George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)

by George Eliot

CHAPTER IX.

Journal, 1859.

Jan. 12.—We went into town to-day and looked in the "Annual Register" for cases of inundation. Letter from Blackwood to-day, speaking of renewed delight in "Adam Bede," and proposing 1st Feb. as the day of publication. Read the article in yesterday's Times on George's "Sea-side Studies"—highly gratifying. We are still reading Scott's life with great interest; and G. is reading to me Michelet's book "De l'Amour."

Jan. 15.—I corrected the last sheets of "Adam Bede," and we afterwards walked to Wimbledon to see our new house, which we have taken for seven years. I hired the servant—another bit of business done: and then we had a delightful walk across Wimbledon Common and through Richmond Park homeward. The air was clear and cold—the sky magnificent.

Jan. 31.—Received a check for £400 from Blackwood, being the first instalment of the payment for four years' copyright of "Adam Bede." To-morrow the book is to be subscribed, and Blackwood writes very pleasantly—confident of its "great success." Afterwards we went into town, paid money into the bank, and ordered part of our china and glass towards house-keeping.

Letter to John Blackwood, 31st Jan. 1859.

Enclosed is the formal acknowledgment, bearing my signature, and with it let me beg you to accept my thanks—not formal but heartfelt—for the generous way in which you have all along helped me with words and with deeds.

The impression "Adam Bede" has made on you and Major Blackwood—of whom I have always been pleased to think as concurring with your views—is my best encouragement, and counterbalances, in some degree, the depressing influences to which I am peculiarly sensitive. I perceive that I have not the characteristics of the "popular author," and yet I am much in need of the warmly expressed sympathy which only popularity can win.

A good subscription would be cheering, but I can understand that it is not decisive of success or non-success. Thank you for promising to let me know about it as soon as possible.

Journal, 1859.

Feb. 6.—Yesterday we went to take possession of Holly Lodge, Wandsworth, which is to be our dwelling, we expect, for years to come. It was a deliciously fresh bright day—I will accept the omen. A letter came from Blackwood telling me the result of the subscription to "Adam Bede," which was published on the 1st: 730 copies, Mudie having taken 500 on the publisher's terms—i.e., ten per cent. on the sale price. At first he had stood out for a larger reduction, and would only take 50, but at last he came round. In this letter Blackwood told me the first ab extra opinion of the book, which happened to be precisely what I most desired. A cabinet-maker (brother to Blackwood's managing clerk) had read the sheets, and declared that the writer must have been brought up to the business, or at least had listened to the workmen in their workshop.

Feb. 12.—Received a cheering letter from Blackwood, saying that he finds "Adam Bede" making just the impression he had anticipated among his own friends and connections, and enclosing a parcel from Dr. John Brown "to the author of 'Adam Bede.'" The parcel contained "Rab and his Friends," with an inscription.

Letter to John Blackwood, 13th Feb. 1859.

Will you tell Dr. John Brown that when I read an account of "Rab and his Friends" in a newspaper, I wished I had the story to read at full length; and I thought to myself the writer of "Rab" would perhaps like "Adam Bede."

When you have told him this, he will understand the peculiar pleasure I had on opening the little parcel with "Rab" inside, and a kind word from Rab's friend. I have read the story twice—once aloud, and once to myself, very slowly, that I might dwell on the pictures of Rab and Ailie, and carry them about with me more distinctly. I will not say any commonplace words of admiration about what has touched me so deeply; there is no adjective of that sort left undefiled by the newspapers. The writer of "Rab" knows that I must love the grim old mastiff with the short tail and the long dewlaps—that I must have felt present at the scenes of Ailie's last trial.

Thanks for your cheering letter. I will be hopeful—if I can.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Feb. 1859.

You have the art of writing just the sort of letters I care for—sincere letters, like your own talk. We are tolerably settled now, except that we have only a temporary servant; and I shall not be quite at ease until I have a trustworthy woman who will manage without incessant dogging. Our home is very comfortable, with far more of vulgar indulgences in it than I ever expected to have again; but you must not imagine it a snug place, just peeping above the holly bushes. Imagine it rather as a tall cake, with a low garnish of holly and laurel. As it is, we are very well off, with glorious breezy walks, and wide horizons, well ventilated rooms, and abundant water. If I allowed myself to have any longings beyond what is given, they would be for a nook quite in the country, far away from palaces—Crystal or otherwise—with an orchard behind me full of old trees, and rough grass and hedge-row paths among the endless fields where you meet nobody. We talk of such things sometimes, along with old age and dim faculties, and a small independence to save us from writing drivel for dishonest money. In the mean time the business of life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of human advancements, which I should be so very glad to believe in without seeing.

Pretty Arabella Goddard we heard play at Berlin—play the very things you heard as a bonne bouche at the last—none the less delightful from being so unlike the piano playing of Liszt and Clara Schumann, whom we had heard at Weimar—both great, and one the greatest.

Thank you for sending me that authentic word about Miss Nightingale. I wonder if she would rather rest from her blessed labors, or live to go on working? Sometimes, when I read of the death of some great, sensitive human being, I have a triumph in the sense that they are at rest; and yet, along with that, such deep sadness at the thought that the rare nature is gone forever into darkness, and we can never know that our love and reverence can reach him, that I seem to have gone through a personal sorrow when I shut the book and go to bed. I felt in that way the other night when I finished the life of Scott aloud to Mr. Lewes. He had never read the book before, and has been deeply stirred by the picture of Scott's character, his energy and steady work, his grand fortitude under calamity, and the spirit of strict honor to which he sacrificed his declining life. He loves Scott as well as I do.

We have met a pleasant-faced, bright-glancing man, whom we set down to be worthy of the name, Richard Congreve. I am curious to see if our Ahnung will be verified.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 24th Feb. 1859.

One word of gratitude to you first before I write any other letters. Heaven and earth bless you for trying to help me. I have been blasphemous enough sometimes to think that I had never been good and attractive enough to win any little share of the honest, disinterested friendship there is in the world: one or two examples of late had given that impression, and I am prone to rest in the least agreeable conviction the premisses will allow. I need hardly tell you what I want, you know it so well: a servant who will cause me the least possible expenditure of time on household matters. I wish I were not an anxious, fidgety wretch, and could sit down content with dirt and disorder. But anything in the shape of an anxiety soon grows into a monstrous vulture with me, and makes itself more present to me than my rich sources of happiness—such as too few mortals are blessed with. You know me. Since I wrote this, I have just had a letter from my sister Chrissey—ill in bed, consumptive—regretting that she ever ceased to write to me. It has ploughed up my heart.

Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1859.

Mrs. Carlyle's ardent letter will interest and amuse you. I reckon it among my best triumphs that she found herself "in charity with the whole human race" when she laid the book down. I want the philosopher himself to read it, because the pre-philosophic period—the childhood and poetry of his life—lay among the furrowed fields and pious peasantry. If he could be urged to read a novel! I should like, if possible, to give him the same sort of pleasure he has given me in the early chapters of "Sartor," where he describes little Diogenes eating his porridge on the wall in sight of the sunset, and gaining deep wisdom from the contemplation of the pigs and other "higher animals" of Entepfuhl.

Your critic was not unjustly severe on the "Mirage Philosophy"—and I confess the "Life of Frederic" was a painful book to me in many respects; and yet I shrink, perhaps superstitiously, from any written or spoken word which is as strong as my inward criticism.

I needed your letter very much—for when one lives apart from the world, with no opportunity of observing the effect of books except through the newspapers, one is in danger of sinking into the foolish belief that the day is past for the recognition of genuine, truthful writing, in spite of recent experience that the newspapers are no criterion at all. One such opinion as Mr. Caird's outweighs a great deal of damnatory praise from ignorant journalists.

It is a wretched weakness of my nature to be so strongly affected by these things; and yet how is it possible to put one's best heart and soul into a book and be hardened to the result—be indifferent to the proof whether or not one has really a vocation to speak to one's fellow-men in that way? Of course one's vanity is at work; but the main anxiety is something entirely distinct from vanity.

You see I mean you to understand that my feelings are very respectable, and such as it will be virtuous in you to gratify with the same zeal as you have always shown. The packet of newspaper notices is not come yet. I will take care to return it when it has come.

The best news from London hitherto is that Mr. Dallas is an enthusiastic admirer of Adam. I ought to except Mr. Langford's reported opinion, which is that of a person who has a voice of his own, and is not a mere echo.

Otherwise, Edinburgh has sent me much more encouraging breezes than any that have come from the sweet South. I wonder if all your other authors are as greedy and exacting as I am. If so, I hope they appreciate your attention as much. Will you oblige me by writing a line to Mrs. Carlyle for me. I don't like to leave her second letter (she wrote a very kind one about the "Clerical Scenes") without any sort of notice. Will you tell her that the sort of effect she declares herself to have felt from "Adam Bede" is just what I desire to produce—gentle thoughts and happy remembrances; and I thank her heartily for telling me, so warmly and generously, what she has felt. That is not a pretty message: revise it for me, pray, for I am weary and ailing, and thinking of a sister who is slowly dying.

Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Feb. 1859.

The folio of notices duly came, and are returned by to-day's post. The friend at my elbow ran through them for me, and read aloud some specimens to me, some of them ludicrous enough. The Edinburgh Courant has the ring of sincere enjoyment in its tone; and the writer there makes himself so amiable to me that I am sorry he has fallen into the mistake of supposing that Mrs. Poyser's original sayings are remembered proverbs! I have no stock of proverbs in my memory; and there is not one thing put into Mrs. Poyser's mouth that is not fresh from my own mint. Please to correct that mistake if any one makes it in your hearing.

I have not ventured to look into the folio myself; but I learn that there are certain threatening marks, in ink, by the side of such stock sentences as "best novel of the season," or "best novel we have read for a long time," from such authorities as the Sun, or Morning Star, or other orb of the newspaper firmament—as if these sentences were to be selected for reprint in the form of advertisement. I shudder at the suggestion. Am I taking a liberty in entreating you to keep a sharp watch over the advertisements, that no hackneyed puffing phrase of this kind may be tacked to my book? One sees them garnishing every other advertisement of trash: surely no being "above the rank of an idiot" can have his inclination coerced by them? and it would gall me, as much as any trifle could, to see my book recommended by an authority who doesn't know how to write decent English. I believe that your taste and judgment will concur with mine in the conviction that no quotations of this vulgar kind can do credit to a book; and that unless something looking like the real opinion of a tolerably educated writer, in a respectable journal, can be given, it would be better to abstain from "opinions of the press" altogether. I shall be grateful to you if you will save me from the results of any agency but your own—or at least of any agency that is not under your rigid criticism in this matter.

