I arrived, with my mother and another
sister, we went by invitation to call at the Hôtel Minerva,
where Mr. Lewes had found rooms on their first arrival in
Rome. I have a very vivid recollection of George Eliot
sitting on a sofa with my mother by her side, entirely
engrossed with her. Mr. Lewes entertained my sister and me on
the other side of the room. But I was very anxious to hear
also the conversation on the sofa, as I was better acquainted
with George Eliot's books than with any other literature. And
through the dimness of these fifteen years, and all that has
happened in them, I still seem to hear, as I first heard
them, the low, earnest, deep, musical tones of her voice; I
still seem to see the fine brows, with the abundant
auburn-brown hair framing them, the long head, broadening at
the back, the gray-blue eyes, constantly changing in
expression, but always with a very loving, almost
deprecating, look at my mother, the finely-formed, thin,
transparent hands, and a whole _Wesen_ that seemed in
complete harmony with everything one expected to find in the
author of "Romola." The next day Mr. and Mrs. Lewes went on
to Assisi and we to Naples, and we did not meet again till
the following August at Weybridge.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th May, 1869.]
I value very highly the warrant to call you friend which your letter
has given me. It lay awaiting me on our return, the other night, from
a nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost wish that you
could have a momentary vision of the discouragement--nay, paralyzing
despondency--in which many days of my writing life have been passed,
in order that you might fully understand the good I find in such
sympathy as yours--in such an assurance as you give me that my work
has been worth doing. But I will not dwell on any mental sickness of
mine. The best joy your words give me is the sense of that sweet,
generous feeling in you which dictated them, and I shall always be the
richer because you have in this way made me know you better. I must
tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman came through a letter
of yours, and charmed me very much. The letter was addressed to Mrs.
Follen; and one morning when I called on her in London (how many years
ago![7]) she was kind enough to read it to me because it contained a
little history of your life, and a sketch of your domestic
circumstances. I remember thinking that it was very kind of you to
write that long letter in reply to the inquiries of one who was
personally unknown to you; and looking back with my present experience
I think it was still kinder than it then appeared. For at that time
you must have been much oppressed with the immediate results of your
fame. I remember, too, that you wrote of your husband as one who was
richer in Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as the
ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar interest to me,
I have rarely had your image in my mind without the accompanying image
(more or less erroneous) of such a scholar by your side. I shall
welcome the fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes. In the
meantime let me assure you that whoever else gave you that description
of my husband's "History of Philosophy"--namely, "that it was to solve
and settle all things"--he himself never saw it in that light. The
work has been greatly altered, as well as enlarged, in three
successive editions; and his mind is so far from being a captive to
his own written words that he is now engaged in physiological and
psychological researches which are leading him to issues at variance
in some important respects with the views expressed in some of his
published works. He is one of the few human beings I have known who
will often, in the heat of an argument, see, and straightway confess,
that he is in the wrong, instead of trying to shift his ground or use
any other device of vanity.
I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as to the obstacles
your new book may find here from its thorough American character. Most
readers who are likely to be really influenced by writing above the
common order will find that special aspect an added reason for
interest and study, and I dare say you have long seen, as I am
beginning to see with new clearness, that if a book which has any sort
of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular, widely circulated
book, its power over the social mind for any good is, after all, due
to its reception by a few appreciative natures, and is the slow result
of radiation from that narrow circle. I mean, that you can affect a
few souls, and that each of these in turn may affect a few more, but
that no exquisite book tells properly and directly on a multitude,
however largely it may be spread by type and paper. Witness the things
the multitude will say about it, if one is so unhappy as to be obliged
to hear their sayings. I do not write this cynically, but in pure
sadness and pity. Both travelling abroad, and staying at home among
our English sights and sports, one must continually feel how slowly
the centuries work towards the moral good of men. And that thought
lies very close to what you say as to your wonder or conjecture
concerning my religious point of view. I believe that religion, too,
has to be modified--"developed," according to the dominant phrase--and
that a religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must express less
care for personal consolation, and a more deeply-awing sense of
responsibility to man, springing from sympathy with that which of all
things is most certainly known to us, the difficulty of the human lot.
I do not find my temple in Pantheism, which, whatever might be its
value speculatively, could not yield a practical religion, since it is
an attempt to look at the universe from the outside of our relations
to it (that universe) as human beings. As healthy, sane human beings,
we must love and hate--love what is good for mankind, hate what is
evil for mankind. For years of my youth I dwelt in dreams of a
pantheistic sort, falsely supposing that I was enlarging my sympathy.
But I have travelled far away from that time. Letters are necessarily
narrow and fragmentary, and, when one writes on wide subjects, are
liable to create more misunderstanding than illumination. But I have
little anxiety of that kind in writing to you, dear friend and
fellow-laborer, for you have had longer experience than I as a writer,
and fuller experience as a woman, since you have borne children and
known the mother's history from the beginning. I trust your quick and
long-taught mind as an interpreter little liable to mistake me.
When you say, "We live in an orange grove and are planting many more,"
and when I think that you must have abundant family love to cheer you,
it seems to me that you must have a paradise about you. But no list of
circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless, I must believe that
the joyous, tender humor of your books clings about your more
immediate life, and makes some of that sunshine for yourself which you
have given to us.
I see the advertisement of "Old Town Folk," and shall eagerly expect
it.
That and every other new link between us will be reverentially valued.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_May 8_ (Saturday).--Poor Thornie arrived from Natal, sadly wasted by
suffering.
_May 24._--Sold "Agatha" to Fields & Osgood, for the _Atlantic
Monthly_, for £300.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 26th May, 1869.]
That "disturbance" in my favorite work, with which you and Dr.
Congreve are good enough to sympathize, is unhappily greater now than
it has been for years before. Our poor Thornie came back to us about
seventeen days ago. We can never rejoice enough that we were already
at home, seeing that we held it impossible for him to set out on his
voyage until at least six weeks later than he did. Since he arrived
our lives have been chiefly absorbed by cares for him; and though we
now have a nurse to attend on him constantly, we spend several hours
of the day by his side. There is joy in the midst of our trouble, from
the tenderness towards the sufferer being altogether unchecked by
anything unlovable in him. Thornie's disposition seems to have become
sweeter than ever with the added six years; and there is nothing that
we discern in his character or habits to cause us grief. Enough of our
troubles. I gather from your welcome letter, received this morning,
that there is a good deal of enjoyment for you in your temporary home,
in spite of bad weather and faceache, which I hope will have passed
away when you read this.
Mr. Beesley[8] wrote to me to tell me of his engagement, and on Sunday
we had the pleasure of shaking him by the hand and seeing him look
very happy. His is one of a group of prospective marriages which we
have had announced to us since we came home. Besides Mr. Harrison's,
there is Dr. Allbut's, our charming friend at Leeds. I told Mr.
