CHAPTER XI.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]

_July 1._--We found ourselves at home again, after three months of

delightful travel. From Berne we brought our eldest boy Charles, to

begin a new period in his life, after four years at Hofwyl. During our

absence "The Mill on the Floss" came out (April 4), and achieved a

greater success than I had ever hoped for it. The subscription was

3600 (the number originally printed was 4000); and shortly after its

appearance, Mudie having demanded a second thousand, Blackwood

commenced striking off 2000 more, making 6000. While we were at

Florence I had the news that these 6000 were all sold, and that 500

more were being prepared. From all we can gather, the votes are rather

on the side of "The Mill" as a better book than "Adam."

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st July, 1860.]

We reached home by starlight at one o'clock this morning; and I write

in haste, fear, and trembling lest you should already be gone to

Surrey. You know what I should like--that you and your husband should

come to us the first day possible, naming any hour and conditions. We

would arrange meals and everything else as would best suit you. Of

course I would willingly go to London to see _you_, if you could not

come to me. But I fear lest neither plan should be practicable, and

lest this letter should have to be sent after you. It is from your

note only that I have learned your loss.[21] It has made me think of

you with the sense that there is more than ever a common fund of

experience between us. But I will write nothing more now. I am almost

ill with fatigue, and have only courage to write at all because of my

anxiety not to miss you.

Affectionate regards from both of _us_ to both of _you_.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d July, 1860.]

I opened your letters and parcel a little after one o'clock on Sunday

morning, for that was the unseasonable hour of our return from our

long, long journey. Yesterday was almost entirely employed in feeling

very weary indeed, but this morning we are attacking the heap of small

duties that always lie before one after a long absence.

It is pleasant to see your book[22] fairly finished after all delays

and anxieties; but I will say nothing to you about _that_ until I have

read it. I shall read it the first thing before plunging into a course

of study which will take me into a different region of thought.

We have had an unspeakably delightful journey--one of those journeys

that seem to divide one's life in two, by the new ideas they suggest

and the new veins of interest they open. We went to Geneva, and spent

two days with my old, kind friends, the d'Alberts--a real pleasure to

me, especially as Mr. Lewes was delighted with "Maman," as I used to

call Madame d'Albert. She is as bright and upright as ever; the ten

years have only whitened her hair--a change which makes her face all

the softer in coloring.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 3d July, 1860.]

We did not reach home till past midnight on Saturday, when you, I

suppose, had already become used to the comfort of having fairly got

through your London season. Self-interest, rightly understood of

course, prompts us to a few virtuous actions in the way of

letter-writing to let the few people we care to hear from know at once

of our whereabouts; and you are one of the first among the few.

At Berne Mr. Lewes supped with Professors Valentin and Schiff, two

highly distinguished physiologists, and I was much delighted to find

how much attention and interest they had given to his views in the

"Physiology of Common Life."

A French translation of "Adam Bede," by a Genevese gentleman[23] well

known to me, is now in the press; and the same translator has

undertaken "The Mill on the Floss." He appears to have rendered "Adam"

with the most scrupulous care. I think these are all the incidents we

gathered on our homeward journey that are likely to interest you.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th July, 1860.]

I have finished my first rather rapid reading of your book, and now I

thank you for it: not merely for the special gift of the volume and

inscription, but for that of which many others will share the benefit

with me--the "thoughts" themselves.

So far as my reading in English books of similar character extends,

yours seems to me quite unparalleled in the largeness and insight with

which it estimates Christianity as an "organized experience"--a grand

advance in the moral development of the race.

I especially delight in the passage, p. 105, beginning, "And how can

it be otherwise," and ending with, "formal rejection of it."[24] On

this and other supremely interesting matters of thought--perhaps I

should rather say of experience--your book has shown me that we are

much nearer to each other than I had supposed. At p. 174, again, there

is a passage beginning, "These sentiments," and ending with

"heroes,"[25] which, for me, expresses the one-half of true human

piety. That thought is one of my favorite altars where I oftenest go

to contemplate, and to seek for invigorating motive.

Of the work as a whole I am quite incompetent to judge on a single

cursory reading. I admire--I respect--the breadth and industry of mind

it exhibits; and I should be obliged to give it a more thorough study

than I can afford at present before I should feel warranted to urge,

in the light of a criticism, my failure to perceive the logical

consistency of your language in some parts with the position you have

adopted in others. In many instances your meaning is obscure to me, or

at least lies wrapped up in more folds of abstract phraseology than I

have the courage or the industry to open for myself. I think you told

me that some one had found your treatment of great questions

"cold-blooded." I am all the more delighted to find, for my own part,

an unusual fulness of sympathy and heart experience breathing

throughout your book. The ground for that epithet perhaps lay in a

certain professorial tone which could hardly be avoided, in a work

filled with criticism of other people's theories, except by the

adoption of a simply personal style of presentation, in which you

would have seemed to be looking up at the oracles, and trying to

reconcile their doctrines for your own behoof, instead of appearing to

be seated in a chair above them. But you considered your own plan more

thoroughly than any one else can have considered it for you; and I

have no doubt you had good reasons for preferring the more impersonal

style.

Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards, and when Du Bois Reymond's book on

Johannes Müller, with other preoccupations of a like thrilling kind,

no longer stand in the way, he will open _his_ copy of the "Thoughts

in Aid of Faith." He has felt a new interest aroused towards it since

he has learned something about it from me and the reviewer in the

_Westminster_.

Madame Bodichon, who was here the other day, told me that Miss

Nightingale and Miss Julia Smith had mentioned their pleasure in your

book; but you will hear further news of all that from themselves.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 9th July, 1860.]

I return Sir Edward Lytton's critical letter, which I have read with

much interest. On two points I recognize the justice of his criticism.

First, that Maggie is made to appear too passive in the scene of

quarrel in the Red Deeps. If my book were still in MS. I should--now

that the defect is suggested to me--alter, or rather expand, that

scene. Secondly, that the tragedy is not adequately prepared. This is

a defect which I felt even while writing the third volume, and have

felt ever since the MS. left me. The _Epische Breite_ into which I was

beguiled by love of my subject in the two first volumes, caused a want

of proportionate fulness in the treatment of the third, which I shall

always regret.

The other chief point of criticism--Maggie's position towards

Stephen--is too vital a part of my whole conception and purpose for me

to be converted to the condemnation of it. If I am wrong there--if I

did not really know what my heroine would feel and do under the

circumstances in which I deliberately placed her, I ought not to have

written this book at all, but quite a different book, if any. If the

ethics of art do not admit the truthful presentation of a character

essentially noble, but liable to great error--error that is anguish to

its own nobleness--then, it seems to me, the ethics of art are too

narrow, and must be widened to correspond with a widening psychology.

But it is good for me to know how my tendencies as a writer clash with

the conclusions of a highly accomplished mind, that I may be warned

into examining well whether my discordance with those conclusions may

not arise rather from an idiosyncrasy of mine than from a conviction

which is argumentatively justifiable.

I hope you will thank Sir Edward on my behalf for the trouble he has

taken to put his criticism into a form specific enough to be useful. I

feel his taking such trouble to be at once a tribute and a kindness.

If printed criticisms were usually written with only half the same

warrant of knowledge, and with an equal sincerity of intention, I

should read them without fear of fruitless annoyance.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 10th July, 1860.]

The little envelope with its address of "Marian" was very welcome, and

as Mr. Lewes is sending what a Malaproprian friend once called a

"missile" to Sara, I feel inclined to slip in a word of

gratitude--less for the present than for the past goodness, which came

back to me with keener remembrance than ever when we were at Genoa and

at Como--the places I first saw with you. How wretched I was then--how

peevish, how utterly morbid! And how kind and forbearing you were

under the oppression of my company. I should like you now and then to

feel happy in the thought that you were always perfectly good to me.

That I was not good to you is my own disagreeable affair; the bitter

taste of that fact is mine, not yours.

Don't you remember Bellagio? It is hardly altered much except in the

hotels, which the eleven years have wondrously multiplied and

bedizened for the accommodation of the English. But if I begin to

recall the things we saw in Italy, I shall write as long a letter as

Mr. Lewes's, which, by-the-bye, now I have read it, seems to be

something of a "missile" in another sense than the Malaproprian. But

Sara is one of the few people to whom candor is acceptable as the

highest tribute. And private criticism has more chance of being

faithful than public. We must have mercy on critics who are obliged to

make a figure in printed pages. They must by all means say striking

things. Either we should not read printed criticisms at all (_I

don't_), or we should read them with the constant remembrance that

they are a fugitive kind of work which, in the present stage of human

nature, can rarely engage a very high grade of conscience or ability.

The fate of a book, which is not entirely ephemeral, is never decided

by journalists or reviewers of any but an exceptional kind. Tell Sara

her damnation--if it ever comes to pass--will be quite independent of

Nationals and Westminsters. Let half a dozen competent people read her

book, and an opinion of it will spread quite apart from either praise

or blame in reviews and newspapers.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, Tuesday evening, July, 1860.]

Our big boy is a great delight to us, and makes our home doubly

cheery. It is very sweet as one gets old to have some young life about

one. He is quite a passionate musician, and we play Beethoven duets

with increasing appetite every evening. The opportunity of hearing

some inspiring music is one of the chief benefits we hope for to

counterbalance our loss of the wide common and the fields.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th July, 1860.]

