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

by George Eliot

CHAPTER XI.

Journal, 1860.

July 1.—We found ourselves at home again, after three months of delightful travel. From Berne we brought our eldest boy Charles, to begin a new period in his life, after four years at Hofwyl. During our absence "The Mill on the Floss" came out (April 4), and achieved a greater success than I had ever hoped for it. The subscription was 3600 (the number originally printed was 4000); and shortly after its appearance, Mudie having demanded a second thousand, Blackwood commenced striking off 2000 more, making 6000. While we were at Florence I had the news that these 6000 were all sold, and that 500 more were being prepared. From all we can gather, the votes are rather on the side of "The Mill" as a better book than "Adam."

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st July, 1860.

We reached home by starlight at one o'clock this morning; and I write in haste, fear, and trembling lest you should already be gone to Surrey. You know what I should like—that you and your husband should come to us the first day possible, naming any hour and conditions. We would arrange meals and everything else as would best suit you. Of course I would willingly go to London to see you, if you could not come to me. But I fear lest neither plan should be practicable, and lest this letter should have to be sent after you. It is from your note only that I have learned your loss.[21] It has made me think of you with the sense that there is more than ever a common fund of experience between us. But I will write nothing more now. I am almost ill with fatigue, and have only courage to write at all because of my anxiety not to miss you.

Affectionate regards from both of us to both of you.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d July, 1860.

I opened your letters and parcel a little after one o'clock on Sunday morning, for that was the unseasonable hour of our return from our long, long journey. Yesterday was almost entirely employed in feeling very weary indeed, but this morning we are attacking the heap of small duties that always lie before one after a long absence.

It is pleasant to see your book[22] fairly finished after all delays and anxieties; but I will say nothing to you about that until I have read it. I shall read it the first thing before plunging into a course of study which will take me into a different region of thought.

We have had an unspeakably delightful journey—one of those journeys that seem to divide one's life in two, by the new ideas they suggest and the new veins of interest they open. We went to Geneva, and spent two days with my old, kind friends, the d'Alberts—a real pleasure to me, especially as Mr. Lewes was delighted with "Maman," as I used to call Madame d'Albert. She is as bright and upright as ever; the ten years have only whitened her hair—a change which makes her face all the softer in coloring.

Letter to John Blackwood, 3d July, 1860.

We did not reach home till past midnight on Saturday, when you, I suppose, had already become used to the comfort of having fairly got through your London season. Self-interest, rightly understood of course, prompts us to a few virtuous actions in the way of letter-writing to let the few people we care to hear from know at once of our whereabouts; and you are one of the first among the few.

At Berne Mr. Lewes supped with Professors Valentin and Schiff, two highly distinguished physiologists, and I was much delighted to find how much attention and interest they had given to his views in the "Physiology of Common Life."

A French translation of "Adam Bede," by a Genevese gentleman[23] well known to me, is now in the press; and the same translator has undertaken "The Mill on the Floss." He appears to have rendered "Adam" with the most scrupulous care. I think these are all the incidents we gathered on our homeward journey that are likely to interest you.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th July, 1860.

I have finished my first rather rapid reading of your book, and now I thank you for it: not merely for the special gift of the volume and inscription, but for that of which many others will share the benefit with me—the "thoughts" themselves.

So far as my reading in English books of similar character extends, yours seems to me quite unparalleled in the largeness and insight with which it estimates Christianity as an "organized experience"—a grand advance in the moral development of the race.

I especially delight in the passage, p. 105, beginning, "And how can it be otherwise," and ending with, "formal rejection of it."[24] On this and other supremely interesting matters of thought—perhaps I should rather say of experience—your book has shown me that we are much nearer to each other than I had supposed. At p. 174, again, there is a passage beginning, "These sentiments," and ending with "heroes,"[25] which, for me, expresses the one-half of true human piety. That thought is one of my favorite altars where I oftenest go to contemplate, and to seek for invigorating motive.

Of the work as a whole I am quite incompetent to judge on a single cursory reading. I admire—I respect—the breadth and industry of mind it exhibits; and I should be obliged to give it a more thorough study than I can afford at present before I should feel warranted to urge, in the light of a criticism, my failure to perceive the logical consistency of your language in some parts with the position you have adopted in others. In many instances your meaning is obscure to me, or at least lies wrapped up in more folds of abstract phraseology than I have the courage or the industry to open for myself. I think you told me that some one had found your treatment of great questions "cold-blooded." I am all the more delighted to find, for my own part, an unusual fulness of sympathy and heart experience breathing throughout your book. The ground for that epithet perhaps lay in a certain professorial tone which could hardly be avoided, in a work filled with criticism of other people's theories, except by the adoption of a simply personal style of presentation, in which you would have seemed to be looking up at the oracles, and trying to reconcile their doctrines for your own behoof, instead of appearing to be seated in a chair above them. But you considered your own plan more thoroughly than any one else can have considered it for you; and I have no doubt you had good reasons for preferring the more impersonal style.

Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards, and when Du Bois Reymond's book on Johannes Müller, with other preoccupations of a like thrilling kind, no longer stand in the way, he will open his copy of the "Thoughts in Aid of Faith." He has felt a new interest aroused towards it since he has learned something about it from me and the reviewer in the Westminster.

Madame Bodichon, who was here the other day, told me that Miss Nightingale and Miss Julia Smith had mentioned their pleasure in your book; but you will hear further news of all that from themselves.

Letter to John Blackwood, 9th July, 1860.

I return Sir Edward Lytton's critical letter, which I have read with much interest. On two points I recognize the justice of his criticism. First, that Maggie is made to appear too passive in the scene of quarrel in the Red Deeps. If my book were still in MS. I should—now that the defect is suggested to me—alter, or rather expand, that scene. Secondly, that the tragedy is not adequately prepared. This is a defect which I felt even while writing the third volume, and have felt ever since the MS. left me. The Epische Breite into which I was beguiled by love of my subject in the two first volumes, caused a want of proportionate fulness in the treatment of the third, which I shall always regret.

The other chief point of criticism—Maggie's position towards Stephen—is too vital a part of my whole conception and purpose for me to be converted to the condemnation of it. If I am wrong there—if I did not really know what my heroine would feel and do under the circumstances in which I deliberately placed her, I ought not to have written this book at all, but quite a different book, if any. If the ethics of art do not admit the truthful presentation of a character essentially noble, but liable to great error—error that is anguish to its own nobleness—then, it seems to me, the ethics of art are too narrow, and must be widened to correspond with a widening psychology.

But it is good for me to know how my tendencies as a writer clash with the conclusions of a highly accomplished mind, that I may be warned into examining well whether my discordance with those conclusions may not arise rather from an idiosyncrasy of mine than from a conviction which is argumentatively justifiable.

I hope you will thank Sir Edward on my behalf for the trouble he has taken to put his criticism into a form specific enough to be useful. I feel his taking such trouble to be at once a tribute and a kindness. If printed criticisms were usually written with only half the same warrant of knowledge, and with an equal sincerity of intention, I should read them without fear of fruitless annoyance.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 10th July, 1860.

The little envelope with its address of "Marian" was very welcome, and as Mr. Lewes is sending what a Malaproprian friend once called a "missile" to Sara, I feel inclined to slip in a word of gratitude—less for the present than for the past goodness, which came back to me with keener remembrance than ever when we were at Genoa and at Como—the places I first saw with you. How wretched I was then—how peevish, how utterly morbid! And how kind and forbearing you were under the oppression of my company. I should like you now and then to feel happy in the thought that you were always perfectly good to me. That I was not good to you is my own disagreeable affair; the bitter taste of that fact is mine, not yours.

Don't you remember Bellagio? It is hardly altered much except in the hotels, which the eleven years have wondrously multiplied and bedizened for the accommodation of the English. But if I begin to recall the things we saw in Italy, I shall write as long a letter as Mr. Lewes's, which, by-the-bye, now I have read it, seems to be something of a "missile" in another sense than the Malaproprian. But Sara is one of the few people to whom candor is acceptable as the highest tribute. And private criticism has more chance of being faithful than public. We must have mercy on critics who are obliged to make a figure in printed pages. They must by all means say striking things. Either we should not read printed criticisms at all (I don't), or we should read them with the constant remembrance that they are a fugitive kind of work which, in the present stage of human nature, can rarely engage a very high grade of conscience or ability. The fate of a book, which is not entirely ephemeral, is never decided by journalists or reviewers of any but an exceptional kind. Tell Sara her damnation—if it ever comes to pass—will be quite independent of Nationals and Westminsters. Let half a dozen competent people read her book, and an opinion of it will spread quite apart from either praise or blame in reviews and newspapers.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, Tuesday evening, July, 1860.