Beesley that I thought myself magnanimous in really rejoicing at the
engagements of men friends, because, of course, they will be
comparatively indifferent to their old intimates.
Dear Madame Bodichon is a precious help to us. She comes twice a week
to sit with Thornie, and she is wonderfully clever in talking to young
people. One finds out those who have real practical sympathy in times
of trouble.
[Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 9th June, 1869.]
Your letter has fulfilled two wishes of mine. It shows me that you
keep me in your kind thoughts, and that you are very happy. I had been
told by our friends, the Nortons, of your engagement, but I knew
nothing more than that bare fact, and your letter gives me more of a
picture. A very pretty picture--for I like to think of your love
having grown imperceptibly along with sweet family affections. I do
heartily share in your happiness, for however space and time may keep
us asunder, you will never to my mind be lost in the distance, but
will hold a place of marked and valued interest quite apart from those
more public hopes about you which I shall not cease to cherish.
Both Mr. Lewes and I shall be delighted to see you any evening. I
imagine that when you are obliged to stay in town the evening will be
the easiest time for you to get out to us. Any time after eight you
will find us thoroughly glad to shake hands with you. Do come when you
can.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_July 3._--Finished my reading in Lucretius. Reading Victor Hugo's
"L'homme qui rit;" also the Frau von Hillern's novel, "Ein Arzt der
Seele." This week G. and I have been to Sevenoaks, but were driven
home again by the cold winds and cloudy skies. "Sonnets on
Childhood"--five--finished.
_July 10._--I wrote to Mrs. Stowe, in answer to a second letter of
hers, accompanied by one from her husband.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 11th July, 1869.]
I hoped before this to have seen our friend, Mrs. Fields, on her
return from Scotland, and to have begged her to send you word of a
domestic affliction which has prevented me from writing to you since I
received your and your husband's valued letters. Immediately on our
return from Italy, Mr. Lewes's second son, a fine young man of
five-and-twenty, returned to us from Natal, wasted by suffering from
a long-standing spinal injury. This was on the 8th of May, and since
then we have both been absorbed in our duties to this poor child, and
have felt our own health and nervous energy insufficient for our
needful activity of body and mind. He is at present no better, and we
look forward to a long trial. Nothing but a trouble so great as this
would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank
you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I
have received and read "Old Town Folks." I think few of your many
readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture
of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root--one,
in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its
affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic, and
of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father
and mother, with their relations; the other is, my experimental
acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your
way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own,
except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true
tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed
on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one
misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you
sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which, I can
see, has been a labor of love.
Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the indications which
the Professor gives of his peculiar psychological experience, and we
should feel it a great privilege to learn much more of it from his
lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying
exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in every
way distinguished mind. He will, I am sure, accept the brief thanks
which I can give in this letter, for all that he has generously
written to me. He says, "I have had no connection with any of the
modern movements, except as father confessor;" and I can well believe
that he must be peculiarly sensitive to the repulsive aspects which
those movements present. Your view as to the cause of that "great wave
of spiritualism" which is rushing over America--namely, that it is a
sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement towards the invisible existence of
the loved ones, is deeply affecting. But so far as "spiritualism" (by
which I mean, of course, spirit-communication, by rapping, guidance of
the pencil, etc.) has come within reach of my judgment on our side of
the water, it has appeared to me either as degrading folly, imbecile
in the estimate of evidence, or else as impudent imposture. So far as
my observation and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed
to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured methods of studying
the open secret of the universe any large amount of attention to
alleged manifestations which are so defiled by low adventurers and
their palpable trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the
doubtfulness of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed,
which testimonies are no more true objectively because they are honest
subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is true because it seemed to
Tycho Brahé a better explanation of the heavenly movements than the
Copernican. This is a brief statement of my position on the subject,
which your letter shows me to have an aspect much more compulsory on
serious attention in America than I can perceive it to have in
England. I should not be as simply truthful as my deep respect for you
demands, if I did not tell you exactly what is my mental attitude in
relation to the phenomena in question. But whatever you print on the
subject and will send me I shall read with attention, and the idea you
give me of the hold which spiritualism has gained on the public mind
in the United States is already a fact of historic importance.
Forgive me, dear friend, if I write in the scantiest manner,
unworthily responding to letters which have touched me profoundly. You
have known so much of life, both in its more external trials and in
the peculiar struggles of a nature which is made twofold in its
demands by the yearnings of the author as well as of the woman, that I
can count on your indulgence and power of understanding my present
inability to correspond by letter.
May I add my kind remembrances to your daughter to the high regard
which I offer to your husband?
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_July 14._--Returned from Hatfield, after two days' stay.
_July 15._--Began Nisard's "History of French
Literature"--Villehardouin, Joinville, Froissart, Christine de Pisan,
Philippe de Comines, Villers.
_July 16._--Read the articles Phoenicia and Carthage in "Ancient
Geography." Looked into Jewitt's "Universal History" again for
Carthaginian religion. Looked into Sismondi's "Littérature du Midi"
for Roman de la Rose; and ran through the first chapter about the
formation of the Romance languages. Read about _Thallogens_ and
_Acrogens_ in the "Vegetable World." Read Drayton's "Nymphidia"--a
charming poem--a few pages of his "Polyolbion." Re-read Grote,
v.-vii., on Sicilian affairs, down to rise of Dionysius.
_July 18._--Miss Nannie Smith came, after a long absence from England;
Professor Masson and Dr. Bastian, Madame Bodichon, and Dr. Payne. Some
conversation about Saint-Simonism, _à propos_ of the meeting on
Woman's Suffrage the day before, M. Arles Dufour being uneasy because
Mill did not in his speech recognize what women owed to
Saint-Simonism.
_July 19._--Writing an introduction to "Middlemarch." I have just
re-read the 15th Idyll of Theocritus, and have written three more
sonnets. My head uneasy. We went in the afternoon to the old
water-colors, finding that the exhibition was to close at the end of
the week. Burne-Jones's Circe and St. George affected me, by their
colors, more than any of the other pictures--they are poems. In the
evening read Nisard on Rabelais and Marot.
_July 22._--Read Reybaud's book on "Les Réformateurs Modernes." In the
afternoon Mrs. P. Taylor came and saw Thornie, who has been more
uneasy this week, and unwilling to move or come out on the lawn.
_July 23._--Read Theocritus, Id. 16. Meditated characters for
"Middlemarch." Mrs. F. Malleson came.
_July 24._--Still not quite well and clear-headed, so that little
progress is made. I read aloud Fourier and Owen, and thought of
writing something about Utopists.
_July 25._--Read Plato's "Republic" in various parts. After lunch Miss
Nannie Smith, Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, and Mr. Deutsch. In the evening
I read Nisard, and Littré on Comte.