We shall certainly read the parts you suggest in the "Education of the

Feelings,"[26] and I dare say I shall read a good deal more of it,

liking to turn over the leaves of a book which I read first in our old

drawing-room at Foleshill, and then lent to my sister, who, with a

little air of maternal experience, pronounced it "very sensible."

There is so much that I want to do every day--I had need cut myself

into four women. We have a great extra interest and occupation just

now in our big boy Charlie, who is looking forward to a Government

examination, and wants much help and sympathy in music and graver

things. I think we are quite peculiarly blest in the fact that this

eldest lad seems the most entirely lovable human animal of seventeen

and a half that I ever met with or heard of: he has a sweetness of

disposition which is saved from weakness by a remarkable sense of

duty.

We are going to let our present house, if possible--that is, get rid

of it altogether on account of its inconvenient situation--other

projects are still in a floating, unfixed condition. The water did not

look quite so green at Como--perhaps, as your remark suggests, because

there was a less vivid green to be reflected from my personality as I

looked down on it. I am eleven years nearer to the sere and yellow

leaf, and my feelings are even more autumnal than my years. I have

read no reviews of the "Mill on the Floss" except that in the _Times_

which Blackwood sent me to Florence. I abstain not from

superciliousness, but on a calm consideration of the probable

proportion of benefit on the one hand, and waste of thought on the

other. It was certain that in the notices of my first book, after the

removal of my _incognito_, there would be much _ex post facto_ wisdom,

which could hardly profit me since _I_ certainly knew who I was

beforehand, and knew also that no one else knew who had not been

told.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 18th July, 1860.]

We are quite uncertain about our plans at present. Our second boy,

Thornie, is going to leave Hofwyl, and to be placed in some more

expensive position, in order to the carrying on of his education in a

more complete way, so that we are thinking of avoiding for the present

any final establishment of ourselves, which would necessarily be

attended with additional outlay. Besides, these material cares draw

rather too severely on my strength and spirits. But until Charlie's

career has taken shape we frame no definite projects.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Aug. 1860.]

If Cara values the article on Strikes in the _Westminster Review_, she

will be interested to know--if she has not heard it already--that the

writer is _blind_. I dined with him the other week, and could hardly

keep the tears back as I sat at table with him. Yet he is cheerful and

animated, accepting with graceful quietness all the minute attentions

to his wants that his blindness calls forth. His name is Fawcett, and

he is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I am sitting for my

portrait--for the last time, I hope--to Lawrence, the artist who drew

that chalk-head of Thackeray, which is familiar to you.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Friday, Aug. 1860.]

I know you will rejoice with us that Charlie has won his place at the

Post-office, having been at the head of the list in the examination.

The dear lad is fairly launched in life now.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, Saturday evening, Aug. 1860.]

I am thoroughly vexed that we didn't go to Lawrence's to-day. We made

an effort, but it was raining too hard at the only time that would

serve us to reach the train. That comes of our inconvenient situation,

so far off the railway; and alas! no one comes to take our house off

our hands. We may be forced to stay here after all.

One of the things I shall count upon, if we are able to get nearer

London, is to see more of your schools and other good works. That

would help me to do without the fields for many months of the year.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Aug. 1860.]

I am very sorry that anything I have written should have pained you.

_That_, certainly, is the result I should seek most to avoid in the

very slight communication which we are able to keep up--necessarily

under extremely imperfect acquaintance with each other's present self.

My first letter to you about your book, after having read it through,

was as simple and sincere a statement of the main impressions it had

produced on me as I knew how to write in few words. My second letter,

in which I unhappily used a formula in order to express to you, in

briefest phrase, my difficulty in discerning the justice of your

_analogical_ argument, _as I understood it_, was written from no other

impulse than the desire to show you that I did not neglect your

abstract just sent to me. The said formula was entirely deprived of

its application by the statement in your next letter that you used the

word "essence" in another sense than the one hitherto received in

philosophical writing, on the question as to the nature of our

knowledge; and the explanation given of your meaning in your last

letter shows me--unless I am plunging into further mistake--that you

mean nothing but what I fully believe. My offensive formula was

written under the supposition that your conclusion meant something

which it apparently did _not_ mean. It is probable enough that I was

stupid; but I should be distressed to think that the discipline of

life had been of so little use to me as to leave me with a tendency

to leap at once to the attitude of a critic, instead of trying first

to be a learner from every book written with sincere labor.

Will you tell Mr. Bray that we are quitting our present house in order

to be _nearer_ town for Charlie's sake, who has an appointment in the

Post-office, and our time will be arduously occupied during the next

few weeks in arrangements to that end, so that our acceptance of the

pleasant proposition to visit Sydenham for a while is impossible. We

have advertised for a house near Regent's Park, having just found a

gentleman and lady ready to take our present one off our hands. They

want to come in on quarter-day, so that we have no time to spare.

I have been reading this morning for my spiritual good Emerson's "Man

the Reformer," which comes to me with fresh beauty and meaning. My

heart goes out with venerating gratitude to that mild face, which I

dare say is smiling on some one as beneficently as it one day did on

me years and years ago.

Do not write again about opinions on large questions, dear Sara.

The liability to mutual misconception which attends such

correspondence--especially in my case, who can only write with

brevity and haste--makes me dread it greatly; and I think there is

no benefit derivable to you to compensate for the presence of that

dread in me. You do not know me well enough as I _am_ (according to

the doctrine of development which you have yourself expounded) to

have the materials for interpreting my imperfect expressions.

I think you would spare yourself some pain if you would attribute to

your friends a larger comprehension of ideas, and a larger

acquaintance with them, than you appear to do. I should imagine that

many of them, or at least _some_ of them, share with you, much more

fully than you seem to suppose, in the interest and hope you derive

from the doctrine of development, with its geometrical progression

towards fuller and fuller being. Surely it is a part of human piety we

should all cultivate, not to form conclusions, on slight and dubious

evidence, as to other people's "tone of mind," or to regard particular

mistakes as a proof of general moral incapacity to understand us. I

suppose such a tendency (to large conclusions about others) is part of

the original sin we are all born with, for I have continually to check

it in myself.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Aug. 1860.]

I think I must tell you the secret, though I am distrusting my power

to make it grow into a published fact. When we were in Florence I was

rather fired with the idea of writing an historical romance--scene,

Florence; period, the close of the fifteenth century, which was marked

by Savonarola's career and martyrdom. Mr. Lewes has encouraged me to

persevere in the project, saying that I should probably do something

in historical romance rather different in character from what has been

done before. But I want first to write another English story, and the

plan I should like to carry out is this: to publish my next English

novel when my Italian one is advanced enough for us to begin its

publication a few months afterwards in "Maga." It would appear without

a name in the Magazine, and be subsequently reprinted with the name of

George Eliot. I need not tell you the wherefore of this plan. You know

well enough the received phrases with which a writer is greeted when

he does something else than what was expected of him. But just now I

am quite without confidence in my future doings, and almost repent of

having formed conceptions which will go on lashing me now until I have

at least tried to fulfil them.

I am going to-day to give my last sitting to Lawrence, and we were

counting on the Major's coming to look at the portrait and judge of

it. I hope it will be satisfactory, for I am quite set against going

through the same process a second time.

We are a little distracted just now with the prospect of removal from

our present house, which some obliging people have at last come to

take off our hands.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Sept. 1860.]

My fingers have been itching to write to you for the last week or

more, but I have waited and waited, hoping to be able to tell you that

we had decided on our future house. This evening, however, I have been

reading your description of Algiers, and the desire to thank you for

it moves me too strongly to be resisted. It is admirably written, and

makes me _see_ the country. I am so glad to think of the deep draughts

of life you get from being able to spend half your life in that fresh,

grand scenery. It must make London and English green fields all the

more enjoyable in their turn.

As for us, we are preparing to renounce the delights of roving, and to

settle down quietly, as old folks should do, for the benefit of the

young ones. We have let our present house.

Is it not cheering to have the sunshine on the corn, and the prospect

that the poor people will not have to endure the suffering that comes

on them from a bad harvest? The fields that were so sadly beaten down

a little while ago on the way to town are now standing in fine yellow

shocks.

I wish you could know how much we felt your kindness to Charley. He is

such a dear good fellow that nothing is thrown away upon him.

Write me a scrap of news about yourself, and tell me how you and the

doctor are enjoying the country. I shall get a breath of it in that

way. I think I love the fields and shudder at the streets more and

more every month.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]

_Sept. 27._--To-day is the third day we have spent in our new home

here at 10 Harewood Square. It is a furnished house, in which we do

not expect to stay longer than six months at the utmost. Since our

return from Italy I have written a slight tale, "Mr. David Faux,

Confectioner" ("Brother Jacob"), which G. thinks worth printing.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 27th Sept. 1860.]

The precious check arrived safely to-day. I am much obliged to you for

it, and also for the offer to hasten further payments. I have no

present need of that accommodation, as we have given up the idea of

buying the house which attracted us, dreading a step that might fetter

us to town, or to a more expensive mode of living than might

ultimately be desirable. I hope Mr. Lewes will bring us back a good

report of Major Blackwood's progress towards re-established health. In

default of a visit from him, it was very agreeable to have him

represented by his son,[27] who has the happy talent of making a

morning call one of the easiest, pleasantest things in the world.

I wonder if you know who is the writer of the article in the _North

British_, in which I am reviewed along with Hawthorne. Mr. Lewes

brought it for me to read this morning, and it is so unmixed in its

praise that if I had any friends I should be uneasy lest a friend

should have written it.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Oct. 1860.]