Pardon me if I am overstepping the author's limits in this expression of my feelings. I confide in your ready comprehension of the irritable class you have to deal with.

Journal, 1859.

Feb. 26.—Laudatory reviews of "Adam Bede" in the Athenæum, Saturday, and Literary Gazette. The Saturday criticism is characteristic: Dinah is not mentioned!

The other day I received the following letter, which I copy, because I have sent the original away:

Letter from E. Hall to George Eliot.

"To the Author of 'Adam Bede,'

"Chester Road, Sunderland.

"Dear Sir,—I got the other day a hasty read of your 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' and since that a glance at your 'Adam Bede,' and was delighted more than I can express; but being a poor man, and having enough to do to make 'ends meet,' I am unable to get a read of your inimitable books.

"Forgive, dear sir, my boldness in asking you to give us a cheap edition. You would confer on us a great boon. I can get plenty of trash for a few pence, but I am sick of it. I felt so different when I shut your books, even though it was but a kind of 'hop-skip-and-jump' read.

"I feel so strongly in this matter that I am determined to risk being thought rude and officious, and write to you.

"Many of my working brethren feel as I do, and I express their wish as well as my own. Again asking your forgiveness for intruding myself upon you, I remain, with profoundest respect, yours, etc.,

"E. Hall."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Feb. 1859.

I have written to Chrissey, and shall hear from her again. I think her writing was the result of long, quiet thought—the slow return of a naturally just and affectionate mind to the position from which it had been thrust by external influence. She says: "My object in writing to you is to tell you how very sorry I have been that I ceased to write, and neglected one who, under all circumstances, was kind to me and mine. Pray believe me when I say it will be the greatest comfort I can receive to know that you are well and happy. Will you write once more?" etc. I wrote immediately, and I desire to avoid any word of reference to anything with which she associates the idea of alienation. The past is abolished from my mind. I only want her to feel that I love her and care for her. The servant trouble seems less mountainous to me than it did the other day. I was suffering physically from unusual worrit and muscular exertion in arranging the house, and so was in a ridiculously desponding state. I have written no end of letters in answer to servants' advertisements, and we have put our own advertisement in the Times—all which amount of force, if we were not philosophers and therefore believers in the conservation of force, we should declare to be lost. It is so pleasant to know these high doctrines—they help one so much. Mr. and Mrs. Richard Congreve have called on us. We shall return the call as soon as we can.

Journal, 1859.

March 8.—Letter from Blackwood this morning saying that "'Bedesman' has turned the corner and is coming in a winner." Mudie has sent for 200 additional copies (making 700), and Mr. Langford says the West End libraries keep sending for more.

March 14.—My dear sister wrote to me about three weeks ago, saying she regretted that she had ever ceased writing to me, and that she has been in a consumption for the last eighteen months. To-day I have a letter from my niece Emily, telling me her mother had been taken worse, and cannot live many days.

March 14.—Major Blackwood writes to say "Mudie has just made up his number of 'Adam Bede' to 1000. Simpkins have sold their subscribed number, and have had 12 to-day. Every one is talking of the book."

March 15.—Chrissey died this morning at a quarter to 5.

March 16.—Blackwood writes to say I am "a popular author as well as a great author." They printed 2090 of "Adam Bede," and have disposed of more than 1800, so that they are thinking about a second edition. A very feeling letter from Froude this morning. I happened this morning to be reading the 30th Ode, B. III. of Horace—"Non omnis moriar."

Letter to John Blackwood, 17th March, 1859.

The news you have sent me is worth paying a great deal of pain for, past and future. It comes rather strangely to me, who live in such unconsciousness of what is going on in the world. I am like a deaf person, to whom some one has just shouted that the company round him have been paying him compliments for the last half hour. Let the best come, you will still be the person outside my own home who first gladdened me about "Adam Bede;" and my success will always please me the better because you will share the pleasure.

Don't think I mean to worry you with many such requests—but will you copy for me the enclosed short note to Froude? I know you will, so I say "thank you."

Letter to J. A. Froude from George Eliot.

Dear Sir,—My excellent friend and publisher, Mr. Blackwood, lends me his pen to thank you for your letter, and for his sake I shall be brief.

Your letter has done me real good—the same sort of good as one has sometimes felt from a silent pressure of the hand and a grave look in the midst of smiling congratulations.

I have nothing else I care to tell you that you will not have found out through my books, except this one thing: that, so far as I am aware, you are only the second person who has shared my own satisfaction in Janet. I think she is the least popular of my characters. You will judge from that, that it was worth your while to tell me what you felt about her.

I wish I could help you with words of equal value; but, after all, am I not helping you by saying that it was well and generously done of you to write to me?—Ever faithfully yours,

George Eliot.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st March, 1859.

It was worth your while to write me those feeling words, for they are the sort of things that I keep in my memory and feel the influence of a long, long while. Chrissey's death has taken from the possibility of many things towards which I looked with some hope and yearning in the future. I had a very special feeling towards her—stronger than any third person would think likely.

Journal, 1859.

March 24.—Mr. Herbert Spencer brought us word that "Adam Bede" had been quoted by Mr. Charles Buxton in the House of Commons: "As the farmer's wife says in 'Adam Bede,' 'It wants to be hatched over again and hatched different.'"

March 26.—George went into town to-day and brought me home a budget of good news that compensated for the pain I had felt in the coldness of an old friend. Mr. Langford says that Mudie "thinks he must have another hundred or two of 'Adam'—has read the book himself, and is delighted with it." Charles Reade says it is "the finest thing since Shakespeare"—placed his finger on Lisbeth's account of her coming home with her husband from their marriage—praises enthusiastically the style—the way in which the author handles the Saxon language. Shirley Brooks also delighted. John Murray says there has never been such a book. Mr. Langford says there must be a second edition, in 3 vols., and they will print 500: whether Mudie takes more or not, they will have sold all by the end of a month. Lucas delighted with the book, and will review it in the Times the first opportunity.

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th March, 1859.

I should like you to convey my gratitude to your reviewer. I see well he is a man whose experience and study enable him to relish parts of my book, which I should despair of seeing recognized by critics in London back drawing-rooms. He has gratified me keenly by laying his finger on passages which I wrote either with strong feeling or from intimate knowledge, but which I had prepared myself to find entirely passed over by reviewers. Surely I am not wrong in supposing him to be a clergyman? There was one exemplary lady Mr. Langford spoke of, who, after reading "Adam," came the next day and bought a copy both of that and the "Clerical Scenes." I wish there may be three hundred matrons as good as she! It is a disappointment to me to find that "Adam" has given no impulse to the "Scenes," for I had sordid desires for money from a second edition, and had dreamed of its coming speedily.

About my new story, which will be a novel as long as "Adam Bede," and a sort of companion picture of provincial life, we must talk when I have the pleasure of seeing you. It will be a work which will require time and labor.

Do write me good news as often as you can. I owe thanks to Major Blackwood for a very charming letter.

Letter to John Blackwood, 10th April, 1859.

The other day I received a letter from an old friend in Warwickshire, containing some striking information about the author of "Adam Bede." I extract the passage for your amusement:

"I want to ask you if you have read 'Adam Bede,' or the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' and whether you know that the author is Mr. Liggins?... A deputation of dissenting parsons went over to ask him to write for the 'Eclectic,' and they found him washing his slop-basin at a pump. He has no servant, and does everything for himself; but one of the said parsons said that he inspired them with a reverence that would have made any impertinent question impossible. The son of a baker, of no mark at all in his town, so that it is possible you may not have heard of him. You know he calls himself 'George Eliot.' It sounds strange to hear the Westminster doubting whether he is a woman, when here he is so well known. But I am glad it has mentioned him. They say he gets no profit out of 'Adam Bede,' and gives it freely to Blackwood, which is a shame. We have not read him yet, but the extracts are irresistible."

Conceive the real George Eliot's feelings, conscious of being a base worldling—not washing his own slop-basin, and not giving away his MS.! not even intending to do so, in spite of the reverence such a course might inspire. I hope you and Major Blackwood will enjoy the myth.

Mr. Langford sent me a letter the other day from Miss Winkworth, a grave lady, who says she never reads novels, except a few of the most famous, but that she has read "Adam" three times running. One likes to know such things—they show that the book tells on people's hearts, and may be a real instrument of culture. I sing my Magnificat in a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments of success. I think I should soon begin to believe that Liggins wrote my books—it is so difficult to believe what the world does not believe, so easy to believe what the world keeps repeating.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th April, 1859.

The very day you wrote we were driving in an open carriage from Ryde to the Sandrock Hotel, taking in a month's delight in the space of five hours. Such skies—such songs of larks—such beds of primroses! I am quite well now—set up by iron and quinine, and polished off by the sea-breezes. I have lost my young dislike to the spring, and am as glad of it as the birds and plants are. Mr. Lewes has read "Adam Bede," and is as dithyrambic about it as others appear to be, so I must refresh my soul with it now as well as with the spring-tide. Mr. Liggins I remember as a vision of my childhood—a tall, black-coated, genteel young clergyman-in-embryo.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th April, 1859.

Mr. Lewes is "making himself into four" in writing answers to advertisements and other exertions which he generously takes on himself to save me. A model husband!

We both like your literal title, "Thoughts in Aid of Faith," very much, and hope to see a little book under that title before the year is out—a book as thorough and effective in its way as "Christianity and Infidelity."

Rewriting is an excellent process, frequently both for the book and its author; and to prevent you from grudging the toil, I will tell you that so old a writer as Mr. Lewes now rewrites everything of importance, though in all the earlier years of his authorship he would never take that trouble.

We are so happy in the neighborhood of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Congreve. She is a sweet, intelligent, gentle woman. I already love her: and his fine, beaming face does me good, like a glimpse of an Olympian.

Journal, 1859.

April 17.—I have left off recording the history of "Adam Bede" and the pleasant letters and words that came to me—the success has been so triumphantly beyond anything I had dreamed of that it would be tiresome to put down particulars. Four hundred of the second edition (of 750) sold in the first week, and twenty besides ordered when there was not a copy left in the London house. This morning Hachette has sent to ask my terms for the liberty of translation into French. There was a review in the Times last week, which will naturally give a new stimulus to the sale; and yesterday I sent a letter to the Times denying that Mr. Liggins is the author, as the world and Mr. Anders had settled it. But I must trust to the letters I have received and preserved for giving me the history of the book if I should live long enough to forget details.

Shall I ever write another book as true as "Adam Bede?" The weight of the future presses on me, and makes itself felt even more than the deep satisfaction of the past and present.

Letter to John Blackwood, 20th April, 1859.