_Aug. 1._--Since last Sunday I have had an uncomfortable week from
mental and bodily disturbance. I have finished eleven sonnets on
"Brother and Sister," read Littré, Nisard, part of 22d Idyll of
Theocritus, Sainte-Beuve, aloud to G. two evenings. Monday evening
looked through Dickson's "Fallacies of the Faculty." On Tuesday
afternoon we went to the British Museum to see a new bronze, and I was
enchanted with some fragments of glass in the Slade collection, with
dyes of sunset in them. Yesterday, sitting in Thornie's room, I read
through all Shakespeare's "Sonnets." Poor Thornie has had a miserably
unsatisfactory week, making no progress. After lunch came Miss N.
Smith and Miss Blythe, Mr. Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Burne-Jones, and Mr.
Sanderson.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 1st Aug. 1869.]
My last words to you might appear to imply something laughably opposed
to my real meaning. "Think of me only as an example" meant--an example
to be avoided. It was an allusion in my mind to the servant-girl who,
being arrested for theft, said to her fellow-servant, "Take example by
me, Sally." With the usual caprice of language, we say. "Make an
example of her," in that sense of holding up for a warning, which the
poor girl and I intended.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_Aug. 2._--Began "Middlemarch" (the Vincy and Featherstone parts).
_Aug. 5._--Thornie during the last two or three days gives much more
hopeful signs: has been much more lively, with more regular appetite
and quieter nights. This morning I finished the first chapter of
"Middlemarch." I am reading Renouard's "History of Medicine."
_Aug. 31._--We went to Weybridge, walked on St. George's Hill, and
lunched with Mrs. Cross and her family.
This visit to Weybridge is a very memorable one to me,
because there my own first intimacy with George Eliot began,
and the bonds with my family were knitted very much closer.
Mr. and Mrs. Bullock were staying with us; and my sister, who
had some gift for music, had set one or two of the songs from
the "Spanish Gypsy." She sang one of them--"On through the
woods, the pillared pines"--and it affected George Eliot
deeply. She moved quickly to the piano, and kissed Mrs.
Bullock very warmly, in her tears. Mr. and Mrs. Lewes were in
deep trouble owing to the illness of Thornton Lewes; we were
also in much anxiety as to the approaching confinement of my
sister with her first child; and I was on the eve of
departure for America. Sympathetic feelings were strong
enough to overleap the barrier (often hard to pass) which
separates acquaintanceship from friendship. A day did the
work of years. Our visitors had come to the house as
acquaintances, they left it as lifelong friends. And the
sequel of that day greatly intensified the intimacy. For
within a month my sister had died in childbirth, and her
death called forth one of the most beautiful of George
Eliot's letters. A month later Thornton Lewes died.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_Sept. 1._--I meditated characters and conditions for "Middlemarch,"
which stands still in the beginning of chapter iii.
_Sept. 2._--We spent the morning in Hatfield Park, arriving at home
again at half-past three.
_Sept. 10._--I have achieved little during the last week, except
reading on medical subjects--Encyclopædia about the "Medical
Colleges," "Cullen's Life," Russell's "Heroes of Medicine," etc. I
have also read Aristophanes' "Ecclesiazusoe," and "Macbeth."
_Sept. 11._--I do not feel very confident that I can make anything
satisfactory of "Middlemarch." I have need to remember that other
things which have been accomplished by me were begun under the same
cloud. G. has been reading "Romola" again, and expresses profound
admiration. This is encouraging.
_Sept. 15._--George and I went to Sevenoaks for a couple of nights,
and had some delicious walks.
_Sept. 21._--Finished studying again Bekker's "Charikles." I am
reading Mandeville's Travels. As to my work, _im Stiche gerathen_.
Mrs. Congreve and Miss Bury came; and I asked Mrs. Congreve to get me
some information about provincial hospitals, which is necessary to my
imagining the conditions of my hero.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1869.]
As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy
social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of
family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals,
and pamphlets is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence
likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that
moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce
in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As
to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his
poetry, I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most
_vulgar-minded_ genius that ever produced a great effect in
literature.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1869.]
_Sept. 22._--We went down to Watford for a change.
_Sept. 24._--Returned home this morning because of the unpromising
weather. It is worth while to record my great depression of spirits,
that I may remember one more resurrection from the pit of melancholy.
And yet what love is given to me! What abundance of good I possess!
All my circumstances are blessed; and the defect is only in my own
organism. Courage and effort!
_Oct. 5._--Ever since the 28th I have been good for little, ailing in
body and disabled in mind. On Sunday an interesting Russian pair came
to see us--M. and Mme. Kovilevsky: she, a pretty creature, with
charming modest voice and speech, who is studying mathematics (by
allowance, through the aid of Kirchhoff) at Heidelberg; he, amiable
and intelligent, studying the concrete sciences apparently--especially
geology; and about to go to Vienna for six months for this purpose,
leaving his wife at Heidelberg!
I have begun a long-meditated poem, "The Legend of Jubal," but have
not written more than twenty or thirty verses.
_Oct. 13._--Yesterday Mr. W. G. Clark of Cambridge came to see us, and
told of his intention to give up his oratorship and renounce his
connection with the Church.
I have read rapidly through Max Müller's "History of Sanskrit
Literature," and am now reading Lecky's "History of Morals." I have
also finished Herbert Spencer's last number of his "Psychology." My
head has been sadly feeble, and my whole body ailing of late. I have
written about one hundred verses of my poem. Poor Thornie seems to us
in a state of growing weakness.
_Oct. 19._--This evening at half-past six our dear Thornie died. He
went quite peacefully. For three days he was not more than fitfully
and imperfectly conscious of the things around him. He went to Natal
on the 17th October, 1863, and came back to us ill on the 8th May,
1869. Through the six months of his illness his frank, impulsive mind
disclosed no trace of evil feeling. He was a sweet-natured boy--still
a boy, though he had lived for twenty-five years and a half. On the
9th of August he had an attack of paraplegia, and although he
partially recovered from it, it made a marked change in him. After
that he lost a great deal of his vivacity, but he suffered less pain.
This death seems to me the beginning of our own.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1869.]
The day after our dear boy's funeral we went into the quietest and
most beautiful part of Surrey, four miles and a half from any railway
station. I was very much shaken in mind and body, and nothing but the
deep calm of fields and woods would have had a beneficent effect on
me. We both of us felt, more than ever before, the blessedness of
being in the country, and we are come back much restored. It will
interest you, I think, to know that a friend of ours, Mr. W. G. Clark,
the public orator at Cambridge, laid down his oratorship as a
preparatory step to writing a letter to his bishop renouncing, or,
rather, claiming to be free from, his clerical status, because he no
longer believes what it presupposes him to believe. Two other men whom
we know are about to renounce Cambridge fellowships on the same
ground.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 31st Dec. 1869.]
