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

by George Eliot

CHAPTER XII.

Journal, 1862.

January 1.—Mr. Blackwood sent me a note enclosing a letter from Montalembert about "Silas Marner." I began again my novel of "Romola."

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 7th Jan. 1862.

It is not unlikely that our thoughts and wishes met about New-year's Day, for I was only prevented from writing to you in that week by the fear of saying decidedly that we could not go to you, and yet finding afterwards that a clear sky, happening to coincide with an absence of other hinderances, would have made that pleasure possible for us. I think we believe in each other's thorough affection, and need not dread misunderstanding. But you must not write again, as you did in one note, a sort of apology for coming to us when you were tired, as if we didn't like to see you anyhow and at any time! And we especially like to think that our house can be a rest to you.

For the first winter in my life I am hardly ever free from cold. As soon as one has departed with the usual final stage of stuffiness, another presents itself with the usual introduction of sore throat. And Mr. Lewes just now is a little ailing. But we have nothing serious to complain of.

You seemed to me so bright and brave the last time I saw you, that I have had cheerful thoughts of you ever since. Write to me always when anything happens to you, either pleasant or sad, that there is no reason for my not knowing, so that we may not spend long weeks in wondering how all things are with you.

And do come to us whenever you can, without caring about my going to you, for this is too difficult for me in chill and doubtful weather. Are you not looking anxiously for the news from America?

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 13th Jan. 1862.

As for the brain being useless after fifty, that is no general rule; witness the good and hard work that has been done in plenty after that age. I wish I could be inspired with just the knowledge that would enable me to be of some good to you. I feel so ignorant and helpless. The year is opening happily for us, except—alas! the exception is a great one—in the way of health. Mr. Lewes is constantly ailing, like a delicate headachy woman. But we have abundant blessings.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Jan. 1862.

I hope you are able to enjoy Max Müller's great and delightful book during your imprisonment. It tempts me away from other things. I have read most of the numbers of "Orley Farm," and admire it very much, with the exception of such parts as I have read about Moulder & Co. Anthony Trollope is admirable in the presentation of even average life and character, and he is so thoroughly wholesome-minded that one delights in seeing his books lie about to be read. Have you read "Beata" yet—the first novel written by his brother at Florence, who is our especial favorite? Do read it when you can, if the opportunity has not already come. I am going to be taken to a pantomime in the daytime, like a good child, for a Christmas treat, not having had my fair share of pantomime in the world.

Journal, 1862.

Jan. 18 (Saturday).—We had an agreeable evening. Mr. Burton[33] and Mr. Clark[34] of Cambridge made an acceptable variety in our party.

Jan. 19-20.—Head very bad—producing terrible depression.

Jan. 23.—Wrote again, feeling in brighter spirits. Mr. Smith the publisher called and had an interview with G. He asked if I were open to "a magnificent offer." This made me think about money—but it is better for me not to be rich.

Jan. 26 (Sunday).—Detained from writing by the necessity of gathering particulars: 1st, about Lorenzo de Medici's death; 2d, about the possible retardation of Easter; 3d, about Corpus Christi day; 4th, about Savonarola's preaching in the Quaresima of 1492. Finished "La Mandragola"—second time reading for the sake of Florentine expressions—and began "La Calandra."

Jan. 31.—Have been reading some entries in my note-book of past times in which I recorded my malaise and despair. But it is impossible to me to believe that I have ever been in so unpromising and despairing a state as I now feel. After writing these words I read to G. the Proem and opening scene of my novel, and he expressed great delight in them.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Feb. 1862.

I was taken to see my pantomime. How pretty it is to see the theatre full of children! Ah, what I should have felt in my real child days to have been let into the further history of Mother Hubbard and her Dog!

George Stephenson is one of my great heroes—has he not a dear old face?

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 3d Feb. 1862.

I think yours is the instinct of all delicate natures—not to speak to authors about their writings. It is better for us all to hear as little about ourselves as possible; to do our work faithfully, and be satisfied with the certainty that if it touches many minds, it cannot touch them in a way quite aloof from our intention and hope.

Journal, 1862.

Feb. 7.—A week of February already gone! I have been obliged to be very moderate in work from feebleness of head and body; but I have rewritten, with additions, the first chapter of my book.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 8th Feb. 1862.

I am wondering whether you could spare me, for a few weeks, the Tempest music, and any other vocal music of that or of a kindred species? I don't want to buy it until our singers have experimented upon it. Don't think of sending me anything that you are using at all, but if said music be lying idle, I should be grateful for the loan. We have several operas—Don Giovanni, Figaro, the Barbiere, Flauto Magico, and also the music of Macbeth; but I think that is all our stock of concerted vocal music.

Journal, 1862.

Feb. 11.—We set off to Dorking. The day was lovely, and we walked through Mr. Hope's park to Betchworth. In the evening I read aloud Sybel's "Lectures on the Crusades."

Feb. 12.—The day was gray, but the air was fresh and pleasant. We walked to Wootton Park—Evelyn's Wootton—lunched at a little roadside inn there, and returned to Dorking to dine. During stay at Dorking finished the first twelve cantos of Pulci.

Feb. 13.—Returned home.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th Feb. 1862.

I think it is a reasonable law that the one who takes wing should be the first to write—not the bird that stays in the old cage, and may be supposed to be eating the usual seed and groundsel, and looking at the same slice of the world through the same wires.

I think the highest and best thing is rather to suffer with real suffering than to be happy in the imagination of an unreal good. I would rather know that the beings I love are in some trouble, and suffer because of it, even though I can't help them, than be fancying them happy when they are not so, and making myself comfortable on the strength of that false belief. And so I am impatient of all ignorance and concealment. I don't say "that is wise," but simply "that is my nature." I can enter into what you have felt, for serious illness, such as seems to bring death near, makes one feel the simple human brother and sisterhood so strongly that those we were apt to think almost indifferent to us before, touch the very quick of our hearts. I suppose if we happened only to hold the hand of a hospital patient when she was dying, her face, and all the memories along with it, would seem to lie deeper in our experience than all we knew of many old friends and blood relations.

We have had no troubles but the public troubles—anxiety about the war with America and sympathy with the poor Queen. My best consolation is that an example on so tremendous a scale (as the war) of the need for the education of mankind through the affections and sentiments, as a basis for true development, will have a strong influence on all thinkers, and be a check to the arid, narrow antagonism which, in some quarters, is held to be the only form of liberal thought.

George has fairly begun what we have long contemplated as a happiness for him—a History of Science, and has written so thorough an analysis and investigation of Aristotle's Natural Science that he feels it will make an epoch for the men who are interested at once in the progress of modern science and in the question how far Aristotle went both in the observation of facts and in their theoretic combination—a question never yet cleared up after all these ages. This work makes him "very jolly," but his dear face looks very pale and narrow. Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love.

God bless you—that is not a false word, however many false ideas may have been hidden under it. No—not false ideas, but temporary ones—caterpillars and chrysalids of future ideas.

Journal, 1862.

Feb. 17.—I have written only the two first chapters of my novel besides the Proem, and I have an oppressive sense of the far-stretching task before me, health being feeble just now. I have lately read again with great delight Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows." It contains, amongst other admirable things, a very noble expression of what I believe to be the true relation of the religious mind to the past.

Feb. 26.—I have been very ailing all this last week, and have worked under impeding discouragement. I have a distrust in myself, in my work, in others' loving acceptance of it, which robs my otherwise happy life of all joy. I ask myself, without being able to answer, whether I have ever before felt so chilled and oppressed. I have written now about sixty pages of my romance. Will it ever be finished? Ever be worth anything?

Feb. 27.—George Smith, the publisher, brought the proof of G.'s book, "Animal Studies," and laid before him a proposition to give me £10,000 for my new novel—i.e., for its appearance in the Cornhill, and the entire copyright at home and abroad.

March 1.—The idea of my novel appearing in the Cornhill is given up, as G. Smith wishes to have it commenced in May, and I cannot consent to begin publication until I have seen nearly to the end of the work.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 10th March, 1862, from Englefield Green.

We had agreeable weather until yesterday, which was wet and blustering, so that we could only snatch two short walks. Pater is better, I think; and I, as usual, am impudently flourishing in country air and idleness. On Friday Mr. Bone, our landlord, drove us out in his pony carriage to see the "meet" of the stag-hounds, and on Saturday ditto to see the fox-hunters; so you perceive we have been leading rather a grand life.

Journal, 1862.

March 11.—On Wednesday last, the 5th, G. and I set off to Englefield Green, where we have spent a delightful week at the Barley Mow Inn. I have finished Pulci there, and read aloud the "Château d'If."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th March, 1862.

We returned from our flight into the country yesterday, not without a sigh at parting with the pure air and the notes of the blackbirds for the usual canopy of smoke and the sound of cab-wheels. I am not going out again, and our life will have its old routine—lunch at half-past one, walk till four, dinner at five.

Journal, 1862.

March 24.—After enjoying our week at Egham, I returned to protracted headache. Last Saturday we received as usual, and our party was joined by Mr. and Mrs. Noel. I have begun the fourth chapter of my novel, but have been working under a weight.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th March, 1862.

I congratulate you on being out of London, which is more like a pandemonium than usual. The fog and rain have been the more oppressive because I have seen them through Mr. Lewes's almost constant discomfort. I think he has had at least five days of sick headache since you saw him. But then he is better tempered and more cheerful with headache than most people are without it; and in that way he lightens his burden. Have you noticed in the Times Mr. Peabody's magnificent deed?—the gift of £150,000 for the amelioration (body and soul, I suppose) of the poorer classes in London. That is a pleasant association to have with an American name.

Journal, 1862.

April 1.—Much headache this last week.

April 2.—Better this morning; writing with enjoyment. At the seventy-seventh page. Read Juvenal this morning and Nisard.

April 16.—As I had been ailing for a fortnight or more, we resolved to go to Dorking, and set off to-day.