Our big boy is a great delight to us, and makes our home doubly cheery. It is very sweet as one gets old to have some young life about one. He is quite a passionate musician, and we play Beethoven duets with increasing appetite every evening. The opportunity of hearing some inspiring music is one of the chief benefits we hope for to counterbalance our loss of the wide common and the fields.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th July, 1860.

We shall certainly read the parts you suggest in the "Education of the Feelings,"[26] and I dare say I shall read a good deal more of it, liking to turn over the leaves of a book which I read first in our old drawing-room at Foleshill, and then lent to my sister, who, with a little air of maternal experience, pronounced it "very sensible."

There is so much that I want to do every day—I had need cut myself into four women. We have a great extra interest and occupation just now in our big boy Charlie, who is looking forward to a Government examination, and wants much help and sympathy in music and graver things. I think we are quite peculiarly blest in the fact that this eldest lad seems the most entirely lovable human animal of seventeen and a half that I ever met with or heard of: he has a sweetness of disposition which is saved from weakness by a remarkable sense of duty.

We are going to let our present house, if possible—that is, get rid of it altogether on account of its inconvenient situation—other projects are still in a floating, unfixed condition. The water did not look quite so green at Como—perhaps, as your remark suggests, because there was a less vivid green to be reflected from my personality as I looked down on it. I am eleven years nearer to the sere and yellow leaf, and my feelings are even more autumnal than my years. I have read no reviews of the "Mill on the Floss" except that in the Times which Blackwood sent me to Florence. I abstain not from superciliousness, but on a calm consideration of the probable proportion of benefit on the one hand, and waste of thought on the other. It was certain that in the notices of my first book, after the removal of my incognito, there would be much ex post facto wisdom, which could hardly profit me since I certainly knew who I was beforehand, and knew also that no one else knew who had not been told.

Letter to Charles Bray, 18th July, 1860.

We are quite uncertain about our plans at present. Our second boy, Thornie, is going to leave Hofwyl, and to be placed in some more expensive position, in order to the carrying on of his education in a more complete way, so that we are thinking of avoiding for the present any final establishment of ourselves, which would necessarily be attended with additional outlay. Besides, these material cares draw rather too severely on my strength and spirits. But until Charlie's career has taken shape we frame no definite projects.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Aug. 1860.

If Cara values the article on Strikes in the Westminster Review, she will be interested to know—if she has not heard it already—that the writer is blind. I dined with him the other week, and could hardly keep the tears back as I sat at table with him. Yet he is cheerful and animated, accepting with graceful quietness all the minute attentions to his wants that his blindness calls forth. His name is Fawcett, and he is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I am sitting for my portrait—for the last time, I hope—to Lawrence, the artist who drew that chalk-head of Thackeray, which is familiar to you.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, Friday, Aug. 1860.

I know you will rejoice with us that Charlie has won his place at the Post-office, having been at the head of the list in the examination. The dear lad is fairly launched in life now.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, Saturday evening, Aug. 1860.

I am thoroughly vexed that we didn't go to Lawrence's to-day. We made an effort, but it was raining too hard at the only time that would serve us to reach the train. That comes of our inconvenient situation, so far off the railway; and alas! no one comes to take our house off our hands. We may be forced to stay here after all.

One of the things I shall count upon, if we are able to get nearer London, is to see more of your schools and other good works. That would help me to do without the fields for many months of the year.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Aug. 1860.

I am very sorry that anything I have written should have pained you. That, certainly, is the result I should seek most to avoid in the very slight communication which we are able to keep up—necessarily under extremely imperfect acquaintance with each other's present self.

My first letter to you about your book, after having read it through, was as simple and sincere a statement of the main impressions it had produced on me as I knew how to write in few words. My second letter, in which I unhappily used a formula in order to express to you, in briefest phrase, my difficulty in discerning the justice of your analogical argument, as I understood it, was written from no other impulse than the desire to show you that I did not neglect your abstract just sent to me. The said formula was entirely deprived of its application by the statement in your next letter that you used the word "essence" in another sense than the one hitherto received in philosophical writing, on the question as to the nature of our knowledge; and the explanation given of your meaning in your last letter shows me—unless I am plunging into further mistake—that you mean nothing but what I fully believe. My offensive formula was written under the supposition that your conclusion meant something which it apparently did not mean. It is probable enough that I was stupid; but I should be distressed to think that the discipline of life had been of so little use to me as to leave me with a tendency to leap at once to the attitude of a critic, instead of trying first to be a learner from every book written with sincere labor.

Will you tell Mr. Bray that we are quitting our present house in order to be nearer town for Charlie's sake, who has an appointment in the Post-office, and our time will be arduously occupied during the next few weeks in arrangements to that end, so that our acceptance of the pleasant proposition to visit Sydenham for a while is impossible. We have advertised for a house near Regent's Park, having just found a gentleman and lady ready to take our present one off our hands. They want to come in on quarter-day, so that we have no time to spare.

I have been reading this morning for my spiritual good Emerson's "Man the Reformer," which comes to me with fresh beauty and meaning. My heart goes out with venerating gratitude to that mild face, which I dare say is smiling on some one as beneficently as it one day did on me years and years ago.

Do not write again about opinions on large questions, dear Sara. The liability to mutual misconception which attends such correspondence—especially in my case, who can only write with brevity and haste—makes me dread it greatly; and I think there is no benefit derivable to you to compensate for the presence of that dread in me. You do not know me well enough as I am (according to the doctrine of development which you have yourself expounded) to have the materials for interpreting my imperfect expressions.

I think you would spare yourself some pain if you would attribute to your friends a larger comprehension of ideas, and a larger acquaintance with them, than you appear to do. I should imagine that many of them, or at least some of them, share with you, much more fully than you seem to suppose, in the interest and hope you derive from the doctrine of development, with its geometrical progression towards fuller and fuller being. Surely it is a part of human piety we should all cultivate, not to form conclusions, on slight and dubious evidence, as to other people's "tone of mind," or to regard particular mistakes as a proof of general moral incapacity to understand us. I suppose such a tendency (to large conclusions about others) is part of the original sin we are all born with, for I have continually to check it in myself.

Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Aug. 1860.

I think I must tell you the secret, though I am distrusting my power to make it grow into a published fact. When we were in Florence I was rather fired with the idea of writing an historical romance—scene, Florence; period, the close of the fifteenth century, which was marked by Savonarola's career and martyrdom. Mr. Lewes has encouraged me to persevere in the project, saying that I should probably do something in historical romance rather different in character from what has been done before. But I want first to write another English story, and the plan I should like to carry out is this: to publish my next English novel when my Italian one is advanced enough for us to begin its publication a few months afterwards in "Maga." It would appear without a name in the Magazine, and be subsequently reprinted with the name of George Eliot. I need not tell you the wherefore of this plan. You know well enough the received phrases with which a writer is greeted when he does something else than what was expected of him. But just now I am quite without confidence in my future doings, and almost repent of having formed conceptions which will go on lashing me now until I have at least tried to fulfil them.

I am going to-day to give my last sitting to Lawrence, and we were counting on the Major's coming to look at the portrait and judge of it. I hope it will be satisfactory, for I am quite set against going through the same process a second time.

We are a little distracted just now with the prospect of removal from our present house, which some obliging people have at last come to take off our hands.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Sept. 1860.

My fingers have been itching to write to you for the last week or more, but I have waited and waited, hoping to be able to tell you that we had decided on our future house. This evening, however, I have been reading your description of Algiers, and the desire to thank you for it moves me too strongly to be resisted. It is admirably written, and makes me see the country. I am so glad to think of the deep draughts of life you get from being able to spend half your life in that fresh, grand scenery. It must make London and English green fields all the more enjoyable in their turn.

As for us, we are preparing to renounce the delights of roving, and to settle down quietly, as old folks should do, for the benefit of the young ones. We have let our present house.

Is it not cheering to have the sunshine on the corn, and the prospect that the poor people will not have to endure the suffering that comes on them from a bad harvest? The fields that were so sadly beaten down a little while ago on the way to town are now standing in fine yellow shocks.

I wish you could know how much we felt your kindness to Charley. He is such a dear good fellow that nothing is thrown away upon him.

Write me a scrap of news about yourself, and tell me how you and the doctor are enjoying the country. I shall get a breath of it in that way. I think I love the fields and shudder at the streets more and more every month.

Journal, 1860.

Sept. 27.—To-day is the third day we have spent in our new home here at 10 Harewood Square. It is a furnished house, in which we do not expect to stay longer than six months at the utmost. Since our return from Italy I have written a slight tale, "Mr. David Faux, Confectioner" ("Brother Jacob"), which G. thinks worth printing.