We shall be delighted to have you on Monday. I hope you will get your
business done early enough to be by a good fire in our drawing-room
before lunch. Mr. Doyle is coming to dine with us, but you will not
mind that. He is a dear man, a good Catholic, full of varied
sympathies and picturesque knowledge.
[Sidenote: Letter to Frederic Harrison, 15th Jan. 1870.]
I am moved to write to you rather by the inclination to remind you of
me than by the sense of having anything to say. On reading "The
Positivist Problem"[9] a second time, I gained a stronger impression
of its general value, and I also felt less jarred by the more personal
part at the close. Mr. Lewes would tell you that I have an
unreasonable aversion to personal statements, and when I come to like
them it is usually by a hard process of _con_-version. But my second
reading gave me a new and very strong sense that the last two or three
pages have the air of an appendix, added at some distance of time from
the original writing of the article. Some more thoroughly explanatory
account of your non-adhesion seems requisite as a nexus--since the
statement of your non-adhesion had to be mentioned after an argument
for the system against the outer Gentile world. However, it is more
important for me to say that I felt the thorough justice of your
words, when, in conversation with me, you said, "I don't see why there
should be any mystification; having come to a resolution after much
inward debate, it is better to state the resolution." Something like
that you said, and I give a hearty "Amen," praying that I may not be
too apt myself to prefer the haze to the clearness. But the fact is, I
shrink from decided "deliverances" on momentous subjects from the
dread of coming to swear by my own "deliverances," and sinking into an
insistent echo of myself. That is a horrible destiny--and one cannot
help seeing that many of the most powerful men fall into it.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Mch. 1870.]
Cara has told me about your republication of the "Inquiry," and I have
a longing to write--not intrusively, I hope--just to say "thank you"
for the good it does me to know of your being engaged in that act of
piety to your brother's memory. I delight in the act itself, and in
the satisfaction which I know you have in performing it. When I
remember my own obligation to the book, I must believe that among the
many new readers a cheap edition will reach there must be minds to
whom it will bring welcome light in studying the New Testament--sober,
serious help towards a conception of the past, instead of stage-lights
and make-ups. And this value is, I think, independent of the opinions
that might be held as to the different degrees of success in the
construction of probabilities or in particular interpretations.
Throughout there is the presence of grave sincerity. I would gladly
have a word or two directly from yourself when you can scribble a note
without feeling me a bore for wanting it. People who write many
letters without being forced to do so are fathomless wonders to me,
but you have a special faculty for writing such letters as one cares
to read, so it is a pity that the accomplishment should lie quite
unused. I wonder if you have read Emerson's new essays. I like them
very much.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d April, 1870.]
We shall leave Berlin on Tuesday, so that I must ask you to send me
the much-desired news of you to Vienna, addressed to the Hon. Robert
Lytton, British Embassy. We do not yet know the name of the hotel
where rooms have been taken for us. Our journey has not been
unfortunate hitherto. The weather has been cold and cheerless, but we
expected this, and on the 1st of April the sun began to shine. As for
my _Wenigkeit_, it has never known a day of real bodily comfort since
we got to Berlin: headache, sore throat, and _Schnupfen_ have been
alternately my companions, and have made my enjoyment very languid.
But think of this as all past when you get my letter; for this
morning I have a clearer head, the sun is shining, and the better time
seems to be come for me. Mr. Lewes has had a good deal of satisfaction
in his visits to laboratories and to the _Charité_, where he is just
now gone for the third time to see more varieties of mad people, and
hear more about Psychiatrie from Dr. Westphal, a quiet, unpretending
little man, who seems to have been delighted with George's sympathetic
interest in this (to me) hideous branch of practice. I speak with all
reverence: the world can't do without hideous studies.
People have been very kind to us, and have overwhelmed us with
attentions, but we have felt a little weary in the midst of our
gratitude, and since my cold has become worse we have been obliged to
cut off further invitations.
We have seen many and various men and women, but except Mommsen,
Bunsen, and Du Bois Reymond, hardly any whose names would be known to
you. If I had been in good health I should probably have continued to
be more amused than tired of sitting on a sofa and having one person
after another brought up to bow to me, and pay me the same compliment.
Even as it was, I felt my heart go out to some good women who seemed
really to have an affectionate feeling towards me for the sake of my
books. But the sick animal longs for quiet and darkness.
The other night, at Dr. Westphal's, I saw a young English lady
marvellously like Emily in face, figure, and voice. I made advances to
her on the strength of that external resemblance, and found it carried
out in the quickness of her remarks. But new gentlemen to be introduced
soon divided us. Another elegant, pretty woman there was old Boeckh's
daughter. One enters on all subjects by turns in these evening
parties, which are something like reading the Conversations-Lexicon in
a nightmare. Among lighter entertainments we have been four times to
the opera, being tempted at the very beginning of our stay by Gluck,
Mozart, and an opportunity of hearing Tannhäuser for the second time.
Also we have enjoyed some fine orchestral concerts, which are to be had
for sixpence! Berlin has been growing very fast since our former stay
here, and luxury in all forms has increased so much that one only here
and there gets a glimpse of the old-fashioned German housekeeping. But
though later hours are becoming fashionable, the members of the
Reichstag who have other business than politics complain of having to
begin their sitting at eleven, ending, instead of beginning, at four,
when the solid day is almost gone. We went to the Reichstag one
morning, and were so fortunate as to hear Bismarck speak. But the
question was one of currency, and his speech was merely a brief
winding-up.
Now I shall think that I have earned a letter telling me all about
you. May there be nothing but good to tell of! Pray give my best love
to Emily, and my earnest wishes to Dr. Congreve, that he may have
satisfaction in new work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th May, 1870.]
I gladly and gratefully keep the portrait.[10] For my own part, I
should have said, without hesitation, "Prefix it to the 'Inquiry.'"
One must not be unreasonable about portraits. How can a thing which is
always the same be an adequate representation of a living being who is
always varying--especially of a living being who is sensitive, bright,
many-sided, as your brother was? But I think the impression which this
portrait gives excites interest. I am often sorry for people who lose
half their possible good in the world by being more alive to
deficiencies than to positive merits.
I like to know that you have felt in common with me while you read
"Jubal." Curiously enough, Mr. Lewes, when I first read it to him,
made just the remark you make about the scene of Jubal coming with the
lyre. We laughed at Mr. Bray's sharp criticism. Tell him it is not the
fashion for authors ever to be in the wrong. They have always
justifying reasons. But also it is the fashion for critics to know
everything, so that the authors don't think it needful to tell their
reasons.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1870.]