Since there is no possibility of my turning in to see you on my walk,

as in the old days, I cannot feel easy without writing to tell you my

regret that I missed you when you came. In changing a clearer sky for

a foggy one we have not changed our habits, and we walk after lunch,

as usual; but I should like very much to stay indoors any day with the

expectation of seeing you, if I could know beforehand of your coming.

It is rather sad not to see your face at all from week to week, and I

hope you know that I feel it so. But I am always afraid of falling

into a disagreeable urgency of invitation, since we have nothing to

offer beyond the familiar, well-worn entertainment of our own society.

I hope you and Mr. Congreve are quite well now and free from cares.

Emily, I suppose, is gone with the sunshine of her face to Coventry.

There is sadly little sunshine except that of young faces just now.

Still we are flourishing, in spite of damp and dismalness. We were

glad to hear that the well-written article in the _Westminster_ on the

"Essays and Reviews" was by your friend Mr. Harrison.[28] Though I

don't quite agree with his view of the case, I admired the tone and

style of the writing greatly.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Oct. 1860.]

There is no objection to Wednesday but this--that it is our day for

hearing a course of lectures, and the lecture begins at eight. Now,

since you can't come often, we want to keep you as long as we can, and

we have a faint hope that Mr. Congreve might be able to come from his

work and dine with us and take you home. But if that were impossible,

could you not stay all night? There is a bed ready for you. Think of

all that, and if you can manage to give us the longer visit, choose

another day when our evening will be unbroken. I will understand by

your silence that you can only come for a shorter time, and that you

abide by your plan of coming on Wednesday. I am really quite hungry

for the sight of you.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 2d Nov. 1860.]

I agree with you in preferring to put simply "New Edition;" and I see,

too, that the practice of advertising numbers is made vulgar and

worthless by the doubtful veracity of some publishers, and the low

character of the books to which they affix this supposed guarantee of

popularity. _Magna est veritas_, etc. I can't tell you how much

comfort I feel in having publishers who believe that.

You have read the hostile article in the _Quarterly_, I dare say. I

have not seen it; but Mr. Lewes's report of it made me more cheerful

than any review I have heard of since "The Mill" came out. You remember

Lord John Russell was once laughed at immensely for saying that he felt

confident he was right, because all parties found fault with him. I

really find myself taking nearly the same view of my position, with the

Freethinkers angry with me on one side and the writer in the

_Quarterly_ on the other--_not_ because my representations are

untruthful, but because they are impartial--because I don't _load_ my

dice so as to make their side win. The parenthetical hint that the

classical quotations in my books might be "more correctly printed," is

an amusing sample of the grievance that belongs to review-writing in

general, since there happens to be only _one_ classical quotation in

them all--the Greek one from the Philoctetes in "Amos Barton."

By-the-bye, will you see that the readers have not allowed some error

to creep into that solitary bit of pedantry?

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Nov. 1860.]

I understand your paradox of "expecting disappointments," for that is

the only form of hope with which I am familiar. I should like, for

your sake, that you should rather see us in our _own_ house than in

this; for I fear your carrying away a general sense of _yellow_ in

connection with us--and I am sure that is enough to set you against

the thought of us. There are some staring yellow curtains which you

will hardly help blending with your impression of our moral

sentiments. In our own drawing-room I mean to have a paradise of

greenness. I have lately re-read your "Thoughts," from the beginning

of the "Psychical Essence of Christianity" to the end of the "History

of Philosophy," and I feel my original impression confirmed--that the

"Psychical Essence" and "General Review of the Christian System" are

the most valuable portions. I think you once expressed your regret

that I did not understand the analogy you traced between Feuerbach's

theory and Spencer's. I don't know what gave you that impression, for

_I_ never said so. I see your meaning distinctly in that parallel. If

you referred to something in Mr. Lewes's letter, let me say, once for

all, that you must not impute _my_ opinions to _him_ nor _vice versâ_.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from

the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own

impressions. In this respect I know _no_ man so great as he--that

difference of opinion rouses no egoistic irritation in him, and that

he is ready to admit that another argument is the stronger the moment

his intellect recognizes it. I am glad to see Mr. Bray contributing

his quota to the exposure of that odious trickery--spirit-rapping. It

was not headache that I was suffering from when Mr. Bray called, but

extreme languor and unbroken fatigue from morning to night--a state

which is always accompanied in me, psychically, by utter

self-distrust and despair of ever being equal to the demands of life.

We should be very pleased to hear some news of Mr. and Mrs. Call. I

feel their removal from town quite a loss to us.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]

_Nov. 28._--Since I last wrote in this Journal I have suffered much

from physical weakness, accompanied with mental depression. The loss

of the country has seemed very bitter to me, and my want of health and

strength has prevented me from working much--still worse, has made me

despair of ever working well again. I am getting better now by the

help of tonics, and shall be better still if I could gather more

bravery, resignation, and simplicity of striving. In the meantime my

cup is full of blessings: my home is bright and warm with love and

tenderness, and in more material, vulgar matters we are very

fortunate.

Last Tuesday--the 20th--we had a pleasant evening. Anthony Trollope

dined with us, and made me like him very much by his straightforward,

wholesome _Wesen_. Afterwards Mr. Helps came in, and the talk was

extremely agreeable. He told me the queen had been speaking to him in

great admiration of my books--especially "The Mill on the Floss." It

is interesting to know that royalty can be touched by that sort of

writing, and I was grateful to Mr. Helps for his wish to tell me of

the sympathy given to me in that quarter.

To-day I have had a letter from M. d'Albert, saying that at last the

French edition of "Adam Bede" is published. He pleases me very much by

saying that he finds not a sentence that he can retrench in the first

volume of "The Mill."

I am engaged now in writing a story--the idea of which came to me

after our arrival in this house, and which has thrust itself between

me and the other book I was meditating. It is "Silas Marner, the

Weaver of Raveloe." I am still only at about the 62d page, for I have

written slowly and interruptedly.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 7th Dec. 1860.]

The sight of sunshine usually brings you to my mind, because you are

my latest association with the country; but I think of you much

oftener than I see the sunshine, for the weather in London has been

more uninterruptedly dismal than ever for the last fortnight.

Nevertheless _I_ am brighter; and since I believe your goodness will

make that agreeable news to you, I write on purpose to tell it.

Quinine and steel have at last made me brave and cheerful, and I

really don't mind a journey up-stairs. If you had not repressed our

hope of seeing you again until your sister's return, I should have

asked you to join us for the Exeter Hall performance of the "Messiah"

this evening, which I am looking forward to with delight. The Monday

Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall are our easiest and cheapest

pleasures. I go in my bonnet; we sit in the shilling places in the

body of the hall, and hear to perfection for a shilling! That is

agreeable when one hears Beethoven's quartets and sonatas. Pray bear

in mind that these things are to be had when you are more at liberty.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]

_Dec. 17._--We entered to-day our new home--16 Blandford Square--which

we have taken for three years, hoping by the end of that time to have

so far done our duty by the boys as to be free to live where we list.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Dec. 1860.]

Your vision of me as "settled" was painfully in contrast with the

fact. The last virtue human beings will attain, I am inclined to

think, is scrupulosity in promising and faithfulness in fulfilment. We

are still far off our last stadium of development, and so it has come

to pass that, though we were in the house on Monday last, our

curtains are not up and our oilcloth is not down. Such is life, seen

from the furnishing point of view! I can't tell you how hateful this

sort of time-frittering work is to me, who every year care less for

houses and detest shops more. To crown my sorrows, I have lost my

pen--my old, favorite pen, with which I have written for eight

years--at least, it is not forth-coming. We have been reading the

proof of Mr. Spencer's second part, and I am supremely gratified by

it, because he brings his argument to a point which I did not

anticipate from him. It is, as he says, a result of his riper thought.

After all the bustle of Monday I went to hear Sims Reeves sing

"Adelaide"--that _ne plus ultra_ of passionate song--and I wish you

had been there for one quarter of an hour, that you might have heard

it too.

[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 26th Dec. 1860.]

The bright point in your letter is that you are in a happy state of

mind yourself. For the rest, we must wait, and not be impatient with

those who have their inward trials, though everything outward seems to

smile on them. It seems to those who are differently placed that the

time of freedom from strong ties and urgent claims must be very

precious for the ends of self-culture and good, helpful work towards

the world at large. But it hardly ever is so. As for the forms and

ceremonies, I feel no regret that any should turn to them for comfort

if they can find comfort in them; sympathetically I enjoy them myself.

But I have faith in the working-out of higher possibilities than the

Catholic or any other Church has presented; and those who have

strength to wait and endure are bound to accept no formula which their

whole souls--their intellect as well as their emotions--do not embrace

with entire reverence. The "highest calling and election" is to _do

without opium_, and live through all our pain with conscious,

clear-eyed endurance.

We have no sorrow just now, except my constant inward "worrit" of

unbelief in any future of good work on my part. Everything I do seems

poor and trivial in the doing; and when it is quite gone from me, and

seems no longer my own, then I rejoice in it and think it fine. That

is the history of my life.

I have been wanting to go to your school again, to refresh myself with

the young voices there, but I have not been able to do it. My walks

have all been taken up with shopping errands of late; but I hope to

get more leisure soon.