This myth about Liggins is getting serious, and must be put a stop to. We are bound not to allow sums of money to be raised on a false supposition of this kind. Don't you think it would be well for you to write a letter to the Times, to the effect that, as you find in some stupid quarters my letter has not been received as a bonâ-fide denial, you declare Mr. Liggins not to be the author of "Clerical Scenes" and "Adam Bede;" further, that any future applications to you concerning George Eliot will not be answered, since that writer is not in need of public benevolence. Such a letter might save us from future annoyance and trouble, for I am rather doubtful about Mr. Liggins's character. The last report I heard of him was that he spent his time in smoking and drinking. I don't know whether that is one of the data for the Warwickshire logicians who have decided him to be the author of my books.

Journal, 1859.

April 29.—To-day Blackwood sent me a letter from Bulwer, which I copy because I have to send back the original, and I like to keep in mind the generous praise of one author for another.

Letter from E. B. Lytton to John Blackwood.

"Malvern, April 24, 1859.

"My dear Sir,—I ought long since to have thanked you for 'Adam Bede.' But I never had a moment to look at it till arriving here, and ordered by the doctors to abstain from all 'work.'

"I owe the author much gratitude for some very pleasing hours. The book indeed is worthy of great admiration. There are touches of beauty in the conception of human character that are exquisite, and much wit and much poetry embedded in the 'dialect,' which nevertheless the author over-uses.

"The style is remarkably good whenever it is English and not provincial—racy, original, and nervous.

"I congratulate you on having found an author of such promise, and published one of the very ablest works of fiction I have read for years.—

Yours truly,

E. B. L.

"I am better than I was, but thoroughly done up."

Journal, 1859.

April 29.—Finished a story—"The Lifted Veil"—which I began one morning at Richmond as a resource when my head was too stupid for more important work.

Resumed my new novel, of which I am going to rewrite the two first chapters. I shall call it provisionally "The Tullivers," for the sake of a title quelconque, or perhaps "St. Ogg's on the Floss."

Letter to John Blackwood, 29th April, 1859.

Thank you for sending me Sir Edward Lytton's letter, which has given me real pleasure. The praise is doubly valuable to me for the sake of the generous feeling that prompted it. I think you judged rightly about writing to the Times. I would abstain from the remotest appearance of a "dodge." I am anxious to know of any positive rumors that may get abroad; for while I would willingly, if it were possible—which it clearly is not—retain my incognito as long as I live, I can suffer no one to bear my arms on his shield.

There is one alteration, or rather an addition—merely of a sentence—that I wish to make in the 12s. edition of "Adam Bede." It is a sentence in the chapter where Adam is making the coffin at night, and hears the willow wand. Some readers seem not to have understood what I meant—namely, that it was in Adam's peasant blood and nurture to believe in this, and that he narrated it with awed belief to his dying day. That is not a fancy of my own brain, but a matter of observation, and is, in my mind, an important feature in Adam's character. There is nothing else I wish to touch. I will send you the sentence some day soon, with the page where it is to be inserted.

Journal, 1859.

May 3.—I had a letter from Mrs. Richard Congreve, telling me of her safe arrival, with her husband and sister,[7] at Dieppe. This new friend, whom I have gained by coming to Wandsworth, is the chief charm of the place to me. Her friendship has the same date as the success of "Adam Bede"—two good things in my lot that ought to have made me less sad than I have been in this house.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1859.

Your letter came yesterday at tea-time, and made the evening happier than usual. We had thought of you not a little as we listened to the howling winds, especially as the terrible wrecks off the Irish coast had filled our imaginations disagreeably. Now I can make a charming picture of you all on the beach, except that I am obliged to fancy your face looking still too languid after all your exertion and sleeplessness. I remember the said face with peculiar vividness, which is very pleasant to me. "Rough" has been the daily companion of our walks, and wins on our affections, as other fellow mortals do, by a mixture of weaknesses and virtues—the weaknesses consisting chiefly in a tendency to become invisible every ten minutes, and in a forgetfulness of reproof, which, I fear, is the usual accompaniment of meekness under it. All this is good discipline for us selfish solitaries, who have been used to stroll along, thinking of nothing but ourselves.

We walked through your garden to-day, and I gathered a bit of your sweetbrier, of which I am at this moment enjoying the scent as it stands on my desk. I am enjoying, too, another sort of sweetness, which I also owe to you—of that subtle, haunting kind which is most like the scent of my favorite plants—the belief that you do really care for me across the seas there, and will associate me continually with your home. Faith is not easy to me, nevertheless I believe everything you say and write.

Write to me as often as you can—that is, as often as you feel any prompting to do so. You were a dear presence to me, and will be a precious thought to me all through your absence.

Journal, 1859.

May 4.—To-day came a letter from Barbara Bodichon, full of joy in my success, in the certainty that "Adam Bede" was mine, though she had not read more than extracts in reviews. This is the first delight in the book as mine, over and above the fact that the book is good.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th May, 1859.

God bless you, dearest Barbara, for your love and sympathy. You are the first friend who has given any symptom of knowing me—the first heart that has recognized me in a book which has come from my heart of hearts. But keep the secret solemnly till I give you leave to tell it; and give way to no impulses of triumphant affection. You have sense enough to know how important the incognito has been, and we are anxious to keep it up a few months longer. Curiously enough my old Coventry friends, who have certainly read the Westminster and the Times, and have probably by this time read the book itself, have given no sign of recognition. But a certain Mr. Liggins, whom rumor has fixed on as the author of my books, and whom they have believed in, has probably screened me from their vision. I am a very blessed woman, am I not, to have all this reason for being glad that I have lived? I have had no time of exultation; on the contrary, these last months have been sadder than usual to me, and I have thought more of the future and the much work that remains to be done in life than of anything that has been achieved. But I think your letter to-day gave me more joy—more heart-glow—than all the letters or reviews or other testimonies of success that have come to me since the evenings when I read aloud my manuscript to my dear, dear husband, and he laughed and cried alternately, and then rushed to me to kiss me. He is the prime blessing that has made all the rest possible to me, giving me a response to everything I have written—a response that I could confide in, as a proof that I had not mistaken my work.

Letter to Major Blackwood, 6th May, 1859.

You must not think me too soft-hearted when I tell you that it would make me uneasy to leave Mr. Anders without an assurance that his apology is accepted. "Who with repentance is not satisfied," etc.; that doctrine is bad for the sinning, but good for those sinned against. Will you oblige me by allowing a clerk to write something to this effect in the name of the firm?—"We are requested by George Eliot to state, in reply to your letter of the 16th, that he accepts your assurance that the publication of your letter to the reviewer of 'Adam Bede' in the Times was unintentional on your part."

Yes, I am assured now that "Adam Bede" was worth writing—worth living through long years to write. But now it seems impossible to me that I shall ever write anything so good and true again. I have arrived at faith in the past, but not at faith in the future.

A friend in Algiers[8] has found me out—"will go to the stake on the assertion that I wrote 'Adam Bede'"—simply on the evidence of a few extracts. So far as I know, this is the first case of detection on purely internal evidence. But the secret is safe in that quarter.

I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again during some visit that you will pay to town before very long. It would do me good to have you shake me by the hand as the ascertained George Eliot.

Journal, 1859.

May 9.—We had a delicious drive to Dulwich, and back by Sydenham. We stayed an hour in the gallery at Dulwich, and I satisfied myself that the St. Sebastian is no exception to the usual "petty prettiness" of Guido's conceptions. The Cuyp glowing in the evening sun, the Spanish beggar boys of Murillo, and Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs. Sheridan and her sister, are the gems of the gallery. But better than the pictures was the fresh greenth of the spring—the chestnuts just on the verge of their flowering beauty, the bright leaves of the limes, the rich yellow-brown of the oaks, the meadows full of buttercups. We saw for the first time Clapham Common, Streatham Common, and Tooting Common—the two last like parks rather than commons.

May 19.—A letter from Blackwood, in which he proposes to give me another £400 at the end of the year, making in all £1200, as an acknowledgment of "Adam Bede's" success.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th May, 1859.

Mrs. Congreve is a sweet woman, and I feel that I have acquired a friend in her—after recently declaring that we would never have any friends again, only acquaintances.

Letter to John Blackwood, 21st May, 1859.

Thank you: first, for acting with that fine integrity which makes part of my faith in you; secondly, for the material sign of that integrity. I don't know which of those two things I care for most—that people should act nobly towards me, or that I should get honest money. I certainly care a great deal for the money, as I suppose all anxious minds do that love independence and have been brought up to think debt and begging the two deepest dishonors short of crime.

I look forward with quite eager expectation to seeing you—we have so much to say. Pray give us the first day at your command. The excursion, as you may imagine, is not ardently longed for in this weather, but when "merry May" is quite gone, we may surely hope for some sunshine; and then I have a pet project of rambling along by the banks of a river, not without artistic as well as hygienic purposes.

Pray bring me all the Liggins Correspondence. I have an amusing letter or two to show you—one from a gentleman who has sent me his works; happily the only instance of the kind. For, as Charles Lamb complains, it is always the people whose books don't sell who are anxious to send them to one, with their "foolish autographs" inside.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st May, 1859.

We don't think of going to the festival, not for want of power to enjoy Handel—there are few things that I care for more in the way of music than his choruses, performed by a grand orchestra—but because we are neither of us fit to encounter the physical exertion and inconveniences. It is a cruel thing the difficulty and dearness of getting any music in England—concerted music, which is the only music I care for much now. At Dresden we could have thoroughly enjoyable instrumental music every evening for two-pence; and I owed so many thoughts and inspirations of feeling to that stimulus.

Journal, 1859.

May 27.—Blackwood came to dine with us on his arrival in London, and we had much talk. A day or two before he had sent me a letter from Professor Aytoun, saying that he had neglected his work to read the first volume of "Adam Bede;" and he actually sent the other two volumes out of the house to save himself from temptation. Blackwood brought with him a correspondence he has had with various people about Liggins, beginning with Mr. Bracebridge, who will have it that Liggins is the author of "Adam Bede" in spite of all denials.

June 5.—Blackwood came, and we concocted two letters to send to the Times, in order to put a stop to the Liggins affair.

Letter to Major Blackwood, 6th June, 1859.

The "Liggins business" does annoy me, because it subjects you and Mr. John Blackwood to the reception of insulting letters, and the trouble of writing contradictions. Otherwise, the whole affair is really a subject for a Molière comedy—"The Wise Men of Warwickshire," who might supersede "The Wise Men of Gotham."

The letter you sent me was a very pleasant one from Mrs. Gaskell, saying that since she came up to town she has had the compliment paid her of being suspected to have written "Adam Bede." "I have hitherto denied it; but really, I think, that as you want to keep your real name a secret, it would be very pleasant for me to blush acquiescence. Will you give me leave?"