May 6.—We returned from Dorking after a stay of three weeks, during which we have had delicious weather.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, May, 1862.

Our life is the old accustomed duet this month. We enjoy an interval of our double solitude. Doesn't the spring look lovelier every year to eyes that want more and more light? It was rather saddening to leave the larks and all the fresh leaves to come back to the rolling of cabs and "the blacks;" but in compensation we have all our conveniences about us.

Journal, 1862.

May 23.—Since I wrote last, very important decisions have been made. I am to publish my novel of "Romola" in the Cornhill Magazine for £7000, paid in twelve monthly payments. There has been the regret of leaving Blackwood, who has written me a letter in the most perfect spirit of gentlemanliness and good-feeling.

May 27.—Mr. Helps, Mr. Burton, and Mr. T. A. Trollope dined with us.

May 31.—Finished the second part, extending to page 183.

June 30.—I have at present written only the scene between Romola and her brother in San Marco towards Part IV. This morning I had a delightful, generous letter from Mr. Anthony Trollope about "Romola."

July 6.—The past week has been unfruitful from various causes. The consequence is that I am no further on in my MS., and have lost the excellent start my early completion of the third part had given me.

July 10.—A dreadful palsy has beset me for the last few days. I have scarcely made any progress. Yet I have been very well in body. I have been reading a book often referred to by Hallam—Meiners's "Lives of Mirandula and Politian." They are excellent. They have German industry, and are succinctly and clearly written.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Sept. 1862, from Littlehampton.

Imagine me—not fuming in imperfect resignation under London smoke, but—with the wide sky of the coast above me, and every comfort positive and negative around me, even to the absence of staring eyes and crinolines. Worthing was so full that it rejected us, and, to our great good-fortune, sent us here. We were pleased to hear that you had seen Mr. Spencer. We always feel him particularly welcome when he comes back to town; there is no one like him for talking to about certain things.

You will come and dine or walk with us whenever you have nothing better to do in your visit to town. I take that for granted. We lie, you know, on the way between the Exhibition and Mr. Noel's.

Journal, 1862.

Sept. 23.—Returned from our stay in the country, first at the Beach Hotel, Littlehampton, and for the last three days at Dorking.

Sept. 26.—At page 62, Part VI. Yesterday a letter came from Mr. T. A. Trollope, full of encouragement for me. Ebenezer.

Oct. 2.—At page 85. Scene between Tito and Romola.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 2d Oct. 1862.

Welcome to your letter, and welcome to the hope of seeing you again! I have an engagement on Monday from lunch till dinner. Apart from that, I know of nothing that will take us farther than for our daily walk, which, you know, begins at two. But we will alter the order of any day for the sake of seeing you. Mr. Lewes's absence of a fortnight at Spa was a great success. He has been quite brilliant ever since. Ten days ago we returned from a stay of three weeks in the country—chiefly at Littlehampton, and we are both very well. Everything is prosperous with us; and we are so far from griefs that if we had a wonderful emerald ring we should perhaps be wise to throw it away as a propitiation of the envious gods.

So much in immediate reply to your kind anxiety. Everything else when we meet.

Journal, 1862.

Oct. 31.—Finished Part VII., having determined to end at the point where Romola has left Florence.

Nov. 14.—Finished reading "Boccaccio" through for the second time.

Nov. 17.—Read the "Orfeo and Stanze" of Poliziano. The latter are wonderfully fine for a youth of sixteen. They contain a description of a Palace of Venus, which seems the suggestion of Tennyson's Palace of Art in many points.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Nov. 1862.

I wish I knew that this birthday has found you happier than any that went before. There are so many things—best things—that only come when youth is past that it may well happen to many of us to find ourselves happier and happier to the last. We have been to a Monday Pop. this week to hear Beethoven's Septett, and an amazing thing of Bach's, played by the amazing Joachim. But there is too much "Pop." for the thorough enjoyment of the chamber music they give. You will be interested to know that there is a new muster of scientific and philosophic men lately established, for the sake of bringing people who care to know and speak the truth, as well as they can, into regular communication. Mr. Lewes was at the first meeting at Clunn's Hotel on Friday last. The plan is to meet and dine moderately and cheaply, and no one is to be admitted who is not "thorough" in the sense of being free from the suspicion of temporizing and professing opinions on official grounds. The plan was started at Cambridge. Mr. Huxley is president and Charles Kingsley is vice. If they are sufficiently rigid about admissions, the club may come to good—bringing together men who think variously, but have more hearty feelings in common than they give each other credit for. Mr. Robert Chambers (who lives in London now) is very warm about the matter. Mr. Spencer, too, is a member.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 26th Nov. 1862.

Pray don't ever ask me again not to rob a man of his religious belief, as if you thought my mind tended to such robbery. I have too profound a conviction of the efficacy that lies in all sincere faith, and the spiritual blight that comes with no faith, to have any negative propagandism in me. In fact I have very little sympathy with Freethinkers as a class, and have lost all interest in mere antagonism to religious doctrines. I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now. That speech of Carlyle's,[35] which sounds so odious, must, I think, have been provoked by something in the manner of the statement to which it came as an answer—else it would hurt me very much that he should have uttered it.

You left a handkerchief at our house. I will take care of it till next summer. I look forward with some longing to that time when I shall have lightened my soul of one chief thing I wanted to do, and be freer to think and feel about other people's work. We shall see you oftener, I hope, and have a great deal more talk than ever we have had before to make amends for our stinted enjoyment of you this summer.

God bless you, dear Barbara. You are very precious to us.

Journal, 1862.

Nov. 30 (Sunday).—Finished Part VIII. Mr. Burton came.

Dec. 16.—In the evening Browning paid us a visit for the first time.

Dec. 17.—At page 22 only. I am extremely spiritless, dead, and hopeless about my writing. The long state of headache has left me in depression and incapacity. The constantly heavy-clouded and often wet weather tend to increase the depression. I am inwardly irritable, and unvisited by good thoughts. Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola. After this record I read aloud what I had written of Part IX. to George, and he, to my surprise, entirely approved of it.

Dec. 24.—Mrs. F. Malleson brought me a beautiful plant as a Christmas offering. In the evening we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's Theatre.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 24th Dec. 1862.

I am very sensitive to words and looks and all signs of sympathy, so you may be sure that your kind wishes are not lost upon me.

As you will have your house full, the wish for a "Merry Christmas" may be literally fulfilled for you. We shall be quieter, with none but our family trio, but that is always a happy one. We are going to usher in the day by hearing the Messiah to-night at Her Majesty's.

Evening will be a pleasanter time for a little genial talk than "calling hours;" and if you will come to us without ceremony, you will hardly run the risk of not finding us. We go nowhere except to concerts.

We are longing to run away from London, but I dare say we shall not do so before March. Winter is probably yet to come, and one would not like to be caught by frost and snow away from one's own hearth.

Always believe, without my saying it, that it gladdens me to know when anything I do has value for you.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1862.

It is very sweet to me to have any proof of loving remembrance. That would have made the book-marker precious even if it had been ugly. But it is perfectly beautiful—in color, words, and symbols. Hitherto I have been discontented with the Coventry book-marks; for at the shop where we habitually see them they have all got—"Let the people praise Thee, O God," on them, and nothing else. But I can think of no motto better than those three words. I suppose no wisdom the world will ever find out will make Paul's words obsolete—"Now abide, etc., but the greatest of these is Charity." Our Christmas, too, has been quiet. Mr. Lewes, who talks much less about goodness than I do, but is always readier to do the right thing, thinks it rather wicked for us to eat our turkey and plum-pudding without asking some forlorn person to eat it with us. But I'm afraid we were glad, after all, to find ourselves alone with "the boy." On Christmas-eve a sweet woman, remembering me as you have done, left a beautiful plant at the door, and after that we went to hear the Messiah at Her Majesty's. We felt a considerable minus from the absence of the organ, contrary to advertisement: nevertheless it was good to be there. What pitiable people those are who feel no poetry in Christianity! Surely the acme of poetry hitherto is the conception of the suffering Messiah and the final triumph, "He shall reign for ever and for ever." The Prometheus is a very imperfect fore-shadowing of that symbol wrought out in the long history of the Jewish and Christian ages.

Mr. Lewes and I have both been in miserable health during all this month. I have had a fortnight's incessant malaise and feebleness; but as I had had many months of tolerable health, it was my turn to be uncomfortable. If my book-marker were just a little longer, I should keep it in my beautiful Bible in large print, which Mr. Lewes bought for me in prevision for my old age. He is not fond of reading the Bible himself, but "sees no harm" in my reading it.

Letter to the Brays, 29th Dec. 1862.

I am not quite sure what you mean by "charity" when you call it humbug. If you mean that attitude of mind which says "I forgive my fellow-men for not being as good as I am," I agree with you in hoping that it will vanish, as also the circumstantial form of alms-giving. But if you are alluding to anything in my letter, I meant what charity meant in the elder English, and what the translators of the Bible meant in their rendering of the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians—Caritas, the highest love or fellowship, which I am happy to believe that no philosophy will expel from the world.

Journal, 1862.

Dec. 31 (Last day of the kind old year).—Clear and pleasantly mild. Yesterday a pleasant message from Mr. Hannay about "Romola." We have had many blessings this year. Opportunities which have enabled us to acquire an abundant independence; the satisfactory progress of our two eldest boys; various grounds of happiness in our work; and ever-growing happiness in each other. I hope with trembling that the coming year may be as comforting a retrospect—with trembling because my work is not yet done. Besides the finishing of "Romola," we have to think of Thornie's passing his final examination, and, in case of success, his going out to India; of Bertie's leaving Hofwyl, and of our finding a new residence. I have had more than my average amount of comfortable health until this last month, in which I have been constantly ailing, and my work has suffered proportionately.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Feb. 1863.