We both beg to offer our affectionate remembrances to the doctor. Get

Herbert Spencer's new work--the two first quarterly parts. It is the

best thing he has done.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]

_Dec. 31._--This year has been marked by many blessings, and, above

all, by the comfort we have found in having Charles with us. Since we

set out on our journey to Italy on 25th March, the time has not been

fruitful in work: distractions about our change of residence have run

away with many days; and since I have been in London my state of

health has been depressing to all effort.

May the next year be more fruitful!

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1861.]

I am writing a story which came _across_ my other plans by a sudden

inspiration. I don't know at present whether it will resolve itself

into a book short enough for me to complete before Easter, or whether

it will expand beyond that possibility. It seems to me that nobody

will take any interest in it but myself, for it is extremely unlike

the popular stories going; but Mr. Lewes declares that I am wrong, and

says it is as good as anything I have done. It is a story of

old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest

millet-seed of thought. I think I get slower and more timid in my

writing, but perhaps worry about houses and servants and boys, with

want of bodily strength, may have had something to do with that. I

hope to be quiet now.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_Feb. 1._--The first month of the New Year has been passed in much

bodily discomfort, making both work and leisure heavy. I have reached

page 209 of my story, which is to be in one volume, and I want to get

it ready for Easter, but I dare promise myself nothing with this

feeble body.

The other day I had charming letters from M. and Mme. d'Albert, saying

that the French "Adam" goes on very well, and showing an appreciation

of "The Mill" which pleases me.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Feb. 1861.]

I was feeling so ill on Friday and Saturday that I had not spirit to

write and thank you for the basket of eggs--an invaluable present. I

was particularly grateful this morning at breakfast, when a fine large

one fell to my share.

On Saturday afternoon we were both so utterly incapable that Mr. Lewes

insisted on our setting off forthwith into the country. But we only

got as far as Dorking, and came back yesterday. I felt a new creature

as soon as I was in the country; and we had two brilliant days for

rambling and driving about that lovely Surrey. I suppose we must keep

soul and body together by occasional flights of this sort; and don't

you think an occasional flight to town will be good for you?

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 8th Feb. 1861.]

I have destroyed almost all my friends' letters to me, because they

were only intended for my eyes, and could only fall into the hands of

persons who knew little of the writers, if I allowed them to remain

till after my death. In proportion as I love every form of

piety--which is venerating love--I hate hard curiosity; and,

unhappily, my experience has impressed me with the sense that hard

curiosity is the more common temper of mind. But enough of that. The

reminders I am getting from time to time of Coventry distress have

made me think very often yearningly and painfully of the friends who

are more immediately affected by it, and I often wonder if more

definite information would increase or lessen my anxiety for them.

Send me what word you can from time to time, that there may be some

reality in my image of things round your hearth.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Feb. 1861.]

I send you by post to-day about two hundred and thirty pages of MS. I

send it because, in my experience, printing and its preliminaries have

always been rather a slow business; and as the story--if published at

Easter at all--should be ready by Easter week, there is no time to

lose. We are reading "Carlyle's Memoirs" with much interest; but, so

far as we have gone, he certainly does seem to me something of a

"Sadducee"--a very handsome one, judging from the portrait. What a

memory and what an experience for a novelist! But, somehow, experience

and finished faculty rarely go together. Dearly beloved Scott had the

greatest combination of experience and faculty, yet even he never made

the most of his treasures, at least in his _mode_ of presentation.

Send us better news of Major Blackwood, if you can. We feel so old and

rickety ourselves that we have a peculiar interest in invalids. Mr.

Lewes is going to lecture for the Post-office this evening, by Mr.

Trollope's request. I am rather uneasy about it, and wish he were well

through the unusual excitement.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Feb. 1861.]

I have been much relieved by Mr. Lewes having got through his lecture

at the Post-office[29] with perfect ease and success, for I had feared

the unusual excitement for him. _I_ am better. I have not been working

much lately; indeed, this year has been a comparatively idle one. I

think my _malaise_ is chiefly owing to the depressing influence of

town air and town scenes. The Zoological Gardens are my one outdoor

pleasure now, and we can take it several times a week, for Mr. Lewes

has become a fellow.

My love is often visiting you. Entertain it well.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Feb. 1861.]

I am glad to hear that Mr. Maurice impressed you agreeably. If I had

strength to be adventurous on Sunday I should go to hear him preach as

well as others. But I am unequal to the least exertion or

irregularity. My only pleasure away from our own hearth is going to

the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Lewes is a fellow, so we turn in there

several times a week; and I find the birds and beasts there most

congenial to my spirit. There is a Shoebill, a great bird of grotesque

ugliness, whose topknot looks brushed up to a point with an exemplary

deference to the demands of society, but who, I am sure, has no idea

that he looks the handsomer for it. I cherish an unrequited attachment

to him.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Feb. 1861.]

If you are in London this morning, in this fine, dun-colored fog, you

know how to pity me. But I feel myself wicked for implying that I have

any grievances. Only last week we had a circular from the clergyman at

Attleboro, where there is a considerable population entirely dependent

on the ribbon-trade, telling us how the poor weavers are suffering

from the effects of the Coventry strike. And these less-known,

undramatic tales of want win no wide help, such as has been given in

the case of the Hartley colliery accident.

Your letter was a contribution towards a more cheerful view of things,

for whatever may be the minor evils you hint at, I know that Mr.

Congreve's better health, and the satisfaction you have in his doing

effective work, will outweigh them. We have had a Dr. Wyatt here

lately, an Oxford physician, who was much interested in hearing of Mr.

Congreve again, not only on the ground of Oxford remembrances, but

from having read his writings.

I was much pleased with the affectionate respect that was expressed in

all the notices of Mr. Clough[30] that I happened to see in the

newspapers. They were an indication that there must be a great deal of

private sympathy to soothe poor Mrs. Clough, if any soothing is

possible in such cases. That little poem of his which was quoted in

the _Spectator_ about parted friendships touched me deeply.

You may be sure we are ailing, but I am ashamed of dwelling on a

subject that offers so little variety.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1861.]

I don't wonder at your finding my story, as far as you have read it,

rather sombre; indeed, I should not have believed that any one would

have been interested in it but myself (since Wordsworth is dead) if

Mr. Lewes had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope you will

not find it at all a sad story, as a whole, since it sets--or is

intended to set--in a strong light the remedial influences of pure,

natural human relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. I have felt

all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical

rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the

psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could

not be an equal play of humor. It came to me first of all quite

suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of

having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his

back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a

more realistic treatment.

My chief reason for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my

writings to appear in the order in which they are written, because

they belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year

behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification with them

which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I generally like them

better at that distance, but then I feel as if they might just as well

have been written by somebody else. It would have been a great

pleasure to me if Major Blackwood could have read my story. I am very

glad to have the first part tested by the reading of your nephew and

Mr. Simpson, and to find that it can interest them at all.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_March 10._--Finished "Silas Marner," and sent off the last thirty

pages to Edinburgh.

[Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 19th Mch. 1861, from Hastings.]

Your letter came to me just as we were preparing to start in search of

fresh air and the fresh thoughts that come with it. I hope you never

doubt that I feel a deep interest in knowing all facts that touch you

nearly. I should like to think that it was some small comfort to Cara

and you to know that, wherever I am, there is one among that number of

your friends--necessarily decreasing with increasing years--who enter

into your present experience with the light of memories; for kind

feeling can never replace fully the sympathy that comes from memory.

My disposition is so faultily anxious and foreboding that I am not

likely to forget anything of a saddening sort.

Tell Sara we saw Mr. William Smith, author of "Thorndale," a short

time ago, and he spoke of her and her book with interest; he thought

her book "suggestive." He called on us during a visit to London, made

for the sake of getting married. The lady is, or rather was, a Miss

Cumming, daughter of a blind physician of Edinburgh. He said they had

talked to each other for some time of the "impossibility" of marrying,

because they were both too poor. "But," he said, "it is dangerous,

Lewes, to talk even of the impossibility." The difficulties gradually

dwindled, and the advantages magnified themselves. She is a nice

person, we hear; and I was particularly pleased with _him_--he is

modest to diffidence, yet bright and keenly awake.

I am just come in from our first good blow on the beach, and have that

delicious sort of numbness in arms and legs that comes from walking

hard in a fresh wind.

"Silas Marner" is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration

that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Mch. 1861.]

The latest number I had heard of was three thousand three hundred, so

that your letter brought me agreeable information. I am particularly

gratified, because this spirited subscription must rest on my

character as a writer generally, and not simply on the popularity of

"Adam Bede." There is an article on "The Mill" in _Macmillan's

Magazine_ which is worth reading. I cannot, of course, agree with the

writer in all his regrets; if I could have done so I should not have

written the book I did write, but quite another. Still, it is a

comfort to me to read any criticism which recognizes the high

responsibilities of literature that undertakes to represent life. The

ordinary tone about art is that the artist may do what he will,

provided he pleases the public.

I am very glad to be told--whenever you can tell me--that the major is

not suffering heavily. I know so well the preciousness of those smiles

that tell one the mind is not held out of all reach of soothing.

We are wavering whether we shall go to Florence this spring or wait

till the year and other things are more advanced.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st April, 1861.]

It gave me pleasure to have your letter, not only because of the kind

expressions of sympathy it contains, but also because it gives me an

opportunity of telling you, after the lapse of years, that I remember

gratefully how you wrote to me with generous consideration and belief

at a time when most persons who knew anything of me were disposed

(naturally enough) to judge me rather severely. Only a woman of rare

qualities would have written to me as you did on the strength of the

brief intercourse that had passed between us.

