Mr. Lewes undertook to deliver them in the first instance. You
certainly made a seat at the Commemoration Table[14] look more
tempting to me than it had done before; but I think that prudence
advises me to abstain from the fatigue and excitement of a long
railway journey, with a great gathering at the end of it. If there is
a chance that "Middlemarch" will be good for anything, I don't want to
break down and die without finishing it. And whatever "the tow on my
distaff" may be, my strength to unwind it has not been abundant
lately.
_À propos_ of bodily prosperity, I am sincerely rejoiced to know, by
your postscript this morning, that Mr. Simpson is recovered. I hope he
will not object to my considering him a good friend of mine, though it
is so long since I saw him. The blank that is left when thorough
workers like him are disabled is felt not only near at hand, but a
great way off. I often say--after the fashion of people who are
getting older--that the capacity for good work, of the kind that goes
on without trumpets, is diminishing in the world.
The continuous absence of sunshine is depressing in every way, and
makes one fear for the harvest, and so grave a fear that one is
ashamed of mentioning one's private dreariness. You cannot play golf
in the rain, and I cannot feel hopeful without the sunlight; but I
dare say you work all the more, whereas when my spirits flag my work
flags too.
I should have liked to see Principal Tulloch again, and to have made
the acquaintance of Captain Lockhart, whose writing is so jaunty and
cheery, yet so thoroughly refined in feeling. Perhaps I may still have
this pleasure in town, when he comes up at the same time with you.
Please give my kind regards to Mr. William Blackwood.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th July, 1871.]
Thanks for the prompt return of the MS., which arrived this morning.
I don't see how I can leave anything out, because I hope there is
nothing that will be seen to be irrelevant to my design, which is to
show the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional,
and to show this in some directions which have not been from time
immemorial the beaten path--the Cremorne walks and shows of fiction.
But the best intentions are good for nothing until execution has
justified them. And you know I am always compassed about with fears. I
am in danger in all my designs of parodying dear Goldsmith's satire on
Burke, and think of refining when novel-readers only think of
skipping.
We are obliged to turn out of this queer cottage next week; but we
have been fortunate enough to get the more comfortable house on the
other side of the road, so that we can move without any trouble. Thus
our address will continue to be the same until the end of August.
Tennyson, who is one of the "hill-folk" about here, has found us out.
[Sidenote: Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Robert Lytton[15] (now Lady
Lytton), 25th July, 1871.]
This morning your husband's letter came to us, but if I did not know
that it would be nearly a week before any words of mine could reach
you, I should abstain from writing just yet, feeling that in the first
days of sorrowing it is better to keep silence. For a long while after
a great bereavement our only companionship is with the lost one. Yet I
hope it will not be without good to you to have signs of love from
your friends, and to be reminded that you have a home in their
affections, which is made larger for you by your trouble. For weeks my
thought has been continually going out to you, and the absence of news
has made me so fearful that I have mourned beforehand. I have been
feeling that probably you were undergoing the bitterest grief you had
ever known. But under the heart-stroke, is there anything better than
to grieve? Strength will come back for the duty and the fellowship
which gradually bring new contentments, but at first there is no joy
to be desired that would displace sorrow.
What is better than to love and live with the loved? But that must
sometimes bring us to live with the dead; and this too turns at last
into a very tranquil and sweet tie, safe from change and injury.
You see, I make myself a warrant out of my regard for you, to write as
if we had long been near each other. And I cannot help wishing that we
were physically nearer--that you were not on the other side of Europe.
We shall trust in Mr. Lytton's kindness to let us hear of you by and
by. But you must never write except to satisfy your own longing. May
all true help surround you, dear Mrs. Lytton, and whenever you can
think of me, believe in me as yours with sincere affection.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Mary Cross, 31st July, 1871.]
I read your touching story[16] aloud yesterday to Mr. Lewes, and we
both cried over it. Your brother wrote to me that you had doubts about
giving your name. My faith is, that signature is right in the absence
of weighty special reasons against it.
We think of you all very often, and feel ourselves much the richer for
having a whole dear family to reckon among our friends. We are to stay
here till the end of the month. When the trees are yellow, I hope you
will be coming to see us in St. John's Wood. How little like the
woods we have around us! I suppose Weybridge is more agreeable than
other places at present, if it has any of its extra warmth in this
arctic season.
Our best love, to your dear mother supremely, and then to all.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 2d Aug. 1871.]
I always say that those people are the happiest who have a peremptory
reason for staying in one place rather than another. Else I should be
sorry for you that you are kept in London--by Parliamentary business,
of course.
There is sunshine over our fields now, but the thermometer is only 64°
in the house, and in the warmest part of the day I, having a talent
for being cold, sit shivering, sometimes even with a warm-water bottle
at my feet. I wonder if you went to the French plays to see the
supreme Got? That is a refined pleasure which I enjoyed so much in
Paris a few years ago that I was sorry to be out of reach of it this
spring.
About the Crystal Palace music I remember feeling just what you
mention--the sublime effect of the Handel choruses, and the total
futility of the solos.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d Aug. 1871.]
Thanks for your little picture of things. Eminently acceptable in
place of vague conjectures. I am a bitter enemy to make-believe about
the human lot, but I think there is a true alleviation of distress in
thinking of the intense enjoyment which accompanies a spontaneous,
confident, intellectual activity. This may not be a counterpoise to
the existing evils, but it is at least a share of mortal good, and
good of an exquisite kind.
Are you not happy in the long-wished-for sunshine? I have a pretty
lawn before me, with hills in the background. The train rushes by
every now and then to make one more glad of the usual silence.
A good man writes to me from Scotland this morning, asking me if he is
not right in pronouncing Rom[)o]la, in defiance of the world around
him (not a large world, I hope) who _will_ say Rom[=o]la. Such is
correspondence in these days; so that quantity is magnificent _en
gros_ but shabby _en détail_--_i.e._, in single letters like this.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 14th Aug. 1871.]
We shall stay here only till the end of this month--at least, I have
no hope that our _propriétaires_ will be induced to protract their
absence; and if the lingering smell of paint does not drive us away
from the Priory again, we expect to stay there from the first of
September, without projects of travel for many, many months.
We enjoy our roomy house and pretty lawn greatly. Imagine me seated
near a window, opening under a veranda, with flower-beds and lawn and
pretty hills in sight, my feet on a warm-water bottle, and my writing
on my knees. In that attitude my mornings are passed. We dine at two;
and at four, when the tea comes in, I begin to read aloud. About six
or half-past we walk on to the commons and see the great sky over our
head. At eight we are usually in the house again, and fill our evening
with physics, chemistry, or other wisdom if our heads are at par; if
not, we take to folly, in the shape of Alfred de Musset's poems, or
something akin to them.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 29th Oct. 1871.]
Yesterday we returned from Weybridge, where, for a few days, I have
been petted by kind friends (delightful Scotch people), and have had
delicious drives in the pure autumn air. That must be my farewell to
invalidism and holiday making. I am really better--not robust or fat,
but perhaps as well as I am likely to be till death mends me.
Your account of Mr. Main[17] sets my mind at ease about him; for in
this case I would rather have your judgment than any opportunity of
forming my own. The one thing that gave me confidence was his power of
putting his finger on the right passages, and giving emphasis to the
right idea (in relation to the author's feeling and purpose). Apart
from that, enthusiasm would have been of little value.