The letter with the one word in it, like a whisper of sympathy, lay on my plate when I went down to lunch this morning. The generous movement that made you send it has gladdened me all day. I have had a great deal of pretty encouragement from immense big-wigs—some of them saying "Romola" is the finest book they ever read; but the opinion of big-wigs has one sort of value, and the fellow-feeling of a long known friend has another. One can't do quite well without both. En revanche, I am a feeble wretch, with eyes that threaten to get bloodshot on the slightest provocation. We made a rush to Dorking for a day or two, and the quiet and fresh air seemed to make a new creature of me; but when we get back to town, town sensations return.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th March, 1863.

That scheme of a sort of Philosophical Club that I told you of went to pieces before it was finished, like a house of cards. So it will be to the end, I fancy, with all attempts at combinations that are not based either on material interests or on opinions that are not merely opinions but religion. Doubtless you have been interested in the Colenso correspondence, and perhaps in Miss Cobbe's rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe's remonstrating answer to the women of England. I was glad to see how free the answer was from all tartness or conceit. Miss Cobbe's introduction to the new edition of Theodore Parker is also very honorable to her—a little too metaphorical here and there, but with real thought and good feeling.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th April, 1863.

It is a comfort to hear of you again, and to know that there is no serious trouble to mar the spring weather for you. I must carry that thought as my consolation for not seeing you on Tuesday—not quite a sufficient consolation, for my eyes desire you very much after these long months of almost total separation. The reason I cannot have that pleasure on Tuesday is that, according to a long arranged plan, I am going on Monday to Dorking again for a fortnight. I should be still more vexed to miss you if I were in better condition, but at present I am rather like a shell-less lobster, and inclined to creep out of sight. I shall write to you, or try to see you, as soon as I can after my return. I wish you could have told me of a more decided return to ordinary health in Mr. Congreve, but I am inclined to hope that the lecturing may rather benefit than injure him, by being a moral tonic. How much there is for us to talk about! But only to look at dear faces that one has seen so little of for a long while seems reason enough for wanting to meet. Mr. Lewes is better than usual just now, and you must not suppose that there is anything worse the matter with me than you have been used to seeing in me. Please give my highest regards to Mr. Congreve, and love to Emily, who, I hope, has quite got back the roses which had somewhat paled. My pen straggles as if it had a stronger will than I.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 28th April, 1863, from Dorking.

Glad you enjoyed "Esmond." It is a fine book. Since you have been interested in the historical suggestions, I recommend you to read Thackeray's "Lectures on the English Humorists," which are all about the men of the same period. There is a more exaggerated estimate of Swift and Addison than is implied in "Esmond;" and the excessive laudation of men who are considerably below the tip-top of human nature, both in their lives and genius, rather vitiates the Lectures, which are otherwise admirable, and are delightful reading.

The wind is high and cold, making the sunshine seem hard and unsympathetic.

Journal, 1863.

May 6.—We have just returned from Dorking, whither I went a fortnight ago to have solitude while George took his journey to Hofwyl to see Bertie. The weather was severely cold for several days of my stay, and I was often ailing. That has been the way with me for a month and more, and in consequence I am backward with my July number of "Romola"—the last part but one.

I remember my wife telling me, at Witley, how cruelly she had suffered at Dorking from working under a leaden weight at this time. The writing of "Romola" ploughed into her more than any of her other books. She told me she could put her finger on it as marking a well-defined transition in her life. In her own words, "I began it a young woman—I finished it an old woman."

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 12th May, 1863.

Yes! we shall be in town in June. Your coming would be reason good enough, but we have others—chiefly, that we are up to the ears in boydom and imperious parental duties. All is as happy and prosperous with us as heart can lawfully desire, except my health. I have been a mere wretch for several months past. You will come to me like the morning sunlight, and make me a little less of a flaccid cabbage-plant.

It is a very pretty life you are leading at Hastings, with your painting all morning, and fair mothers and children to look at the rest of the day.

I am terribly frightened about Mrs. ——. She wrote to me, telling me that we were sure to suit each other, neither of us holding the opinions of the Moutons de Panurge. Nothing could have been more decisive of the opposite prospect to me. If there is one attitude more odious to me than any other of the many attitudes of "knowingness," it is that air of lofty superiority to the vulgar. However, she will soon find out that I am a very commonplace woman.

Journal, 1863.

May 16.—Finished Part XIII. Killed Tito in great excitement.

May 18.—Began Part XIV.—the last! Yesterday George saw Count Arrivabene, who wishes to translate "Romola," and says the Italians are indebted to me.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1st June, 1863.

Health seems, to those who want it, enough to make daylight a gladness. But the explanation of evils is never consoling except to the explainer. We are just as we were, thinking about the questionable house (The Priory), and wondering what would be the right thing to do; hardly liking to lock up any money in land and bricks, and yet frightened lest we should not get a quiet place just when we want it. But I dare say we shall have it after all.

Journal, 1863.

June 6.—We had a little evening party with music, intended to celebrate the completion of "Romola," which, however, is not absolutely completed, for I have still to alter the epilogue.

June 9.—Put the last stroke to "Romola." Ebenezer! Went in the evening to hear La Gazza Ladra.

The manuscript of "Romola" bears the following inscription:

"To the Husband whose perfect love has been the best source of her insight and strength, this manuscript is given by his devoted wife, the writer."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th June, 1863.

How impossible it is for strong, healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true—the religion that is strength to the healthy—is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

Journal, 1863.

June 16.—George and I set off to-day to the Isle of Wight, where we had a delightful holiday. On Friday, the 19th, we settled for a week at Niton, which, I think, is the prettiest place in all the island. On the following Friday we went on to Freshwater, and failed, from threatening rain, in an attempt to walk to Alum Bay, so that we rather repented of our choice. The consolation was that we shall know better than to go to Freshwater another time. On the Saturday morning we drove to Ryde, and remained there until Monday the 29th.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st June, 1863.

Your letter was a welcome addition to our sunshine this Sabbath morning. For in this particular we seem to have been more fortunate than you, having had almost constant sunshine since we arrived at Sandown, on Tuesday evening.

This place is perfect, reminding me of Jersey, in its combination of luxuriant greenth with the delights of a sandy beach. At the end of our week, if the weather is warmer, we shall go on to Freshwater for our remaining few days. But the wind at present is a little colder than one desires it, when the object is to get rid of a cough, and unless it gets milder we shall go back to Shanklin. I am enjoying the hedge-row grasses and flowers with something like a released prisoner's feeling—it is so long since I had a bit of real English country.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st June, 1863.

I am very happy in my holiday, finding quite a fresh charm in the hedge-row grasses and flowers after my long banishment from them. We have a flower-garden just round us, and then a sheltered grassy walk, on which the sun shines through the best part of the day; and then a wide meadow, and beyond that trees and the sea. Moreover, our landlady has cows, and we get the quintessence of cream—excellent bread and butter also, and a young lady, with a large crinoline, to wait upon us—all for 25s. per week; or, rather, we get the apartment in which we enjoy those primitive and modern blessings for that moderate sum.

Journal, 1863.

July 4.—Went to see Ristori in Adrienne Lecouvreur and did not like it. I have had hemicrania for several days, and have been almost idle since my return home.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th July, 1863.

Constant languor from the new heat has made me shirk all exertion not imperative. And just now there are not only those excitements of the season, which even we quiet people get our share of, but there is an additional boy to be cared for—Thornie, who is this week passing his momentous examination.

A pretty thing has happened to an acquaintance of mine, which is quite a tonic to one's hope. She has all her life been working hard in various ways, as house-keeper, governess, and several et ceteras that I can't think of at this moment—a dear little dot, about four feet eleven in height; pleasant to look at, and clever; a working-woman, without any of those epicene queernesses that belong to the class. Her life has been a history of family troubles, and she has that susceptible nature which makes such troubles hard to bear. More than once she has told me that courage quite forsook her. She felt as if there were no good in living and striving; it was difficult to discern or believe in any results for others, and there seemed none worth having for herself. Well! a man of fortune and accomplishments has just fallen in love with her, now she is thirty-three. It is the prettiest story of a swift decided passion, and made me cry for joy. Madame Bodichon and I went with her to buy her wedding-clothes. The future husband is also thirty-three—old enough to make his selection an honor. Fond of travelling and science and other good things, such as a man deserves to be fond of who chooses a poor woman in the teeth of grand relatives: brought up a Unitarian, just turned Catholic. If you will only imagine everything I have not said, you will think this a very charming fairy tale.

We are going this evening to see the French actress in Juliet (Stella Colas), who is astonishing the town. Last week we saw Ristori, the other night heard the Faust, and next week we are going to hear the Elisir d'Amore and Faust again! So you see we are trying to get some compensation for the necessity of living among bricks in this sweet summer time. I can bear the opera better than any other evening entertainment, because the house is airy and the stalls are comfortable. The opera is a great, great product—pity we can't always have fine Weltgeschichtliche dramatic motives wedded with fine music, instead of trivialities or hideousnesses. Perhaps this last is too strong a word for anything except the Traviata. Rigoletto is unpleasant, but it is a superlatively fine tragedy in the Nemesis. I think I don't know a finer.

We are really going to buy the Priory after all. You would think it very pretty if you saw it now, with the roses blooming about it.

Journal, 1863.

July 12.—I am now in the middle of G.'s "Aristotle," which gives me great delight.

July 23.—Reading Mommsen and Story's "Roba di Roma;" also Liddell's "Rome," for a narrative to accompany Mommsen's analysis.

July 29.—In the evening we went to Covent Garden to hear Faust for the third time. On our return we found a letter from Frederick Maurice—the greatest, most generous tribute ever given to me in my life.[36]

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 30th July, 1863.

I have wanted for several days to make some feeble sign in writing that I think of your trouble. But one claim after another has arisen as a hinderance. Conceive us, please, with three boys at home, all bigger than their father! It is a congestion of youthfulness on our mature brains that disturbs the course of our lives a little, and makes us think of most things as good to be deferred till the boys are settled again. I tell you so much to make you understand that "omission" is not with me equivalent to "neglect," and that I do care for what happens to you.