It was never a trial to me to have been cut off from what is called

the world, and I think I love none of my fellow-creatures the less for

it; still, I must always retain a peculiar regard for those who showed

me any kindness in word or deed at that time, when there was the least

evidence in my favor. The list of those who did so is a short one, so

that I can often and easily recall it.

For the last six years I have ceased to be "Miss Evans" for any one

who has personal relations with me--having held myself under all the

responsibilities of a married woman. I wish this to be distinctly

understood; and when I tell you that we have a great boy of eighteen

at home, who calls me "mother," as well as two other boys, almost as

tall, who write to me under the same name, you will understand that

the point is not one of mere egoism or personal dignity, when I

request that any one who has a regard for me will cease to speak of me

by my maiden name.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 4th April, 1861.]

I am much obliged to you for your punctuality in sending me my

precious check. I prize the money fruit of my labor very highly as the

means of saving us dependence, or the degradation of writing when we

are no longer able to write well, or to write what we have not written

before.

Mr. Langford brought us word that he thought the total subscription

(including Scotland and Ireland) would mount to five thousand five

hundred. That is really very great. And letters drop in from time to

time, giving me words of strong encouragement, especially about "The

Mill;" so that I have reason to be cheerful, and to believe that where

one has a large public, one's words must hit their mark. If it were

not for that, special cases of misinterpretation might paralyze me.

For example, pray notice how one critic attributes to me a disdain for

Tom; as if it were not _my_ respect for Tom which infused itself into

my reader; as if he could have respected Tom if I had not painted him

with respect; the exhibition of the right on both sides being the very

soul of my intention in the story. However, I ought to be satisfied if

I have roused the feeling that does justice to both sides.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th April, 1861.]

I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should

with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have

other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you

will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr. Lewes

felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the

wish to see us at your house; namely, that I have found it a necessity

of my London life to make the rule of _never_ paying visits. Without a

carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would

make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use

of my days; and I am obliged to give up the _few_ visits which would

be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the _many_ visits

which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay

visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind--only by

renouncing all social intercourse but such as comes to our own

fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of my life.

I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if

they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their

expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly

say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in

this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid,

all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at

all beyond our own homes; and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting

my stay-at-home rule into churlishness.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th April, 1861.]

We went to hear Beethoven's "Mass in D" last night, and on Wednesday

to hear Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Nacht" and Beethoven's "Symphony in

B," so that we have had two musical treats this week; but the

enjoyment of such things is much diminished by the gas and bad air.

Indeed, our long addiction to a quiet life, in which our daily walk

among the still grass and trees was a _fête_ to us, has unfitted us

for the sacrifices that London demands. Don't think about reading

"Silas Marner" just because it is come out. I hate _obligato_ reading

and _obligato_ talk about my books. _I never send them to any one_,

and never wish to be spoken to about them, except by an

unpremeditated, spontaneous prompting. They are written out of my

deepest belief, and, as well as I can, for the great public, and every

sincere, strong word will find its mark in that public. Perhaps the

annoyance I suffered (referring to the Liggins' affair) has made me

rather morbid on such points; but, apart from my own weaknesses, I

think the less an author hears about himself the better. Don't mistake

me: I am writing a general explanation, _not_ anything applicable to

you.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_April 19._--We set off on our second journey to Florence, through

France and by the Cornice Road. Our weather was delicious, a little

rain, and we suffered neither from heat nor from dust.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 25th April, 1861.]

We have had a paradisaic journey hitherto. It does one good to look at

the Provençals--men and women. They are quite a different race from

the Northern French--large, round-featured, full-eyed, with an

expression of _bonhomie_, calm and suave. They are very much like the

pleasantest Italians. The women at Arles and Toulon are remarkably

handsome. On Tuesday morning we set out about ten on our way to Nice,

hiring a carriage and taking post-horses. The sky was gray, and after

an hour or so we had rain; nevertheless our journey to Vidauban, about

half-way to Nice, was enchanting. Everywhere a delicious plain,

covered with bright green corn, sprouting vines, mulberry-trees,

olives, and here and there meadows sprinkled with buttercups, made the

nearer landscapes, and, in the distance, mountains of varying outline.

_Mutter_ felt herself in a state of perfect bliss from only looking

at this peaceful, generous nature; and you often came across the green

blades of corn, and made her love it all the better. We had meant to

go on to Fréjus that night, but no horses were to be had; so we made

up our minds to rest at Vidauban, and went out to have a stroll before

our six-o'clock dinner. Such a stroll! The sun had kindly come out for

us, and we enjoyed it all the more for the grayness of the morning.

There is a crystally clear river flowing by Vidauban, called the

Argent: it rushes along between a fringe of aspens and willows; and

the sunlight lay under the boughs, and fell on the eddying water,

making Pater and me very happy as we wandered. The next morning we set

off early, to be sure of horses before they had been used up by other

travellers. The country was not quite so lovely, but we had the

sunlight to compensate until we got past Fréjus, where we had our

first view of the sea since Toulon, and where the scenery changes to

the entirely mountainous, the road winding above gorges of pine-clad

masses for a long way. To heighten the contrast, a heavy storm came,

which thoroughly laid the dust for us, if it had no other advantage.

The sun came out gloriously again before we reached Cannes, and lit up

the yellow broom, which is now in all its splendor, and clothes vast

slopes by which our road wound. We had still a four-hours' journey to

Nice, where we arrived at six o'clock, with headaches that made us

glad of the luxuries to be found in a great hotel.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_May 5._--Dear Florence was lovelier than ever on this second view,

and ill-health was the only deduction from perfect enjoyment. We had

comfortable quarters in the Albergo della Vittoria, on the Arno; we

had the best news from England about the success of "Silas Marner;"

and we had long letters from our dear boy to make us feel easy about

home.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 5th May, 1861.]

Your pleasant news had been ripening at the post-office several days

before we enjoyed the receipt of it; for our journey lasted us longer

than we expected, and we didn't reach this place till yesterday

evening. We have come with _vetturino_ from Toulon--the most

delightful (and the most expensive) journey we have ever had. I dare

say you know the Cornice; if not, _do_ know it some time, and bring

Mrs. Blackwood that way into Italy. Meanwhile I am glad to think that

you are having a less fatiguing change to places where you can "carry

the comforts o' the Saut Market" with you, which is not quite the case

with travellers along the Mediterranean coast. I hope I shall soon

hear that you are thoroughly set up by fresh air and fresh

circumstances, along with pleasant companionship.

Except a thunderstorm, which gave a grand variety to the mountains,

and a little gentle rain, the first day from Toulon, which made the

green corn all the fresher, we have had unbroken sunshine, without

heat and without dust. I suppose this season and late autumn must be

the perfect moments for taking this supremely beautiful journey. We

must be forever ashamed of ourselves if we don't work the better for

it.

It was very good of you to write to me in the midst of your hurry,

that I might have good news to greet me. It really did lighten our

weariness, and make the noisy streets that prevented sleep more

endurable. I was amused with your detail about Professor Aytoun's

sovereigns. There can be no great paintings of misers under the

present system of paper money--checks, bills, scrip, and the

like--nobody can handle that dull property as men handled the

glittering gold.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 17th May, 1861.]

The Florentine winds, being of a grave and earnest disposition, have

naturally a disgust for trivial _dilettanti_ foreigners, and seize on

the peculiarly feeble and worthless with much virulence. In

consequence we had a sad history for nearly a week--Pater doing little

else than nurse me, and I doing little else but feel eminently

uncomfortable, for which, as you know, I have a faculty "second to

none." I feel very full of thankfulness for all the creatures I have

got to love--all the beautiful and great things that are given me to

know; and I feel, too, much younger and more hopeful, as if a great

deal of life and work were still before me. Pater and I have had great

satisfaction in finding our impressions of admiration more than

renewed in returning to Florence; the things we cared about when we

were here before seem even more worthy than they did in our memories.

We have had delightful weather since the cold winds abated; and the

evening lights on the Arno, the bridges, and the quaint houses, are a

treat that we think of beforehand.

Your letters, too, are thought of beforehand. We long for them, and

when they come they don't disappoint us: they tell us everything, and

make us feel at home with you after a fashion. I confess to some dread

of Blandford Square in the abstract. I fear London will seem more

odious to me than ever; but I think I shall bear it with more

fortitude. After all, that is the best place to live in where one has

a strong reason for living.

[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 19th May, 1861.]

We have been industriously foraging in old streets and old books. I

feel very brave just now, and enjoy the thought of work--but don't set

your mind on my doing just what I have dreamed. It may turn out that I

can't work freely and fully enough in the medium I have chosen, and

in that case I must give it up; for I will never write anything to

which my whole heart, mind, and conscience don't consent, so that I

may feel that it was something--however small--which wanted to be done

in this world, and that I am just the organ for that small bit of

work.

I am very much cheered by the way in which "Silas" is received. I hope

it has made some slight pleasure for you too, in the midst of

incomparably deeper feelings of sadness.[31] Your quiet tour among the

lakes was the best possible thing for you. What place is not better

"out of the season"?--although I feel I am almost wicked in my hatred

of being where there are many other people enjoying themselves. I am

very far behind Mr. Buckle's millennial prospect, which is, that men

will be more and more congregated in cities and occupied with human

affairs, so as to be less and less under the influence of

Nature--_i.e._, the sky, the hills, and the plains; whereby

superstition will vanish and statistics will reign for ever and ever.