One feels rather ashamed of authoresses this week after the
correspondence in the _Times_. One hardly knows which letter is in the
worst taste. However, if we are to begin with marvelling at the little
wisdom with which the world is governed, we can hardly expect that
much wisdom will go to the making of novels.
I should think it quite a compliment if the general got through "Miss
Brooke." Mr. Lewes amused himself with the immeasurable contempt that
Mr. Casaubon would be the object of in the general's mind.
I hardly dare hope that the second part will take quite so well as the
first, the effects being more subtile and dispersed; but Mr. Lewes
seems to like the third part better than anything that has gone before
it. But can anything be more uncertain than the reception of a book by
the public? I am glad to see that the "Coming Race" has got into a
fourth edition. Let us hope that the Koom Posh may be at least
mitigated by the sale of a good book or two.
As for me, I get more and more unable to be anything more than a
feeble sceptic about all publishing plans, and am thankful to have so
many good heads at work for me. _Allah illah allah!_
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1871.]
We who are getting old together have the tie of common infirmities.
But I don't find that the young troubles seem lighter on looking back.
I prefer my years now to any that have gone before. I wish you could
tell me the same thing about yourself. And, surely, writing your book
is, on the whole, a joy to you--it is a large share in the meagre lot
of mankind. All hail for the morrow! How many sweet laughs, how much
serious pleasure in the great things others have done, you and I have
had together in a past islet of time that remains very sunny in my
remembrance.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1871.]
_Dec. 1._--This day the first part of "Middlemarch" was published. I
ought by this time to have finished the fourth part, but an illness
which began soon after our return from Haslemere has robbed me of two
months.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1871.]
If you have not yet fallen in with Dickens's "Life" be on the lookout
for it, because of the interest there is in his boyish experience, and
also in his rapid development during his first travels in America. The
book is ill organized, and stuffed with criticism and other matter
which would be better in limbo; but the information about the
childhood, and the letters from America, make it worth reading. We
have just got a photograph of Dickens, taken when he was writing, or
had just written, "David Copperfield"--satisfactory refutation of that
keepsakey, impossible face which Maclise gave him, and which has been
engraved for the "Life" in all its odious beautification. This
photograph is the young Dickens, corresponding to the older Dickens
whom I knew--the same face, without the unusually severe wear and
tear of years which his latest looks exhibited.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1872.]
_Dec. 20._--My health has become very troublesome during the last
three weeks, and I can get on but tardily. Even now I am only at page
227 of my fourth part. But I have been also retarded by construction,
which, once done, serves as good wheels for progress.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Jan. 1872.]
Your good wishes and pleasant bits of news made the best part of my
breakfast this morning. I am glad to think that, in desiring happiness
for you during the new year, I am only desiring the continuance of
good which you already possess.
I suppose we two, also, are among the happiest of mortals, yet we have
had a rather doleful Christmas, the one great lack, that of health,
having made itself particularly conspicuous in the surrounding fog.
Having no grandchildren to get up a Christmas-tree for, we had nothing
to divert our attention from our headaches.
Mr. Main's book broke the clouds a little, and now the heavens have
altogether cleared, so that we are hoping to come back from a visit of
three days to Weybridge with our strength renewed--if not like the
eagle's, at least like a convalescent tomtit's.
The "Sayings" are set off by delightful paper and print, and a binding
which opens with inviting ease. I am really grateful to every one
concerned in the volume, and am anxious that it should not be in any
way a disappointment. The selections seem to me to be made with an
exquisite sensibility to the various lights and shades of life; and
all Mr. Main's letters show the same quality. It is a great help to me
to have such an indication that there exist careful readers for whom
no subtilest intention is lost.
We have both read the story of the "Megara" with the deepest interest;
indeed, with a quite exceptional enjoyment of its direct,
unexaggerated painting.
The prescription of two days' golfing per week will, I hope, keep up
your condition to the excellent pitch at which it was on your return
from Paris. Good news usually acts as a tonic when one's case is not
too desperate; and I shall be glad if you and we can get it in the
form of more success for "Middlemarch." Dickens's "Life," you see,
finds a large public ready to pay more. But the British mind has long
entertained the purchase of expensive biographies. The proofs lately
given that one's books don't necessarily go out like lucifer matches,
never to be taken up again, make one content with moderate immediate
results, which perhaps are as much as can reasonably be expected for
any writing which does not address itself either to fashions or
corporate interests of an exclusive kind.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Jan. 1872.]
It is like your kindness to write me your encouraging impressions on
reading the third book. I suppose it is my poor health that just now
makes me think my writing duller than usual. For certainly the
reception of the first book by my old readers is quite beyond my most
daring hopes. One of them, who is a great champion of "Adam Bede" and
"Romola," told Mr. Lewes yesterday that he thought "Middlemarch"
surpassed them. All this is very wonderful to me. I am thoroughly
comforted as to the half of the work which is already written; but
there remains the terror about the _un_written. Mr. Lewes is much
satisfied with the fourth book, which opens with the continuation of
the Featherstone drama.
We went yesterday to the Tichborne trial, which was an experience of
great interest to me. We had to come away after the third hour of
Coleridge's speaking; but it was a great enjoyment to me to hear what
I did. Coleridge is a rare orator--not of the declamatory, but of the
argumentative order.
Thanks, not formal, but sincerely felt, for the photographs. This
likeness will always carry me back to the first time I saw you, in our
little Richmond lodging, when I was thinking anxiously of "Adam Bede,"
as I now am of "Middlemarch."
I felt something like a shudder when Sir Henry Maine asked me last
Sunday whether this would not be a very long book; saying, when I told
him it would be four good volumes, that that was what he had
calculated. However, it will not be longer than Thackeray's books, if
so long. And I don't see how the sort of thing I want to do could have
been done briefly.
I have to be grateful for the gift of "Brougham's Life," which will be
a welcome addition to my means of knowing the time "when his ugliness
had not passed its bloom."
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Jan. 1872.]
Your letter seems to pierce the rainy fog with a little sunlight. Cold
and clearness are the reverse of what we are usually having here.
Until the last few days my chief consciousness has been that of
struggling against inward as well as outward fog; but I am now better,
and have only been dragged back into headachiness by a little too much
fatigue from visitors. I give you this account as a preface to my
renunciation of a journey to Dover, which would be very delightful, if
I had not already lost too much time to be warranted in taking a
holiday.
Next Saturday we are going to have a party--six to dine, and a small
rush of people after dinner, for the sake of music. I think it is four
years at least since we undertook anything of that kind.
A great domestic event for us has been the arrival of a new dog, who
has all Ben's virtues, with more intelligence, and a begging attitude
of irresistible charm. He is a dark-brown spaniel. You see what
infantine innocence we live in!
Glad you are reading my demigod Milton! We also are rather
old-fashioned in our light reading just now; for I have rejected
Heyse's German stories, brand new, in favor of dear old Johnson's
"Lives of the Poets," which I read aloud in my old age with a
delicious revival of girlish impressions.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1872.]
_Jan. 29._--It is now the last day but one of January. I have finished
the fourth part--_i.e._, the second volume--of "Middlemarch." The
first part, published on December 1, has been excellently well
received; and the second part will be published the day after
to-morrow. About Christmas a volume of extracts from my works was
published, under the title, "Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings, in Prose
and Verse." It was proposed and executed by Alexander Main, a young
man of thirty, who began a correspondence with me by asking me how to
pronounce Romola, in the summer, when we were at Shottermill.