Letter to John Blackwood, 27th Sept. 1860.

The precious check arrived safely to-day. I am much obliged to you for it, and also for the offer to hasten further payments. I have no present need of that accommodation, as we have given up the idea of buying the house which attracted us, dreading a step that might fetter us to town, or to a more expensive mode of living than might ultimately be desirable. I hope Mr. Lewes will bring us back a good report of Major Blackwood's progress towards re-established health. In default of a visit from him, it was very agreeable to have him represented by his son,[27] who has the happy talent of making a morning call one of the easiest, pleasantest things in the world.

I wonder if you know who is the writer of the article in the North British, in which I am reviewed along with Hawthorne. Mr. Lewes brought it for me to read this morning, and it is so unmixed in its praise that if I had any friends I should be uneasy lest a friend should have written it.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Oct. 1860.

Since there is no possibility of my turning in to see you on my walk, as in the old days, I cannot feel easy without writing to tell you my regret that I missed you when you came. In changing a clearer sky for a foggy one we have not changed our habits, and we walk after lunch, as usual; but I should like very much to stay indoors any day with the expectation of seeing you, if I could know beforehand of your coming. It is rather sad not to see your face at all from week to week, and I hope you know that I feel it so. But I am always afraid of falling into a disagreeable urgency of invitation, since we have nothing to offer beyond the familiar, well-worn entertainment of our own society. I hope you and Mr. Congreve are quite well now and free from cares. Emily, I suppose, is gone with the sunshine of her face to Coventry. There is sadly little sunshine except that of young faces just now. Still we are flourishing, in spite of damp and dismalness. We were glad to hear that the well-written article in the Westminster on the "Essays and Reviews" was by your friend Mr. Harrison.[28] Though I don't quite agree with his view of the case, I admired the tone and style of the writing greatly.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Oct. 1860.

There is no objection to Wednesday but this—that it is our day for hearing a course of lectures, and the lecture begins at eight. Now, since you can't come often, we want to keep you as long as we can, and we have a faint hope that Mr. Congreve might be able to come from his work and dine with us and take you home. But if that were impossible, could you not stay all night? There is a bed ready for you. Think of all that, and if you can manage to give us the longer visit, choose another day when our evening will be unbroken. I will understand by your silence that you can only come for a shorter time, and that you abide by your plan of coming on Wednesday. I am really quite hungry for the sight of you.

Letter to John Blackwood, 2d Nov. 1860.

I agree with you in preferring to put simply "New Edition;" and I see, too, that the practice of advertising numbers is made vulgar and worthless by the doubtful veracity of some publishers, and the low character of the books to which they affix this supposed guarantee of popularity. Magna est veritas, etc. I can't tell you how much comfort I feel in having publishers who believe that.

You have read the hostile article in the Quarterly, I dare say. I have not seen it; but Mr. Lewes's report of it made me more cheerful than any review I have heard of since "The Mill" came out. You remember Lord John Russell was once laughed at immensely for saying that he felt confident he was right, because all parties found fault with him. I really find myself taking nearly the same view of my position, with the Freethinkers angry with me on one side and the writer in the Quarterly on the other—not because my representations are untruthful, but because they are impartial—because I don't load my dice so as to make their side win. The parenthetical hint that the classical quotations in my books might be "more correctly printed," is an amusing sample of the grievance that belongs to review-writing in general, since there happens to be only one classical quotation in them all—the Greek one from the Philoctetes in "Amos Barton." By-the-bye, will you see that the readers have not allowed some error to creep into that solitary bit of pedantry?

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Nov. 1860.

I understand your paradox of "expecting disappointments," for that is the only form of hope with which I am familiar. I should like, for your sake, that you should rather see us in our own house than in this; for I fear your carrying away a general sense of yellow in connection with us—and I am sure that is enough to set you against the thought of us. There are some staring yellow curtains which you will hardly help blending with your impression of our moral sentiments. In our own drawing-room I mean to have a paradise of greenness. I have lately re-read your "Thoughts," from the beginning of the "Psychical Essence of Christianity" to the end of the "History of Philosophy," and I feel my original impression confirmed—that the "Psychical Essence" and "General Review of the Christian System" are the most valuable portions. I think you once expressed your regret that I did not understand the analogy you traced between Feuerbach's theory and Spencer's. I don't know what gave you that impression, for I never said so. I see your meaning distinctly in that parallel. If you referred to something in Mr. Lewes's letter, let me say, once for all, that you must not impute my opinions to him nor vice versâ. The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions. In this respect I know no man so great as he—that difference of opinion rouses no egoistic irritation in him, and that he is ready to admit that another argument is the stronger the moment his intellect recognizes it. I am glad to see Mr. Bray contributing his quota to the exposure of that odious trickery—spirit-rapping. It was not headache that I was suffering from when Mr. Bray called, but extreme languor and unbroken fatigue from morning to night—a state which is always accompanied in me, psychically, by utter self-distrust and despair of ever being equal to the demands of life. We should be very pleased to hear some news of Mr. and Mrs. Call. I feel their removal from town quite a loss to us.

Journal, 1860.

Nov. 28.—Since I last wrote in this Journal I have suffered much from physical weakness, accompanied with mental depression. The loss of the country has seemed very bitter to me, and my want of health and strength has prevented me from working much—still worse, has made me despair of ever working well again. I am getting better now by the help of tonics, and shall be better still if I could gather more bravery, resignation, and simplicity of striving. In the meantime my cup is full of blessings: my home is bright and warm with love and tenderness, and in more material, vulgar matters we are very fortunate.

Last Tuesday—the 20th—we had a pleasant evening. Anthony Trollope dined with us, and made me like him very much by his straightforward, wholesome Wesen. Afterwards Mr. Helps came in, and the talk was extremely agreeable. He told me the queen had been speaking to him in great admiration of my books—especially "The Mill on the Floss." It is interesting to know that royalty can be touched by that sort of writing, and I was grateful to Mr. Helps for his wish to tell me of the sympathy given to me in that quarter.

To-day I have had a letter from M. d'Albert, saying that at last the French edition of "Adam Bede" is published. He pleases me very much by saying that he finds not a sentence that he can retrench in the first volume of "The Mill."

I am engaged now in writing a story—the idea of which came to me after our arrival in this house, and which has thrust itself between me and the other book I was meditating. It is "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe." I am still only at about the 62d page, for I have written slowly and interruptedly.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 7th Dec. 1860.

The sight of sunshine usually brings you to my mind, because you are my latest association with the country; but I think of you much oftener than I see the sunshine, for the weather in London has been more uninterruptedly dismal than ever for the last fortnight. Nevertheless I am brighter; and since I believe your goodness will make that agreeable news to you, I write on purpose to tell it. Quinine and steel have at last made me brave and cheerful, and I really don't mind a journey up-stairs. If you had not repressed our hope of seeing you again until your sister's return, I should have asked you to join us for the Exeter Hall performance of the "Messiah" this evening, which I am looking forward to with delight. The Monday Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall are our easiest and cheapest pleasures. I go in my bonnet; we sit in the shilling places in the body of the hall, and hear to perfection for a shilling! That is agreeable when one hears Beethoven's quartets and sonatas. Pray bear in mind that these things are to be had when you are more at liberty.

Journal, 1860.

Dec. 17.—We entered to-day our new home—16 Blandford Square—which we have taken for three years, hoping by the end of that time to have so far done our duty by the boys as to be free to live where we list.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Dec. 1860.

Your vision of me as "settled" was painfully in contrast with the fact. The last virtue human beings will attain, I am inclined to think, is scrupulosity in promising and faithfulness in fulfilment. We are still far off our last stadium of development, and so it has come to pass that, though we were in the house on Monday last, our curtains are not up and our oilcloth is not down. Such is life, seen from the furnishing point of view! I can't tell you how hateful this sort of time-frittering work is to me, who every year care less for houses and detest shops more. To crown my sorrows, I have lost my pen—my old, favorite pen, with which I have written for eight years—at least, it is not forth-coming. We have been reading the proof of Mr. Spencer's second part, and I am supremely gratified by it, because he brings his argument to a point which I did not anticipate from him. It is, as he says, a result of his riper thought. After all the bustle of Monday I went to hear Sims Reeves sing "Adelaide"—that ne plus ultra of passionate song—and I wish you had been there for one quarter of an hour, that you might have heard it too.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 26th Dec. 1860.