_May 20._--I am fond of my little old book in which I have recorded so
many changes, and shall take to writing in it again. It will perhaps
last me all through the life that is left to me. Since I wrote in it
last, the day after Thornie's death, the chief epochs have been our
stay at Limpsfield, in Surrey, till near the beginning of December; my
writing of "Jubal," which I finished on the 13th of January; the
publication of the poem in the May number of _Macmillan's Magazine_;
and our journey to Berlin and Vienna, from which we returned on the
6th of this month, after an absence of eight weeks. This is a
fortnight ago, and little has been done by me in the interim. My
health is in an uncomfortable state, and I seem to be all the weaker
for the continual depression produced by cold and sore throat, which
stretched itself all through our long journey. These small bodily
grievances make life less desirable to me, though every one of my best
blessings--my one perfect love, and the sympathy shown towards me for
the sake of my works, and the personal regard of a few friends--have
become much intensified in these latter days. I am not hopeful about
future work. I am languid, and my novel languishes too. But to-morrow
may be better than to-day.
_May 25._--We started for Oxford, where we were to stay with the
Rector of Lincoln and his wife. After luncheon G. and I walked alone
through the town, which, on this first view, was rather disappointing
to me. Presently we turned through Christ Church into the meadows, and
walked along by the river. This was beautiful to my heart's content.
The buttercups and hawthorns were in their glory, the chestnuts still
in sufficiently untarnished bloom, and the grand elms made a border
towards the town. After tea we went with Mrs. Pattison and the rector
to the croquet-ground near the Museum. On our way we saw Sir Benjamin
Brodie, and on the ground Professor Rawlinson, the "narrow-headed
man;" Mrs. Thursfield and her son, who is a Fellow (I think, of
Corpus); Miss Arnold, daughter of Mr. Thomas Arnold, and Professor
Phillips, the geologist. At supper we had Mr. Bywater and Miss Arnold,
and in chat with them the evening was passed.
_May 26._--G. and I went to the Museum, and had an interesting morning
with Dr. Rolleston, who dissected a brain for me. After lunch we went
again to the Museum, and spent the afternoon with Sir Benjamin Brodie,
seeing various objects in his laboratories; among others, the method
by which weighing has been superseded in delicate matters by
_measuring_ in a graduated glass tube. Afterwards Mrs. Pattison took
me a drive in her little pony carriage round by their country refuge,
the Firs, Haddington, and by Littlemore, where I saw J. H. Newman's
little conventual dwelling. Returning, we had a fine view of the
Oxford towers. To supper came Sir Benjamin and Lady Brodie.
_May 27._--In the morning we walked to see the two Martyrs' Memorial,
and then to Sir Benjamin Brodie's pretty place near the river and
bridge. Close by their grounds is the original ford whence the place
took its name. The Miss Gaskells were staying with them, and, after
chatting some time, we two walked with Sir Benjamin to New College,
where we saw the gardens surrounded by the old city wall; the chapel
where William of Wykeham's crosier is kept; and the cloisters, which
are fine, but gloomy, and less beautiful than those of Magdalen, which
we saw in our walk on Thursday before going to the Museum. After lunch
we went to the Bodleian, and then to the Sheldonian Theatre, where
there was a meeting _à propos_ of Palestine Exploration. Captain
Warren, conductor of the Exploration at Jerusalem, read a paper, and
then Mr. Deutsch gave an account of the interpretation, as hitherto
arrived at, of the Moabite Stone. I saw squeezes of this stone for the
first time, with photographs taken from the squeezes. After tea Mrs.
Thursfield kindly took us to see a boat-race. We saw it from the Oriel
barge, under the escort of Mr. Crichton, Fellow of Merton, who, on our
return, took us through the lovely gardens of his college. At supper
were Mr. Jowett, Professor Henry Smith, and Miss Smith, his sister,
Mr. Fowler, author of "Deductive Logic," etc.
_May 28._--After a walk to St. John's College we started by the train
for London, and arrived at home about two o'clock.
_May 29._--Mr. Spencer, Mrs. Burne-Jones, and Mr. Crompton came. I
read aloud No. 3 of "Edwin Drood."
_May 30._--We went to see the autotypes of Michael Angelo's frescoes,
at 36 Rathbone Place. I began Grove on the "Correlation of the
Physical Forces"--needing to read it again--with new interest, after
the lapse of years.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th June, 1870.]
Dr. Reynolds advises Mr. Lewes to leave London again, and go to the
bracing air of the Yorkshire coast. I said that we should be here till
the beginning of August, but the internal order proposes and the
external order disposes--if we are to be so priggish as to alter all
our old proverbs into agreement with new formulas! Dickens's death
came as a great shock to us. He lunched with us just before we went
abroad, and was telling us a story of President Lincoln having told
the Council, on the day he was shot, that something remarkable would
happen, because he had just dreamt, for the third time, a dream which
twice before had preceded events momentous to the nation. The dream
was, that he was in a boat on a great river, all alone, and he ended
with the words, "I drift--I drift--I drift." Dickens told this very
finely. I thought him looking dreadfully shattered then. It is
probable that he never recovered from the effect of the terrible
railway accident.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 23d June, 1870, from Cromer.]
We have been driven away from home again by the state of Mr. Lewes's
health. Dr. Reynolds recommended the Yorkshire coast; but we wanted to
know Cromer, and so we came here first, for the sake of variety. To me
the most desirable thing just now seems to be to have one home, and
stay there till death comes to take me away. I get more and more
disinclined to the perpetual makeshifts of a migratory life, and care
more and more for the order and habitual objects of home. However,
there are many in the world whose whole existence is a makeshift, and
perhaps the formula which would fit the largest number of lives is "a
doing without, more or less patiently." The air just now is not very
invigorating anywhere, I imagine, and one begins to be very anxious
about the nation generally, on account of the threatening drought.
[Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton (now Lady Lytton),
8th July, 1870, from Harrogate.]