I hope the inaccuracy with which she writes my name is not characteristic of a genius for fiction, though I once heard a German account for the bad spelling in Goethe's early letters by saying that it was "genial"—their word for whatever is characteristic of genius.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 8th June, 1859.

I was glad you wrote to me from Avignon of all the places you have visited, because Avignon is one of my most vivid remembrances from out the dimness of ten years ago. Lucerne would be a strange region to me but for Calame's pictures. Through them I have a vision of it, but of course when I see it 'twill be another Luzern. Mr. Lewes obstinately nurses the project of carrying me thither with him, and depositing me within reach of you while he goes to Hofwyl. But at present I say "No." We have been waiting and waiting for the skies to let us take a few days' ramble by the river, but now I fear we must give it up till all the freshness of young summer is gone. July and August are the two months I care least about for leafy scenery.

However, we are kept at home this month partly by pleasures: the Handel Festival, for which we have indulged ourselves with tickets, and the sight of old friends—Mrs. Bodichon among the rest, and for her we hope to use your kind loan of a bedroom. We are both of us in much better condition than when you said good-bye to us, and I have many other sources of gladness just now—so I mean to make myself disagreeable no longer by caring about petty troubles. If one could but order cheerfulness from the druggist's! or even a few doses of coldness and distrust, to prevent one from foolish confidence in one's fellow-mortals!

I want to get rid of this house—cut cables and drift about. I dislike Wandsworth, and should think with unmitigated regret of our coming here if it were not for you. But you are worth paying a price for.

There! I have written about nothing but ourselves this time! You do the same, and then I think I will promise ... not to write again, but to ask you to go on writing to me without an answer.

How cool and idle you are this morning! I am warm and busy, but always, at all temperatures, yours affectionately.

Journal, 1859.

June 20.—We went to the Crystal Palace to hear the "Messiah," and dined afterwards with the Brays and Sara Hennell. I told them I was the author of "Adam Bede" and "Clerical Scenes," and they seemed overwhelmed with surprise. This experience has enlightened me a good deal as to the ignorance in which we all live of each other.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 24th June, 1859.

There is always an after sadness belonging to brief and interrupted intercourse between friends—the sadness of feeling that the blundering efforts we have made towards mutual understanding have only made a new veil between us—still more, the sadness of feeling that some pain may have been given which separation makes a permanent memory. We are quite unable to represent ourselves truly. Why should we complain that our friends see a false image? I say this because I am feeling painfully this morning that, instead of helping you when you brought before me a matter so deeply interesting to you, I have only blundered, and that I have blundered, as most of us do, from too much egoism and too little sympathy. If my mind had been more open to receive impressions, instead of being in over-haste to give them, I should more readily have seen what your object was in giving me that portion of your MS., and we might have gone through the necessary part of it on Tuesday. It seems no use to write this now, and yet I can't help wanting to assure you that if I am too imperfect to do and feel the right thing at the right moment, I am not without the slower sympathy that becomes all the stronger from a sense of previous mistake.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th June, 1859.

I am told peremptorily that I am to go to Switzerland next month, but now I have read your letter, I can't help thinking more of your illness than of the pleasure in prospect—according to my foolish nature, which is always prone to live in past pain.

We shall not arrive at Lucerne till the 12th, at the earliest, I imagine, so I hope we are secured from the danger of alighting precisely on the days of your absence. That would be cruel, for I shall only be left at Lucerne for three days. You must positively have nothing more interesting to do than to talk to me and let me look at you. Tell your sister I shall be all ears and eyes and no tongue, so she will find me the most amiable of conversers.

I think it must be that the sunshine makes your absence more conspicuous, for this place certainly becomes drearier to me as the summer advances. The dusty roads are all longer, and the shade is farther off. No more now about anything—except that Mr. Lewes commands me to say he has just read the "Roman Empire of the West" with much interest, and is going now to flesh his teeth in the "Politique" (Auguste Comte's).

Letter to the Brays, Monday evening, end of June, 1859.

"Dear Friends,—All three of you—thanks for your packet of heartfelt kindness. That is the best of your kindness—there is no sham in it. It was inevitable to me to have that outburst when I saw you for a little while after the long silence, and felt that I must tell you then or be forestalled, and leave you to gather the truth amidst an inextricable mixture of falsehood. But I feel that the influence of talking about my books, even to you and Mrs. Bodichon, has been so bad to me that I should like to be able to keep silence concerning them for evermore. If people were to buzz round me with their remarks, or compliments, I should lose the repose of mind and truthfulness of production without which no good, healthy books can be written. Talking about my books, I find, has much the same malign effect on me as talking of my feelings or my religion.

"I should think Sara's version of my brother's words concerning 'Adam Bede' is the correct one—'that there are things in it about my father' (i.e., being interpreted, things my father told us about his early life), not 'portrait' of my father. There is not a single portrait in the book, nor will there be in any future book of mine. There are portraits in the 'Clerical Scenes;' but that was my first bit of art, and my hand was not well in. I did not know so well how to manipulate my materials. As soon as the Liggins falsehood is annihilated, of course there will be twenty new ones in its place; and one of the first will be that I was not the sole author. The only safe thing for my mind's health is to shut my ears and go on with my work.

Letter to Charles Bray, 5th July, 1859.

"Thanks for your letters. They have given me one pleasure—that of knowing that Mr. Liggins has not been greatly culpable—though Mr. Bracebridge's statement, that only 'some small sums' have been collected, does not accord with what has been written to Mr. Blackwood from other counties. But 'O, I am sick!' Take no more trouble about me—and let every one believe—as they will, in spite of your kind efforts—what they like to believe. I can't tell you how much melancholy it causes me that people are, for the most part, so incapable of comprehending the state of mind which cares for that which is essentially human in all forms of belief, and desires to exhibit it under all forms with loving truthfulness. Freethinkers are scarcely wider than the orthodox in this matter—they all want to see themselves and their own opinions held up as the true and the lovely. On the same ground that an idle woman, with flirtations and flounces, likes to read a French novel, because she can imagine herself the heroine, grave people, with opinions, like the most admirable character in a novel to be their mouth-piece. If art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally. I have had heart-cutting experience that opinions are a poor cement between human souls: and the only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings is, that those who read them should be better able to imagine and to feel the pains and the joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling, erring, human creatures.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th July, 1859.

"We shall not start till Saturday, and shall not reach Lucerne till the evening of the 11th. There is a project of our returning through Holland, but the attractions of Lucerne are sure to keep us there as long as possible. We have given up Zurich in spite of Moleschott and science. The other day I said to Mr. Lewes, 'Every now and then it comes across me, like the recollection of some precious little store laid by, that there is Mrs. Congreve in the world.' That is how people talk of you in your absence."

Journal, 1859.

July 9.—We started for Switzerland. Spent a delightful day in Paris. To the Louvre first, where we looked chiefly at the Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese. This picture, the greatest I have seen of his, converted me to high admiration of him.

July 12.—Arrived at Lucerne in the evening. Glad to make a home at the charming Schweizerhof on the banks of the Lake. G. went to call on the Congreves, and in the afternoon Mrs. Congreve came to chat with us. In the evening we had a boat on the Lake.

July 13.—G. set off for Hofwyl at five o'clock, and the three next days were passed by me in quiet chat with the Congreves and quiet resting on my own sofa.

July 19.—Spent the morning in Bâle, chiefly under the chestnut-trees, near the Cathedral, I reading aloud Flourens's sketch of Cuvier's labors. In the afternoon to Paris.

July 21.—Holly Lodge, Wandsworth. Found a charming letter from Dickens, and pleasant letters from Blackwood; nothing to annoy us. Before we set off we had heard the excellent news that the fourth edition of "Adam Bede" (5000) had all been sold in a fortnight. The fifth edition appeared last week.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 23d July, 1859.

We reached here last evening, and though I was a good deal overdone in getting to Lucerne, I have borne the equally rapid journey back without headache—a proof that I am strengthened. I had three quiet days of talk with the Congreves at Lucerne, while Mr. Lewes went to Hofwyl. Mrs. Congreve is one of those women of whom there are few—rich in intelligence, without pretension, and quivering with sensibility, yet calm and quiet in her manners.

Letter to John Blackwood, 23d July, 1859.

I thank you for your offer about the money for "Adam," but I have intentions of stern thrift, and mean to want as little as possible. When "Maggie" is done, and I have a month or two of leisure, I should like to transfer our present house, into which we were driven by haste and economy, to some one who likes houses full of eyes all round him. I long for a house with some shade and grass close round it—I don't care how rough—and the sight of Swiss houses has heightened my longing. But at present I say Avaunt to all desires.

While I think of it, let me beg of you to mention to the superintendent of your printing-office, that in case of another reprint of "Adam," I beg the word "sperrit" (for "spirit") may be particularly attended to. Adam never said "speerit," as he is made to do in the cheaper edition, at least in one place—his speech at the birthday dinner. This is a small matter, but it is a point I care about.

Words fail me about the not impossible Pug, for some compunction at having mentioned my unreasonable wish will mingle itself paradoxically with the hope that it may be fulfilled.

I hope we shall have other interviews to remember this time next year, and that you will find me without aggravated symptoms of the "author's malady"—a determination of talk to my own books, which I was alarmingly conscious of when you and the Major were here. After all, I fear authors must submit to be something of monsters—not quite simple, healthy human beings; but I will keep my monstrosity within bounds if possible.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th July, 1859.

The things you tell me are just such as I need to know—I mean about the help my book is to the people who read it. The weight of my future life—the self-questioning whether my nature will be able to meet the heavy demands upon it, both of personal duty and intellectual production, presses upon me almost continually in a way that prevents me even from tasting the quiet joy I might have in the work done. Buoyancy and exultation, I fancy, are out of the question when one has lived so long as I have. But I am the better for every word of encouragement, and am helped over many days by such a note as yours. I often think of my dreams when I was four or five and twenty. I thought then how happy fame would make me! I feel no regret that the fame, as such, brings no pleasure; but it is a grief to me that I do not constantly feel strong in thankfulness that my past life has vindicated its uses and given me reason for gladness that such an unpromising woman-child was born into the world. I ought not to care about small annoyances, and it is chiefly egoism that makes them annoyances. I had quite an enthusiastic letter from Herbert Spencer the other day about "Adam Bede." He says he feels the better for reading it—really words to be treasured up. I can't bear the idea of appearing further in the papers. And there is no one now except people who would not be convinced, though one rose from the dead, to whom any statement apropos of Liggins would be otherwise than superfluous. I dare say some "investigator" of the Bracebridge order will arise after I am dead and revive the story—and perhaps posterity will believe in Liggins. Why not? A man a little while ago wrote a pamphlet to prove that the Waverley novels were chiefly written, not by Walter Scott, but by Thomas Scott and his wife Elizabeth. The main evidence being that several people thought Thomas cleverer than Walter, and that in the list of the Canadian regiment of Scots to which Thomas belonged many of the names of the Waverley novels occurred—among the rest Monk—and in "Woodstock" there is a General Monk! The writer expected to get a great reputation by his pamphlet, and I think it might have suggested to Mr. B. his style of critical and historical inference. I must tell you, in confidence, that Dickens has written to me the noblest, most touching words about "Adam"—not hyperbolical compliments, but expressions of deep feeling. He says the reading made an epoch in his life.