The bright point in your letter is that you are in a happy state of mind yourself. For the rest, we must wait, and not be impatient with those who have their inward trials, though everything outward seems to smile on them. It seems to those who are differently placed that the time of freedom from strong ties and urgent claims must be very precious for the ends of self-culture and good, helpful work towards the world at large. But it hardly ever is so. As for the forms and ceremonies, I feel no regret that any should turn to them for comfort if they can find comfort in them; sympathetically I enjoy them myself. But I have faith in the working-out of higher possibilities than the Catholic or any other Church has presented; and those who have strength to wait and endure are bound to accept no formula which their whole souls—their intellect as well as their emotions—do not embrace with entire reverence. The "highest calling and election" is to do without opium, and live through all our pain with conscious, clear-eyed endurance.

We have no sorrow just now, except my constant inward "worrit" of unbelief in any future of good work on my part. Everything I do seems poor and trivial in the doing; and when it is quite gone from me, and seems no longer my own, then I rejoice in it and think it fine. That is the history of my life.

I have been wanting to go to your school again, to refresh myself with the young voices there, but I have not been able to do it. My walks have all been taken up with shopping errands of late; but I hope to get more leisure soon.

We both beg to offer our affectionate remembrances to the doctor. Get Herbert Spencer's new work—the two first quarterly parts. It is the best thing he has done.

Journal, 1860.

Dec. 31.—This year has been marked by many blessings, and, above all, by the comfort we have found in having Charles with us. Since we set out on our journey to Italy on 25th March, the time has not been fruitful in work: distractions about our change of residence have run away with many days; and since I have been in London my state of health has been depressing to all effort.

May the next year be more fruitful!

Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1861.

I am writing a story which came across my other plans by a sudden inspiration. I don't know at present whether it will resolve itself into a book short enough for me to complete before Easter, or whether it will expand beyond that possibility. It seems to me that nobody will take any interest in it but myself, for it is extremely unlike the popular stories going; but Mr. Lewes declares that I am wrong, and says it is as good as anything I have done. It is a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought. I think I get slower and more timid in my writing, but perhaps worry about houses and servants and boys, with want of bodily strength, may have had something to do with that. I hope to be quiet now.

Journal, 1861.

Feb. 1.—The first month of the New Year has been passed in much bodily discomfort, making both work and leisure heavy. I have reached page 209 of my story, which is to be in one volume, and I want to get it ready for Easter, but I dare promise myself nothing with this feeble body.

The other day I had charming letters from M. and Mme. d'Albert, saying that the French "Adam" goes on very well, and showing an appreciation of "The Mill" which pleases me.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Feb. 1861.

I was feeling so ill on Friday and Saturday that I had not spirit to write and thank you for the basket of eggs—an invaluable present. I was particularly grateful this morning at breakfast, when a fine large one fell to my share.

On Saturday afternoon we were both so utterly incapable that Mr. Lewes insisted on our setting off forthwith into the country. But we only got as far as Dorking, and came back yesterday. I felt a new creature as soon as I was in the country; and we had two brilliant days for rambling and driving about that lovely Surrey. I suppose we must keep soul and body together by occasional flights of this sort; and don't you think an occasional flight to town will be good for you?

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 8th Feb. 1861.

I have destroyed almost all my friends' letters to me, because they were only intended for my eyes, and could only fall into the hands of persons who knew little of the writers, if I allowed them to remain till after my death. In proportion as I love every form of piety—which is venerating love—I hate hard curiosity; and, unhappily, my experience has impressed me with the sense that hard curiosity is the more common temper of mind. But enough of that. The reminders I am getting from time to time of Coventry distress have made me think very often yearningly and painfully of the friends who are more immediately affected by it, and I often wonder if more definite information would increase or lessen my anxiety for them. Send me what word you can from time to time, that there may be some reality in my image of things round your hearth.

Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Feb. 1861.

I send you by post to-day about two hundred and thirty pages of MS. I send it because, in my experience, printing and its preliminaries have always been rather a slow business; and as the story—if published at Easter at all—should be ready by Easter week, there is no time to lose. We are reading "Carlyle's Memoirs" with much interest; but, so far as we have gone, he certainly does seem to me something of a "Sadducee"—a very handsome one, judging from the portrait. What a memory and what an experience for a novelist! But, somehow, experience and finished faculty rarely go together. Dearly beloved Scott had the greatest combination of experience and faculty, yet even he never made the most of his treasures, at least in his mode of presentation. Send us better news of Major Blackwood, if you can. We feel so old and rickety ourselves that we have a peculiar interest in invalids. Mr. Lewes is going to lecture for the Post-office this evening, by Mr. Trollope's request. I am rather uneasy about it, and wish he were well through the unusual excitement.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th Feb. 1861.

I have been much relieved by Mr. Lewes having got through his lecture at the Post-office[29] with perfect ease and success, for I had feared the unusual excitement for him. I am better. I have not been working much lately; indeed, this year has been a comparatively idle one. I think my malaise is chiefly owing to the depressing influence of town air and town scenes. The Zoological Gardens are my one outdoor pleasure now, and we can take it several times a week, for Mr. Lewes has become a fellow.

My love is often visiting you. Entertain it well.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Feb. 1861.

I am glad to hear that Mr. Maurice impressed you agreeably. If I had strength to be adventurous on Sunday I should go to hear him preach as well as others. But I am unequal to the least exertion or irregularity. My only pleasure away from our own hearth is going to the Zoological Gardens. Mr. Lewes is a fellow, so we turn in there several times a week; and I find the birds and beasts there most congenial to my spirit. There is a Shoebill, a great bird of grotesque ugliness, whose topknot looks brushed up to a point with an exemplary deference to the demands of society, but who, I am sure, has no idea that he looks the handsomer for it. I cherish an unrequited attachment to him.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Feb. 1861.

If you are in London this morning, in this fine, dun-colored fog, you know how to pity me. But I feel myself wicked for implying that I have any grievances. Only last week we had a circular from the clergyman at Attleboro, where there is a considerable population entirely dependent on the ribbon-trade, telling us how the poor weavers are suffering from the effects of the Coventry strike. And these less-known, undramatic tales of want win no wide help, such as has been given in the case of the Hartley colliery accident.

Your letter was a contribution towards a more cheerful view of things, for whatever may be the minor evils you hint at, I know that Mr. Congreve's better health, and the satisfaction you have in his doing effective work, will outweigh them. We have had a Dr. Wyatt here lately, an Oxford physician, who was much interested in hearing of Mr. Congreve again, not only on the ground of Oxford remembrances, but from having read his writings.

I was much pleased with the affectionate respect that was expressed in all the notices of Mr. Clough[30] that I happened to see in the newspapers. They were an indication that there must be a great deal of private sympathy to soothe poor Mrs. Clough, if any soothing is possible in such cases. That little poem of his which was quoted in the Spectator about parted friendships touched me deeply.

You may be sure we are ailing, but I am ashamed of dwelling on a subject that offers so little variety.

Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1861.

I don't wonder at your finding my story, as far as you have read it, rather sombre; indeed, I should not have believed that any one would have been interested in it but myself (since Wordsworth is dead) if Mr. Lewes had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope you will not find it at all a sad story, as a whole, since it sets—or is intended to set—in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural human relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal play of humor. It came to me first of all quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment.

My chief reason for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my writings to appear in the order in which they are written, because they belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification with them which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I generally like them better at that distance, but then I feel as if they might just as well have been written by somebody else. It would have been a great pleasure to me if Major Blackwood could have read my story. I am very glad to have the first part tested by the reading of your nephew and Mr. Simpson, and to find that it can interest them at all.

Journal, 1861.

March 10.—Finished "Silas Marner," and sent off the last thirty pages to Edinburgh.

Letter to the Brays, 19th Mch. 1861, from Hastings.

Your letter came to me just as we were preparing to start in search of fresh air and the fresh thoughts that come with it. I hope you never doubt that I feel a deep interest in knowing all facts that touch you nearly. I should like to think that it was some small comfort to Cara and you to know that, wherever I am, there is one among that number of your friends—necessarily decreasing with increasing years—who enter into your present experience with the light of memories; for kind feeling can never replace fully the sympathy that comes from memory. My disposition is so faultily anxious and foreboding that I am not likely to forget anything of a saddening sort.

Tell Sara we saw Mr. William Smith, author of "Thorndale," a short time ago, and he spoke of her and her book with interest; he thought her book "suggestive." He called on us during a visit to London, made for the sake of getting married. The lady is, or rather was, a Miss Cumming, daughter of a blind physician of Edinburgh. He said they had talked to each other for some time of the "impossibility" of marrying, because they were both too poor. "But," he said, "it is dangerous, Lewes, to talk even of the impossibility." The difficulties gradually dwindled, and the advantages magnified themselves. She is a nice person, we hear; and I was particularly pleased with him—he is modest to diffidence, yet bright and keenly awake.