Blackwood proposed that we should share the profits, but we refused.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Jan. 1872.]
I do lead rather a crawling life under these rainy fogs and low
behavior of the barometer. But I am a little better, on the whole,
though just now overdone with the fatigue of company. We have been to
hear Coleridge addressing the jury on the Tichborne trial--a very
interesting occasion to me. He is a marvellous speaker among
Englishmen; has an exquisitely melodious voice, perfect gesture, and a
power of keeping the thread of his syntax to the end of his sentence,
which makes him delightful to follow. We are going some other day, if
possible, to hear a cross-examination of Ballantyne's. The digest of
the evidence which Coleridge gives is one of the best illustrations of
the value or valuelessness of testimony that could be given. I wonder
if the world, which retails Guppy anecdotes, will be anything the
wiser for it.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1872.]
To hear of a friend's illness after he has got well through it is the
least painful way of learning the bad news. I hope that your attack
has been a payment of insurance.
You probably know what it grieved us deeply to learn the other
day--that our excellent friend Mr. William Smith is dangerously ill.
They have been so entirely happy and wrapped up in each other that we
cannot bear to think of Mrs. Smith's grief.
Thanks for the list of sales since February 12th. Things are
encouraging, and the voices that reach us are enthusiastic. But you
can understand how people's interest in the book heightens my anxiety
that the remainder should be up to the mark. It has caused me some
uneasiness that the third part is two sheets less than the first. But
Mr. Lewes insisted that the death of old Featherstone was the right
point to pause at; and he cites your approbation of the part as a
proof that effectiveness is secured in spite of diminished quantity.
Still it irks me to ask 5_s._ for a smaller amount than that already
given at the same price. Perhaps I must regard the value as made up
solely by effectiveness, and certainly the book will be long enough.
I am still below par in strength, and am too much beset with visitors
and kind attentions. I long for the quiet spaces of time and the
absence of social solicitations that one enjoys in the country, out of
everybody's reach.
I am glad to hear of the pleasure "Middlemarch" gives in your
household: that makes quite a little preliminary public for me.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th Mch. 1872.]
I can understand very easily that the two last years have been full
for you of other and more imperative work than the writing of letters
not absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The proof that
you still think of me affectionately is very welcome now it is come,
and all the more cheering because it enables me to think of you as
enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard--your western
Sorrento--the beloved Rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be a
great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude--as it always is to us
when we go out of reach of London influences, and have the large space
of country days to study, walk, and talk in. Last year we spent our
summer months in Surrey, and did not leave England. Unhappily, the
country was not so favorable to my bodily health as to my spiritual,
and on our return to town I had an illness which was the climax of the
summer's _malaise_. That illness robbed me of two months, and I have
never quite recovered a condition in which the strict duties of the
day are not felt as a weight. But just now we are having some clear
spring days, and I am in hope of prospering better, the sunshine being
to me the greatest visible good of life--what I call the wealth of
life, after love and trust.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th Mch. 1872.]
When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books, if
he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep
an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena reported or attested
in connection with ideas of spirit-intercourse, "psychion," and so on,
have come before me here in the painful form of the lowest
_charlatanerie_. Take Mr. H. as an example of what I mean. I could not
choose to enter a room where he held a _séance_. He is an object of
moral disgust to me; and nothing of late reported by Mr. Crookes, Lord
Lindsay, and the rest carries conviction to my mind that Mr. H. is not
simply an impostor, whose professedly abnormal manifestations have
varied their fashion in order to create a new market, just as if they
were _papier mâché_ wares or pomades for the idle rich. But apart from
personal contact with people who get money by public exhibitions as
mediums, or with semi-idiots, such as those who make a court for a
Mrs. Guppy or other feminine personage of that kind, I would not
willingly place any barriers between my mind and any possible channel
of truth affecting the human lot.
The spirit in which you have written in the paper you kindly sent me
is likely to teach others--to rouse them, at least, to attention in a
case where you have been deeply impressed.
I write to you quite openly, dear friend, but very imperfectly, for my
letters are always written in shreds of time.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1872.]
Thanks for the budget of this morning. The sales, we think, are very
cheering, and we may well be content if they continue in the same
ratio. But the Greek proverb about the beginning being the half of the
whole wants as much defining and excepting from as most other
proverbs.
I have just had sent me a copy of the magazine _Für die Literatur des
Auslander_, containing a review of "Miss Brooke," which will be good
for Asher's edition, and is otherwise satisfactory as an intelligent
appreciation. It mentions at the end the appearance of Mr. Main's
book, "The Sayings." A Frenchman, apparently accomplished, a M.
Landolphe, who has made some important translations, is going to
translate the whole of "Middlemarch;" and one of the contributors to
the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ has written for leave to extract
Dorothea's history.
I fancy we have done a good turn to English authors generally by
setting off Asher's series, for we have heard that Tauchnitz has
raised his offers. There is another way in which benefit might come
that would be still more desirable--namely, to make him more careful
in his selections of books for reprint. But I fear that this effect is
not so certain. You see Franz Duncker, who publishes the German
translation of "Middlemarch," has also begun an English series. This
is really worth while, for the Germans are excellent readers of our
books. I was astonished to find so many in Berlin who really knew
one's books, and did not merely pay compliments after the fashion of
the admirers who made Rousseau savage--running after him to pay him
visits, and not knowing a word of his writing.
You and other good readers have spoiled me, and made me rather shudder
at being read only once; and you may imagine how little satisfaction I
get from people who mean to please me by saying that they shall wait
till "Middlemarch" is finished, and then sit up to read it "at one
go-off."
We are looking for a country retreat not too far from town, so that
we may run up easily. There is nothing wanting to our happiness except
that "Middlemarch" should be well ended without growing signs of its
author's debility.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 17th March, 1872.]
Before I received your letter this morning, I was going to write you a
word of sympathy, knowing how deeply you would be feeling the death of
Mazzini. Such a man leaves behind him a wider good than the loss of
his personal presence can take away.
"The greatest gift the hero leaves his race
Is to have been a hero."
I must be excused for quoting my own words, because they are my
_credo_. I enter thoroughly into your sense of wealth in having known
him.
Brighton does not suit Mr. Lewes. But he was near going there for a
night a little while ago to see our friends, Mr. and Mrs. William
Smith. He (the author of "Thorndale," etc.) is, I fear, wasting
fatally with organic disease, and we grieve much at the too-probably
near parting of a husband and wife who have been among the perfectly
happy couples of the world. She is a charming woman, and I wish that
you may happen to know her.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d March, 1872.]
Owing to my loss of two months in illness, and my infirm health ever
since, I have not yet finished the writing of "Middlemarch." This
payment of wintry arrears makes one prefer the comforts of a London
home; but we are obliged to see more company than my health is equal
to, and for this reason I dare say we shall soon migrate. To-day we
have been to our last morning concert--or Saturday Pop.--held on a
Friday because of the University boat-race to-morrow. These concerts
are an easy pleasure which we are sorry to part with. This is one of
my bad weeks, owing probably to the change in the weather, and I am
constantly struggling with hemicrania and _malaise_. Even writing this
scrap of a note is the feather too much, and I must leave off. You
have known too much of nervous weakness not to understand this.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1872.]