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th July, 1859.

Pug is come! come to fill up the void left by false and narrow-hearted friends. I see already that he is without envy, hatred, or malice—that he will betray no secrets, and feel neither pain at my success nor pleasure in my chagrin. I hope the photograph does justice to his physiognomy. It is expressive: full of gentleness and affection, and radiant with intelligence when there is a savory morsel in question—a hopeful indication of his mental capacity. I distrust all intellectual pretension that announces itself by obtuseness of palate!

I wish you could see him in his best pose—when I have arrested him in a violent career of carpet-scratching, and he looks at me with fore-legs very wide apart, trying to penetrate the deep mystery of this arbitrary, not to say capricious, prohibition. He is snoring by my side at this moment, with a serene promise of remaining quiet for any length of time; he couldn't behave better if he had been expressly educated for me. I am too lazy a lover of dogs and all earthly things to like them when they give me much trouble, preferring to describe the pleasure other people have in taking trouble.

Alas! the shadow that tracks all earthly good—the possibility of loss. One may lose one's faculties, which will not always fetch a high price; how much more a Pug worth unmentionable sums—a Pug which some generous-hearted personage in some other corner of Great Britain than Edinburgh may even now be sending emissaries after, being bent on paying the kindest, most delicate attention to a sensitive mortal not sufficiently reticent of wishes.

All I can say of that generous-hearted personage No. 2 is, that I wish he may get—somebody else's Pug, not mine. And all I will say of the sensitive, insufficiently reticent mortal No. 2 is, that I hope he may be as pleased and as grateful as George Eliot.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 30th July, 1859.

I look forward to playing duets with you as one of my future pleasures; and if I am able to go on working, I hope we shall afford to have a fine grand-piano. I have none of Mozart's Symphonies, so that you can be guided in your choice of them entirely by your own taste. I know Beethoven's Sonata in E flat well; it is a very charming one, and I shall like to hear you play it. That is one of my luxuries—to sit still and hear some one playing my favorite music; so that you may able sure you will find willing ears to listen to the fruits of your industrious practising.

There are ladies in the world, not a few, who play the violin, and I wish I were one of them, for then we could play together sonatas for the piano and violin, which make a charming combination. The violin gives that keen edge of tone which the piano wants.

I like to know that you were gratified by getting a watch so much sooner than you expected; and it was the greater satisfaction to me to send it you, because you had earned it by making good use of these precious years at Hofwyl. It is a great comfort to your father and me to think of that, for we, with our old grave heads, can't help talking very often of the need our boys will have for all sorts of good qualities and habits in making their way through this difficult life. It is a world, you perceive, in which cross-bows will be launisch sometimes, and frustrate the skill of excellent marksmen—how much more of lazy bunglers?

The first volume of the "Physiology of Common Life" is just published, and it is a great pleasure to see so much of your father's hard work successfully finished. He has been giving a great deal of labor to the numbers on the physiology of the nervous system, which are to appear in the course of two or three months, and he has enjoyed the labor in spite of the drawback of imperfect health, which obliges him very often to leave the desk with a hot and aching head. It is quite my worst trouble that he has so much of this discomfort to bear; and we must all try and make everything else as pleasant to him as we can, to make up for it.

Tell Thornton he shall have the book he asks for, if possible—I mean the book of moths and butterflies; and tell Bertie I expect to hear about the wonderful things he has done with his pocket-knife. Tell him he is equipped well enough to become king of a desert island with that pocket-knife of his; and if, as I think I remember, it has a corkscrew attached, he would certainly have more implements than he would need in that romantic position.

We shall hope to hear a great deal of your journey, with all its haps and mishaps. The mishaps are just as pleasant as the haps when they are past—that is one comfort for tormented travellers.

You are an excellent correspondent, so I do not fear you will flag in writing to me; and remember, you are always giving a pleasure when you write to me.

Journal, 1859.

Aug. 11.—Received a letter from an American—Mr. J. C. Evans—asking me to write a story for an American periodical. Answered that I could not write one for less than £1000, since, in order to do it, I must suspend my actual work.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 11th Aug. 1859.

I do wish much to see more of human life: how can one see enough in the short years one has to stay in the world? But I meant that at present my mind works with the most freedom and the keenest sense of poetry in my remotest past, and there are many strata to be worked through before I can begin to use, artistically, any material I may gather in the present. Curiously enough, apropos of your remark about "Adam Bede," there is much less "out of my own life" in that book—i.e., the materials are much more a combination from imperfectly known and widely sundered elements than the "Clerical Scenes." I'm so glad you have enjoyed these—so thankful for the words you write me.

Journal, 1859.

Aug. 12.—Mr. J. C. Evans wrote again, declaring his willingness to pay the £1000, and asking for an interview to arrange preliminaries.

Aug. 15.—Declined the American proposition, which was to write a story of twelve parts (weekly parts) in the New York Century for £1200.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Aug. 1859.

I have re-read your whole proof, and feel that every serious reader will be impressed with the indications of real truth-seeking and heart-experience in the tone. Beginnings are always troublesome. Even Macaulay's few pages of introduction to his Introduction in the English History are the worst bit of writing in the book. It was no trouble to me to read your proof, so don't talk as if it had been.

Journal, 1859.

Aug. 17.—Received a letter from Blackwood, with check for £200 for second edition of "Clerical Scenes."

Letter to John Blackwood, 17th Aug. 1859.

I'm glad my story cleaves to you. At present I have no hope that it will affect people as strongly as "Adam" has done. The characters are on a lower level generally, and the environment less romantic. But my stories grow in me like plants, and this is only in the leaf-bud. I have faith that the flower will come. Not enough faith, though, to make me like the idea of beginning to print till the flower is fairly out—till I know the end as well as the beginning.

Pug develops new charms every day. I think, in the prehistoric period of his existence, before he came to me, he had led a sort of Caspar Hauser life, shut up in a kennel in Bethnal Green; and he has had to get over much astonishment at the sight of cows and other rural objects on a large scale, which he marches up to and surveys with the gravity of an "Own Correspondent," whose business it is to observe. He has absolutely no bark; but, en revanche, he sneezes powerfully, and has speaking eyes, so the media of communication are abundant. He sneezes at the world in general, and he looks affectionately at me.

I envy you the acquaintance of a genuine non-bookish man like Captain Speke. I wonder when men of that sort will take their place as heroes in our literature, instead of the inevitable "genius?"

Journal, 1859.

Aug. 20.—Letter from the troublesome Mr. Quirk of Attleboro, still wanting satisfaction about Liggins. I did not leave it unanswered, because he is a friend of Chrissey's, but G. wrote for me.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Aug. 1859.

Our great difficulty is Time. I am little better than a sick nigger with the lash behind him at present. If we go to Penmaenmawr we shall travel all through by night, in order not to lose more than one day; and we shall pause at Lichfield on our way back. To pause at Coventry would be a real pleasure to me; but I think, even if we could do it on our way home, it would be better economy to wait until the sense of hurry is past, and make it a little reward for work done. The going to the coast seems to be a wise measure, quite apart from indulgence. We are both so feeble; but otherwise I should have kept my resolution and remained quiet here for the next six months.

Journal, 1859.

Aug. 25.—In the evening of this day we set off on our journey to Penmaenmawr. We reached Conway at half-past three in the morning; and finding that it was hopeless to get a bed anywhere, we walked about the town till the morning began to dawn, and we could see the outline of the fine old castle's battlemented walls. In the morning we went to Llandudno, thinking that might suit us better than Penmaenmawr. We found it ugly and fashionable. Then we went off to Penmaenmawr, which was beautiful to our hearts' content—or rather discontent—for it would not receive us, being already filled with visitors. Back again in despair to Conway, where we got temporary lodgings at one of the numerous Joneses. This particular Jones happened to be honest and obliging, and we did well enough for a few days in our in-door life, but out-of-doors there were cold winds and rain. One day we went to Abergele and found a solitary house called Beach House, which it seemed possible we might have at the end of a few days. But no! And the winds were so cold on this northerly coast that George was not sorry, preferring rather to take flight southward. So we set out again on 31st, and reached Lichfield about half-past five. Here we meant to pass the night, that I might see my nieces—dear Chrissey's orphan children—Emily and Kate. I was much comforted by the sight of them, looking happy, and apparently under excellent care in Miss Eborall's school. We slept at the "Swan," where I remember being with my father and mother when I was a little child, and afterwards with my father alone, in our last journey into Derbyshire. The next morning we set off again, and completed our journey to Weymouth. Many delicious walks and happy hours we had in our fortnight there. A letter from Mr. Langford informed us that the subscription for the sixth edition of "Adam Bede" was 1000. Another pleasant incident was a letter from my old friend and school-fellow, Martha Jackson, asking if the author of "Adam Bede" was her Marian Evans.

Sept. 16.—We reached home, and found letters awaiting us—one from Mr. Quirk, finally renouncing Liggins!—with tracts of an ultra-evangelical kind for me, and the Parish Mag., etc., from the Rev. Erskine Clark of St. Michael's, Derby, who had written to me to ask me to help him in this sort of work.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th Sept. 1859.

I have just been reading, with deep interest and heart-stirring, the article on the Infant Seamstresses in the Englishwoman's Journal. I am one among the grateful readers of that moving description—moving because the writer's own soul was moved by love and pity in the writing of it. These are the papers that will make the "Journal" a true organ with a function. I am writing at the end of the day, on the brink of sleep, too tired to think of anything but that picture of the little sleeping slop-worker who had pricked her tiny finger so.

Journal, 1859.

Sept. 18.—A volume of devotional poetry from the authoress of "Visiting my Relations," with an inscription admonishing me not to be beguiled by the love of money. In much anxiety and doubt about my new novel.