I am just come in from our first good blow on the beach, and have that delicious sort of numbness in arms and legs that comes from walking hard in a fresh wind.

"Silas Marner" is in one volume. It was quite a sudden inspiration that came across me in the midst of altogether different meditations.

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Mch. 1861.

The latest number I had heard of was three thousand three hundred, so that your letter brought me agreeable information. I am particularly gratified, because this spirited subscription must rest on my character as a writer generally, and not simply on the popularity of "Adam Bede." There is an article on "The Mill" in Macmillan's Magazine which is worth reading. I cannot, of course, agree with the writer in all his regrets; if I could have done so I should not have written the book I did write, but quite another. Still, it is a comfort to me to read any criticism which recognizes the high responsibilities of literature that undertakes to represent life. The ordinary tone about art is that the artist may do what he will, provided he pleases the public.

I am very glad to be told—whenever you can tell me—that the major is not suffering heavily. I know so well the preciousness of those smiles that tell one the mind is not held out of all reach of soothing.

We are wavering whether we shall go to Florence this spring or wait till the year and other things are more advanced.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st April, 1861.

It gave me pleasure to have your letter, not only because of the kind expressions of sympathy it contains, but also because it gives me an opportunity of telling you, after the lapse of years, that I remember gratefully how you wrote to me with generous consideration and belief at a time when most persons who knew anything of me were disposed (naturally enough) to judge me rather severely. Only a woman of rare qualities would have written to me as you did on the strength of the brief intercourse that had passed between us.

It was never a trial to me to have been cut off from what is called the world, and I think I love none of my fellow-creatures the less for it; still, I must always retain a peculiar regard for those who showed me any kindness in word or deed at that time, when there was the least evidence in my favor. The list of those who did so is a short one, so that I can often and easily recall it.

For the last six years I have ceased to be "Miss Evans" for any one who has personal relations with me—having held myself under all the responsibilities of a married woman. I wish this to be distinctly understood; and when I tell you that we have a great boy of eighteen at home, who calls me "mother," as well as two other boys, almost as tall, who write to me under the same name, you will understand that the point is not one of mere egoism or personal dignity, when I request that any one who has a regard for me will cease to speak of me by my maiden name.

Letter to John Blackwood, 4th April, 1861.

I am much obliged to you for your punctuality in sending me my precious check. I prize the money fruit of my labor very highly as the means of saving us dependence, or the degradation of writing when we are no longer able to write well, or to write what we have not written before.

Mr. Langford brought us word that he thought the total subscription (including Scotland and Ireland) would mount to five thousand five hundred. That is really very great. And letters drop in from time to time, giving me words of strong encouragement, especially about "The Mill;" so that I have reason to be cheerful, and to believe that where one has a large public, one's words must hit their mark. If it were not for that, special cases of misinterpretation might paralyze me. For example, pray notice how one critic attributes to me a disdain for Tom; as if it were not my respect for Tom which infused itself into my reader; as if he could have respected Tom if I had not painted him with respect; the exhibition of the right on both sides being the very soul of my intention in the story. However, I ought to be satisfied if I have roused the feeling that does justice to both sides.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th April, 1861.

I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr. Lewes felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the wish to see us at your house; namely, that I have found it a necessity of my London life to make the rule of never paying visits. Without a carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use of my days; and I am obliged to give up the few visits which would be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the many visits which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind—only by renouncing all social intercourse but such as comes to our own fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of my life.

I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid, all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at all beyond our own homes; and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting my stay-at-home rule into churlishness.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th April, 1861.

We went to hear Beethoven's "Mass in D" last night, and on Wednesday to hear Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Nacht" and Beethoven's "Symphony in B," so that we have had two musical treats this week; but the enjoyment of such things is much diminished by the gas and bad air. Indeed, our long addiction to a quiet life, in which our daily walk among the still grass and trees was a fête to us, has unfitted us for the sacrifices that London demands. Don't think about reading "Silas Marner" just because it is come out. I hate obligato reading and obligato talk about my books. I never send them to any one, and never wish to be spoken to about them, except by an unpremeditated, spontaneous prompting. They are written out of my deepest belief, and, as well as I can, for the great public, and every sincere, strong word will find its mark in that public. Perhaps the annoyance I suffered (referring to the Liggins' affair) has made me rather morbid on such points; but, apart from my own weaknesses, I think the less an author hears about himself the better. Don't mistake me: I am writing a general explanation, not anything applicable to you.

Journal, 1861.

April 19.—We set off on our second journey to Florence, through France and by the Cornice Road. Our weather was delicious, a little rain, and we suffered neither from heat nor from dust.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 25th April, 1861.

We have had a paradisaic journey hitherto. It does one good to look at the Provençals—men and women. They are quite a different race from the Northern French—large, round-featured, full-eyed, with an expression of bonhomie, calm and suave. They are very much like the pleasantest Italians. The women at Arles and Toulon are remarkably handsome. On Tuesday morning we set out about ten on our way to Nice, hiring a carriage and taking post-horses. The sky was gray, and after an hour or so we had rain; nevertheless our journey to Vidauban, about half-way to Nice, was enchanting. Everywhere a delicious plain, covered with bright green corn, sprouting vines, mulberry-trees, olives, and here and there meadows sprinkled with buttercups, made the nearer landscapes, and, in the distance, mountains of varying outline. Mutter felt herself in a state of perfect bliss from only looking at this peaceful, generous nature; and you often came across the green blades of corn, and made her love it all the better. We had meant to go on to Fréjus that night, but no horses were to be had; so we made up our minds to rest at Vidauban, and went out to have a stroll before our six-o'clock dinner. Such a stroll! The sun had kindly come out for us, and we enjoyed it all the more for the grayness of the morning. There is a crystally clear river flowing by Vidauban, called the Argent: it rushes along between a fringe of aspens and willows; and the sunlight lay under the boughs, and fell on the eddying water, making Pater and me very happy as we wandered. The next morning we set off early, to be sure of horses before they had been used up by other travellers. The country was not quite so lovely, but we had the sunlight to compensate until we got past Fréjus, where we had our first view of the sea since Toulon, and where the scenery changes to the entirely mountainous, the road winding above gorges of pine-clad masses for a long way. To heighten the contrast, a heavy storm came, which thoroughly laid the dust for us, if it had no other advantage. The sun came out gloriously again before we reached Cannes, and lit up the yellow broom, which is now in all its splendor, and clothes vast slopes by which our road wound. We had still a four-hours' journey to Nice, where we arrived at six o'clock, with headaches that made us glad of the luxuries to be found in a great hotel.

Journal, 1861.

May 5.—Dear Florence was lovelier than ever on this second view, and ill-health was the only deduction from perfect enjoyment. We had comfortable quarters in the Albergo della Vittoria, on the Arno; we had the best news from England about the success of "Silas Marner;" and we had long letters from our dear boy to make us feel easy about home.

Letter to John Blackwood, 5th May, 1861.

Your pleasant news had been ripening at the post-office several days before we enjoyed the receipt of it; for our journey lasted us longer than we expected, and we didn't reach this place till yesterday evening. We have come with vetturino from Toulon—the most delightful (and the most expensive) journey we have ever had. I dare say you know the Cornice; if not, do know it some time, and bring Mrs. Blackwood that way into Italy. Meanwhile I am glad to think that you are having a less fatiguing change to places where you can "carry the comforts o' the Saut Market" with you, which is not quite the case with travellers along the Mediterranean coast. I hope I shall soon hear that you are thoroughly set up by fresh air and fresh circumstances, along with pleasant companionship.

Except a thunderstorm, which gave a grand variety to the mountains, and a little gentle rain, the first day from Toulon, which made the green corn all the fresher, we have had unbroken sunshine, without heat and without dust. I suppose this season and late autumn must be the perfect moments for taking this supremely beautiful journey. We must be forever ashamed of ourselves if we don't work the better for it.

It was very good of you to write to me in the midst of your hurry, that I might have good news to greet me. It really did lighten our weariness, and make the noisy streets that prevented sleep more endurable. I was amused with your detail about Professor Aytoun's sovereigns. There can be no great paintings of misers under the present system of paper money—checks, bills, scrip, and the like—nobody can handle that dull property as men handled the glittering gold.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 17th May, 1861.

The Florentine winds, being of a grave and earnest disposition, have naturally a disgust for trivial dilettanti foreigners, and seize on the peculiarly feeble and worthless with much virulence. In consequence we had a sad history for nearly a week—Pater doing little else than nurse me, and I doing little else but feel eminently uncomfortable, for which, as you know, I have a faculty "second to none." I feel very full of thankfulness for all the creatures I have got to love—all the beautiful and great things that are given me to know; and I feel, too, much younger and more hopeful, as if a great deal of life and work were still before me. Pater and I have had great satisfaction in finding our impressions of admiration more than renewed in returning to Florence; the things we cared about when we were here before seem even more worthy than they did in our memories. We have had delightful weather since the cold winds abated; and the evening lights on the Arno, the bridges, and the quaint houses, are a treat that we think of beforehand.