I did not like to write to you[11] until Mr. Lytton sent word that I
might do so, because I had not the intimate knowledge that would have
enabled me to measure your trouble; and one dreads, of all things, to
speak or write a wrong or unseasonable word when words are the only
signs of interest and sympathy that one has to give. I know now, from
what your dear husband has told us, that your loss is very keenly felt
by you, that it has first made you acquainted with acute grief, and
this makes me think of you very much. For learning to love any one is
like an increase of property--it increases care, and brings many new
fears lest precious things should come to harm. I find myself often
thinking of you with that sort of proprietor's anxiety, wanting you to
have gentle weather all through your life, so that your face may never
look worn and storm-beaten, and wanting your husband to be and do the
very best, lest anything short of that should be disappointment to
you. At present the thought of you is all the more with me because
your trouble has been brought by death; and for nearly a year death
seems to me my most intimate daily companion. I mingle the thought of
it with every other, not sadly, but as one mingles the thought of some
one who is nearest in love and duty with all one's motives. I try to
delight in the sunshine that will be when I shall never see it any
more. And I think it is possible for this sort of impersonal life to
attain great intensity--possible for us to gain much more independence
than is usually believed of the small bundle of facts that make our
own personality. I don't know why I should say this to you, except
that my pen is chatting as my tongue would if you were here. We women
are always in danger of living too exclusively in the affections, and
though our affections are, perhaps, the best gifts we have, we ought
also to have our share of the more independent life--some joy in
things for their own sake. It is piteous to see the helplessness of
some sweet women when their affections are disappointed; because all
their teaching has been that they can only delight in study of any
kind for the sake of a personal love. They have never contemplated an
independent delight in ideas as an experience which they could confess
without being laughed at. Yet surely women need this sort of defence
against passionate affliction even more than men. Just under the
pressure of grief, I do not believe there is any consolation. The word
seems to me to be drapery for falsities. Sorrow must be sorrow, ill
must be ill, till duty and love towards all who remain recover their
rightful predominance. Your life is so full of those claims that you
will not have time for brooding over the unchangeable. Do not spend
any of your valuable time now in writing to me, but be satisfied with
sending me news of you through Mr. Lytton when he has occasion to
write to Mr. Lewes.
I have lately finished reading aloud Mendelssohn's "Letters," which we
had often resolved and failed to read before. They have been quite
cheering to us from the sense they give of communion with an eminently
pure, refined nature, with the most rigorous conscience in art. In
the evening we have always a concert to listen to--a concert of modest
pretensions, but well conducted enough to be agreeable.
I hope this letter of chit-chat will not reach you at a wrong moment.
In any case, forgive all mistakes on the part of one who is always
yours sincerely and affectionately.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1870.]
_Aug. 4._--Two months have been spent since the last record! Their
result is not rich, for we have been sent wandering again by G.'s want
of health. On the 15th June we went to Cromer, on the 30th to
Harrogate, and on the 18th July to Whitby, where Mrs. Burne-Jones also
arrived on the same day. On Monday, August 1, we came home again for a
week only, having arranged to go to Limpsfield next Monday. To-day,
under much depression, I begin a little dramatic poem,[12] the subject
of which engaged my interest at Harrogate.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1870.]
We, too, you see, have come back to a well-tried refuge--the same
place that soothed us in our troubles last October--and we especially
delight in this deep country after the fuss which belongs even to
quiet watering-places, such as Cromer, Harrogate, and Whitby, which
are, after all, "alleys where the gentle folks live." We are excited,
even among the still woods and fields, by the vicissitudes of the war,
and chiefly concerned because we cannot succeed in getting the day's
_Times_. We have entered into the period which will be marked in
future historical charts as "The period of German ascendency." But how
saddening to think of the iniquities that the great harvest-moon is
looking down on! I am less grieved for the bloodshed than for the
hateful trust in lies which is continually disclosed. Meanwhile
Jowett's "Translation of Plato" is being prepared for publication, and
he has kindly sent us the sheets of one volume. So I pass from
discussions of French lying and the Nemesis that awaits it to
discussions about rhetorical lying at Athens in the fourth century
before Christ. The translations and introductions to the "Dialogues"
seem to be charmingly done.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 25th Aug. 1870.]
We shall return to town on Monday, various small reasons concurring to
make us resolve on quitting this earthly paradise. I am very sorry for
the sufferings of the French nation; but I think these sufferings are
better for the moral welfare of the people than victory would have
been. The war has been drawn down on them by an iniquitous government;
but in a great proportion of the French people there has been
nourished a wicked glorification of selfish pride, which, like all
other conceit, is a sort of stupidity, excluding any true conception
of what lies outside their own vain wishes. The Germans, it seems,
were expected to stand like toy-soldiers for the French to knock them
down. It is quite true that the war is in some respects the conflict
of two differing forms of civilization. But whatever charm we may see
in the southern Latin races, this ought not to blind us to the great
contributions which the German energies have made in all sorts of ways
to the common treasure of mankind. And who that has any spirit of
justice can help sympathizing with them in their grand repulse of the
French project to invade and divide them? If I were a Frenchwoman,
much as I might wail over French sufferings, I cannot help believing
that I should detest the French talk about the "Prussians." They
wanted to throttle the electric eel for their own purposes.
But I imagine that you and the doctor would not find us in much
disagreement with you in these matters. One thing that is pleasant to
think of is the effort made everywhere to help the wounded.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1870.]
_Oct. 27._--On Monday the 8th August we went to our favorite Surrey
retreat--Limpsfield--and enjoyed three weeks there reading and walking
together. The weather was perfect, and the place seemed more lovely to
us than before. Aloud I read the concluding part of Walter Scott's
Life, which we had begun at Harrogate; two volumes of Froude's
"History of England," and Comte's "Correspondence with Valat." We
returned on Monday the 29th.
During our stay at Limpsfield I wrote the greater part of "Armgart,"
and finished it at intervals during September. Since then I have been
continually suffering from headache and depression, with almost total
despair of future work. I look into this little book now to assure
myself that this is not unprecedented.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Nov. 1870.]
Yesterday, for the first time, we went to hear A. (a popular
preacher). I remembered what you had said about his vulgar, false
emphasis; but there remained the fact of his celebrity. I was glad of
the opportunity. But my impressions fell below the lowest judgment I
ever heard passed upon him. He has the gift of a fine voice, very
flexible and various; he is admirably fluent and clear in his
language, and every now and then his enunciation is effective. But I
never heard any pulpit reading and speaking which in its level tone
was more utterly common and empty of guiding intelligence or emotion;
it was as if the words had been learned by heart and uttered without
comprehension by a man who had no instinct of rhythm or music in his
soul. And the doctrine! It was a libel on Calvinism that it should be
presented in such a form. I never heard any attempt to exhibit the
soul's experience that was more destitute of insight. The sermon was
against fear, in the elect Christian, as being a distrust of God; but
never once did he touch the true ground of fear--the doubt whether the
signs of God's choice are present in the soul. We had plenty of
anecdotes, but they were all poor and pointless--Tract Society
anecdotes of the feeblest kind. It was the most superficial
grocer's-back-parlor view of Calvinistic Christianity; and I was
shocked to find how low the mental pitch of our society must be,
judged by the standard of this man's celebrity.
Mr. Lewes was struck with some of his tones as good actor's tones, and
was not so wroth as I was. But just now, with all Europe stirred by
events that make every conscience tremble after some great principle
as a consolation and guide, it was too exasperating to sit and listen
to doctrine that seemed to look no further than the retail Christian's
tea and muffins. He said "Let us approach the throne of God" very much
as he might have invited you to take a chair; and then followed this
fine touch--"We feel no love to God because he hears the prayers of
others; it is because he hears my prayer that I love him."