Oct. 7.—Since the last entry in my Journal various matters of interest have occurred. Certain "new" ideas have occurred to me in relation to my novel, and I am in better hope of it. At Weymouth I had written to Blackwood to ask him about terms, supposing I published in "Maga." His answer determined me to decline. On Monday, the 26th, we set out on a three days' journey to Lincolnshire and back—very pleasant and successful both as to weather and the object I was in search of. A less pleasant business has been a correspondence with a crétin—a Warwickshire magistrate, who undertakes to declare the process by which I wrote my books—and who is the chief propagator and maintainer of the story that Liggins is at the bottom of the "Clerical Scenes" and "Adam Bede." It is poor George who has had to conduct the correspondence, making his head hot by it, to the exclusion of more fructifying work. To-day, in answer to a letter from Sara, I have written her an account of my interviews with my Aunt Samuel. This evening comes a letter from Miss Brewster, full of well-meant exhortation.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 7th Oct. 1859.

The very best bit of news I can tell you to begin with is that your father's "Physiology of Common Life" is selling remarkably well, being much in request among medical students. You are not to be a medical student, but I hope, nevertheless, you will by-and-by read the work with interest. There is to be a new edition of the "Sea-side Studies" at Christmas, or soon after—a proof that this book also meets with a good number of readers. I wish you could have seen to-day, as I did, the delicate spinal cord of a dragon-fly—like a tiny thread with tiny beads on it—which your father had just dissected! He is so wonderfully clever now at the dissection of these delicate things, and has attained this cleverness entirely by devoted practice during the last three years. I hope you have some of his resolution and persistent regularity in work. I think you have, if I may judge from your application to music, which I am always glad to read of in your letters. I was a very idle practiser, and I often regret now that when I had abundant time and opportunity for hours of piano playing I used them so little. I have about eighteen Sonatas and Symphonies of Beethoven, I think, but I shall be delighted to find that you can play them better than I can. I am very sensitive to blunders and wrong notes, and instruments out of tune; but I have never played much from ear, though I used to play from memory a great deal. The other evening Mr. Pigott, whom you remember, Mr. Redford, another friend of your father's, and Mr. Wilkie Collins dined with us, and we had a charming musical evening. Mr. Pigott has a delicious tenor voice, and Mr. Redford a fine barytone. The latter sings "Adelaide," that exquisite song of Beethoven's, which I should like you to learn. Schubert's songs, too, I especially delight in; but, as you say, they are difficult.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Oct. 1859.

It is pleasant to have to tell you that Mr. Bracebridge has been at last awakened to do the right thing. This morning came a letter enclosing the following to me:

"Madame, I have much pleasure on receiving your declaration that 'etc., etc.,' in replying that I frankly accept your declaration as the truth, and I shall repeat it if the contrary is again asserted to me."

This is the first symptom we have had from him of common-sense. I am very thankful—for it ends transactions with him.

Mr. Lewes is of so sensitive a temperament, and so used to feeling more angry and more glad on my behalf than his own, that he has been made, several mornings, quite unable to go on with his work by this irritating correspondence. It is all my fault, for if he didn't see in the first instance that I am completely upset by anything that arouses unloving emotions, he would never feel as he does about outer sayings and doings. No one is more indifferent than he is to what is said about himself. No more about my business, let us hope, for a long while to come!

The Congreves are settled at home again now—blessing us with the sight of kind faces—Mr. Congreve beginning his medical course.

Delicious confusion of ideas! Mr. Lewes, walking in Wandsworth, saw a good woman cross over the street to speak to a blind man. She accosted him with, "Well, I knew you, though you are dark!"

Letter to John Blackwood, 16th Oct. 1859.

I wish you had read the letter you enclosed to me; it is really curious. The writer, an educated person, asks me to perfect and extend the benefit "Adam Bede" has "conferred on society" by writing a sequel to it, in which I am to tell all about Hetty after her reprieve, "Arthur's efforts to obtain the reprieve, and his desperate ride after obtaining it—Dinah on board the convict ship—Dinah's letters to Hetty—and whatever the author might choose to reveal concerning Hetty's years of banishment. Minor instances of the incompleteness which induces an unsatisfactory feeling may be alleged in the disposal of the locket and earrings—which everybody expects to re-appear—and in the incident of the pink silk neckerchief, of which all would like to hear a little more!!"

I do feel more than I ought about outside sayings and doings, and I constantly rebuke myself for all that part of my susceptibility, which I know to be weak and egoistic; still what is said about one's art is not merely a personal matter—it touches the very highest things one lives for. Truth in art is so startling that no one can believe in it as art, and the specific forms of religious life which have made some of the grandest elements in human history are looked down upon as if they were not within the artist's sympathy and veneration and intensely dramatic reproduction. "I do well to be angry" on that ground, don't I? The simple fact is, that I never saw anything of my aunt's writing, and Dinah's words came from me "as the tears come because our heart is full, and we can't help them."

If you were living in London instead of at Edinburgh, I should ask you to read the first volume of "Sister Maggie" at once, for the sake of having your impression, but it is inconvenient to me to part with the MS. The great success of "Adam" makes my writing a matter of more anxiety than ever. I suppose there is a little sense of responsibility mixed up with a great deal of pride. And I think I should worry myself still more if I began to print before the thing is essentially complete. So on all grounds it is better to wait. How clever and picturesque the "Horsedealer in Syria" is! I read him with keen interest, only wishing that he saw the seamy side of things rather less habitually. Excellent Captain Speke can't write so well, but one follows him out of grave sympathy. That a man should live through such things as that beetle in his ear! Such papers as that make the specialité of Blackwood—one sees them nowhere else.

Journal, 1859.

Oct. 16.—Yesterday came a pleasant packet of letters: one from Blackwood, saying that they are printing a seventh edition of "Adam Bede" (of 2000), and that "Clerical Scenes" will soon be exhausted. I have finished the first volume of my new novel, "Sister Maggie;" have got my legal questions answered satisfactorily, and when my headache has cleared off must go at it full speed.

Oct. 25.—The day before yesterday Herbert Spencer dined with us. We have just finished reading aloud "Père Goriot"—a hateful book. I have been reading lately and have nearly finished Comte's "Catechism."

Oct. 28.—Received from Blackwood a check for £400, the last payment for "Adam Bede" in the terms of the agreement. But in consequence of the great success, he proposes to pay me £800 more at the beginning of next year. Yesterday Smith, the publisher, called to make propositions to G. about writing in the Cornhill Magazine.

Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Oct. 1859.

I beg that you and Major Blackwood will accept my thanks for your proposal to give me a further share in the success of "Adam Bede," beyond the terms of our agreement, which are fulfilled by the second check for £400, received this morning. Neither you nor I ever calculated on half such a success, thinking that the book was too quiet, and too unflattering to dominant fashion, ever to be very popular. I hope that opinion of ours is a guarantee that there is nothing hollow or transient in the reception "Adam" has met with. Sometimes when I read a book which has had a great success, and am unable to see any valid merits of an artistic kind to account for it, I am visited with a horrible alarm lest "Adam," too, should ultimately sink into the same class of outworn admirations. But I always fall back on the fact that no shibboleth and no vanity is flattered by it, and that there is no novelty of mere form in it which can have delighted simply by startling.

Journal, 1859.

Nov. 10.—Dickens dined with us to-day, for the first time, and after he left I went to the Congreves, where George joined me, and we had much chat—about George Stephenson, religion, etc.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th Nov. 1859.

A very beautiful letter—beautiful in feeling—that I have received from Mrs. Gaskell to-day, prompts me to write to you and let you know how entirely she has freed herself from any imputation of being unwilling to accept the truth when it has once clearly presented itself as truth. Since she has known "on authority" that the two books are mine, she has re-read them, and has written to me, apparently on the prompting they gave in that second reading: very sweet and noble words they are that she has written to me. Yesterday Dickens dined with us, on his return from the country. That was a great pleasure to me: he is a man one can thoroughly enjoy talking to—there is a strain of real seriousness along with his keenness and humor.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Nov. 1859.

The Liggins affair is concluded so far as any action of ours is concerned, since Mr. Quirk (the inmost citadel, I presume) has surrendered by writing an apology to Blackwood, saying he now believes he was imposed on by Mr. Liggins. As to Miss Martineau, I respect her so much as an authoress, and have so pleasant a recollection of her as a hostess for three days, that I wish that distant impression from herself and her writings to be disturbed as little as possible by mere personal details. Anything she may do or say or feel concerning me personally is a matter of entire indifference: I share her bitterness with a large number of far more blameless people than myself. It can be of no possible benefit to me, or any one else, that I should know more of those things, either past, present, or to come. "I do owe no man anything" except to write honestly and religiously what comes from my inward promptings; and the freer I am kept of all knowledge of that comparatively small circle who mingle personal regards or hatred with their judgment or reception of my writings, the easier it will be to keep my motives free from all indirectness and write truly.

Journal, 1859.

Nov. 18.—On Monday Dickens wrote, asking me to give him, after I have finished my present novel, a story to be printed in All the Year Round—to begin four months after next Easter, and assuring me of my own terms. The next day G. had an interview by appointment with Evans (of Bradbury & Evans), and Lucas, the editor of Once a Week, who, after preliminary pressing of G. himself to contribute, put forward their wish that I should give them a novel for their Magazine. They were to write and make an offer, but have not yet done so. We have written to Dickens, saying that time is an insurmountable obstacle to his proposition, as he puts it.

I am reading Thomas à Kempis.

Nov. 19.—Mr. Lockhart Clarke and Mr. Herbert Spencer dined with us.

Nov. 22.—We have been much annoyed lately by Newby's advertisement of a book called "Adam Bede, Junior," a sequel; and to-day Dickens has written to mention a story of the tricks which are being used to push the book under the pretence of its being mine. One librarian has been forced to order the book against his will, because the public have demanded it. Dickens is going to put an article on the subject in Household Words, in order to scarify the rascally bookseller.

Nov. 23.—We began Darwin's book on "The Origin of Species" to-night. Though full of interesting matter, it is not impressive, from want of luminous and orderly presentation.

Nov. 24.—This morning I wrote the scene between Mrs. Tulliver and Wakem. G. went into town and saw young Evans (of Bradbury & Evans), who agreed that it would be well to have an article in Punch on this scoundrelly business of "Adam Bede, Junior." A divine day. I walked out, and Mrs. Congreve joined me. Then music, "Arabian Nights," and Darwin.

Nov. 25.—I am reading old Bunyan again, after the long lapse of years, and am profoundly struck with the true genius manifested in the simple, vigorous, rhythmic style.

Letter to the Brays, 25th Nov. 1859.