Your letters, too, are thought of beforehand. We long for them, and when they come they don't disappoint us: they tell us everything, and make us feel at home with you after a fashion. I confess to some dread of Blandford Square in the abstract. I fear London will seem more odious to me than ever; but I think I shall bear it with more fortitude. After all, that is the best place to live in where one has a strong reason for living.

Letter to John Blackwood, 19th May, 1861.

We have been industriously foraging in old streets and old books. I feel very brave just now, and enjoy the thought of work—but don't set your mind on my doing just what I have dreamed. It may turn out that I can't work freely and fully enough in the medium I have chosen, and in that case I must give it up; for I will never write anything to which my whole heart, mind, and conscience don't consent, so that I may feel that it was something—however small—which wanted to be done in this world, and that I am just the organ for that small bit of work.

I am very much cheered by the way in which "Silas" is received. I hope it has made some slight pleasure for you too, in the midst of incomparably deeper feelings of sadness.[31] Your quiet tour among the lakes was the best possible thing for you. What place is not better "out of the season"?—although I feel I am almost wicked in my hatred of being where there are many other people enjoying themselves. I am very far behind Mr. Buckle's millennial prospect, which is, that men will be more and more congregated in cities and occupied with human affairs, so as to be less and less under the influence of Nature—i.e., the sky, the hills, and the plains; whereby superstition will vanish and statistics will reign for ever and ever.

Mr. Lewes is kept in continual distraction by having to attend to my wants—going with me to the Magliabecchian Library, and poking about everywhere on my behalf—I having very little self-help about me of the pushing and inquiring kind.

I look forward with keen anxiety to the next outbreak of war—longing for some turn of affairs that will save poor Venice from being bombarded by those terrible Austrian forts.

Thanks for your letters: we both say, "More—give us more."

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 27th May, 1861.

Florence is getting hot, and I am the less sorry to leave it because it has agreed very ill with the dear Paterculus. This evening we have been mounting to the top of Giotto's tower—a very sublime getting up-stairs, indeed—and our muscles are much astonished at the unusual exercise; so you must not be shocked if my letter seems to be written with dim faculties as well as with a dim light.

We have seen no one but Mrs. Trollope and her pretty little girl Beatrice, who is a musical genius. She is a delicate fairy, about ten years old, but sings with a grace and expression that make it a thrilling delight to hear her.

We have had glorious sunsets, shedding crimson and golden lights under the dark bridges across the Arno. All Florence turns out at eventide, but we avoid the slow crowds on the Lung' Arno, and take our way "up all manner of streets."

Journal, 1861.

May and June.—At the end of May Mr. T. Trollope came back and persuaded us to stay long enough to make the expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia in his company. We arrived at Florence on the 4th May, and left it on the 7th June—thirty-four days of precious time spent there. Will it be all in vain? Our morning hours were spent in looking at streets, buildings, and pictures, in hunting up old books at shops or stalls, or in reading at the Magliabecchian Library. Alas! I could have done much more if I had been well; but that regret applies to most years of my life. Returned by Lago Maggiore and the St. Gothard; reached home June 14. Blackwood having waited in town to see us, came to lunch with us, and asked me if I would go to dine at Greenwich on the following Monday, to which I said "Yes," by way of exception to my resolve that I will go nowhere for the rest of this year. He drove us there with Colonel Stewart, and we had a pleasant evening—the sight of a game at golf in the park, and a hazy view of the distant shipping, with the Hospital finely broken by trees in the foreground. At dinner Colonel Hamley and Mr. Skene joined us; Delane, who had been invited, was unable to come. The chat was agreeable enough, but the sight of the gliding ships darkening against the dying sunlight made me feel chat rather importunate.

June 16.—This morning, for the first time, I feel myself quietly settled at home. I am in excellent health, and long to work steadily and effectively. If it were possible that I should produce better work than I have yet done! At least there is a possibility that I may make greater efforts against indolence and the despondency that comes from too egoistic a dread of failure.

June 19.—This is the last entry I mean to make in my old book, in which I wrote for the first time at Geneva in 1849. What moments of despair I passed through after that—despair that life would ever be made precious to me by the consciousness that I lived to some good purpose! It was that sort of despair that sucked away the sap of half the hours which might have been filled by energetic youthful activity; and the same demon tries to get hold of me again whenever an old work is dismissed and a new one is being meditated.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th June, 1861.

Some of one's first thoughts on coming home after an absence of much length are about the friends one had left behind—what has happened to them in the meantime, and how are they now? And yet, though we came home last Friday evening, I have not had the quiet moment for writing these thoughts until this morning. I know I need put no questions to you, who always divine what I want to be told. We have had a perfect journey except as regards health—a large, large exception. The cold winds alternating with the hot sun, or some other cause, laid very unkind hold on Mr. Lewes early after our arrival at Florence, and he was ailing with sore throat and cough continually, so that he has come back looking thin and delicate, though the ailments seem to be nearly passed away.

I wish you could have shared the pleasures of our last expedition from Florence—to the Monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia; I think it was just the sort of thing you would have entered into with thorough zest. Imagine the Franciscans of La Vernia, which is perched upon an abrupt rock rising sheer on the summit of a mountain, turning out at midnight (and when there is deep snow for their feet to plunge in), and chanting their slow way up to the little chapel perched at a lofty distance above their already lofty monastery! This they do every night throughout the year, in all weathers.

Give my loving greeting to Cara and Mr. Bray, and then sit down and write me one of your charming letters, making a little picture of everybody and everything about you. God bless you! is the old-fashioned summing up of sincere affection, without the least smirk of studied civility.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th July, 1861.

Your letter gave me a pleasant vision of Sunday sunshine on the flowers, and you among them, with your eyes brightened by busy and enjoyable thoughts.

Yes, I hope we are well out of that phase in which the most philosophic view of the past was held to be a smiling survey of human folly, and when the wisest man was supposed to be one who could sympathize with no age but the age to come.

When I received your Monday packet I was fresh from six quarto volumes on the history of the monastic orders, and had just begun a less formidable modern book on the same subject—Montalembert's "Monks of the West." Our reading, you see, lay in very different quarters, but I fancy our thoughts sometimes touched the same ground. I am rather puzzled and shocked, however, by your high admiration of the articles on the "Study of History," in the Cornhill. I should speak with the reserve due to the fact that I have only read the second article; and this, I confess, did not impress me as exhibiting any mastery of the question, while its tone towards much abler thinkers than the writer himself is to me extremely repulsive. Such writing as, "We should not be called upon to believe that every crotchet which tickled the insane vanity of a conceited Frenchman was an eternal and self-evident truth," is to me simply disgusting, though it were directed against the father of lies. It represents no fact except the writer's own desire to be bitter, and is worthily finished by the dull and irreverent antithesis of "the eternal truth and infernal lie."

I quite agree with you—so far as I am able to form a judgment—in regarding Positivism as one-sided; but Comte was a great thinker, nevertheless, and ought to be treated with reverence by all smaller fry.

I have just been reading the "Survey of the Middle Ages" contained in the fifth volume of the "Philosophie Positive," and to my apprehension few chapters can be fuller of luminous ideas. I am thankful to learn from it. There may be more profundity in the Cornhill's exposition than I am able to penetrate, or, possibly, the first article may contain weightier matter than the second.

Mrs. Bodichon is near us now, and one always gets good from contact with her healthy, practical life. Mr. Lewes is gone to see Mrs. Congreve and carry his net to the Wimbledon ponds. I hope he will get a little strength as well as grist for his microscope.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th July, 1861.

The English "Imitation" I told you of, which is used by the Catholics, is Challoner's. I have looked into it again since I saw you, and I think, if you want to give the book away, this translation is as good as any you are likely to get among current editions. If it were for yourself, an old bookstall would be more likely to furnish what you want. Don't ever think of me as valuing either you or Mr. Congreve less instead of more. You naughtily implied something of that kind just when you were running away from me. How could any goodness become less precious to me unless my life had ceased to be a growth, and had become mere shrinking and degeneracy? I always imagine that if I were near you now I should profit more by the gift of your presence—just as one feels about all past sunlight.

Diary, 1861.

July 24.—Walked with George over Primrose Hill. We talked of Plato and Aristotle.