_May 8._--I have been reposing for more than a week in the hope of
getting stronger, my life having been lately a swamp of illness, with
only here and there a bit of firm walking. In consequence of this
incessant interruption (almost every week having been half nullified
for me so far as my work has been concerned) I have only finished the
fifth book, and have still three books to write--equal to a large
volume and a half.
The reception of the book hitherto has been quite beyond what I could
have believed beforehand, people exalting it above everything else I
have written. Kohn is publishing an English edition in Germany;
Duncker is to publish a translation; and Harpers pay me £1200 for
reprinting it in America.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 4th June, 1872.]
I am glad to know that you are having a time of refreshing in fine
scenery, with entire freedom to paint. I am in a corresponding state
of relief from the noises and small excitements that break up the day
and scatter one's nervous energy in London.
We have been in our hiding-place about twelve days now, and I am
enjoying it more and more--getting more bodily ease and mental
clearness than I have had for the last six months. Our house is not in
the least beautiful, but it is well situated and comfortable,
perfectly still in the middle of a garden surrounded by fields and
meadows, and yet within reach of shops and civilization.
We managed to get to the Academy one day before leaving town. I was
delighted with Walker's picture--were you?--and Mason's unfinished
Reaper, and a few, very few, others.
Also we went twice to the opera in order to save ourselves from any
yearnings after it when we should have settled in the country.
We tell no one our address, and have our letters sent on from the
Priory.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th June, 1872.]
We too are in a country refuge, you see, and this bit of Surrey, as I
dare say you know, is full of beauty of the too garden-like sort for
which you pity us. How different from your lodge in the wilderness! I
have read your description three or four times--it enchants me so
thoroughly--and Mr. Lewes is just as much enamoured of it. We shall
never see it, I imagine, except in the mirror of your loving words;
but thanks, many and warm, dear friend, for saying that our presence
would be welcome. I have always had delight in descriptions of
American forests since the early days when I read "Atala," which I
believe that you would criticise as half unveracious. I dwelt on the
descriptions in "Dred" with much enjoyment.
Pray give my special thanks to the Professor for his letter. His
handwriting, which does really look like Arabic--a very graceful
character, surely--happens to be remarkably legible to me, and I did
not hesitate over a single word. Some of the words, as expressions of
fellowship, were very precious to me, and I hold it very good of him
to write to me that best sort of encouragement. I was much impressed
with the fact--which you had told me--that he was the original of the
"visionary boy" in "Old Town Folk;" and it must be deeply interesting
to talk with him on his experience. Perhaps I am inclined, under the
influence of the facts, physiological and psychological, which have
been gathered of late years, to give larger place to the
interpretation of vision-seeing as _subjective_ than the Professor
would approve. It seems difficult to limit--at least to limit with any
precision--the possibility of confounding sense by impressions,
derived from inward conditions, with those which are directly
dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the division between within
and without in this sense seems to become every year a more subtle and
bewildering problem.
_Your_ experience with the _planchette_ is amazing; but that the words
which you found it to have written were dictated by the spirit of
Charlotte Brontë is to me (whether rightly or not) so enormously
improbable, that I could only accept it if every condition were laid
bare, and every other explanation demonstrated to be impossible. If it
were another spirit aping Charlotte Brontë--if here and there at rare
spots and among people of a certain temperament, or even at many spots
and among people of all temperaments, tricksy spirits are liable to
rise as a sort of earth-bubbles and set furniture in movement, and
tell things which we either know already or should be as well without
knowing--I must frankly confess that I have but a feeble interest in
these doings, feeling my life very short for the supreme and awful
revelations of a more orderly and intelligible kind which I shall die
with an imperfect knowledge of. If there were miserable spirits whom
we could help, then I think we should pause and have patience with
their trivial-mindedness; but otherwise I don't feel bound to study
them more than I am bound to study the special follies of a
particular phase of human society. Others who feel differently, and
are attracted towards this study, are making an experiment for us as
to whether anything better than bewilderment can come of it. At
present it seems to me that to rest any fundamental part of religion
on such a basis is a melancholy misguidance of men's minds from the
true sources of high and pure emotion.
I am comforted to think that you partly agree with me there.
I have not time to write more than this very imperfect fragmentary
sketch of _only one_ aspect which the question of spirit-communications
wears to me at present--being always rather brain-weary after my
morning's work, and called for by my husband to walk with him and read
aloud to him. I spend nearly three hours every day in this exercise of
reading aloud, which, happily, I can carry on without fatigue of lungs.
Yet it takes strength as well as time.
Mr. Lewes is gone into town to-day, so I have an additional hour at
liberty, and have been glad to be able to send you a letter which is
not worth anything, indeed, but which satisfies my need to thank you
and the Professor for your sweet friendliness--very sweet to me, I
assure you. Please accept my entire frankness as a proof of that high
value I set on you. And do not call anything I may have written a
prejudice--it is simply a statement of how certain things appear to my
inward eyesight, which I am ready to have rectified by more light.
About photographs--I have _no_ photograph of myself, having always
avoided having one taken. That makes me seem very selfish in being
particularly glad to get yours.
Mrs. Fields, with the beautiful face and charming manners, sent me a
letter a little while ago, inviting us in the most tempting way to go
to Boston. She said that this pretty action was done at your
prompting, which is just like you as you have always shown yourself to
me.
Dear friend, how much you have lived through, both in the flesh and in
the spirit! My experience has been narrow compared with yours. I
assure you I feel this, so do not misinterpret anything I say to you
as being written in a flippant or critical spirit. One always feels
the want of the voice and eyes to accompany a letter and give it the
right tone.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th July, 1872.]
You were very good and dear to want to give me the pleasure of knowing
that the news was good, instead of leaving me to my small stock of
hopefulness. Ask Emily to care a little even now, with baby on her
mind, that her old friends are the better for hearing that she is
well. Four or five months ago it happens that I was writing some
playfulness about a baby and baby's hair, which is now in print, to
appear next month. I am not afraid that Emily should be revolted by my
blasphemy!
Mr. Lewes had "a lovely time" from Saturday to Monday at Weybridge. He
was feeling languid, and yet was tempted to sit at his desk. The
little change has been very serviceable, and he is now bright.
Our first book, read aloud by me after we came down, was Wallace's
"Eastern Archipelago," which, I think, you had spoken well of to Mr.
Lewes. It is delightful. The biography of the infant ourang-outang
alone is worth getting the book for. We are now in the middle of
Tylor's "Primitive Culture," which is worth studying, and useful for
reference on special points, if you happen to want knowledge about
the ideas of the savage tribes.
Our days go by in delicious peace, unbroken except by my little inward
anxieties about all unfinished work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th July, 1872.]
This morning came the joyful news that Gertrude has a fine healthy
baby--a daughter. We have just been saying in our walk that by the end
of this century our one-day-old granddaughter will probably be married
and have children of her own, while we are pretty sure to be at rest.
This obvious kind of wisdom does very well for discourse in the
delicious sunshine, as we wander over a hilly, half fern-clad, half
grassy wilderness called South Park, from which we can overlook two
fertile bosky valleys. We like this bit of country better and better.
As to health, I am not quite so prosperous as I was at first, but to
make amends, Mr. Lewes is in a good average condition, and only now
and then has a morning in which he is forced to wander about instead
of going to his beloved work. We have had much happiness here, much
sympathy in letters from far-off friends unknown in the flesh, and
peaceful enjoyment of our occupations. But we have longed for more
continuous warmth and brightness, and to-day may perhaps be the
beginning of that one wanting condition.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Aug. 1872(?).]