Mr. Lewes is kept in continual distraction by having to attend to my

wants--going with me to the Magliabecchian Library, and poking about

everywhere on my behalf--I having very little self-help about me of

the pushing and inquiring kind.

I look forward with keen anxiety to the next outbreak of war--longing

for some turn of affairs that will save poor Venice from being

bombarded by those terrible Austrian forts.

Thanks for your letters: we both say, "More--give us more."

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 27th May, 1861.]

Florence is getting hot, and I am the less sorry to leave it because

it has agreed very ill with the dear Paterculus. This evening we have

been mounting to the top of Giotto's tower--a very sublime getting

up-stairs, indeed--and our muscles are much astonished at the unusual

exercise; so you must not be shocked if my letter seems to be written

with dim faculties as well as with a dim light.

We have seen no one but Mrs. Trollope and her pretty little girl

Beatrice, who is a musical genius. She is a delicate fairy, about ten

years old, but sings with a grace and expression that make it a

thrilling delight to hear her.

We have had glorious sunsets, shedding crimson and golden lights under

the dark bridges across the Arno. All Florence turns out at eventide,

but we avoid the slow crowds on the Lung' Arno, and take our way "up

all manner of streets."

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_May_ and _June_.--At the end of May Mr. T. Trollope came back and

persuaded us to stay long enough to make the expedition to Camaldoli

and La Vernia in his company. We arrived at Florence on the 4th May,

and left it on the 7th June--thirty-four days of precious time spent

there. Will it be all in vain? Our morning hours were spent in looking

at streets, buildings, and pictures, in hunting up old books at shops

or stalls, or in reading at the Magliabecchian Library. Alas! I could

have done much more if I had been well; but that regret applies to

most years of my life. Returned by Lago Maggiore and the St. Gothard;

reached home June 14. Blackwood having waited in town to see us, came

to lunch with us, and asked me if I would go to dine at Greenwich on

the following Monday, to which I said "Yes," by way of exception to my

resolve that I will go nowhere for the rest of this year. He drove us

there with Colonel Stewart, and we had a pleasant evening--the sight

of a game at golf in the park, and a hazy view of the distant

shipping, with the Hospital finely broken by trees in the foreground.

At dinner Colonel Hamley and Mr. Skene joined us; Delane, who had been

invited, was unable to come. The chat was agreeable enough, but the

sight of the gliding ships darkening against the dying sunlight made

me feel chat rather importunate.

_June 16._--This morning, for the first time, I feel myself quietly

settled at home. I am in excellent health, and long to work steadily

and effectively. If it were possible that I should produce _better_

work than I have yet done! At least there is a possibility that I may

make greater efforts against indolence and the despondency that comes

from too egoistic a dread of failure.

_June 19._--This is the last entry I mean to make in my old book, in

which I wrote for the first time at Geneva in 1849. What moments of

despair I passed through after that--despair that life would ever be

made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good

purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half

the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity;

and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work

is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th June, 1861.]

Some of one's first thoughts on coming home after an absence of much

length are about the friends one had left behind--what has happened to

them in the meantime, and how are they now? And yet, though we came

home last Friday evening, I have not had the quiet moment for writing

these thoughts until this morning. I know I need put no questions to

you, who always divine what I want to be told. We have had a perfect

journey except as regards health--a large, large exception. The cold

winds alternating with the hot sun, or some other cause, laid very

unkind hold on Mr. Lewes early after our arrival at Florence, and he

was ailing with sore throat and cough continually, so that he has come

back looking thin and delicate, though the ailments seem to be nearly

passed away.

I wish you could have shared the pleasures of our last expedition from

Florence--to the Monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia; I think it

was just the sort of thing you would have entered into with thorough

zest. Imagine the Franciscans of La Vernia, which is perched upon an

abrupt rock rising sheer on the summit of a mountain, turning out at

midnight (and when there is deep snow for their feet to plunge in),

and chanting their slow way up to the little chapel perched at a lofty

distance above their already lofty monastery! This they do every night

throughout the year, in all weathers.

Give my loving greeting to Cara and Mr. Bray, and then sit down and

write me one of your charming letters, making a little picture of

everybody and everything about you. God bless you! is the

old-fashioned summing up of sincere affection, without the least smirk

of studied civility.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th July, 1861.]

Your letter gave me a pleasant vision of Sunday sunshine on the

flowers, and you among them, with your eyes brightened by busy and

enjoyable thoughts.

Yes, I hope we are well out of that phase in which the most

philosophic view of the past was held to be a smiling survey of human

folly, and when the wisest man was supposed to be one who could

sympathize with no age but the age to come.

When I received your Monday packet I was fresh from six quarto volumes

on the history of the monastic orders, and had just begun a less

formidable modern book on the same subject--Montalembert's "Monks of

the West." Our reading, you see, lay in very different quarters, but I

fancy our thoughts sometimes touched the same ground. I am rather

puzzled and shocked, however, by your high admiration of the articles

on the "Study of History," in the _Cornhill_. I should speak with the

reserve due to the fact that I have only read the second article; and

this, I confess, did not impress me as exhibiting any mastery of the

question, while its tone towards much abler thinkers than the writer

himself is to me extremely repulsive. Such writing as, "We should not

be called upon to believe that every crotchet which tickled the insane

vanity of a conceited Frenchman was an eternal and self-evident

truth," is to me simply disgusting, though it were directed against

the father of lies. It represents no fact except the writer's own

desire to be bitter, and is worthily finished by the dull and

irreverent antithesis of "the eternal truth and infernal lie."

I quite agree with you--so far as I am able to form a judgment--in

regarding Positivism as one-sided; but Comte was a great thinker,

nevertheless, and ought to be treated with reverence by all smaller

fry.

I have just been reading the "Survey of the Middle Ages" contained in

the fifth volume of the "Philosophie Positive," and to my apprehension

few chapters can be fuller of luminous ideas. I am thankful to learn

from it. There may be more profundity in the _Cornhill's_ exposition

than I am able to penetrate, or, possibly, the first article may

contain weightier matter than the second.

Mrs. Bodichon is near us now, and one always gets good from contact

with her healthy, practical life. Mr. Lewes is gone to see Mrs.

Congreve and carry his net to the Wimbledon ponds. I hope he will get

a little strength as well as grist for his microscope.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th July, 1861.]

The English "Imitation" I told you of, which is used by the Catholics,

is Challoner's. I have looked into it again since I saw you, and I

think, if you want to give the book away, this translation is as good

as any you are likely to get among current editions. If it were for

yourself, an old bookstall would be more likely to furnish what you

want. Don't ever think of me as valuing either you or Mr. Congreve

less instead of more. You naughtily implied something of that kind

just when you were running away from me. How could any goodness become

less precious to me unless my life had ceased to be a growth, and had

become mere shrinking and degeneracy? I always imagine that if I were

near you now I should profit more by the gift of your presence--just

as one feels about all past sunlight.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_July 24._--Walked with George over Primrose Hill. We talked of Plato

and Aristotle.

_July 26._--In the evening went to see Fechter as Hamlet, and sat next

to Mrs. Carlyle.

_July 30._--Read little this morning--my mind dwelling with much

depression on the probability or improbability of my achieving the

work I wish to do. I struck out two or three thoughts towards an

English novel. I am much afflicted with hopelessness and melancholy

just now, and yet I feel the value of my blessings.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th July, 1861.]

Thornie, our second boy, is at home from Edinburgh for his holidays,

and I am apt to give more thought than is necessary to any little

change in our routine. We had a treat the other night which I wished

you could have shared with us. We saw Fechter in Hamlet. His

conception of the part is very nearly that indicated by the critical

observations in "Wilhelm Meister," and the result is deeply

interesting--the naturalness and sensibility of the _Wesen_ overcoming

in most cases the defective intonation. And even the intonation is

occasionally admirable; for example, "And for my soul, what can he do

to that?" etc., is given by Fechter with perfect simplicity, whereas

the herd of English actors imagine themselves in a pulpit when they

are saying it. _À propos_ of the pulpit, I had another failure in my

search for edification last Sunday. Mme. Bodichon and I went to Little

Portland Street Chapel, and lo! instead of James Martineau there was a

respectable old Unitarian gentleman preaching about the dangers of

ignorance and the satisfaction of a good conscience, in a tone of

amiable propriety which seemed to belong to a period when brains were

untroubled by difficulties, and the lacteals of all good Christians

were in perfect order. I enjoyed the fine selection of collects he

read from the Liturgy. What an age of earnest faith, grasping a noble

conception of life and determined to bring all things into harmony

with it, has recorded itself in the simple, pregnant, rhythmical

English of those collects and of the Bible! The contrast when the good

man got into the pulpit and began to pray in a borrowed, washy

lingo--extempore in more senses than one!

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Aug. 1._--Struggling constantly with depression.

_Aug. 2._--Read Boccaccio's capital story of Fra Cipolla--one of his

few good stories--and the Little Hunchback in the "Arabian Nights,"

which is still better.

_Aug. 10._--Walked with G. We talked of my Italian novel. In the

evening, Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford.

_Aug. 12._--Got into a state of so much wretchedness in attempting to

concentrate my thoughts on the construction of my story that I became

desperate, and suddenly burst my bonds, saying, I will not think of

writing!

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1861.]