Renan is a favorite with me. I feel more kinship with his mind than with that of any other living French author. But I think I shall not do more than look through the Introduction to his "Vie de Jésus"—unless I happen to be more fascinated by the constructive part than I expect to be from the specimens I have seen. For minds acquainted with the European culture of this last half-century, Renan's book can furnish no new result; and they are likely to set little store by the too facile construction of a life from materials of which the biographical significance becomes more dubious as they are more closely examined. It seems to me the soul of Christianity lies not at all in the facts of an individual life, but in the ideas of which that life was the meeting-point and the new starting-point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ either in its historical influence or its great symbolic meanings. Still, such books as Renan's have their value in helping the popular imagination to feel that the sacred past is, of one woof with that human present, which ought to be sacred too.

You mention Renan in your note, and the mention has sent me off into rather gratuitous remarks, you perceive. But such scrappy talk about great subjects may have a better excuse than usual, if it just serves to divert your mind from the sad things that must be importuning you now.

Letter to R. H. Hutton, 8th Aug. 1863.

After reading your article on "Romola," with careful reference to the questions you put to me in your letter, I can answer sincerely that I find nothing fanciful in your interpretation. On the contrary, I am confirmed in the satisfaction I felt, when I first listened to the article, at finding that certain chief elements of my intention have impressed themselves so strongly on your mind, notwithstanding the imperfect degree in which I have been able to give form to my ideas. Of course, if I had been called on to expound my own book, there are other things that I should want to say, or things that I should say somewhat otherwise; but I can point to nothing in your exposition of which my consciousness tells me that it is erroneous, in the sense of saying something which I neither thought nor felt. You have seized with a fulness which I had hardly hoped that my book could suggest, what it was my effort to express in the presentation of Bardo and Baldasarre; and also the relation of the Florentine political life to the development of Tito's nature. Perhaps even a judge so discerning as yourself could not infer from the imperfect result how strict a self-control and selection were exercised in the presentation of details. I believe there is scarcely a phrase, an incident, an allusion, that did not gather its value to me from its supposed subservience to my main artistic objects. But it is likely enough that my mental constitution would always render the issue of my labor something excessive—wanting due proportion. It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given, are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in "Silas Marner," or the "Dodson" life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie. But you have correctly pointed out the reason why my tendency to excess in this effort after artistic vision makes the impression of a fault in "Romola" much more perceptibly than in my previous books. And I am not surprised at your dissatisfaction with Romola herself. I can well believe that the many difficulties belonging to the treatment of such a character have not been overcome, and that I have failed to bring out my conception with adequate fulness. I am sorry she has attracted you so little; for the great problem of her life, which essentially coincides with a chief problem in Savonarola's, is one that readers need helping to understand. But with regard to that and to my whole book, my predominant feeling is—not that I have achieved anything, but—that great, great facts have struggled to find a voice through me, and have only been able to speak brokenly. That consciousness makes me cherish the more any proof that my work has been seen to have some true significance by minds prepared not simply by instruction, but by that religious and moral sympathy with the historical life of man which is the larger half of culture.

Journal, 1863.

Aug. 10.—Went to Worthing. A sweet letter from Mrs. Hare, wife of Julius Hare, and Maurice's sister.

Aug. 18.—Returned home much invigorated by the week of change, but my spirits seem to droop as usual now I am in London again.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 19th Aug. 1863.

I was at Worthing when your letter came, spending all my daylight hours out-of-doors, and trying with all my might to get health and cheerfulness. I will tell you the true reason why I did not go to Hastings. I thought you would be all the better for not having that solicitation of your kindness that the fact of my presence there might have caused. What you needed was precisely to get away from people to whom you would inevitably want to be doing something friendly, instead of giving yourself up to passive enjoyment. Else, of course, I should have liked everything you write about and invite me to.

We only got home last night, and I suppose we shall hardly be able to leave town again till after the two younger boys have left us, and after we have moved into the new house.

Since I saw you I have had some sweet woman's tenderness shown me by Mrs. Hare, the widow of Archdeacon Hare, and the sister of Frederick Maurice.

I know how you are enjoying the country. I have just been having the joy myself. The wide sky, the not London, makes a new creature of me in half an hour. I wonder, then, why I am ever depressed—why I am so shaken by agitations. I come back to London, and again the air is full of demons.

Letter to Mrs. Bray and Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Sept. 1863.

I think I get a little freshness from the breeze that blows on you—a little lifting of heart from your wide sky and Welsh mountains. And the edge of autumn on the morning air makes even London a place in which one can believe in beauty and delight. Delicate scent of dried rose-leaves and the coming on of the autumnal airs are two things that make me feel happy before I know why.

The Priory is all scaffolding and paint; and we are still in a nightmare of uncertainty about our boys. But then I have by my side a dear companion, who is a perpetual fountain of courage and cheerfulness, and of considerate tenderness for my lack of those virtues. And besides that I have Roman history! Perhaps that sounds like a bitter joke to you, who are looking at the sea and sky and not thinking of Roman history at all. But this too, read aright, has its gospel and revelation. I read it much as I used to read a chapter in the Acts or Epistles. Mommsen's "History of Rome" is so fine that I count all minds graceless who read it without the deepest stirrings.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Oct. 1863.

I cannot be quite easy without sending this little sign of love and good wishes on the eve of your journey. I shall think of you with all the more delight, because I shall imagine you winding along the Riviera and then settling in sight of beautiful things not quite unknown to me. I hope your life will be enriched very much by these coming months; but above all, I hope that Mr. Congreve will come back strong. Tell him I have been greatly moved by the "Discours Préliminaire."[37]

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Oct. 1863.

If I wait to write until I have anything very profitable to say, you will have time to think that I have forgotten you or else to forget me—and both consequences would be unpleasant to me.

Well, our poor boy Thornie parted from us to-day and set out on his voyage to Natal. I say "poor," as one does about all beings that are gone away from us for a long while. But he went away in excellent spirits, with a large packet of recommendatory letters to all sorts of people, and with what he cares much more for, a first-rate rifle and revolver—and already with a smattering of Dutch Zulu, picked up from his grammars and dictionaries.

What are you working at, I wonder? Cara says you are writing; and, though I desire not to ask prying questions, I should feel much joy in your being able to tell me that you are at work on something which gives you a life apart from circumstantial things.

I am taking a deep bath of other people's thoughts, and all doings of my own seem a long way off me. But my bath will be sorely interrupted soon by the miserable details of removal from one house to another. Happily Mr. Owen Jones has undertaken the ornamentation of the drawing-room, and will prescribe all about chairs, etc. I think, after all, I like a clean kitchen better than any other room.

We are far on in correcting the proofs of the new edition of "Goethe," and are about to begin the printing of the "Aristotle," which is to appear at Christmas or Easter.

Journal, 1863.

Nov. 5.—We moved into our new house—The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park.

Nov. 14.—We are now nearly in order, only wanting a few details of furniture to finish our equipment for a new stage in our life's journey. I long very much to have done thinking of upholstery, and to get again a consciousness that there are better things than that to reconcile one with life.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 14th Nov. 1863.

At last we are in our new home, with only a few details still left to arrange. Such fringing away of precious life, in thinking of carpets and tables, is an affliction to me, and seems like a nightmare from which I shall find it bliss to awake into my old world of care for things quite apart from upholstery.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th Nov. 1863.

I have kissed your letter in sign of my joy at getting it. But the cold draughts of your Florentine room came across my joy rather harshly. I know you have good reasons for what you do, yet I cannot help saying, Why do you stay at Florence, the city of draughts rather than of flowers?

Mr. Congreve's suffering during the journey and your suffering in watching him saddens me as I think of it. For a long while to come I suppose human energy will be greatly taken up with resignation rather than action. I wish my feeling for you could travel by some helpful vibrations good for pains.

For ourselves, we have enough ease now to be able to give some of it away. But our removal into our new home on the 5th of November was not so easy as it might have been, seeing that I was only half recovered from a severe attack of influenza, which had caused me more terrible pains in the head and throat than I have known for years. However, the crisis is past now, and we think our little home altogether charming and comfortable. Mr. Owen Jones has been unwearied in taking trouble that everything about us may be pretty. He stayed two nights till after twelve o'clock, that he might see every engraving hung in the right place; and as you know I care even more about the fact of kindness than its effects, you will understand that I enjoy being grateful for all this friendliness on our behalf. But so tardy a business is furnishing, that it was not until Monday last that we had got everything in its place in preparation for the next day—Charlie's twenty-first birthday—which made our house-warming a doubly interesting epoch. I wish your sweet presence could have adorned our drawing-room and made it look still more agreeable in the eyes of all beholders. You would have liked to hear Jansa play on his violin, and you would perhaps have been amused to see an affectionate but dowdy friend of yours splendid in a gray moire antique—the consequence of a severe lecture from Owen Jones on her general neglect of personal adornment. I am glad to have got over this crisis of maternal and house-keeping duty. My soul never flourishes on attention to details which others can manage quite gracefully without any conscious loss of power for wider thoughts and cares. Before we began to move I was swimming in Comte and Euripides and Latin Christianity: now I am sitting among puddles, and can get sight of no deep water. Now I have a mind made up of old carpets fitted in new places, and new carpets suffering from accidents; chairs, tables, and prices; muslin curtains and down draughts in cold chimneys. I have made a vow never to think of my own furniture again, but only of other people's.

Drawing-room at the Priory.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Dec. 1863.