Thanks for Bentley. Some one said the writer of the article on "Adam Bede" was a Mr. Mozeley, a clergyman, and a writer in the Times; but these reports about authorship are as often false as true. I think it is, on the whole, the best review we have seen, unless we must except the one in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by Emile Montégut. I don't mean to read any reviews of my next book; so far as they would produce any effect, they would be confusing. Everybody admires something that somebody else finds fault with; and the miller with his donkey was in a clear and decided state of mind compared with the unfortunate writer who should set himself to please all the world of review writers. I am compelled, in spite of myself, to be annoyed with this business of "Adam Bede, Junior." You see I am well provided with thorns in the flesh, lest I should be exalted beyond measure. To part with the copyright of a book which sells 16,000 in one year—to have a Liggins and an unknown writer of one's "Sequel" all to one's self—is excellent discipline.

We are reading Darwin's book on Species, just come out after long expectation. It is an elaborate exposition of the evidence in favor of the Development Theory, and so makes an epoch. Do you see how the publishing world is going mad on periodicals? If I could be seduced by such offers, I might have written three poor novels, and made my fortune in one year. Happily, I have no need to exert myself when I say "Avaunt thee, Satan!" Satan, in the form of bad writing and good pay, is not seductive to me.

Journal, 1859.

Nov. 26.—Letter from Lucas, editor of Once a Week, anxious to come to terms about my writing for said periodical.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 26th Nov. 1859.

It was very pretty and generous of you to send me a nice long letter out of your turn, and I think I shall give you, as a reward, other opportunities of being generous in the same way for the next few months, for I am likely to be a poor correspondent, having my head and hands full.

We have the whole of Vilmar's "Literatur Geschichte," but not the remainder of the "Deutsche Humoristik." I agree with you in liking the history of German literature, especially the earlier ages—the birth-time of the legendary poetry. Have you read the "Nibelungenlied" yet?

Whereabouts are you in algebra? It would be very pleasant to study it with you, if I could possibly find time to rub up my knowledge. It is now a good while since I looked into algebra, but I was very fond of it in old days, though I dare say I never went so far as you have now gone. Tell me your latitude and longitude.

I have no memory of an autumn so disappointing as this. It is my favorite season. I delight especially in the golden and red tints under the purple clouds. But this year the trees were almost stripped of their leaves before they had changed color—dashed off by the winds and rain. We have had no autumnal beauty.

I am writing at night—very tired—so you must not wonder if I have left out words, or been otherwise incoherent.

Journal, 1859.

Nov. 29.—Wrote a letter to the Times, and to Delane about Newby.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Dec. 1859.

I took no notice of the extract you sent me from a letter of Mrs. Gaskell's, being determined not to engage in any writing on the topic of my authorship, except such as was absolutely demanded of us. But since then I have had a very beautiful letter from Mrs. Gaskell, and I will quote some of her words, because they do her honor, and will incline you to think more highly of her. She begins in this way: "Since I heard, on authority, that you were the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede,' I have read them again, and I must once more tell you how earnestly, fully, and humbly I admire them. I never read anything so complete and beautiful in fiction in my life before." Very sweet and noble of her, was it not? She went on to speak of her having held to the notion of Liggins, but she adds, "I was never such a goose as to believe that books like yours were a mosaic of real and ideal." The "Seth Bede" and "Adam Bede, Junior," are speculations of those who are always ready to fasten themselves like leeches on a popular fame. Such things must be endured: they are the shadow to the bright fact of selling 16,000 in one year. As to the silly falsehoods and empty opinions afloat in some petty circles, I have quite conquered my temporary irritation about them—indeed, I feel all the more serene now for that very irritation; it has impressed on me more deeply how entirely the rewards of the artist lie apart from everything that is narrow and personal: there is no peace until that lesson is thoroughly learned. I shall go on writing from my inward promptings—writing what I love and believe, what I feel to be true and good, if I can only render it worthily—and then leave all the rest to take its chance: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be" with those who are to produce any art that will lastingly touch the generations of men. We have been reading Darwin's book on the "Origin of Species" just now: it makes an epoch, as the expression of his thorough adhesion, after long years of study, to the Doctrine of Development—and not the adhesion of an anonym like the author of the "Vestiges," but of a long-celebrated naturalist. The book is sadly wanting in illustrative facts—of which he has collected a vast number, but reserves them for a future book, of which this smaller one is the avant-coureur. This will prevent the work from becoming popular as the "Vestiges" did, but it will have a great effect in the scientific world, causing a thorough and open discussion of a question about which people have hitherto felt timid. So the world gets on step by step towards brave clearness and honesty! But to me the Development Theory, and all other explanations of processes by which things came to be, produce a feeble impression compared with the mystery that lies under the processes. It is nice to think of you reading our great, great favorite Molière, while, for the present, we are not taking him down from the shelves—only talking about him, as we do very often. I get a good deal of pleasure out of the sense that some one I love is reading and enjoying my best-loved writers. I think the "Misanthrope" the finest, most complete production of its kind in the world. I know you enjoy the "sonnet" scene, and the one between Arsinoé and Célimène.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Monday evening, 5th Dec. 1859.

In opposition to most people who love to read Shakspeare, I like to see his plays acted better than any others; his great tragedies thrill me, let them be acted how they may. I think it is something like what I used to experience in old days in listening to uncultured preachers—the emotions lay hold of one too strongly for one to care about the medium. Before all other plays I find myself cold and critical, seeing nothing but actors and "properties." I like going to those little provincial theatres. One's heart streams out to the poor devils of actors who get so little clapping, and will go home to so poor a supper. One of my pleasures lately has been hearing repeatedly from my Genevese friends M. and Mme. d'Albert, who were so good to me during my residence with them. M. d'Albert had read the "Scenes of Clerical Life" before he knew they were mine, and had been so much struck with them that he had wanted to translate them. One likes to feel old ties strengthened by fresh sympathies. The Cornhill Magazine is going to lead off with great spirit, and promises to eclipse all the other new-born periodicals. Mr. Lewes is writing a series of papers for it—"Studies in Animal Life"—which are to be subsequently published in a book. It is quite as well that your book should not be ready for publication just yet. February is a much better time than Christmas. I shall be one of your most eager readers—for every book that comes from the heart of hearts does me good, and I quite share your faith that what you yourself feel so deeply and find so precious will find a home in some other minds. Do not suspect that I impose on you the task of writing letters to answer my dilettante questions. "Am I on a bed of roses?" I have four children to correspond with—the three boys in Switzerland, and Emily at Lichfield.

Journal, 1859.

Dec. 15.—Blackwood proposes to give me for "The Mill on the Floss" £2000 for 4000 copies of an edition at 31s. 6d., and after the same rate for any more that may be printed at the same price: £150 for 1000 at 12s., and £60 for 1000 at 6s. I have accepted.

Dec. 25.—Christmas-day. We all, including Pug, dined with Mr. and Mrs. Congreve, and had a delightful day. Mr. Bridges was there too.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 30th Dec. 1859.

I don't like Christmas to go by without sending you a greeting, though I have really nothing to say beyond that. We spent our Christmas-day with the Congreves, shutting up our house and taking our servant and Pug with us. And so we ate our turkey and plum-pudding in very social, joyous fashion with those charming friends. Mr. Bridges was there too.

We are meditating flight to Italy when my present work is done, as our last bit of vagrancy for a long, long while. We shall only stay two months, doing nothing but absorb.

I don't think I have anything else to tell, except that we, being very happy, wish all mortals to be in like condition, and especially the mortals we know in the flesh. Human happiness is a web with many threads of pain in it—that is always sub auditum—Twist ye, twine ye, even so, etc., etc.

Letter to John Blackwood, 3d Jan. 1860.

I never before had so pleasant a New Year's greeting as your letter containing a check for £800, for which I have to thank you to-day. On every ground—including considerations that are not at all of a monetary kind—I am deeply obliged to you and to Major Blackwood for your liberal conduct in relation to "Adam Bede."

As, owing to your generous concession of the copyright of "Adam Bede," the three books will be henceforth on the same footing, we shall be delivered from further discussion as to terms.

We are demurring about the title. Mr. Lewes is beginning to prefer "The House of Tulliver; or, Life on the Floss," to our old notion of "Sister Maggie." "The Tullivers; or, Life on the Floss," has the advantage of slipping easily off the lazy English tongue, but it is after too common a fashion ("The Newcomes," "The Bertrams," etc., etc.). Then there is "The Tulliver Family; or, Life on the Floss." Pray meditate, and give us your opinion.

I am very anxious that the "Scenes of Clerical Life" should have every chance of impressing the public with its existence: first, because I think it of importance to the estimate of me as a writer that "Adam Bede" should not be counted as my only book; and secondly, because there are ideas presented in these stories about which I care a good deal, and am not sure that I can ever embody again. This latter reason is my private affair, but the other reason, if valid, is yours also. I must tell you that I had another cheering letter to-day besides yours: one from a person of mark in your Edinburgh University,[9] full of the very strongest words of sympathy and encouragement, hoping that my life may long be spared "to give pictures of the deeper life of this age." So I sat down to my desk with a delicious confidence that my audience is not made up of reviewers and literary clubs. If there is any truth in me that the world wants, nothing will hinder the world from drinking what it is athirst for. And if there is no needful truth in me, let me, howl as I may in the process, be hurled into the Dom Daniel, where I wish all other futile writers to sink.

Your description of the "curling" made me envy you the sight.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 4th Jan. 1860.

The sun is shining with us too, and your pleasant letter made it seem to shine more brightly. I am not going to be expansive in this appendix to your father's chapter of love and news, for my head is tired with writing this morning—it is not so young as yours, you know, and, besides, is a feminine head, supported by weaker muscles and a weaker digestive apparatus than that of a young gentleman with a broad chest and hopeful whiskers. I don't wonder at your being more conscious of your attachment to Hofwyl now the time of leaving is so near. I fear you will miss a great many things in exchanging Hofwyl, with its snowy mountains and glorious spaces, for a very moderate home in the neighborhood of London. You will have a less various, more arduous life: but the time of Entbehrung or Entsagung must begin, you know, for every mortal of us. And let us hope that we shall all—father and mother and sons—help one another with love.

What jolly times you have had lately! It did us good to read of your merrymaking.

Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Jan. 1860.

"The Mill on the Floss" be it then! The only objections are, that the mill is not strictly on the Floss, being on its small tributary, and that the title is of rather laborious utterance. But I think these objections do not deprive it of its advantage over "The Tullivers; or, Life on the Floss"—the only alternative, so far as we can see. Pray give the casting-vote.

Easter Monday, I see, is on the 8th April, and I wish to be out by the middle or end of March. Illness apart, I intend to have finished Vol. III. by the beginning of that month, and I hope no obstacle will impede the rapidity of the printing.

Journal, 1860.