July 26.—In the evening went to see Fechter as Hamlet, and sat next to Mrs. Carlyle.

July 30.—Read little this morning—my mind dwelling with much depression on the probability or improbability of my achieving the work I wish to do. I struck out two or three thoughts towards an English novel. I am much afflicted with hopelessness and melancholy just now, and yet I feel the value of my blessings.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th July, 1861.

Thornie, our second boy, is at home from Edinburgh for his holidays, and I am apt to give more thought than is necessary to any little change in our routine. We had a treat the other night which I wished you could have shared with us. We saw Fechter in Hamlet. His conception of the part is very nearly that indicated by the critical observations in "Wilhelm Meister," and the result is deeply interesting—the naturalness and sensibility of the Wesen overcoming in most cases the defective intonation. And even the intonation is occasionally admirable; for example, "And for my soul, what can he do to that?" etc., is given by Fechter with perfect simplicity, whereas the herd of English actors imagine themselves in a pulpit when they are saying it. À propos of the pulpit, I had another failure in my search for edification last Sunday. Mme. Bodichon and I went to Little Portland Street Chapel, and lo! instead of James Martineau there was a respectable old Unitarian gentleman preaching about the dangers of ignorance and the satisfaction of a good conscience, in a tone of amiable propriety which seemed to belong to a period when brains were untroubled by difficulties, and the lacteals of all good Christians were in perfect order. I enjoyed the fine selection of collects he read from the Liturgy. What an age of earnest faith, grasping a noble conception of life and determined to bring all things into harmony with it, has recorded itself in the simple, pregnant, rhythmical English of those collects and of the Bible! The contrast when the good man got into the pulpit and began to pray in a borrowed, washy lingo—extempore in more senses than one!

Diary, 1861.

Aug. 1.—Struggling constantly with depression.

Aug. 2.—Read Boccaccio's capital story of Fra Cipolla—one of his few good stories—and the Little Hunchback in the "Arabian Nights," which is still better.

Aug. 10.—Walked with G. We talked of my Italian novel. In the evening, Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford.

Aug. 12.—Got into a state of so much wretchedness in attempting to concentrate my thoughts on the construction of my story that I became desperate, and suddenly burst my bonds, saying, I will not think of writing!

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1861.

That doctrine which we accept rather loftily as a commonplace when we are quite young—namely, that our happiness lies entirely within, in our own mental and bodily state, which determines for us the influence of everything outward—becomes a daily lesson to be learned, and learned with much stumbling, as we get older. And until we know our friends' private thoughts and emotions we hardly know what to grieve or rejoice over for them.

Diary, 1861.

Aug. 17.—Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, who gave us some music.

Aug. 20.—This morning I conceived the plot of my novel with new distinctness.

Aug. 24.—Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford came, and we had music. These have been placid, ineffective days, my mind being clouded and depressed.

Aug. 26.—Went with Barbara to her school, and spent the afternoon there.

Aug. 31.—In the evening came Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford, and we had some music.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 11th Sept. 1861, from Malvern.

Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the check, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether, we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist.

We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people, we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves, that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility—whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral. I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so lovable an aspect. On the southeastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands, well nestled in fine trees—chiefly "sounding sycamores"—and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low, faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedge-rows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood; it is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look on—freundlich, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide southeastern valley from our sitting-room window.

Our landlady is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick;" and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply baked mortals.

Diary, 1861.

Sept. 11.—Yesterday we returned from Malvern (having gone there on 4th). During our stay I read Mrs. Jameson's book on the "Legends of the Monastic Orders," corrected the first volume of "Adam Bede" for the new edition, and began Marchese's "Storia di San Marco."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Sept. 1861.

I enter into your and Cara's furniture-adjusting labors and your enjoyment of church and chapel afterwards. One wants a temple besides the outdoor temple—a place where human beings do not ramble apart, but meet with a common impulse. I hope you have some agreeable lens through which you can look at circumstances—good health, at least. And really I begin to think people who are robust are in a position to pity all the rest of the world—except, indeed, that there are certain secrets taught only by pain, which are, perhaps, worth the purchase.

Diary, 1861.

Sept. 23.—I have been unwell ever since we returned from Malvern, and have been disturbed, from various causes, in my work, so that I have scarcely done anything except correct my own books for a new edition. To-day I am much better, and hope to begin a more effective life to-morrow.

Sept. 28.—In the evening Mr. Spencer, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford came. We talked with Mr. Spencer about his chapter on the "Direction of Force"—i.e., line of least resistance.

Sept. 29 (Sunday).—Finished correcting "Silas Marner." I have thus corrected all my books for a new and cheaper edition, and feel my mind free for other work. Walked to the Zoo with the boys.

Oct. 3.—To-day our new grand piano came—a great addition to our pleasures.

Oct. 4.—My mind still worried about my plot—and without any confidence in my ability to do what I want.

Oct. 5.—In the evening Mr. Redford and Mr. Spencer came, and we had much music.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Oct. 1861.

We are enjoying a great pleasure, a new grand piano, and last evening we had a Beethoven night. We are looking out for a violinist: we have our violoncello, who is full of sensibility, but with no negative in him—i.e., no obstinate sense of time—a man who is all assent and perpetual rallentando. We can enjoy the pleasure the more because Mr. Lewes's health is promising.

Diary, 1861.

Oct. 7.—Began the first chapter of my novel ("Romola").

Oct. 9.—Read Nerli.

Oct. 11.—Nardi's "History of Florence." In the afternoon walked with Barbara, and talked with her from lunch till dinner-time.

Oct. 12.—In the evening we had our usual Saturday mixture of visitors, talk, and music; an agreeable addition being Dr. M'Donnell of Dublin.

Oct. 14.—Went with Barbara to her school to hear the children sing.

Oct. 18.—Walked with G. and Mr. Spencer to Hampstead, and continued walking for more than five hours. In the evening we had music. Mrs. Bodichon and Miss Parkes were our additional visitors.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 23d Oct. 1861.

I am rather jealous of the friends who get so much of you—especially when they are so unmeritorious as to be evangelical and spoil your rest. But I will not grumble. I am in the happiest, most contented mood, and have only good news to tell you. I have hardly any trouble nearer to me than the American War and the prospects of poor cotton weavers. While you were shivering at Boulogne we were walking fast to avoid shivering at Malvern, and looking slightly blue after our sitz baths. Nevertheless that discipline answered admirably, and Mr. Lewes's health has been steadily improving since our Malvern expedition. As for me, imagine what I must be to have walked for five hours the other day! Or, better still, imagine me always cheerful, and infer the altered condition of my mucous membrane. The difference must be there; for it is not in my moral sentiments or in my circumstances, unless, indeed, a new grand piano, which tempts me to play more than I have done for years before, may be reckoned an item important enough to have contributed to the change. We talk of you very often, and the image of you is awakened in my mind still oftener. You are associated by many subtile, indescribable ties with some of my most precious and most silent thoughts. I am so glad you have the comfort of feeling that Mr. Congreve is prepared for his work again. I am hoping to hear, when we see you, that the work will be less and less fagging, now the introductory years are past.

Charley is going to Switzerland for his holiday next month. We shall enjoy our dual solitude; yet the dear boy is more and more precious to us from the singular rectitude and tenderness of his nature. Make signs to us as often as you can. You know how entirely Mr. Lewes shares my delight in seeing you and hearing from you.

Diary, 1861.

Oct. 28 and 30.—Not very well. Utterly desponding about my book.

Oct. 31.—Still with an incapable head—trying to write, trying to construct, and unable.

Nov. 6.—So utterly dejected that, in walking with G. in the Park, I almost resolved to give up my Italian novel.

Nov. 10 (Sunday).—New sense of things to be done in my novel, and more brightness in my thoughts. Yesterday I was occupied with ideas about my next English novel; but this morning the Italian scenes returned upon me with fresh attraction. In the evening read "Monteil." A marvellous book; crammed with erudition, yet not dull or tiresome.

Nov. 14.—Went to the British Museum reading-room for the first time—looking over costumes.

Nov. 20.—Mrs. Congreve, Miss Bury, and Mr. Spencer to lunch.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1861.

Your loving words of remembrance find a very full answer in my heart—fuller than I can write. The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast-approaching end of a journey—double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day. We went to see Fechter's Othello the other night. It is lamentably bad. He has not weight and passion enough for deep tragedy; and, to my feeling, the play is so degraded by his representation that it is positively demoralizing—as, indeed, all tragedy must be when it fails to move pity and terror. In this case it seems to move only titters among the smart and vulgar people who always make the bulk of a theatre audience. We had a visit from our dear friend Mrs. Congreve on Wednesday—a very infrequent pleasure now; for between our own absences from home and hers, and the fatigue of London journeying, it is difficult for us to manage meetings. Mr. Congreve is, as usual, working hard in his medical studies—toiling backward and forward daily. What courage and patience are wanted for every life that aims to produce anything!