The death of that honored, good creature, Mr. William Smith, touched
us particularly, because of the perfect marriage-bond which had made
the last eleven years of his life unspeakably precious both to him and
his wife. Mr. Lewes offered to go to Brighton to see him; but he was
so reduced, so very feeble in body, though he kept to the last much
brightness of mind, that Mrs. Smith feared for him the excitement of
seeing friends who came, specially, from a distance.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Aug. 1872.]
I like to think that your journey was a success. But I had felt sure,
that unless bad health or bad weather overtook you, both Mrs.
Blackwood and you must have great happiness in taking that bright,
lovely daughter abroad and watching her fresh impressions. I imagine
her laudable indignation at the crushing of the little lizard! Those
little creatures darting about the stones seem part of the happiness
of Italian sunshine, as the small birds hopping after the rain seem
part of the moist happiness at home.
I shall send Part VII. in a few days. Since Mr. Lewes tells me that
the _Spectator_ considers me the most melancholy of authors, it will
perhaps be a welcome assurance to you that there is no unredeemed
tragedy in the solution of the story.
Mr. Lewes examines the newspapers before I see them, and cuts out any
criticisms which refer to me, so as to save me from these spiritual
chills--though, alas! he cannot save me from the physical chills which
retard my work more seriously. I had hoped to have the manuscript well
out of my hands before we left this place at the end of the month, but
the return of my dyspeptic troubles makes me unable to reckon on such
a result.
It will be a good plan, I think, to quicken the publication towards
the end; but we feel convinced that the slow plan of publication has
been of immense advantage to the book in deepening the impression it
produces. Still I shudder a little to think what a long book it will
be--not so long as "Vanity Fair" or "Pendennis," however, according to
my calculation.
How good the articles on French manners and domestic life are in
"Maga." The spirit in which they are written is excellent.
The manuscript of "Middlemarch" bears the following
inscription:
"To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes, in this nineteenth year of
our blessed union."
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, Sept. 1872.]
I am tired of behaving like an ungrateful wretch--making no sign in
answer to affectionate words which have come to me with cheering
effect. And I want to tell you and Mr. Hall (alas! for the dear old
name[18] which had such cherished associations) that I long too much
to see you all at Six-Mile Bottom, to give up utterly the prospect of
that good. We imagine that the place is near Ipswich, which is no more
than an hour and fifty minutes from London. If so, the journey would
be easily managed, and would be worth taking for the sake of one whole
day and two half days with you--just as if you were the hour nearer,
at Weybridge--before we set our faces towards Germany. I am not
hopeless that we might do that in the second week of September, if you
are not quite disgusted with the thought of me as a person who is
always claiming pity for small ailments, and also if Mr. Hall can
secure me against being shot from the other side of the hedge by the
Prince of Wales,[19] while we are discussing plantations.
I dare not count much on fulfilling any project, my life for the last
year having been a sort of nightmare, in which I have been scrambling
on the slippery bank of a pool, just keeping my head above water. But
I shall be the happier for having told you that I delight in the
double invitation for the sake of the love it assures me of, and that
I do want to see you all.
You are all gloriously well, I hope, and Alkie looking more and more
cherubic, and Emily and Florence blooming. My best love to all.
Particular regards to J., and regrets that we were not on his route
from Brindisi. I read his paper on New York with much interest and
satisfaction.
You are often among my imaged companions both in dreaming and waking
hours.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, Oct. 1872, from Homburg.]
It was a delightful surprise to see your handwriting when we went to
inquire at the _Poste Restante_. We had, on the whole, a fortunate
journey, and are especially grateful to Mr. Hall for suggesting the
route by Trèves, where we spent two nights and an exquisite day. I was
continually reminded of Rome when we were wandering in the outskirts
in search of the antiquities, and the river banks are a loveliness
into the bargain which Rome has not. We had even an opportunity of
seeing some dissipation, for there happened to be an excellent circus,
where we spent our evening. The pretty country through which we passed
had an additional interest for us about Libramont.
The air, the waters, the plantations here are all perfect--"only man
is vile." I am not fond of denouncing my fellow-sinners, but gambling
being a vice I have no mind to, it stirs my disgust even more than my
pity. The sight of the dull faces bending round the gaming-tables, the
raking up of the money, and the flinging of the coins towards the
winners by the hard-faced croupiers, the hateful, hideous women
staring at the board like stupid monomaniacs--all this seems to me the
most abject presentation of mortals grasping after something called a
good that can be seen on the face of this little earth. Burglary is
heroic compared with it. I get some satisfaction in looking on, from
the sense that the thing is going to be put down. Hell is the only
right name for such places.
It was cruel to find the bitter cold just set in as we arrived. For
two days we were as cold as in clear winter days at Berlin. There are
no amusements for the evening here, and the pleasure of listening to
the excellent band in the afternoons is diminished by the chillness
which makes one fear to sit down in the open air. But we like being
idle, and the days pass easily.
It is good to have in our memories the two happy days at Six-Mile
Bottom; and the love that surrounded me and took care of me there is
something very precious to believe in among hard-faced strangers. Much
gratitude for the anticipated letter that will come to tell us more
news of you by-and-by.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Oct. 1872.]
At last I begin a letter which is intended not as a payment but as an
acknowledgment of debt. It will have at least the recommendation of
requiring no answer. After some perfect autumnal days we are
languishing with headache from two days' damp and mugginess, and feel
it almost as much work as we are equal to to endure our _malaise_. But
on the whole we are not sorry that we came to this place rather than
any other. On dry days the air is perfect, and the waters are really
an enticing drink. Then there is a wood close by where we can wander
in delicious privacy: which is really better than the company here,
save and except a few friends whom we found at first, and who have now
moved off to Baden. The Kursaal is to me a hell, not only for the
gambling but for the light and heat of the gas, and we have seen
enough of its monstrous hideousness. There is very little dramatic
_Stoff_ to be picked up by watching or listening. The saddest thing to
be witnessed is the play of a young lady, who is only twenty-six
years old, and is completely in the grasp of this mean, money-making
demon. It made me cry to see her young, fresh face among the hags and
brutally stupid men around her. Next year, when the gambling has
vanished, the place will be delightful; there is to be a subvention
from Government to keep up the beautiful grounds; and it is likely
that there will be increase enough in the number of decent visitors to
keep the town tolerably prosperous. One attraction it has above other
German baths that I have seen is the abundance of pleasant apartments
to be had, where one can be as peaceful as the human lot allows in a
world of pianos.
Asher's cheap editions are visible everywhere by the side of
Tauchnitz, but the outside is not, I think, quite equally
recommendable and recommending.
We brought no books with us, but have furnished our table with German
books which we bought at Frankfort, from learned writing about
Menschlich Sprache and Vernunft down to Kotzebue's comedies, so that
we have employment for the rainy hours when once our heads are clear
of aches. The certainty that the weather is everywhere else bad will
help our resolution to stay here till the 12th at least. In the mean
time we hope to have the proof of the finale to "Middlemarch."
I am rejoiced to learn from Mr. William's letter that Mr. Simpson has
returned from his excursion in good condition. That must be a comfort
to you, both for friendship and for work's sake.