The book[38] is come, with its precious inscription, and I have read a great piece of it already (11 a.m.), besides looking through it to get an idea of its general plan. See how fascination shifts its quarter as our life goes on! I cannot be induced to lay aside my regular books for half an hour to read "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," but I pounce on a book like yours, which tries to tell me as much as it can in brief space of the "natural order," and am seduced into making it my after-breakfast reading instead of the work I had prescribed for myself in that pleasant quiet time. I read so slowly and read so few books that this small fact among my small habits seems a great matter to me. I thank you, dear Cara, not simply for giving me the book, but for having put so much faithful labor in a worthy direction, and created a lasting benefit which I can share with others. Whether the circulation of a book be large or small, there is always this supreme satisfaction about solid honest work, that as far as it goes its effect must be good, and as all effects spread immeasurably, what we have to care for is kind and not quantity. I am a shabby correspondent, being in ardent practice of the piano just now, which makes my days shorter than usual.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 4th Dec. 1863.

I am rather ashamed to hear of any one trying to be useful just now, for I am doing nothing but indulging myself—enjoying being petted very much, enjoying great books, enjoying our new, pretty, quiet home, and the study of Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin, with the mild-faced old Jansa, and not being at all unhappy as you imagine me. I sit taking deep draughts of reading—"Politique Positive," Euripides, Latin Christianity, and so forth, and remaining in glorious ignorance of "the current literature." Such is our life; and you perceive that instead of being miserable, I am rather following a wicked example, and saying to my soul, "Soul, take thine ease." I am sorry to think of you without any artistic society to help you and feed your faith. It is hard to believe long together that anything is "worth while," unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind. I fancy that to do without that guarantee one must be rather insane—one must be a bad poet, or a spinner of impossible theories, or an inventor of impossible machinery. However, it is but brief space either of time or distance that divides you from those who thoroughly share your cares and joys—always excepting that portion which is the hidden private lot of every human being. In the most entire confidence even of husband and wife there is always the unspoken residue—the undivined residue—perhaps of what is most sinful, perhaps of what is most exalted and unselfish.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1863.

I get less and less inclined to write any but the briefest letters. My books seem to get so far off me when once I have written them, that I should be afraid of looking into "The Mill;" but it was written faithfully and with intense feeling when it was written, so I will hope that it will do no mortal any harm. I am indulging myself frightfully; reading everything except the "current literature," and getting more and more out of rapport with the public taste. I have read Renan's book, however, which has proved to be eminently in the public taste. It will have a good influence on the whole, I imagine; but this "Vie de Jésus," and still more, Renan's "Letter to Berthelot" in the Revue des Deux Mondes, have compelled me to give up the high estimate I had formed of his mind. Judging from the indications in some other writings of his, I had reckoned him among the finest thinkers of the time. Still, his "Life of Jesus" has so much artistic merit that it will do a great deal towards the culture of ordinary minds, by giving them a sense of unity between that far off past and our present.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th Dec. 1863.

We are enjoying our new house—enjoying its quiet and freedom from perpetual stair-mounting—enjoying also the prettiness of coloring and arrangement; all of which we owe to our dear good friend, Mr. Owen Jones. He has determined every detail, so that we can have the pleasure of admiring what is our own without vanity. And another magnificent friend has given me the most splendid reclining chair conceivable, so that I am in danger of being envied by the gods, especially as my health is thoroughly good withal. I should like to be sure that you are just as comfortable externally and internally. I dare say you are, being less of a cormorant in your demands on life than I am; and it is that difference which chiefly distinguishes human lots when once the absolute needs are satisfied.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 28th Dec. 1863.

Your affectionate greeting comes as one of the many blessings that are brightening this happy Christmas.

We have been giving our evenings up to parental duties—i.e., to games and music for the amusement of the youngsters. I am wonderfully well in body, but rather in a self-indulgent state mentally, saying, "Soul, take thine ease," after a dangerous example.

Of course I shall be glad to see your fair face whenever it can shine upon me; but I can well imagine, with your multitudinous connections, Christmas and the New Year are times when all unappointed visits must be impossible to you.

All good to you and yours through the coming year! and amongst the good may you continue to feel some love for me; for love is one of the conditions in which it is even better to give than to receive.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Jan. 1864.

According to your plans you must be in Rome. I have been in good spirits about you ever since I last heard from you, and the foggy twilight which, for the last week, has followed the severe frost, has made me rejoice the more that you are in a better climate and amongst lovelier scenes than we are groping in. I please myself with thinking that you will all come back with stores of strength and delightful memories. Only, if this were the best of all possible worlds, Mr. Lewes and I should be able to meet you in some beautiful place before you turn your backs on Italy. As it is, there is no hope of such a meeting. March is Charlie's holiday month, and when he goes out we like to stay at home for the sake of recovering for that short time our unbroken tête-à-tête. We have every reason to be cheerful if the fog would let us. Last night I finished reading the last proofs of the "Aristotle," which makes an octavo volume of rather less than 400 pages. I think it is a book which will be interesting and valuable to the few, but perhaps only to the few. However, George's happiness in writing his books makes him less dependent than most authors on the audience they find. He felt that a thorough account of Aristotle's science was a bit of work which needed doing, and he has given his utmost pains to do it worthily. These are the two most important conditions of authorship; all the rest belong to the "less modifiable" order of things. I have been playing energetically on the piano lately, and taking lessons in accompanying the violin from Herr Jansa, one of the old Beethoven Quartette players. It has given me a fresh kind of muscular exercise, as well as nervous stimulus, and, I think, has done its part towards making my health better. In fact I am very well physically. I wish I could be as clever and active as you about our garden, which might be made much prettier this spring if I had judgment and industry enough to do the right thing. But it is a native vice of mine to like all such matters attended to by some one else, and to fold my arms and enjoy the result. Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough. But pray make a point of liking me in spite of my deficiencies.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 21st Jan. 1864.

I comfort myself with the belief that your nature is less rebellious under trouble than mine—less craving and discontented.

Resignation to trial, which can never have a personal compensation, is a part of our life task which has been too much obscured for us by unveracious attempts at universal consolation. I think we should be more tender to each other while we live, if that wretched falsity which makes men quite comfortable about their fellows' troubles were thoroughly got rid of.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Jan. 1864.

I often imagine you, not without a little longing, turning out into the fields whenever you list, as we used to do in the old days at Rosehill. That power of turning out into the fields is a great possession in life—worth many luxuries.

Here is a bit of news not, I think, too insignificant for you to tell Cara. The other day Mr. Spencer, senior (Herbert Spencer's father), called on us, and knowing that he has been engaged in education all his life, that he is a man of extensive and accurate knowledge, and that, on his son's showing, he is a very able teacher, I showed him Cara's "British Empire." Yesterday Herbert Spencer came, and on my inquiring told me that his father was pleased with Cara's book, and thought highly of it. Such testimonies as this, given apart from personal influence and by a practised judge, are, I should think, more gratifying than any other sort of praise to all faithful writers.

Journal, 1864.

Jan. 30.—We had Browning, Dallas, and Burton to dine with us, and in the evening a gentlemen's party.

Feb. 14.—Mr. Burton dined with us, and asked me to let him take my portrait.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 3d March, 1864.

It was pleasant to have news of you through the fog, which reduces my faith in all good and lovely things to its lowest ebb.

I hope you are less abjectly under the control of the skyey influences than I am. The soul's calm sunshine in me is half made up of the outer sunshine. However, we are going on Friday to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and Handel's music always brings me a revival.

I have had a great personal loss lately in the death of a sweet woman,[39] to whom I have sometimes gone, and hoped to go again, for a little moral strength. She had long been confined to her room by consumption, which has now taken her quite out of reach except to memory, which makes all dear human beings undying to us as long as we ourselves live.

I am glad to know that you have been interested in "David Gray."[40] It is good for us all that these true stories should be well told. Even those to whom the power of helping rarely comes, have their imaginations instructed so as to be more just and tender in their thoughts about the lot of their fellows.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th March, 1864.

I felt it long since I had had news from you, but my days go by, each seeming too short for what I must do, and I don't like to molest you with mere questions.

I have been spoiled for correspondence by Mr. Lewes's goodness in always writing letters for me where a proxy is admissible. And so it has come to be a great affair with me to write even a note, while people who keep up a large correspondence, and set apart their hour for it, find it easy to cover reams of paper with talk from the end of the pen.

You say nothing of yourself, which is rather unkind. We are enjoying a perfect tête à tête. On Friday we are going to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and try if possible to be stirred to something heroic by "Sound an alarm."

I was more sorry than it is usually possible to be about the death of a person utterly unknown to me, when I read of Maria Martineau's death. She was a person whose office in life seemed so thoroughly defined and so valuable. For an invalid like Harriet Martineau to be deprived of a beloved nurse and companion, is a sorrow that makes one ashamed of one's small grumblings. But, oh dear, oh dear! when will people leave off their foolish talk about all human lots being equal; as if anybody with a sound stomach ever knew misery comparable to the misery of a dyspeptic.

Farewell, dear Sara; be generous, and don't always wait an age in silence because I don't write.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 8th March, 1864.

If you were anybody but yourself I should dislike you, because I have to write letters to you. As it is, your qualities triumph even over the vice of being in Italy (too far off for a note of three lines), and expecting to hear from me, though I fear I should be graceless enough to let you expect in vain if I did not care very much to hear from you, and did not find myself getting uneasy when many weeks have been passed in ignorance about you. I do hope to hear that you got your fortnight of sight-seeing before leaving Rome—at least, you would surely go well over the great galleries. If not, I shall be vexed with you, and I shall only be consoled for your not going to Venice by the chance of the Austrians being driven or bought out of it—on no slighter grounds. For I suppose you will not go to Italy again for a long, long while, so as to leave any prospect of the omission being made up for by-and-by.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th March, 1864.

We run off to Scotland for the Easter week, setting out on Sunday evening; so if the spring runs away again, I hope it will run northward. We shall return on Monday, the 4th April. Some news of your inwards and outwards would be acceptable; but don't write unless you really like to write. You see Strauss has come out with a popular "Life of Jesus."

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 25th March, 1864.

Fog, east wind, and headache: there is my week's history. But this morning, when your letter came to me, I had got up well and was reading the sorrows of the aged Hecuba with great enjoyment. I wish an immortal drama could be got out of my sorrows, that people might be the better for them two thousand years hence. But fog, east wind, and headache are not great dramatic motives.