You see I am relieving myself by pouring out my disgust to you. Oh,
how short life--how near death--seems to me! But this is not an
uncheerful thought. The only great dread is the protraction of life
into imbecility or the visitation of lingering pain. That seems to me
the insurmountable calamity, though there is an ignorant affectation
in many people of underrating what they call bodily suffering. I
systematically abstain from correspondence, yet the number of
acquaintances and consequent little appeals so constantly increases
that I often find myself inwardly rebelling against the amount of
note-writing that I cannot avoid. Have the great events of these
months interfered with your freedom of spirit in writing? One has to
dwell continually on the permanent, growing influence of ideas in
spite of temporary reactions, however violent, in order to get courage
and perseverance for any work which lies aloof from the immediate
wants of society. You remember Goethe's contempt for the Revolution of
'30 compared with the researches on the Vertebrate Structure of the
Skull? "My good friend, I was not thinking of those people." But the
changes we are seeing cannot be doffed aside in that way.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Nov. 1870.]
Lying awake early in the morning, according to a bad practice of mine,
I was visited with much compunction and self-disgust that I had ever
said a word to you about the faults of a friend whose good qualities
are made the more sacred by the endurance his lot has in many ways
demanded. I think you may fairly set down a full half of any alleged
grievances to my own susceptibility, and other faults of mine which
necessarily call forth less agreeable manifestations from others than
as many virtues would do, if I had them. I trust to your good sense to
have judged well in spite of my errors in the presentation of any
matter. But I wish to protest against myself, that I may, as much as
possible, cut off the temptation to what I should like utterly to
purify myself from for the few remaining years of my life--the
disposition to dwell for a moment on the faults of a friend.
Tell the flower and fern giver, whoever it may be, that some strength
comes to me this morning from the pretty proof of sympathy.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 2d Dec. 1870.]
I have it on my conscience that I may not have given you a clear
impression of my wishes about the poor pensioner who was in question
between us to-day, so I write at once to secure us both against a
possible misunderstanding. I would rather not apply any more money in
that direction, because I know of other channels[13]--especially a
plan which is being energetically carried out for helping a
considerable group of people without almsgiving, and solely by
inducing them to work--into which I shall be glad to pour a little
more aid. The repugnance to have relief from the parish was a feeling
which it was good to encourage in the old days of contra-encouragement
to sturdy pauperism; but I question whether one ought now to indulge
it, and not rather point out the reasons why, in a case of real
helplessness, there is no indignity in receiving from a public fund.
After you had left me, it rang in my ears that I had spoken of my
greater cheerfulness as due to a reduced anxiety about myself and my
doings, and had not seemed to recognize that the deficit or evil in
other lives could be a cause of depression. I was not really so
ludicrously selfish while dressing myself up in the costume of
unselfishness. But my strong egoism has caused me so much melancholy,
which is traceable simply to a fastidious yet hungry ambition, that I
am relieved by the comparative quietude of personal craving which age
is bringing. That is the utmost I have to boast of, and, really, to be
cheerful in these times could only be a virtue in the sense in which
it was felt to be so by the old Romans when they thanked their general
for not despairing of the republic.
I have been reading aloud to Mr. Lewes this evening Mr. Harrison's
article on "Bismarckism," which made me cry--it is in some passages
movingly eloquent.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1870.]
_Dec. 2._--I am experimenting in a story ("Miss Brooke") which I began
without any very serious intention of carrying it out lengthily. It is
a subject which has been recorded among my possible themes ever since
I began to write fiction, but will probably take new shapes in the
development. I am to-day at p. 44. I am reading Wolf's "Prolegomena to
Homer." In the evening, aloud, "Wilhelm Meister" again!
_Dec. 12._--George's mother died this morning quite peacefully as she
sat in her chair.
_Dec. 17._--Reading "Quintus Fixlein" aloud to G. in the evening.
Grote on Sicilian history.
_Dec. 31._--On Wednesday the 21st we went to Ryde to see Madame
Bodichon at Swanmore Parsonage, a house which she had taken for two
months. We had a pleasant and healthy visit, walking much in the
frosty air. On Christmas Day I went with her to the Ritualist Church
which is attached to the parsonage, and heard some excellent intoning
by the delicate-faced, tenor-voiced clergyman. On Wednesday last, the
28th, Barbara came up to town with us. We found the cold here more
severe than at Ryde; and the papers tell us of still harder weather
about Paris, where our fellow-men are suffering and inflicting
horrors.
Here is the last day of 1870. I have written only one hundred
pages--good printed pages--of a story which I began about the opening
of November, and at present mean to call "Miss Brooke." Poetry halts
just now.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Jan. 1871.]
We spent our Christmas in the Isle of Wight, and on Christmas Day I
went to a Ritualist church and heard some fine intoning of the service
by a clear, strong, tenor voice, sweet singing from boys' throats,
and all sorts of Catholic ceremonial in a miniature way.
It is good to see what our neighbors are doing. To live in seclusion
with one's own thoughts is apt to give one very false notions as to
the possibilities of the present time in the matter of conversion
either to superstition or anti-superstition.
In this cruel time, I no sooner hear of an affliction than I see it
multiplied in some one of the endless forms of suffering created by
this hellish war. In the beginning I could feel entirely with the
Germans, and could say of that calamity called "victory," I am glad.
But now I can be glad of nothing. No people can carry on a long,
fierce war without being brutalized by it, more or less, and it pains
me that the educated voices have not a higher moral tone about
national and international duties and prospects. But, like every one
else, I feel that the war is too much with me, and am rather anxious
to avoid unwise speech about it than to utter what may seem to me to
be wisdom. The pain is that one can _do_ so little.
I have not read "Sir Harry Hotspur," but as to your general question,
I reply that there certainly are some women who love in that way, but
"their sex as well as I may chide them for it." Men are very fond of
glorifying that sort of dog-like attachment. It is one thing to love
because you falsely imagine goodness--that belongs to the finest
natures--and another to go on loving when you have found out your
mistake. But married constancy is a different affair. I have seen a
grandly heroic woman who, out of her view as to the responsibilities
of the married relation, condoned everything, took her drunken husband
to her home again, and at last nursed and watched him into penitence
and decency. But there may be two opinions even about this sort of
endurance--_i.e._, about its ultimate tendency, not about the beauty
of nature which prompts it. This is quite distinct from mere animal
constancy. It is duty and human pity.
[Sidenote: Letter to Colonel Hamley (now General Sir Edward Hamley),
24th Jan. 1871.]
I write to say God bless you for your letter to the _Times_, of this
morning. It contains the best expression of right principle--I was
almost ready to say, the only good, sensible words--that I have yet
seen on the actual state of things between the Germans and the French.