That doctrine which we accept rather loftily as a commonplace when we

are quite young--namely, that our happiness lies entirely within, in

our own mental and bodily state, which determines for us the influence

of everything outward--becomes a daily lesson to be learned, and

learned with much stumbling, as we get older. And until we know our

friends' private thoughts and emotions we hardly know what to grieve

or rejoice over for them.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Aug. 17._--Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, who gave us some music.

_Aug. 20._--This morning I conceived the plot of my novel with new

distinctness.

_Aug. 24._--Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, and we had music. These

have been placid, ineffective days, my mind being clouded and

depressed.

_Aug. 26._--Went with Barbara to her school, and spent the afternoon

there.

_Aug. 31._--In the evening came Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford, and we had

some music.

[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 11th Sept. 1861, from Malvern.]

Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the check, too,

was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to

stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether, we are

figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or

"packed" under the early mist.

We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like

travelled people, we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled

with pity at our long-past selves, that had felt quite a thrill at the

first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round

their huge shoulders we begin to think of them with more respect. We

simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep

about them with due humility--whereby, you perceive, there hangs a

moral. I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the

sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so

lovable an aspect. On the southeastern side, where the great green

hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands, well nestled in fine

trees--chiefly "sounding sycamores"--and beyond there stretches to the

horizon, which is marked by a low, faint line of hill, a vast level

expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedge-rows everywhere plumed

with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood; it is one of

the happiest scenes the eyes can look on--_freundlich_, according to

the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of

hills there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which

has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when

our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to

look out over the wide southeastern valley from our sitting-room

window.

Our landlady is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent.

She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things

pretty quick;" and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very

freely to us less crisply baked mortals.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Sept. 11._--Yesterday we returned from Malvern (having gone there on

4th). During our stay I read Mrs. Jameson's book on the "Legends of

the Monastic Orders," corrected the first volume of "Adam Bede" for

the new edition, and began Marchese's "Storia di San Marco."

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Sept. 1861.]

I enter into your and Cara's furniture-adjusting labors and your

enjoyment of church and chapel afterwards. One wants a temple besides

the outdoor temple--a place where human beings do not ramble apart,

but _meet_ with a common impulse. I hope you have some agreeable lens

through which you can look at circumstances--good health, at least.

And really I begin to think people who are robust are in a position to

pity all the rest of the world--except, indeed, that there are certain

secrets taught only by pain, which are, perhaps, worth the purchase.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Sept. 23._--I have been unwell ever since we returned from Malvern,

and have been disturbed, from various causes, in my work, so that I

have scarcely done anything except correct my own books for a new

edition. To-day I am much better, and hope to begin a more effective

life to-morrow.

_Sept. 28._--In the evening Mr. Spencer, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford

came. We talked with Mr. Spencer about his chapter on the "Direction

of Force"--_i.e._, line of least resistance.

_Sept. 29_ (Sunday).--Finished correcting "Silas Marner." I have thus

corrected all my books for a new and cheaper edition, and feel my mind

free for other work. Walked to the Zoo with the boys.

_Oct. 3._--To-day our new grand piano came--a great addition to our

pleasures.

_Oct. 4._--My mind still worried about my plot--and without any

confidence in my ability to do what I want.

_Oct. 5._--In the evening Mr. Redford and Mr. Spencer came, and we had

much music.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Oct. 1861.]

We are enjoying a great pleasure, a new grand piano, and last evening

we had a Beethoven night. We are looking out for a violinist: we have

our violoncello, who is full of sensibility, but with no negative in

him--_i.e._, no obstinate sense of time--a man who is all assent and

perpetual _rallentando_. We can enjoy the pleasure the more because

Mr. Lewes's health is promising.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Oct. 7._--Began the first chapter of my novel ("Romola").

_Oct. 9._--Read Nerli.

_Oct. 11._--Nardi's "History of Florence." In the afternoon walked

with Barbara, and talked with her from lunch till dinner-time.

_Oct. 12._--In the evening we had our usual Saturday mixture of

visitors, talk, and music; an agreeable addition being Dr. M'Donnell

of Dublin.

_Oct. 14._--Went with Barbara to her school to hear the children sing.

_Oct. 18._--Walked with G. and Mr. Spencer to Hampstead, and continued

walking for more than five hours. In the evening we had music. Mrs.

Bodichon and Miss Parkes were our additional visitors.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Oct. 1861.]

I am rather jealous of the friends who get so much of you--especially

when they are so unmeritorious as to be evangelical and spoil your

rest. But I will not grumble. I am in the happiest, most contented

mood, and have only good news to tell you. I have hardly any trouble

nearer to me than the American War and the prospects of poor cotton

weavers. While you were shivering at Boulogne we were walking fast to

avoid shivering at Malvern, and looking slightly blue after our sitz

baths. Nevertheless that discipline answered admirably, and Mr.

Lewes's health has been steadily improving since our Malvern

expedition. As for me, imagine what I must be to have walked for five

hours the other day! Or, better still, imagine me always cheerful, and

infer the altered condition of my mucous membrane. The difference must

be there; for it is not in my moral sentiments or in my circumstances,

unless, indeed, a new grand piano, which tempts me to play more than I

have done for years before, may be reckoned an item important enough

to have contributed to the change. We talk of you very often, and the

image of you is awakened in my mind still oftener. You are associated

by many subtile, indescribable ties with some of my most precious and

most silent thoughts. I am so glad you have the comfort of feeling

that Mr. Congreve is prepared for his work again. I am hoping to hear,

when we see you, that the work will be less and less fagging, now the

introductory years are past.

Charley is going to Switzerland for his holiday next month. We shall

enjoy our dual solitude; yet the dear boy is more and more precious to

us from the singular rectitude and tenderness of his nature. Make

signs to us as often as you can. You know how entirely Mr. Lewes

shares my delight in seeing you and hearing from you.

[Sidenote: Diary, 1861.]

_Oct. 28_ and _30_.--Not very well. Utterly desponding about my book.

_Oct. 31._--Still with an incapable head--trying to write, trying to

construct, and unable.

_Nov. 6._--So utterly dejected that, in walking with G. in the Park, I

almost resolved to give up my Italian novel.

_Nov. 10_ (Sunday).--New sense of things to be done in my novel, and

more brightness in my thoughts. Yesterday I was occupied with ideas

about my next English novel; but this morning the Italian scenes

returned upon me with fresh attraction. In the evening read "Monteil."

A marvellous book; crammed with erudition, yet not dull or tiresome.

_Nov. 14._--Went to the British Museum reading-room for the first

time--looking over costumes.

_Nov. 20._--Mrs. Congreve, Miss Bury, and Mr. Spencer to lunch.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1861.]

Your loving words of remembrance find a very full answer in my

heart--fuller than I can write. The years seem to _rush_ by now, and I

think of death as a fast-approaching end of a journey--double and

treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day. We went

to see Fechter's Othello the other night. It is lamentably bad. He has

not weight and passion enough for deep tragedy; and, to my feeling,

the play is so degraded by his representation that it is positively

demoralizing--as, indeed, all tragedy must be when it fails to move

pity and terror. In this case it seems to move only titters among the

smart and vulgar people who always make the bulk of a theatre

audience. We had a visit from our dear friend Mrs. Congreve on

Wednesday--a very infrequent pleasure now; for between our own

absences from home and hers, and the fatigue of London journeying, it

is difficult for us to manage meetings. Mr. Congreve is, as usual,

working hard in his medical studies--toiling backward and forward

daily. What courage and patience are wanted for every life that aims

to produce anything!

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_Nov. 30._--In the evening we had Wilkie Collins, Mr. Pigott, and Mr.

Spencer, and talked without any music.

_Dec. 3-7._--I continued very unwell until Saturday, when I felt a

little better. In the evening Dr. Baetcke, Mr. Pigott, and Mr.

Redford.

[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Dec. 1861.]

Miss Marshall came to see us yesterday. That is always a pleasure to

me, not only from the sense I have of her goodness, but because she

stirs so many remembrances. The first time I saw her was at Rufa's[32]

wedding; and don't you remember the evening we spent at Mrs. Dobson's?

How young we all were then--how old now! She says you are all under

the impression that Mr. Lewes is still very ailing. Thank all good

influences it is not so. He has been mending ever since we went to

Malvern, and is enjoying life and work more than he has done before

for nearly a year. He has long had it in his mind to write a history

of science--a great, great undertaking, which it is happiness to both

of us to contemplate as possible for him. And now he is busy with

Aristotle, and works with all the zest that belongs to fresh ideas.

Strangely enough, after all the ages of writing about Aristotle, there

exists no fair appreciation of his position in natural science.

I am particularly grumbling and disagreeable to myself just now, and I

think no one bears physical pain so ill as I do, or is so thoroughly

upset by it mentally.

Bulwer has behaved very nicely to me, and I have a great respect for

the energetic industry with which he has made the most of his powers.

He has been writing diligently in very various departments for more

than thirty years, constantly improving his position, and profiting by

the lessons of public opinion and of other writers.

I'm sorry you feel any degeneracy in Mr. George Dawson. There was

something very winning about him in old days, and even what was not

winning, but the reverse, affected me with a sort of kindly pity. With

such a gift of tongue as he had, it was inevitable that speech should

outrun feeling and experience, and I could well imagine that his

present self might look back on that self of 21-27 with a sort of

disgust. It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past

self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust

and sorrow. It would interest me a good deal to know just how Mr.

Dawson preaches now.