Your letter was a reinforcement of the delicious sense of bien être that comes with the departure of bodily pain; and I am glad, retrospectively, that beyond our fog lay your moonlight and your view of the glorious sea. It is not difficult to me to believe that you look a new creature already. Mr. Lewes tells me the country air has always a magical effect on me, even in the first hour; but it is not the air alone, is it? It is the wide sky, and the hills, and the wild-flowers which are linked with all calming thoughts, just as every object in town has its perturbing associations.

I share your joy in the Federal successes—with that check that attends all joy in a war not absolutely ended. But you have worked and earned more joy than those who have been merely passives.

Journal, 1864.

April 6.—Mr. Spencer called for the first time after a long correspondence on the subject of his relation to Comte.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th April, 1864.

Yes! I am come back from Scotland—came back last Saturday night.

I was much pleased to see Cara so wonderfully well and cheerful. She seems to me ten times more cheerful than in the old days. I am interested to know more about your work which is filling your life now, but I suppose I shall know nothing until it is in print—and perhaps that is the only form in which one can do any one's work full justice. It is very disappointing to me to hear that Cara has at present so little promise of monetary results from her conscientious labor. I fear the fatal system of half profits is working against her as against others. We are going to the opera to-night to hear the Favorita. It was the first opera I ever saw (with you I saw it!), and I have never seen it since—that is the reason I was anxious to go to-night.

This afternoon we go to see Mulready's pictures—so the day will be a full one.

Journal, 1864.

April 18.—We went to the Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th April, 1864.

Only think! next Wednesday morning we start for Italy. The move is quite a sudden one. We need a good shake for our bodies and minds, and must take the spring-time, before the weather becomes too hot. We shall not be away more than a month or six weeks at the utmost. Our friend Mr. Burton, the artist, will be our companion for at least part of the time. He has just painted a divine picture, which is now to be seen at the old Water-Color Exhibition. The subject is from a Norse legend; but that is no matter—the picture tells its story. A knight in mailed armor and surcoat has met the fair, tall woman he (secretly) loves, on a turret stair. By an uncontrollable movement he has seized her arm and is kissing it. She, amazed, has dropped the flowers she held in her other hand. The subject might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world—the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion. The kiss is on the fur-lined sleeve that covers the arm, and the face of the knight is the face of a man to whom the kiss is a sacrament.

How I should like a good long talk with you! From what you say of your book that is to come, I expect to be very much interested in it. I think I hardly ever read a book of the kind you describe without getting some help from it. It is to this strong influence that is felt in all personal statements of inward experience that we must perhaps refer the excessive publication of religious journals.

Journal, 1864.

May 4.—We started for Italy with Mr. Burton.

June 20.—Arrived at our pretty home again after an absence of seven weeks.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th June, 1864.

Your letter has affected me deeply. Thank you very much for writing it. It seems as if a close view of almost every human lot would disclose some suffering that makes life a doubtful good—except perhaps at certain epochs of fresh love, fresh creative activity, or unusual power of helping others. One such epoch we are witnessing in a young life that is very near to us. Our "boy" Charles has just become engaged, and it is very pretty to see the happiness of a pure first love, full at present of nothing but promise. It will interest you to know that the young lady who has won his heart, and seems to have given him her own with equal ardor and entireness, is the grand-daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, whom he adopted when she was three years old, and brought up under his own eye. She is very handsome, and has a splendid contralto voice. Altogether Pater and I rejoice—for though the engagement has taken place earlier than we expected, or should perhaps have chosen, there are counterbalancing advantages. I always hoped Charlie would be able to choose or rather find the other half of himself by the time he was twenty-three; the event has only come a year and a half sooner. This is the news that greeted us on our return! We had seen before we went that the acquaintance, which was first made eighteen months or more ago, had become supremely interesting to Charlie. Altogether we rejoice.

Our journey was delightful in spite of Mr. Lewes's frequent malaise; for his cheerful nature is rarely subdued even by bodily discomfort. We saw only one place that we had not seen before—namely, Brescia; but all the rest seemed more glorious to us than they had seemed four years ago. Our course was to Venice, where we stayed a fortnight, pausing only at Paris, Turin and Milan on our way thither, and taking Padua, Verona, Brescia, and again Milan, as points of rest on our way back. Our friend Mr. Burton's company was very stimulating, from his great knowledge, not of pictures only, but of almost all other subjects. He has had the advantage of living in Germany for five or six years, and has gained those large, serious views of history which are a special product of German culture, and this was his first visit to Italy, so you may imagine his eager enjoyment in finding it beautiful beyond his hopes. We crossed the Alps by the St. Gothard, and stayed a day or two at Lucerne; and this, again, was a first sight of Switzerland to him.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, July, 1864.

Looking at my little mats this morning while I was dressing, I felt very grateful for them, and remembered that I had not shown my gratitude when you gave them to me. If I were a "conceited" poet, I should say your presence was the sun, and the mats were the tapers; but now you are away, I delight in the tapers. How pretty the pattern is—and your brain counted it out! They will never be worn quite away while I live, or my little purse for coppers either.

Journal, 1864.

July 17.—Horrible scepticism about all things paralyzing my mind. Shall I ever be good for anything again? Ever do anything again?

July 19.—Reading Gibbon, Vol. I., in connection with Mosheim, also Gieseler on the condition of the world at the appearance of Christianity.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Aug. 1864.

I am distressed to find that I have let a week pass without writing in answer to your letter, which made me very glad when I got it. Remembering you just a minute ago, I started up from Max Müller's new volume, with which I was consoling myself under a sore throat, and rushed to the desk that I might not risk any further delay.

It was just what I wanted to hear about you that you were having some change, and I think the freshness of the companionship must help other good influences, not to speak of the "Apologia," which breathed much life into me when I read it. Pray mark that beautiful passage in which he thanks his friend Ambrose St. John. I know hardly anything that delights me more than such evidences of sweet brotherly love being a reality in the world. I envy you your opportunity of seeing and hearing Newman, and should like to make an expedition to Birmingham for that sole end.

My trouble now is George's delicate health. He gets thinner and thinner. He is going to try what horseback will do, and I am looking forward to that with some hope.

Our boy's love-story runs smoothly, and seems to promise nothing but good. His attraction to Hampstead gives George and me more of our dear old tête-à-tête, which we can't help being glad to recover.

Dear Cara and Mr. Bray! I wish they too had joy instead of sadness from the young life they have been caring for these many years. When you write to Cara, or see her, assure her that she is remembered in my most affectionate thoughts, and that I often bring her present experience before my mind—more or less truly—for we can but blunder about each other, we poor mortals.

Write to me whenever you can, dear Sara; I should have answered immediately but for sickness, visitors, business, etc.

Journal, 1864.

Sept. 6.—I am reading about Spain, and trying a drama on a subject that has fascinated me—have written the prologue, and am beginning the First Act. But I have little hope of making anything satisfactory.

Sept. 13 to 30.—Went to Harrogate and Scarborough, seeing York Minster and Peterborough.

Fac-simile of George Eliot's hand-writing.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Sept. 1864, from Harrogate.

We journeyed hither on Tuesday, and found the place quite as pretty as we expected. The great merit of Harrogate is that one is everywhere close to lovely open walks. Your "plan" has been a delightful reference for Mr. Lewes, who takes it out of his pocket every time we walk. At present, of course, there is not much improvement in health to be boasted of, but we hope that the delicious bracing air, and also the chalybeate waters, which have not yet been tried, will not be without good effect. The journey was long. How hideous those towns of Holbeach and Wakefield are! It is difficult to keep up one's faith in a millennium within sight of this modern civilization which consists in "development of industries." Egypt and her big calm gods seems quite as good.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Sept. 1864, from Scarborough.

We migrated on Friday last from delightful Harrogate, pausing at York to see the glorious Cathedral. The weather is perfect, the sea blue as a sapphire, so that we see to utmost advantage the fine line of coast here and the magnificent breadth of sand. Even the Tenby sands are not so fine as these. Better than all, Mr. Lewes, in spite of a sad check of a few days, is strengthened beyond our most hopeful expectations by this brief trial of fresh conditions. He is wonderful for the rapidity with which he "picks up" after looking alarmingly feeble and even wasted. We paid a visit to Knaresborough the very last day of our stay at Harrogate, and were rejoiced that we had not missed the sight of that pretty characteristic northern town. There is a ruined castle here too, standing just where one's eyes would desire it on a grand line of cliff; but perhaps you know the place. Its only defect is that it is too large, and therefore a little too smoky; but except in Wales or Devonshire I have seen no sea-place on our English coast that has greater natural advantages. I don't know quite why I should write you this note all about ourselves—except that your goodness having helped us to the benefit we have got, I like you to know of the said benefit.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Sunday, Oct. (?) 1864.

The wished-for opportunity is coming very soon. Next Saturday Charlie will go to Hastings, and will not return till Sunday evening. Will you—can you—arrange to come to us on Saturday to lunch or dinner, and stay with us till Sunday evening? We shall be very proud and happy if you will consent to put up with such travelling quarters as we can give you. You will be rejoicing our hearts by coming, and I know that for the sake of cheering others you would endure even large privations as well as small ones.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Monday-week following.

What a pure delight it was to have you with us! I feel the better for it in spite of a cold which I caught yesterday—perhaps owing to the loss of your sunny presence all of a sudden.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Oct. 1864.

It makes me very, very happy to see George so much better, and to return with that chief satisfaction to the quiet comforts of home. We register Harrogate among the places to be revisited.

I have had a fit of Spanish history lately, and have been learning Spanish grammar—the easiest of all the Romance grammars—since we have been away. Mr. Lewes has been rubbing up his Spanish by reading Don Quixote in these weeks of idlesse; and I have read aloud and translated to him, like a good child. I find it so much easier to learn anything than to feel that I have anything worth teaching.