We mean to return by Paris, and hope that the weather will not drive
us away from health and pleasure-seeking until the end of the month. I
fear, from the accounts of your Scottish weather, that you will have
enjoyed Strathtyrum less than usual, and will be resigned to Edinburgh
before your proper time. How one talks about the weather! It is
excusable here where there is no grave occupation, and no amusement
for us, who don't gamble, except seeking health in walks and water
drinking.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Cross, 27th Oct. 1872, from Boulogne.]
I had meant to write to you again from Germany, but I was hindered
from doing so by the uncertainty of our plans, which vacillated
between further wanderings in South Germany and the usual dreary
railway journeying by Strasburg to Paris. As it was, we left Homburg
on the 13th and had ten days of delicious autumnal weather and
quietude at Stuttgart and Carlsruhe--ten days which made the heart of
our enjoyment. We still hesitated whether we should go to Augsburg,
and even Munich, making our way home through Germany and Belgium, and
turning our shoulders on Paris. Our evil genius persuaded us to go to
Paris and to make the journey by night--whence came headache and
horrible disgust with the shops of the Rue de la Paix and the
Boulevard. After going to Versailles in the rain, seeing the sad ruins
of the Hotel de Ville, missing the Theatre Français, and getting
"Patrie" in exchange, we rushed away to this place, where we are
trying to recover the sense of benefit from our change, which forsook
us on quitting old Germany. We have an affinity for what the world
calls "dull places," and always prosper best in them. We are sure to
be at home next week, and I hope before long to have some news of you
there--some dear faces coming to bring it. We shall linger here a few
days and take a favorable time for crossing, but our patience will
hardly last beyond Friday.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 1st Nov. 1872.]
We returned yesterday evening from six weeks' absence in Germany, and
I found your dear, sad letter among the many awaiting me. I prize very
highly the fact that you like to write to me and bear me in your mind
as one who has a certain fellowship in your sorrow; and I do trust
that this letter may reach you in time to prevent you from thinking,
even for a moment, that I could be indifferent about responding to any
word you send me. I shall address it to the care of Blackwood & Sons,
because I imagine you to be by this time in Edinburgh with that
delightful friend, Mrs. Stirling, whom I had much kindness from many
years ago when I was on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. George Combe. She took
me to hear Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Candlish, and through her I saw
Craigcrook. I like to think of those hours and her pleasant talk.
Mr. Lewes, I am thankful to say, has been getting more robust for the
last two years, and is very bright and active. I think there is hardly
any one left to whom he would so willingly have written or talked
about the subjects which are filling his mind as that dear one who is
gone from your side, but is perpetually present in your consciousness.
To-day I have been reading the memorial article in _Blackwood_, and
have been hoping that there is nothing in it which jars on your
feeling. Everybody will think as I do--that the bits from your pen are
worth all the rest. I have been especially moved, though, by the two
stanzas quoted at the end. Mr. Lewes judges that the writer of the
article did not personally know your husband, and wishes that more
special touches had been given. I know, dear friend, that the sorrow
is irremediable; but the pain--the anguish--will become less sharp and
life will be less difficult. You will think of things to do such as he
would approve of your doing, and every day will be sacred with his
memory--nay, his presence. There is no pretence or visionariness in
saying that he is still part of you. Mr. Lewes sends his affectionate
regards, which you will not reject. We mention your name to each other
with a certain tenderness, as if your sorrow somehow belonged to our
love for each other. But I hardly dare to think of what these words
which I have written mean. Sometimes in the midst of happiness I cry
suddenly at the thought that there must come a parting. Are not you
and I very near to one another? I mean in feeling.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Nov. 1872.]
I found a letter from dear Mrs. William Smith on my return, and I have
had another since in answer to mine. It is inevitable that her sense
of loss should deepen for some time to come. I am hoping that
by-and-by active interests will arise to make her feel that her life
is useful.
The article in _Blackwood_ was chiefly valuable for the extracts it
contained from Mrs. Smith's own memoir. One felt that the writer of
the article had not known Mr. William Smith personally; but her
sketches did something to supply that defect. Mr. Lewes felt a
peculiar attachment to him. He had always been thoroughly sympathetic,
both morally and intellectually, and it was a constant regret to us
that he and Mrs. Smith were so far away. There was no man with whom
Mr. Lewes would have found it so pleasant to discuss questions of
science and philosophy--his culture was so rare and his disposition so
free from littleness: and his wife was worthy of him.
Gertrude's little Blanche is a charming young lady--fat, cooing, and
merry. It is a great comfort to see her with this hope fulfilled--I
mean to see Gertrude with her hope fulfilled, and not Blanche, as the
grammar seemed to imply. That small person's hopes are at present easy
of fulfilment.
We have made but one expedition since our return, and that was to see
the pictures at Bethnal Green--altogether a cheering and delightful
sight. Of course you saw them long ago. The Troyon is my favorite.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Nov. 1872.]
I will impute your total silence towards me for many, many months to
your preoccupation with the work now announced, and will not believe
that a greeting from me at this time of the year will be less welcome
than of old. I remember that last year one of your prettily-expressed
wishes was that I should write another book and--I think you
added--send it to you to read. On the strength of this remembrance,
you will be one of the three exceptional people to whom we order
"Middlemarch" to be sent. But do not write to me about it, because
until a book has quite gone away from me and become entirely of the
_non-ego_--gone thoroughly from the wine-press into the casks--I would
rather not hear or see anything that is said about it.
Cara sent me word that you were looking, as usual, very pretty, and
showing great energy on interesting occasions. But this was two months
ago, and some detailed news from yourself would be a delightful gift.
I am getting stronger, and showing some meagre benefit from being
indulged in all possible ways. Mr. Lewes makes a martyr of himself in
writing all my notes and business letters. Is not that being a sublime
husband? For all the while there are studies of his own being put
aside--studies which are a seventh heaven to him.
Is there any one who does not need patience? For when one's outward
lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing.
You are never long without entering into my thoughts, though you may
send nothing fresh to feed them. But I am ashamed of expressing regard
for my friends, since I do no earthly thing for them.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1872.]
A kiss to you on your birthday! with gratitude for your delightful
letter, such as only you can write me. How impossible it is to _feel_
that we are as old as we are! Sometimes it seems a little while since
you and I were walking over the Radford fields, with the youth in our
limbs, talking and laughing with that easy companionship which it is
difficult to find in later life. I am busy now reading Mr. Lewes's
manuscript, which has been accumulating fast during my "Middlemarch"
time. Did I tell you that in the last two years he has been mastering
the principles of mathematics? That is an interesting fact,
impersonally, at his age. Old Professor Stowe--Mrs. H. B. Stowe's
husband--sent me this story, which is almost better than Topsy. He
heard a school-master asking a little black girl the usual questions
about creation--who made the earth, the sea, etc. At last came, "And
who made you?" Some deliberation was necessary, after which she said,
"Nobody; _I was so afore_." Expect to be immensely disappointed with
the close of "Middlemarch." But look back to the Prelude. I wish I
could take the wings of the morning every now and then to cheer you
with an hour's chat, such as you feel the need of, and then fly back
on the wings of the wind. I have the most vivid thoughts of you,
almost like a bodily presence; but these do you no good, since you can
only believe that I have them--and you are tired of believing after
your work is done.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Dec. 1872.]