Jan. 11.—I have had a very delightful letter of sympathy from Professor Blackie of Edinburgh, which came to me on New Year's morning, and a proposal from Blackwood to publish a third edition of "Clerical Scenes" at 12s. George's article in the Cornhill Magazine—the first of a series of "Studies in Animal Life"—is much admired, and in other ways our New Year opens with happy omens.

Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1860.

Thank you for letting me see the specimen advertisements; they have helped us to come to a decision—namely, for "The Mill on the Floss."

I agree with you that it will be well not to promise the book in March—not because I do not desire and hope to be ready, but because I set my face against all pledges that I am not sure of being able to fulfil. The third volume is, I fancy, always more rapidly written than the rest. The third volume of "Adam Bede" was written in six weeks, even with headaching interruptions, because it was written under a stress of emotion, which first volumes cannot be. I will send you the first volume of "The Mill" at once. The second is ready, but I would rather keep it as long as I can. Besides the advantage to the book of being out by Easter, I have another reason for wishing to have done in time for that. We want to get away for two months to Italy, if possible, to feed my mind with fresh thoughts, and to assure ourselves of that fructifying holiday before the boys are about us, making it difficult for us to leave home. But you may rely on it that no amount of horse-power would make me hurry over my book, so as not to do my best. If it is written fast, it will be because I can't help writing it fast.

Journal, 1860.

Jan. 16.—Finished my second volume this morning, and am going to send off the MS. of the first volume to-morrow. We have decided that the title shall be "The Mill on the Floss." We have been reading "Humphrey Clinker" in the evenings, and have been much disappointed in it, after the praise of Thackeray and Dickens.

Jan. 26.—Mr. Pigott, Mr. Redford, and Mr. F. Chapman dined with us, and we had a musical evening. Mrs. Congreve and Miss Bury[10] joining us after dinner.

Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Jan. 1860.

Thanks for your letter of yesterday, with the Genevese enclosure. No promise, alas! of smallest watch expressing largest admiration, but a desire for "permission to translate."

I have been invalided for the last week, and, of course, am a prisoner in the castle of Giant Despair, who growls in my ear that "The Mill on the Floss" is detestable, and that the last volume will be the climax of that general detestableness. Such is the elation attendant on what a self-elected lady correspondent of mine from Scotland calls my "exciting career!"

I have had a great pleasure this week. Dr. Inman of Liverpool has dedicated a new book ("Foundation for a New Theory and Practice of Medicine") "to G. H. Lewes, as an acknowledgment of benefit received from noticing his close observation and clear inductive reasoning in 'Sea-side Studies' and the 'Physiology of Common Life.'"

That is really gratifying, coming from a physician of some scientific mark, who is not a personal friend.

Journal, 1860.

Feb. 4.—Came this morning a letter from Blackwood announcing the despatch of the first eight sheets of proof of "The Mill on the Floss," and expressing his delight in it. To-night G. has read them, and says, "Ganz famos!" Ebenezer!

Feb. 23.—Sir Edward Lytton called on us. Guy Darrell in propriâ personâ.

Letter to John Blackwood, 23d Feb. 1860.

Sir Edward Lytton called on us yesterday. The conversation lapsed chiefly into monologue, from the difficulty I found in making him hear, but under all disadvantages I had an agreeable impression of his kindness and sincerity. He thinks the two defects of "Adam Bede" are the dialect and Adam's marriage with Dinah; but, of course, I would have my teeth drawn rather than give up either.

Jacobi told Jean Paul that unless he altered the dénouement of his Titan he would withdraw his friendship from him; and I am preparing myself for your lasting enmity on the ground of the tragedy in my third volume. But an unfortunate duck can only lay blue eggs, however much white ones may be in demand.

Journal, 1860.

Feb. 29.—G. has been in the town to-day, and has agreed for £300 for "The Mill on the Floss" from Harpers of New York. This evening, too, has come a letter from Williams & Norgate, saying that Tauchnitz will give £100 for the German reprint; also, that "Bede Adam" is translated into Hungarian.

March 5.—Yesterday Mr. Lawrence, the portrait-painter, lunched with us, and expressed to G. his wish to take my portrait.

March 9.—Yesterday a letter from Blackwood, expressing his strong delight in my third volume, which he had read to the beginning of "Borne on the tide." To-day young Blackwood called, and told us, among other things, that the last copies of "Clerical Scenes" had gone to-day—twelve for export. Letter came from Germany, announcing a translation of G.'s "Biographical History of Philosophy."

March 11.—To-day the first volume of the German translation of "Adam Bede" came. It is done by Dr. Frese, the same man who translated the "Life of Goethe."

March 20.—Professor Owen sent me his "Palæontology" to-day. Have missed two days of work from headache, and so have not yet finished my book.

March 21.—Finished this morning "The Mill on the Floss," writing from the moment when Maggie, carried out on the water, thinks of her mother and brother. We hope to start for Rome on Saturday, 24th.

Magnificat anima mea!

The manuscript of "The Mill on the Floss" bears the following inscription:

"To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21st March, 1860."

Letter to John Blackwood, 22d March, 1860.

Your letter yesterday morning helped to inspire me for the last eleven pages, if they have any inspiration in them. They were written in a furor, but I dare say there is not a word different from what it would have been if I had written them at the slowest pace.

We expect to start on Saturday morning, and to be in Rome by Palm Sunday, or else by the following Tuesday. Of course we shall write to you when we know what will be our address in Rome. In the meantime news will gather.

I don't mean to send "The Mill on the Floss" to any one except to Dickens, who has behaved with a delicate kindness in a recent matter, which I wish to acknowledge.

I am grateful and yet rather sad to have finished—sad that I shall live with my people on the banks of the Floss no longer. But it is time that I should go and absorb some new life and gather fresh ideas.

SUMMARY.

JANUARY, 1859, TO MARCH, 1860.

Looking for cases of inundation in Annual Register—New House—Holly Lodge, Wandsworth—Letter to John Blackwood—George Eliot fears she has not characteristics of "the popular author"—Subscription to "Adam Bede" 730 copies—Appreciation by a cabinet-maker—Dr. John Brown sends "Rab and his Friends" with an inscription—Letter to Blackwood thereon—Tries to be hopeful—Letters to Miss Hennell—Description of Holly Lodge—Miss Nightingale—Thoughts on death—Scott—Mrs. Clarke writes—Mr. and Mrs. Congreve—Letter to Mrs. Bray on effects of anxiety—Mrs. Clarke dying—Letter to John Blackwood—Wishes Carlyle to read "Adam Bede"—"Life of Frederic" painful—Susceptibility to newspaper criticism—Edinburgh more encouraging than London—Letter to Blackwood to stop puffing notices—Letter from E. Hall, working-man, asking for cheap editions—Sale of "Adam Bede"—Death of Mrs. Clarke—1800 copies of "Adam Bede" sold—Letter to Blackwood—Awakening to fame—Letter to Froude—Mrs. Poyser quoted in House of Commons by Mr. Charles Buxton—Opinions of Charles Reade, Shirley Brooks, and John Murray—Letter to John Blackwood—Warwickshire correspondent insists that Liggins is author of "Adam Bede"—Not flushed with success—Visit to Isle of Wight—Letter to Miss Hennell on rewriting, and pleasure in Mr. and Mrs. Congreve—Letter to Times, denying that Liggins is the author—Letter to Blackwood—The Liggins myth—Letter from Bulwer—Finished "The Lifted Veil"—Writing "The Tullivers"—Mrs. Congreve—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Faith in her—Letter from Madame Bodichon—Reply breathing joy in sympathy—Letter to Major Blackwood—Mr. Anders's apology for the Liggins business—"Adam Bede" worth writing—Dulwich gallery—Blackwood gives £400 more in acknowledgment of "Adam Bede's" success—Letter to Miss Hennell on Mrs. Congreve—On difficulty of getting cheap music in England—Professor Aytoun on "Adam Bede"—Letter to Major Blackwood—Liggins—Mrs. Gaskell—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Dislike of Wandsworth—To Crystal Palace to hear "Messiah," and reveals herself to Brays as author of "Adam Bede"—Letter to Brays—Bad effect of talking of her books—Letter to Charles Bray—Melancholy that her writing does not produce effect intended—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—To Switzerland by Paris—At Schweizerhof, Lucerne, with Congreves—Mr. Lewes goes to Hofwyl—Return to Richmond by Bâle and Paris—Fourth edition of "Adam Bede" (5000) sold in a fortnight—Letter to Mrs. Bray on Mrs. Congreve—On the effect of her books and fame—Herbert Spencer on "Adam Bede"—Pamphlet to prove that Scott's novels were written by Thomas Scott—Letter from Dickens on "Adam Bede" referred to—Letter to John Blackwood on "Pug"—Letter to Charles Lewes—"The Physiology of Common Life"—American proposition for a story for £1200—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Distance from experience artistically necessary—Letter to John Blackwood—Development of stories—Visit to Penmaenmawr—Return by Lichfield to Weymouth—Sixth edition of "Adam Bede"—Back to Richmond—Anxiety about new novel—Journey to Gainsboro', Lincolnshire—Letter to Miss Hennell—End of Liggins business—Letter to John Blackwood—A correspondent suggests a sequel to "Adam Bede"—Susceptibility to outside opinion—Seventh edition of "Adam Bede"—Blackwood proposes to pay £800 beyond the bargain for success of "Adam Bede"—Dickens dines at Holly Lodge—Letter to Miss Hennell—Quotes letter from Mrs. Gaskell—Miss Martineau—Dickens asks for story for All the Year Round—"Adam Bede, Junior"—Reading Darwin on "Origin of Species"—Bunyan—Letter to Mr. Bray—Article on "Adam Bede" in Bentley—In Revue des Deux Mondes, by Emile Montégut—Reviews generally—16,000 of "Adam Bede" sold in year—Darwin's book—Letter to Charles Lewes—Mentions fondness of algebra—Letter to Madame Bodichon quoting Mrs. Gaskell's letter—Rewards of the artist lie apart from everything personal—Darwin's book—Molière—Letter to Miss Hennell—Likes to see Shakspeare acted—Hears from M. and Mme. d'Albert—Cornhill Magazine—Blackwood's terms for "Mill on the Floss"—Christmas-day with Congreves—Letter of sympathy from Professor Blackie—Third edition of "Clerical Scenes"—Letters to Blackwood—Thanks for concession of copyright of "Adam Bede"—Title of new novel considered—Suggestion of the "Mill on the Floss" accepted—The third volume of "Adam Bede" written in six weeks—Depression with the "Mill"—Sir Edward Lytton—"Adam Bede" translated into Hungarian and German—"Mill on the Floss" finished—Letter to Blackwood—Sad at finishing—Start for Italy.

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