All is perfectly well with us, now the "little Pater" is stronger, and we are especially thankful for Charlie's prospect of marriage. We could not have desired anything more suited to his character and more likely to make his life a good one. But this blessing which has befallen us only makes me feel the more acutely the cutting off of a like satisfaction from the friends I chiefly love.

Journal, 1864.

Oct. 5.—Finished the first draught of the First Act of my drama, and read it to George.

Oct. 15.—Went to the Maestro (Burton) for a sitting.

Nov. 4.—Read my Second Act to George. It is written in verse—my first serious attempt at blank verse. G. praises and encourages me.

Nov. 10.—I have been at a very low ebb, body and mind, for the last few days, sticking in the mud continually in the construction of my 3d, 4th, and 5th Acts. Yesterday Browning came to tell us of a bust of Savonarola in terra-cotta, just discovered at Florence.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d Nov. 1864.

I believe I have thought of you every day for the last fortnight, and I remembered the birthday—and "everything." But I was a little cross, because I had heard nothing of you since Mr. Bray's visit. And I said to myself, "If she wanted to write she would write." I confess I was a little ashamed when I saw the outside of your letter ten minutes ago, feeling that I should read within it the proof that you were as thoughtful and mindful as ever.

Yes, I do heartily give my greeting—had given it already. And I desire very much that the work which is absorbing you may give you some happiness besides that which belongs to the activity of production.

It is very kind of you to remember Charlie's date too. He is as happy as the day is long, and very good—one of those creatures to whom goodness comes naturally—not any exalted goodness, but every-day serviceable goodness, such as wears through life. Whereas exalted goodness comes in brief inspirations, and requires a man to die lest he should spoil his work.

I have been ill, but now am pretty well, with much to occupy and interest me, and with no trouble except those bodily ailments.

I could chat a long while with you—but I restrain myself, because I must not carry on my letter-writing into the "solid day."

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Christmas-day, 1864.

Your precious letter did come last night, and crowned the day's enjoyment. Our family party went off very well, entirely by dint of George's exertions. I wish you had seen him acting charades, and heard him make an after-supper speech. You would have understood all the self-forgetful goodness that lay under the assumption of boyish animal spirits. A horrible German whom I have been obliged to see has been talking for two hours, with the hardest eyes, blind to all possibilities that he was boring us, and so I have been robbed of all the time I wanted for writing to you. I can only say now that I bore you on my heart—you and all yours known to me—even before I had had your letter yesterday. Indeed you are not apart from any delight I have in life: I long always that you should share it, if not otherwise, at least by knowing of it, which to you is a sort of sharing. Our double loves and best wishes for all of you—Rough being included, as I trust you include Ben. Are they not idlers with us? Also a title to regard as well as being collaborateurs.

Journal, 1864.

Dec. 24.—A family party in the evening.

Dec. 25.—I read the Third Act of my drama to George, who praised it highly. We spent a perfectly quiet evening, intending to have our Christmas-day's jollity on Tuesday when the boys are at home.

Journal, 1865.

Jan. 1.—The last year has been unmarked by any trouble except bad health. The bright spots in the year have been the publication of "Aristotle" and our journey to Venice. With me the year has not been fruitful. I have written three Acts of my drama, and am now in a condition of body and mind to make me hope for better things in the coming year. The last quarter has made an epoch for me, by the fact that, for the first time in my serious authorship I have written verse. In each other we are happier than ever. I am more grateful to my dear husband for his perfect love, which helps me in all good and checks me in all evil—more conscious that in him I have the greatest of blessings.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d Jan. 1865.

I hope the wish that this New Year may be a happy one to you does not seem to be made a mockery by any troubles or anxieties pressing on you.

I enclose a check, which I shall be obliged if you will offer to Mr. Congreve, as I know he prefers that payments should be made at the beginning of the year.

I shall think of you on the nineteenth. I wonder how many there really were in that "small upper room" 1866 years ago.

Journal, 1865.

Jan. 8.—Mrs. Congreve staying with us for a couple of nights. Yesterday we went to Mr. Burton's to see my portrait, with which she was much pleased. Since last Monday I have been writing a poem, the matter of which was written in prose three or four years ago—"My Vegetarian Friend."

Jan. 15 to 25.—Visit to Paris.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Friday (?), 27th Jan. 1865.

Are we not happy to have reached home on Wednesday before this real winter came? We enjoyed our visit to Paris greatly, in spite of bad weather, going to the theatre or opera nearly every night, and seeing sights all day long. I think the most interesting sight we saw was Comte's dwelling. Such places, that knew the great dead, always move me deeply; and I had an unexpected sight of interest in the photograph taken at the very last. M. Thomas was very friendly, and pleasant to talk to because of his simple manners. We gave your remembrances to him, and promised to assure you of his pleasure in hearing of you. I wish some truer representation of Mr. Congreve hung up in the Salon instead of that (to me) exasperating photograph.

We thought the apartment very freundlich, and I flattered myself that I could have written better in the little study there than in my own. Such self-flattery is usually the most amiable phase of discontent with one's own inferiority.

I am really stronger for the change.

Journal, 1865.

Jan. 28.—Finished my poem on "Utopias."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Feb. 1865.

I suspect you have come to dislike letters, but until you say so, I must write now and then to gratify myself. I want to send my love, lest all the old messages shall have lost their scent, like old lavender bags.

Since I wrote to you last we have actually been to Paris! A little business was an excuse for getting a great deal of pleasure; and I, for whom change of air and scene is always the best tonic, am much brightened by our wintry expedition, which ended just in time for us to escape the heavy fall of snow.

We are very happy, having almost recovered our old tête-à-tête, of which I am so selfishly fond that I am beginning to feel it an heroic effort when I make up my mind to invite half a dozen visitors. But it is necessary to strive against this unsocial disposition, so we are going to have some open evenings.

There is great talk of a new periodical—a fortnightly apparition, partly on the plan of the Revue des Deux Mondes. Mr. Lewes has consented to become its editor, if the preliminaries are settled so as to satisfy him.

Ecco! I have told you a little of our news, not daring to ask you anything about yourself, since you evidently don't want to tell me anything.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Feb. 1865.

The party was a "mull." The weather was bad. Some of the invited were ill and sent regrets, others were not ardent enough to brave the damp evening—in fine, only twelve came. We had a charade, which, like our neighbors, was no better than it should have been, and some rather languid music, our best musicians half failing us—so ill is merit rewarded in this world! If the severest sense of fulfilling a duty could make one's parties pleasant, who so deserving as I? I turn my inward shudders into outward smiles, and talk fast, with a sense of lead on my tongue. However, Mr. Pigott made a woman's part in the charade so irresistibly comic that I tittered at it at intervals in my sleepless hours. I am rather uncomfortable about you, because you seemed so much less well and strong the other day than your average. Let me hear before long how you and Mr. Congreve are.

Journal, 1865.

Feb. 21.—Ill and very miserable. George has taken my drama away from me.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th Feb. 1865.

The sun shone through my window on your letter as I read it, adding to its cheeriness. It was good of you to write it. I was ill last week, and had mental troubles besides—happily such as are unconnected with any one's experience except my own. I am still ailing, but striving hard "not to mind," and not to diffuse my inward trouble, according to Madame de Vaux's excellent maxim. I shall not, I fear, be able to get to you till near the end of next week—towards the 11th. I think of you very often, and especially when my own malaise reminds me how much of your time is spent in the same sort of endurance. Mr. Spencer told us yesterday that Dr. Ransom said he had cured himself of dyspepsia by leaving off stimulants—the full benefit manifesting itself after two or three months of abstinence. I am going to try. All best regards to Mr. Congreve and tenderest sisterly love to yourself.

Journal, 1865.

March 1.—I wrote an article for the Pall Mall Gazette—"A Word for the Germans."

March 12.—Went to Wandsworth, to spend the Sunday and Monday with Mr. and Mrs. Congreve. Feeling very ailing; in constant dull pain, which makes all effort burdensome.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th March, 1865.

I did not promise, like Mr. Collins, that you should receive a letter of thanks for your kind entertainment of me; but I feel the need of writing a word or two to break the change from your presence to my complete absence from you. It was really an enjoyment to be with you, in spite of the bodily uneasiness which robbed me of half my mind. One thing only I regret—that in my talk with you I think I was rather merciless to other people. Whatever vices I have seem to be exaggerated by my malaise—such "chastening" not answering the purpose of purification in my case. Pray set down any unpleasant notions I have suggested about others to my account—i.e., as being my unpleasantness, and not theirs. When one is bilious, other people's complexions look yellow, and one of their eyes higher than the other—all the fault of one's own evil interior. I long to hear from you that you are better, and if you are not better, still to hear from you before too long an interval. Mr. Congreve's condition is really cheering, and he goes about with me as a pleasant picture—like that Raphael the Tuscan duke chose always to carry with him.

I got worse after I left you; but to-day I am better, and begin to think there is nothing serious the matter with me except the "weather," which every one else is alleging as the cause of their symptoms.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 18th March, 1865.

I believe you are one of the few who can understand that in certain crises direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy. If I could have been with you in bodily presence, I should have sat silent, thinking silence a sign of feeling that speech, trying to be wise, must always spoil. The truest things one can say about great Death are the oldest, simplest things that everybody knows by rote, but that no one knows really till death has come very close. And when that inward teaching is going on, it seems pitiful presumption for those who are outside to be saying anything. There is no such thing as consolation when we have made the lot of another our own. I don't know whether you strongly share, as I do, the old belief that made men say the gods loved those who died young. It seems to me truer than ever, now life has become more complex, and more and more difficult problems have to be worked out. Life, though a good to men on the whole, is a doubtful good to many, and to some not a good at all. To my thought it is a source of constant mental distortion to make the denial of this a part of religion—to go on pretending things are better than they are. To me early death takes the aspect of salvation; though I feel, too, that those who live and suffer may sometimes have the greater blessedness of being a salvation. But I will not write of judgments and opinions. What I want my letter to tell you is that I love you truly, gratefully, unchangeably.