Before your letter came, Mr. Lewes had been expressing to me his
satisfaction (and he is very hard to satisfy with articles on me) in
the genuineness of judgment, wise moderation, and excellent selection
of points in "Maga's" review of "Middlemarch." I have just now been
reading the review myself--Mr. Lewes had meant at first to follow his
rule of not allowing me to see what is written about myself--and I am
pleased to find the right moral note struck everywhere, both in remark
and quotation. Especially I am pleased with the writer's sensibility
to the pathos in Mr. Casaubon's character and position, and with the
discernment he shows about Bulstrode. But it is a perilous matter to
approve the praise which is given to our own doings.
I think that such an article as that which you hint at on the tone of
the Bar is very desirable. We are usually at one on points of feeling.
Is it not time now to insist that ability and not lying is the force
of a barrister--that he has not to make himself a bad actor in order
to put a case well, but to get the clearness and breadth of vision
which will enable him to handle the evidence effectively?
Untruthfulness usually ends by making men foolish. I have never read
"Spiritual Wives," but judging from the extracts which have come
before me, it must be a nasty book. Still, if people will be censors,
let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by the
disproportionateness of the condemnation which everybody with some
conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing
a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we
kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of
distributive justice in the kicking.
I shall be agreeably surprised if there is a respectable subscription
for the four volumes. Already the numbers taken have been
satisfactorily large, considering the indisposition of the public to
buy books by comparison with other wares, and especially to buy novels
at a high price. I fancy every private copy has done duty for a
circle. Friends of mine in the country have implied that they lent
their copies to all the readers in their neighborhood. A little fuss
of advertisement, together with the reviews, will perhaps create a few
more curious inquirers after the book, and impress its existence on
the slower part of the reading world. But really the reading world is,
after all, very narrow, as, according to the _Spectator_, the
"comfortable" world also is--the world able to give away a sovereign
without pinching itself. Those statistics just given about incomes are
very interesting.
[Sidenote: Letter to J. W. Cross, 11th Dec. 1872.]
A thousand thanks for your kind interest in our project, and for the
trouble you have taken in our behalf. I fear the land buying and
building[20] is likely to come to nothing, and our construction to
remain entirely of the aerial sort. It is so much easier to imagine
other people doing wise things than to do them one's self!
Practically, I excel in nothing but paying twice as much as I ought
for everything. On the whole, it would be better if my life could be
done for me, and I could look on. However, it appears that the
question of the land at Shere may remain open until we can discuss it
with you at Weybridge; and there is no telling what we may not venture
on with your eyes to see through.
But, oh dear, I don't like anything that is troublesome under the name
of pleasure.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 12th Dec. 1872.]
I have had the news that you are safely landed at Pooree, so now I can
write with some courage. I have got some comfort--I trust it is not
false comfort--out of the probability that there will be much good
mingled with the evil of this winter's exile for you. You must be the
richer for it mentally, and your health may be the better--and then,
you will be back again in the late spring. In this way I make myself
contented under the incompleteness of our life without you, and I am
determined not to grumble at my share of the loss which falls so sadly
on Dr. Congreve and the children. Dr. Congreve kindly let me know when
you had got through the trials of the Red Sea, rather better than
might have been expected; and Sophie tells me that you speak of the
brilliant coloring in your new world as quite equal to any description
you had read. Beyond that all is a blank to me except the fact of your
arrival at Pooree, and all my feeling is taken up with the joy there
must have been in the meeting with Mr. Geddes. You find it very
difficult to write in the heat--so don't make the thought of me
disagreeable by associating it with a claim on you for a letter. I
will be grateful for scraps from your correspondence with home, and
wait for my turn when you come back to us. For ourselves, we think our
little granddaughter, Blanche, the perfection of a baby. She is,
dispassionately speaking, very pretty, and has a cooing, chanting song
of her own which it makes me happy to hear. Mr. Lewes goes on at his
writing with as much interest as ever, and is bringing the first part
of his work into its final shape. Since we came home I have been
reading his manuscript, which has been piling itself up in
preparation for my leisure, and I have been wearing my gravest
philosophic cap. Altogether we are dangerously happy. You remember
Mrs. Blank of Coventry? You know hers was another name for astonishing
cleverness in that town. Now, of course, she is old, and her
cleverness seems to have a mouldy flavor. _Apropos_ of the seventh
book of "Middlemarch"--which you may not have read, but never
mind--Mrs. Blank, having lain awake all night from compassion for
Bulstrode, said, "Poor, dear creature, after he had done so much for
that wretch, sitting up at night and attending on him! _and I don't
believe it was the brandy that killed him_--and what is to become of
Bulstrode now, he has nobody left but Christ!" I think this is worth
sending to India, you see; it is a little bit of old Coventry life
that may make you and Emily laugh with all the more lively memory in
the midst of your strange scenery. But there is a hovering terror
while I write to you from far off, lest my trivialities should find
you when you are ill or have some cause for being sad. In any case,
however, you will take my letter for a simple proof that I dwell on
you and Emily as images constantly present in my mind, and very often
moving to the foreground in my contemplation. Mr. Lewes is one with me
in many affectionate thoughts about you, and your names are often on
our lips. We are going to pass the Christmas week with our friends at
Weybridge; and I shall be glad to escape the London aspects of that
season--aspects that are without any happy association for me. Mr.
Lewes has just been in to speak to me, and begs me to say that he
hopes baby is raised to the _n_^{th} power. You see the lofty point of
view from which he regards the world at present. But there is enough
of the sap of affection in him to withstand all the dryness of the
dryest mathematics, and he has very hearty regards for you all,
including Mr. Geddes, not as a matter of course, but with special
emphasis. Good-bye, dear, dear friend. May it give you some little
satisfaction to think of me as yours always lovingly.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 18th Dec. 1872.]
Your letter was very welcome to me. I wanted to know how you were; and
I think that I discern in your words some growth of courage to face
the hard task--it is a hard task--of living a separate life. I reckon
it a great good to me that any writing of mine has been taken into
companionship by you, and seemed to speak with you of your own
experience. Thank you for telling me of that.
This weather, which is so melancholy in the privation it must cause to
those who are worst off in the world, adds a little weight to
everybody's griefs. But I trust that you find it a comfort, not an
oppression, to be among friends who make a little claim on your
attention. When you go to How, please tell me all about the place, and
whom you have near you, because I like to be able to imagine your
circumstances.
I have been, and am still, reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript--and I often
associate this with your dear husband, to whom I imagine mine would
have liked to send his proofs when the matter had reached the printing
stage.
We are both very well, and Mr. Lewes is enjoying his morning at his
desk. He likes very much to be included in your love, and has always
thought you one of the most charming women among our acquaintance.
Please not to say that he has bad taste in women. We both cherish very
tender thoughts of your sorrow, dear friend. Let me always be assured
that you think of me as yours affectionately.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mr. Simpson, 18th Dec. 1872.]
We have to thank you for two things especially. First, for the good
bargain you have made for "Middlemarch" with Australia; and secondly,
for the trouble you have kindly taken with the MS., which has come to
us safely in its fine Russian coat.
The four volumes, we imagine, must have been subscribed long ago; and
we should be glad to know, if it were convenient--perhaps even if it
were _in_convenient--what are the figures representing the courage of
"the trade" in the matter of a 42_s._ novel, which has already been
well distributed.
We both hope that your health is well confirmed, and that you are
prepared for Christmas pleasures, among which you would probably, like
Caleb Garth, reckon the extra "business" which the jolly season
carries in its hinder wallet.