Journal, 1861.

Nov. 30.—In the evening we had Wilkie Collins, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Spencer, and talked without any music.

Dec. 3-7.—I continued very unwell until Saturday, when I felt a little better. In the evening Dr. Baetcke, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Dec. 1861.

Miss Marshall came to see us yesterday. That is always a pleasure to me, not only from the sense I have of her goodness, but because she stirs so many remembrances. The first time I saw her was at Rufa's[32] wedding; and don't you remember the evening we spent at Mrs. Dobson's? How young we all were then—how old now! She says you are all under the impression that Mr. Lewes is still very ailing. Thank all good influences it is not so. He has been mending ever since we went to Malvern, and is enjoying life and work more than he has done before for nearly a year. He has long had it in his mind to write a history of science—a great, great undertaking, which it is happiness to both of us to contemplate as possible for him. And now he is busy with Aristotle, and works with all the zest that belongs to fresh ideas. Strangely enough, after all the ages of writing about Aristotle, there exists no fair appreciation of his position in natural science.

I am particularly grumbling and disagreeable to myself just now, and I think no one bears physical pain so ill as I do, or is so thoroughly upset by it mentally.

Bulwer has behaved very nicely to me, and I have a great respect for the energetic industry with which he has made the most of his powers. He has been writing diligently in very various departments for more than thirty years, constantly improving his position, and profiting by the lessons of public opinion and of other writers.

I'm sorry you feel any degeneracy in Mr. George Dawson. There was something very winning about him in old days, and even what was not winning, but the reverse, affected me with a sort of kindly pity. With such a gift of tongue as he had, it was inevitable that speech should outrun feeling and experience, and I could well imagine that his present self might look back on that self of 21-27 with a sort of disgust. It so often happens that others are measuring us by our past self while we are looking back on that self with a mixture of disgust and sorrow. It would interest me a good deal to know just how Mr. Dawson preaches now.

I am writing on my knees with my feet on the fender, and in that attitude I always write very small—but I hope your sight is not teased by small writing.

Give my best love to Cara, and sympathy with her in the pleasure of grasping an old friend by the hand, and having long talks after the distance of years. I know Mr. Bray will enjoy this too—and the new house will seem more like the old one for this warming.

Journal, 1861.

Dec. 8 (Sunday).—G. had a headache, so we walked out in the morning sunshine. I told him my conception of my story, and he expressed great delight. Shall I ever be able to carry out my ideas? Flashes of hope are succeeded by long intervals of dim distrust. Finished the eighth volume of Lastri and began the ninth chapter of Varchi, in which he gives an accurate account of Florence.

Dec. 12.—Finished writing my plot, of which I must make several other draughts before I begin to write my book.

Dec. 13.—Read Poggiana. In the afternoon walked to Molini's and brought back Savonarola's "Dialogus de Veritate Prophetica," and "Compendium Revelationum," for £4!

Dec. 14.—In the evening came Mr. Huxley, Mr. Pigott, and Mr. Redford.

Dec. 17.—Studied the topography of Florence.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 31st Dec. 1861.

It was pleasant to have a greeting from you at this season, when all signs of human kindness have a double emphasis. As one gets older epochs have necessarily some sadness, even for those who have, as I have, much family joy. The past, that one would like to mend, spreads behind one so lengthily, and the years of retrieval keep shrinking—the terrible peau de chagrin whose outline narrows and narrows with our ebbing life.

I hardly know whether it would be agreeable to you, or worth your while, ever to come to us on a Saturday evening, when we are always at home to any friend who may be kind enough to come to us. It would be very pleasant to us if it were pleasant to you.

During the latter half of 1861, I find the following among the books read: "Histoire des Ordres Religieux," Sacchetti's "Novelle," Sismondi's "History of the Italian Republics," "Osservatore Fiorentino," Tennemann's "History of Philosophy," T. A. Trollope's "Beata," Sismondi's "Le Moyen Age Illustré," "The Monks of the West," "Introduction to Savonarola's Poems," by Audin de Réans, Renan's "Études d'Histoire Religieuse," Virgil's "Eclogues," Buhle's "History of Modern Philosophy," Hallam on the "Study of Roman Law in the Middle Ages," Gibbon on the "Revival of Greek Learning," Nardi, Bulwer's "Rienzi," Burlamacchi's "Life of Savonarola," Pulci, Villari's "Life of Savonarola," Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred and Legendary Art," "Hymni and Epigrammati" of Marullus, Politian's "Epistles," Marchese's Works, Tiraboschi, Rock's "Hierurgia," Pettigrew "On Medical Superstition," Manni's "Life of Burchiello," Machiavelli's Works, Ginguené, Muratori "On Proper Names," Cicero "De Officiis," Petrarch's Letters, Craik's "History of English Literature," "Conti Carnivaleschi," Letters of Filelfo, Lastri, and Varchi, Heeren on the Fifteenth Century.

SUMMARY.

JULY, 1860, TO DECEMBER, 1861.

Return from Italy to Wandsworth, accompanied by Charles Lewes—"Mill on the Floss" success—6000 sold—Letter to John Blackwood—French translation of "Adam Bede," by M. d'Albert of Geneva—Letter to Miss Hennell on her "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"—Letter to John Blackwood on Sir Edward Lytton's criticism of "The Mill on the Floss"—Letter to Mrs. Bray, recalling feelings on journey to Italy in 1849—Letter to Miss Sara Hennell—Article on Strikes, by Henry Fawcett, in Westminster—Sitting to Lawrence for portrait—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Interest in her schools—Letter to Miss Hennell, explaining criticism of "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"—Reading Emerson's "Man the Reformer"—Deprecates writing about opinions on large questions in letters—Letter to John Blackwood—Italian novel project—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Love of the country—Removal to 10 Harewood Square—"Brother Jacob" written—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Frederic Harrison's article in Westminster on "Essays and Reviews"—Letter to John Blackwood—Religious party standpoint—Classical quotations—Letter to Miss Hennell on re-reading "Thoughts in Aid of Faith"—Tribute to Mr. Lewes's dispassionate judgment—Suffering from loss of the country—Independence secured—Anthony Trollope and Arthur Helps—Queen's admiration of "Mill on the Floss"—Writing "Silas Marner" a sudden inspiration—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Monday Popular Concerts—Moved to 16 Blandford Square—Waste of time in furnishing—Letter to Madame Bodichon—On religious forms and ceremonies—Herbert Spencer's new work, the best thing he has done—Letter to John Blackwood—"Silas Marner"—Letters to Mrs. Congreve—Zoological Gardens—Visit to Dorking—Letter to John Blackwood—Scott—Letters to Miss Hennell—Private correspondence—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Arthur Clough's death—Letter to John Blackwood—"Silas Marner"—Books belong to successive mental phases—"Silas Marner" finished—Visit to Hastings—Letter to Charles Bray—Marriage of Mr. William Smith—Letter to John Blackwood—Subscription to "Silas Marner" 3300—Article in Macmillan on "The Mill"—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Position—Letter to John Blackwood—Total Subscription to "Silas Marner" 5500—Criticism on "The Mill"—Letter to Mrs. P. Taylor—Never pays visits—Letter to Miss Hennell—Hearing Beethoven and Mendelssohn music—Start on second journey to Italy—Letter to Charles Lewes, describing drive from Toulon to Nice—Arrival at Florence—Letter to John Blackwood—No painting of misers with paper money—Letter to Charles Lewes—Feels hopeful about future work—Letter to John Blackwood—Italian novel simmering—Letter to Charles Lewes—Beatrice Trollope—Expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia with Mr. T. A. Trollope—Return home by Lago Maggiore and St. Gothard—Dinner at Greenwich with John Blackwood, Colonel Hamley, etc.—Reflections on waste of youth—Letters to Miss Hennell describing La Vernia—Improvement in general philosophic attitude—Articles on "Study of History" in the Cornhill—Positivism one-sided—Admiration of Comte—Letter to Miss Hennell—Fechter in Hamlet—The Liturgy of the English Church—Depression—Musical Evenings with Mr. Pigott and Mr. Redford—Trip to Malvern—Letter to Miss Hennell—New grand piano—Began "Romola"—Saturday visitors—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Better spirits—Renewed depression—Letter to Miss Hennell—Time flying—Fechter as Othello—Letter to Miss Hennell—Lewes busy with Aristotle—Bulwer—George Dawson—Reading towards "Romola"—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on the Past—Books read.

---