I am writing on my knees with my feet on the fender, and in that

attitude I always write very small--but I hope your sight is not

teased by small writing.

Give my best love to Cara, and sympathy with her in the pleasure of

grasping an old friend by the hand, and having long talks after the

distance of years. I know Mr. Bray will enjoy this too--and the new

house will seem more like the old one for this warming.

[Sidenote: Journal, 1861.]

_Dec. 8_ (Sunday).--G. had a headache, so we walked out in the morning

sunshine. I told him my conception of my story, and he expressed great

delight. Shall I ever be able to carry out my ideas? Flashes of hope

are succeeded by long intervals of dim distrust. Finished the eighth

volume of Lastri and began the ninth chapter of Varchi, in which he

gives an accurate account of Florence.

_Dec. 12._--Finished writing my plot, of which I must make several

other draughts before I begin to write my book.

_Dec. 13._--Read Poggiana. In the afternoon walked to Molini's and

brought back Savonarola's "Dialogus de Veritate Prophetica," and

"Compendium Revelationum," for £4!

_Dec. 14._--In the evening came Mr. Huxley, Mr. Pigott, and Mr.

Redford.

_Dec. 17._--Studied the topography of Florence.

[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 31st Dec. 1861.]

It was pleasant to have a greeting from you at this season, when all

signs of human kindness have a double emphasis. As one gets older

epochs have necessarily some sadness, even for those who have, as I

have, much family joy. The past, that one would like to mend, spreads

behind one so lengthily, and the years of retrieval keep

shrinking--the terrible _peau de chagrin_ whose outline narrows and

narrows with our ebbing life.

I hardly know whether it would be agreeable to you, or worth your

while, ever to come to us on a Saturday evening, when we are always at

home to any friend who may be kind enough to come to us. It would be

very pleasant to us if it were pleasant to you.

During the latter half of 1861, I find the following among

the books read: "Histoire des Ordres Religieux," Sacchetti's

"Novelle," Sismondi's "History of the Italian Republics,"

"Osservatore Fiorentino," Tennemann's "History of

Philosophy," T. A. Trollope's "Beata," Sismondi's "Le Moyen

Age Illustré," "The Monks of the West," "Introduction to

Savonarola's Poems," by Audin de Réans, Renan's "Études

d'Histoire Religieuse," Virgil's "Eclogues," Buhle's "History

of Modern Philosophy," Hallam on the "Study of Roman Law in

the Middle Ages," Gibbon on the "Revival of Greek Learning,"

Nardi, Bulwer's "Rienzi," Burlamacchi's "Life of Savonarola,"

Pulci, Villari's "Life of Savonarola," Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred

and Legendary Art," "Hymni and Epigrammati" of Marullus,

Politian's "Epistles," Marchese's Works, Tiraboschi, Rock's

"Hierurgia," Pettigrew "On Medical Superstition," Manni's

"Life of Burchiello," Machiavelli's Works, Ginguené, Muratori

"On Proper Names," Cicero "De Officiis," Petrarch's Letters,

Craik's "History of English Literature," "Conti

Carnivaleschi," Letters of Filelfo, Lastri, and Varchi,

Heeren on the Fifteenth Century.

_SUMMARY._

JULY, 1860, TO DECEMBER, 1861.

Return from Italy to Wandsworth, accompanied by Charles

Lewes--"Mill on the Floss" success--6000 sold--Letter to John

Blackwood--French translation of "Adam Bede," by M. d'Albert

of Geneva--Letter to Miss Hennell on her "Thoughts in Aid of

Faith"--Letter to John Blackwood on Sir Edward Lytton's

criticism of "The Mill on the Floss"--Letter to Mrs. Bray,

recalling feelings on journey to Italy in 1849--Letter to

Miss Sara Hennell--Article on Strikes, by Henry Fawcett, in

_Westminster_--Sitting to Lawrence for portrait--Letter to

Madame Bodichon--Interest in her schools--Letter to Miss

Hennell, explaining criticism of "Thoughts in Aid of

Faith"--Reading Emerson's "Man the Reformer"--Deprecates

writing about opinions on large questions in letters--Letter

to John Blackwood--Italian novel project--Letter to Madame

Bodichon--Love of the country--Removal to 10 Harewood

Square--"Brother Jacob" written--Letter to Mrs.

Congreve--Frederic Harrison's article in _Westminster_ on

"Essays and Reviews"--Letter to John Blackwood--Religious

party standpoint--Classical quotations--Letter to Miss

Hennell on re-reading "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"--Tribute to

Mr. Lewes's dispassionate judgment--Suffering from loss of

the country--Independence secured--Anthony Trollope and

Arthur Helps--Queen's admiration of "Mill on the

Floss"--Writing "Silas Marner" a sudden inspiration--Letter

to Mrs. Congreve--Monday Popular Concerts--Moved to 16

Blandford Square--Waste of time in furnishing--Letter to

Madame Bodichon--On religious forms and ceremonies--Herbert

Spencer's new work, the best thing he has done--Letter to

John Blackwood--"Silas Marner"--Letters to Mrs.

Congreve--Zoological Gardens--Visit to Dorking--Letter to

John Blackwood--Scott--Letters to Miss Hennell--Private

correspondence--Letter to Mrs. Congreve--Arthur Clough's

death--Letter to John Blackwood--"Silas Marner"--Books belong

to successive mental phases--"Silas Marner" finished--Visit

to Hastings--Letter to Charles Bray--Marriage of Mr. William

Smith--Letter to John Blackwood--Subscription to "Silas

Marner" 3300--Article in _Macmillan_ on "The Mill"--Letter to

Mrs. Peter Taylor--Position--Letter to John Blackwood--Total

Subscription to "Silas Marner" 5500--Criticism on "The

Mill"--Letter to Mrs. P. Taylor--Never pays visits--Letter to

Miss Hennell--Hearing Beethoven and Mendelssohn music--Start

on second journey to Italy--Letter to Charles Lewes,

describing drive from Toulon to Nice--Arrival at

Florence--Letter to John Blackwood--No painting of misers

with paper money--Letter to Charles Lewes--Feels hopeful

about future work--Letter to John Blackwood--Italian novel

simmering--Letter to Charles Lewes--Beatrice

Trollope--Expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia with Mr. T.

A. Trollope--Return home by Lago Maggiore and St.

Gothard--Dinner at Greenwich with John Blackwood, Colonel

Hamley, etc.--Reflections on waste of youth--Letters to Miss

Hennell describing La Vernia--Improvement in general

philosophic attitude--Articles on "Study of History" in the

_Cornhill_--Positivism one-sided--Admiration of Comte--Letter

to Miss Hennell--Fechter in Hamlet--The Liturgy of the

English Church--Depression--Musical Evenings with Mr. Pigott

and Mr. Redford--Trip to Malvern--Letter to Miss Hennell--New

grand piano--Began "Romola"--Saturday visitors--Letter to

Mrs. Congreve--Better spirits--Renewed depression--Letter to

Miss Hennell--Time flying--Fechter as Othello--Letter to Miss

Hennell--Lewes busy with Aristotle--Bulwer--George

Dawson--Reading towards "Romola"--Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor

on the Past--Books read.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Death of Madame Bodichon's father.

[22] "Thoughts in Aid of Faith."

[23] M. d'Albert.

[24] "And how can it be otherwise than real to us, this belief that

has nourished the souls of us all, and seems to have moulded actually

anew their internal constitution, as well as stored them up with its

infinite variety of external interests and associations! What other

than a very real thing has it been in the life of the world--sprung

out of, and again causing to spring forth, such volumes of human

emotion--making a current, as it were, of feeling, that has drawn

within its own sphere all the moral vitality of so many ages! In all

this reality of influence there is indeed the testimony of

Christianity having truly formed an integral portion of the organic

life of humanity. The regarding it as a mere excrescence, the product

of morbid, fanatical humors, is a reaction of judgment, that, it is to

be hoped, will soon be seen on all hands to be in no way implied of

necessity in the formal rejection of it."--_Thoughts in Aid of Faith_,

p. 105.

[25] "These sentiments, which are born within us, slumbering as it

were in our nature, ready to be awakened into action immediately they

are roused by hint of corresponding circumstances, are drawn out of

the whole of previous human existence. They constitute our treasured

inheritance out of all the life that has been lived before us, to

which no age, no human being who has trod the earth and laid himself

to rest, with all his mortal burden upon her maternal bosom, has

failed to add his contribution. No generation has had its engrossing

conflict, sorely battling out the triumphs of mind over material

force, and through forms of monstrous abortions concurrent with its

birth, too hideous for us now to bear in contemplation, moulding the

early intelligence by every struggle, and winning its gradual

powers--no single soul has borne itself through its personal

trial--without bequeathing to us of its fruit. There is not a

religious thought that we take to ourselves for secret comfort in our

time of grief, that has not been distilled out of the multiplicity of

the hallowed tears of mankind; not an animating idea is there for our

fainting courage that has not gathered its inspiration from the

bravery of the myriad armies of the world's heroes."--_Thoughts in Aid

of Faith_, p. 174.

[26] "Education of the Feelings." By Charles Bray. Published 1839.

[27] Mr. William Blackwood.

[28] Mr. Frederic Harrison, the now well-known writer, and a member of

the Positivist body.

[29] Lecture on Cell Forms.

[30] Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet.

[31] The death of Major Blackwood.

[32] Mrs. Charles Hennell (now Mrs. Call).