You will not pause, I trust, but go on doing what can be done only by
one who is at once a soldier, a writer, and a clear-headed man of
principle.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1871.]
_March 19_ (Sunday).--It is grievous to me how little, from one cause
or other, chiefly languor and occasionally positive ailments, I manage
to get done. I have written about two hundred and thirty-six pages
(print) of my novel, which I want to get off my hands by next
November. My present fear is that I have too much matter--too many
_momenti_.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d April, 1871.]
I happened to-day to be talking to a very sweet-faced woman (the
sister of Dr. Bridges, whom I think you know something of), and she
mentioned, _à propos_ of educating children in the love of animals,
that she had felt the want of some good little book as a help in this
matter. I told her of yours, and when I said that it was written by
Mrs. Bray, the author of "Physiology for Schools," she said, "Oh, I
know that book well." I have made her a present of my copy of "Duty to
Animals," feeling that this was a good quarter in which to plant that
offset. For she had been telling me of her practical interest in the
infant and other schools in Suffolk, where she lives. We have had a
great pleasure to-day in learning that our friend Miss Bury is engaged
to be married to Mr. Geddes, a Scotch gentleman. There is a streak of
sadness for her family in the fact that she is to go to India with
her husband next November, but all else is bright in her prospect. It
is very sweet to see, and think of, the happiness of the young. I am
scribbling with an infirm head, at the end of the day, just for the
sake of letting you know one proof, in addition doubtless to many
others which you have already had, that your pretty little book is
likely to supply a want.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Gilchrist, 19th April, 1871.]
We are very much obliged to you for your kind, methodical
thoughtfulness as to all which is necessary for our accommodation at
Brookbank, and also for your hints about the points of beauty to be
sought for in our walks. That "sense of standing on a round world,"
which you speak of, is precisely what I most care for among
out-of-door delights. The last time I had it fully was at St. Märgen,
near Freiburg, on green hilltops, whence we could see the Rhine and
poor France.
The garden has been, and is being, attended to, and I trust we shall
not find the commissariat unendurable.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th June, 1871.]
It seems like a resurrection of a buried-alive friendship once more to
have a letter from you. Welcome back from your absorption in the
Franchise! Somebody else ought to have your share of work now, and you
ought to rest.
Ever since the 1st of May we have been living in this queer cottage,
which belongs to Mrs. Gilchrist, wife of the Gilchrist who wrote the
life of William Blake the artist. We have a ravishing country round
us, and pure air and water; in short, all the conditions of health, if
the east wind were away. We have old prints for our dumb
companions--charming children of Sir Joshua's, and large-hatted ladies
of his and Romney's. I read aloud--almost all the evening--books of
German science, and other gravities. So, you see, we are like two
secluded owls, wise with unfashionable wisdom, and knowing nothing of
pictures and French plays. I confess that I should have gone often to
see Got act if I had been in town, he is so really great as an actor.
And yet one is ashamed of seeking amusement in connection with
anything that belongs to poor, unhappy France. I am saved from the
shame by being safely shut out from the amusement.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th June, 1871.]
How about Madame Mohl and her husband? I have been wondering through
all the horrors whether M. Mohl had returned to Paris, and whether
their house, containing, too probably, the results of much studious
work, lies buried among ruins. But I will not further recall the
sorrows in that direction.
I am glad to see the words "very satisfactory" in connection with the
visit to Hitchin and Cambridge. Ely Cathedral I saw last year, but too
cursorily. It has more of the massive grandeur that one adores in Le
Mans and Chartres than most of our English cathedrals, though I am
ready to recall the comparison as preposterous.
I don't know how long we shall stay here; perhaps, more or less, till
the end of August, for I have given up the idea of going to the Scott
Festival at Edinburgh, to which I had accepted an invitation. The
fatigue of the long journey, with the crowd at the end, would be too
much for me.
Let us know beforehand when you are about coming.
George is gloriously well, and studying, writing, walking, eating, and
sleeping with equal vigor. He is enjoying the life here immensely. Our
country could hardly be surpassed in its particular kind of
beauty--perpetual undulation of heath and copse, and clear views of
hurrying water, with here and there a grand pine wood, steep,
wood-clothed promontories, and gleaming pools.
If you want delightful reading get Lowell's "My Study Windows," and
read the essays called "My Garden Acquaintances" and "Winter."
Get the volumes of a very cheap publication--the "Deutscher
Novellenschatz." Some of the tales are remarkably fine. I am reading
aloud the last three volumes, which are even better than the others. I
have just been so deeply interested in one of the stories--"Diethelm
von Buchenberg"--that I want everybody to have the same pleasure who
can read German.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Gilchrist, 3d July, 1871.]
We are greatly obliged to you for the trouble you have so
sympathetically taken on our behalf, and we shall prepare to quit our
quiet shelter on Wednesday, the 2d of August. During the first weeks
of our stay I did not imagine that I should ever be so fond of the
place as I am now. The departure of the bitter winds, some improvement
in my health, and the gradual revelation of fresh and fresh beauties
in the scenery, especially under a hopeful sky such as we have
sometimes had--all these conditions have made me love our little world
here and wish not to quit it until we can settle in our London home. I
have the regret of thinking that it was my original indifference about
it (I hardly ever like things until they are familiar) that hindered
us from securing the cottage until the end of September, for the
chance of coming to it again after a temporary absence. But all
regrets ought to be merged in thankfulness for the agreeable weeks we
have had, and probably shall have till the end of July. And among the
virtues of Brookbank we shall always reckon this, that our
correspondence about it has been with you rather than with any one
else, so that, along with the country, we have had a glimpse of your
ready, quick-thoughted kindness.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 13th July, 1871.]
One word to you in response to Emily's note, which comes to me this
morning, and lets me know that by this time she is probably in the
last hour of her unmarried life. My thoughts and love and tender
anxiety are with her and with all of you. When you receive this she
will, I suppose, be far away, and it is of little consequence that I
can make no new sign to her of my joy in her joy.
For the next few weeks my anxiety will be concentrated on you and
yours at Yarmouth. Pray, when your mind and body are sufficiently free
from absorbing occupation, remember my need of news about you, and
write to me. The other day I seemed to get a glimpse of you through
Mrs. Call, who told me that you looked like a new creature--so much
stronger than you were wont; and she told me of Dr. Congreve's address
at the school, which raised my keenest sympathy, and made me feel
myself a very helpless friend.
Please give my love to the children, and tell Sophy especially that I
think her happy in this--that there is a place made for all the effort
of her young life to fill it with something like the goodness and
brightness which she has known and has just now to part with. I expect
her to be your guardian angel, perhaps in a new way--namely, in saving
you from some fatigue about details.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th July, 1871.]