_SUMMARY._
JANUARY, 1869, TO DECEMBER, 1872.
Poem on Agatha--Reading on Philology, "Iliad," "Faery Queen,"
Clough's Poems, Bright's Speeches, "Volpone," Lecture by Sir
Wm. Thomson--Writing "How Lisa Loved the King"--Browning and
Rector of Lincoln on Versification--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Browning's "Elisha"--Fourth visit to Italy--Two
months away--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Paris--Dr.
Congreve's Reply to Professor Huxley in
_Fortnightly_--Meeting in Rome with Mrs. Bullock and Mr. and
Mrs. Cross--Letter to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe--Effect of
books--Religion of the future--Arrival of Thornton Lewes from
Natal--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Marriage engagements of Mr.
Beesley, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and Dr. Clifford
Allbut--Finished five "Sonnets on Childhood"--Letter to Mrs.
Stowe--"Old Town Folks"--Presentation of alien religious
convictions--Spiritualism--Reading Drayton and Grote--Writing
Introduction to "Middlemarch"--Reading
Theocritus--Burne-Jones's Pictures--Reading Littré on
Comte--Sainte Beuve--Thornton Lewes's continued
illness--Visit to Mrs. Cross at Weybridge--Reading for
"Middlemarch"--Asks Mrs. Congreve to get information about
provincial hospitals--Letter to Miss Hennell--The Byron
scandal--Byron a vulgar-minded genius--The
Kovilevskys--"Legend of Jubal" begun--Mr. W. G.
Clark--Reading Max Müller--Lecky and Herbert Spencer--Death
of Thornton Lewes--Letter to Miss Hennell describing month's
visit to Limpsfield--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mr.
Doyle--Letter to F. Harrison on the Positivist
Problem--Aversion to personal statements--Shrinking from
deliverances--Letter to Miss Hennell on Charles Hennell's
"Inquiry"--Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Berlin--Sees Mommsen,
Bunsen, and Du Bois Reymond--Visit to Vienna--Return to
London--Three days' visit to the Rector of Lincoln College,
Oxford, and Mrs. Pattison--Meets Sir Benjamin
Brodie--Professor Rawlinson and Professor Phillips--Dr.
Rolleston and the Miss Gaskells, and Miss Arnold--Mr. Jowett,
Professor Henry Smith, and Mr. Fowler--Re-reading Grove "On
the Correlation of the Physical Forces"--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Dickens's Death, and his story of President
Lincoln--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Visit to Cromer--Growing
dislike of migratory life--Letter to Mrs. Lytton on the death
of Lord Clarendon--Danger of women living too exclusively in
the affections--Reading Mendelssohn's letters--From Cromer to
Harrogate and Whitby--Meets Mrs. Burne-Jones there--"Armgart"
begun--Three weeks' visit to Limpsfield--Letter to Miss
Hennell on the beginning of the war between Germany and
France--Jowett's "Plato"--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--The French
nation--"Armgart" finished at Limpsfield--Return to the
Priory--Letter to Miss Hennell--A popular preacher--Growing
influence of ideas--Goethe's contempt for revolution of
1830--Letter to Mme. Bodichon on the faults of one's
friends--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Industrial schemes--Greater
cheerfulness--Frederic Harrison on Bismarckism--Writing "Miss
Brooke"--Reading Wolf's "Prolegomena to Homer" and "Wilhelm
Meister"--Visit to Mme. Bodichon at Ryde--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Ritualism at Ryde--Brutalizing effect of German
war--Trollope's "Sir Harry Hotspur"--Limits of woman's
constancy--Miss Bury's engagement to Mr. Geddes--Letter to
Mrs. Peter Taylor--Three and a half months' visit to
Petersfield--Mode of life--Letter to Mme. Bodichon--Lowell's
"My Study Windows"--"Diethelm von Buchenberg" in _Deutschen
Novellenschatz_--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Mrs. Geddes's
marriage--Letter to John Blackwood--Relinquishment of Scott
Commemoration--Captain Lockhart--Letter to John Blackwood on
MS. of "Middlemarch"--Visit from Tennyson--Letter to Mrs.
Lytton on death of her son--Letter to Miss Mary Cross on
story in _Macmillan's Magazine_--Letter to Mrs. Peter
Taylor--Suffering from cold--Got's acting--Crystal Palace
music--Letter to Mrs. Bray--Delight in intellectual
activity--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Enjoyment of
Cherrimans--Letter to John Blackwood--Visit to Weybridge--Mr.
Main, the collector of the "Sayings"--Reception of
"Middlemarch"--Letters to Miss Hennell--Foster's "Life of
Dickens"--Low health--Tichborne trial--Letters to John
Blackwood: pleased with the "Sayings"--Visit to
Weybridge--Length of "Middlemarch"--Letter to Mrs.
Congreve--Reading Johnson's "Lives of the Poets"--Finished
second volume of "Middlemarch"--Letter to Mrs.
Stowe--Spiritualistic phenomena--Letter to John
Blackwood--German and French interest in
"Middlemarch"--Asher's edition--German readers--Letter to
Mrs. Peter Taylor on death of Mazzini--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Low health--Letter to Mrs. Stowe--Spirit
communications--Letter to Mrs. Congreve on Wallace's "Eastern
Archipelago"--Tylor's "Primitive Culture"--Letter to John
Blackwood--"Middlemarch" finished--Letter to Mrs. Cross on
invitation to Six-Mile Bottom, Cambridge--Month's visit to
Homburg--Letter to Mrs. Cross--Trèves--On gambling at
Homburg--Letter to John Blackwood--Play of a young lady at
Homburg--German reading--Letter to Mrs. Cross from
Boulogne--Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith of condolence on loss of
her husband--Memorial article on Mr. Wm. Smith--Letter to
Mrs. Peter Taylor on Mr. Wm. Smith--Letters to Miss
Hennell--Presentation copies of "Middlemarch"--Mr. Lewes
studying mathematics--Letter to John Blackwood--"Maga's"
review of "Middlemarch"--Tone of the Bar--Letter to J. W.
Cross on building a house at Shere--Letter to Mrs.
Congreve--Happiness--Story of Coventry lady and
Bulstrode--Letter to Mr. Simpson--MS. of "Middlemarch."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Dr. Congreve's article, "Mr. Huxley on M. Comte," in _Fortnightly
Review_, April, 1869.
[7] See _ante_, vol. i. p. 220.
[8] Professor Edmund Spenser Beesley, a well-known member of the
Positivist body, who married Miss Crompton, daughter of Mr. Justice
Crompton.
[9] An article by Mr. Frederic Harrison in the _Fortnightly Review_ of
November, 1869.
[10] Portrait of Charles Hennell.
[11] Written after the death of Lord Clarendon, who, Lady Lytton tells
me, had been like a father to her.
[12] "Armgart."
[13] Miss Octavia Hill. Walmer Street Industrial Experiment, tried by
Canon Fremantle under Miss Hill's supervision.
[14] Scott Commemoration.
[15] Written just before the death of Mrs. Lytton's eldest boy.
[16] "Marie of Villefranche." _Macmillan's Magazine_, August, 1871.
[17] The collector of "The Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings of George
Eliot."
[18] Mr. W. H. Bullock--changed his name to Hall.
[19] The Six-Mile Bottom shooting had been let to H. R. H. that year.
[20] A site offered near Shere, in Surrey.