Journal, 1865.

March 25.—I am in deep depression, feeling powerless. I have written nothing but beginnings since I finished a little article for the Pall Mall, on the Logic of Servants. Dear George is all activity, yet is in very frail health. How I worship his good humor, his good sense, his affectionate care for every one who has claims on him! That worship is my best life.

March 29.—Sent a letter on "Futile Lying," from Saccharissa to the Pall Mall.

I have begun a novel ("Felix Holt").

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 11th April, 1865.

We are wondering if, by any coincidence or condition of things, you could come to us on Thursday, when we have our last evening party—wondering how you are—wondering everything about you, and knowing nothing. Could you resolve some of our wonderings into cheering knowledge? It is ages since you made any sign to us. Are we to be blamed or you? I hope you are not unfavorably affected by the sudden warmth which comes with the beautiful sunshine. Some word of you, in pity!

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d April, 1865.

If the sun goes on shining in this glorious way, I shall think of your journey with pleasure. The sight of the country must be a good when the trees are bursting into leaf. But I will remember your warning to Emily, and not insist too much on the advantages of paying visits. Let us hear of you sometimes, and think of us as very busy and very happy, but always including you in our world, and getting uneasy when we are left too much to our imaginations about you. Tell Emily that Ben and I are the better for having seen her. He has added to his store of memories, and will recognize her when she comes again.

Journal, 1865.

May 4.—Sent an article on Lecky's "History of Rationalism" for the Fortnightly. For nearly a fortnight I have been ill, one way or other.

May 10.—Finished a letter of Saccharissa for the Pall Mall. Reading Æschylus, "Theatre of the Greeks," Klein's "History of the Drama," etc.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 11th May, 1865.

This note will greet you on your return, and tell you that we were glad to hear of you in your absence, even though the news was not of the brightest. Next week we are going away—I don't yet know exactly where; but it is firmly settled that we start on Monday. It will be good for the carpets, and it will be still better for us, who need a wholesome shaking, even more than the carpets do.

The first number of the Review was done with last Monday, and will be out on the 15th. You will be glad to hear that Mr. Harrison's article is excellent, but the "mull" which George declares to be the fatality with all first numbers is so far incurred with regard to this very article that, from overwhelming alarm at its length, George put it (perhaps too hastily) into the smaller type. I hope the importance of the subject and the excellence of the treatment will overcome that disadvantage.

Nurse all pleasant thoughts in your solitude, and count our affection among them.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th May, 1865.

We have just returned from a five days' holiday at the coast, and are much invigorated by the tonic breezes.

We have nothing to do with the Fortnightly as a money speculation. Mr. Lewes has simply accepted the post of editor, and it was seemly that I should write a little in it. But do not suppose that I am going into periodical writing. And your friendship is not required to read one syllable for our sakes. On the contrary, you have my full sympathy in abstaining. Rest in peace, dear Sara, and finish your work, that you may have the sense of having spoken out what was within you. That is really a good—I mean, when it is done in all seriousness and sincerity.

Journal, 1865.

May 28.—Finished Bamford's "Passages from the Life of a Radical." Have just begun again Mill's "Political Economy," and Comte's "Social Science," in Miss Martineau's edition.

June 7.—Finished Annual Register for 1832. Reading Blackstone. Mill's second article on "Comte," to appear in the Westminster, lent me by Mr. Spencer. My health has been better of late.

June 15.—Read again Aristotle's "Poetics" with fresh admiration.

June 20.—Read the opening of my novel to G. Yesterday we drove to Wandsworth. Walked together on Wimbledon Common, in outer and inner sunshine, as of old; then dined with Mr. and Mrs. Congreve, and had much pleasant talk.

June 25.—Reading English History, reign of George III.; Shakespeare's "King John." Yesterday G. dined at Greenwich with the multitude of so-called writers for the Saturday. He heard much commendation of the Fortnightly, especially of Bagehot's articles, which last is reassuring after Mr. Trollope's strong objections.

July 3.—Went to hear the "Faust" at Covent Garden: Mario, Lucca, and Graziani. I was much thrilled by the great symbolical situations, and by the music—more, I think, than I had ever been before.

July 9 (Sunday).—We had Browning, Huxley, Mr. Warren, Mr. Bagehot, and Mr. Crompton, and talk was pleasant.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, Sunday, 10th July, 1865.

Success to the canvassing! It is "very meet and right and your bounden duty" to be with Mr. Taylor in this time of hard work, and I am glad that your health has made no impediment. I should have liked to be present when you were cheered. The expression of a common feeling by a large mass of men, when the feeling is one of good-will, moves me like music. A public tribute to any man who has done the world a service with brain or hand has on me the effect of a great religious rite, with pealing organ and full-voiced choir.

I agree with you in your feeling about Mill. Some of his works have been frequently my companions of late, and I have been going through many actions de grâce towards him. I am not anxious that he should be in Parliament: thinkers can do more outside than inside the House. But it would have been a fine precedent, and would have made an epoch, for such a man to have been asked for and elected solely on the ground of his mental eminence. As it is, I suppose it is pretty certain that he will not be elected.

I am glad you have been interested in Mr. Lewes's article. His great anxiety about the Fortnightly is to make it the vehicle for sincere writing—real contributions of opinion on important topics. But it is more difficult than the inexperienced could imagine to get the sort of writing which will correspond to that desire of his.

Journal, 1865.

July 16.—Madame Bohn, niece of Professor Scherer, called. She said certain things about "Romola" which showed that she had felt what I meant my readers to feel. She said she knew the book had produced the same effect on many others. I wish I could be encouraged by this.

July 22.—Sat for my portrait—I suppose for the last time.

July 23.—I am going doggedly to work at my novel, seeing what determination can do in the face of despair. Reading Neale's "History of the Puritans."

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st Aug. 1865.

I received yesterday the circular about the Mazzini Fund. Mr. Lewes and I would have liked to subscribe to a tribute to Mazzini, or to a fund for his use, of which the application was defined and guaranteed by his own word. As it is, the application of the desired fund is only intimated in the vaguest manner by the Florentine committee. The reflection is inevitable that the application may ultimately be the promotion of conspiracy, the precise character of which is necessarily unknown to subscribers. Now, though I believe there are cases in which conspiracy may be a sacred, necessary struggle against organized wrong, there are also cases in which it is hopeless, and can produce nothing but misery; or needless, because it is not the best means attainable of reaching the desired end; or unjustifiable, because it resorts to acts which are more unsocial in their character than the very wrong they are directed to extinguish; and in these three supposable cases it seems to me that it would be a social crime to further conspiracy even by the impulse of a little finger, to which one may well compare a small money subscription.

I think many persons to whom the circular might be sent would take something like this view, and would grieve, as we do, that a proposition intended to honor Mazzini should come in a form to which they cannot conscientiously subscribe.

I trouble you and Mr. Taylor with this explanation, because both Mr. Lewes and I have a real reverence for Mazzini, and could not therefore be content to give a silent negative.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 1st Aug. 1865.

I fear that my languor on Saturday prevented me from fairly showing you how sweet and precious your presence was to me then, as at all times. We have almost made up our minds to start some time in this month for a run in Normandy and Brittany. We both need the change, though when I receive, as I did yesterday, a letter from some friend, telling me of cares and trials from which I am quite free, I am ashamed of wanting anything.

Journal, 1865.

Aug. 2.—Finished the "Agamemnon" second time.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th Aug. 1865.

When I wrote to you last I quite hoped that I should see you and Emily before we left home, but now it is settled that we start on Thursday morning, and I have so many little things to remember and to do that I dare not set apart any of the intervening time for the quiet enjoyment of a visit from you. It is not quite so cheerful a picture as I should like to carry with me, that of you and Emily so long alone, with Mr. Congreve working at Bradford. But your friends are sure to think of you, and want to see you. I hope you did not suffer so severely as we did from the arctic cold that rushed in after the oppressive heat. Mr. T. Trollope came from Italy just when it began. He says it is always the same when he comes to England, people always say it has just been very hot, and he believes that means they had a few days in which they were not obliged to blow on their fingers.

When you write to Mr. Congreve pray tell him that we were very grateful for his Itinerary, which is likely useful to us—indeed, has already been useful in determining our route.

Journal, 1865.

Sept. 7.—We returned home after an expedition into Brittany. Our course was from Boulogne to St. Valéry, Dieppe, Rouen, Caen, Bayeux, St. Lô, Vire, Avranches, Dol, St. Malo, Rennes, Avray, and Carnac—back by Nantes, Tours, Le Mans, Chartres, Paris, Rouen, Dieppe, Abbeville, and so again to Boulogne.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Sept. 1865.

We came home again on Thursday night—this day week—after a month's absence in Normandy and Brittany. I have been thinking of you very often since, but believed that you did not care to have the interruption of letters just now, and would rather defer correspondence till your mind was freer. If I had suspected that you would feel any want satisfied by a letter I should certainly have written. I had not heard of Miss Bonham Carter's death, else I should have conceived something of your state of mind. I think you and I are alike in this, that we can get no good out of pretended comforts, which are the devices of self-love, but would rather, in spite of pain, grow into the endurance of all "naked truths." So I say no word about your great loss, except that I love you, and sorrow with you.

The circumstances of life—the changes that take place in ourselves—hem in the expression of affections and memories that live within us, and enter almost into every day, and long separations often make intercourse difficult when the opportunity comes. But the delight I had in you, and in the hours we spent together, and in all your acts of friendship to me, is really part of my life, and can never die out of me. I see distinctly how much poorer I should have been if I had never known you. If you had seen more of me in late years, you would not have such almost cruel thoughts as that the book into which you have faithfully put your experience and best convictions could make you "repugnant" to me. Whatever else my growth may have been, it has not been towards irreverence and ready rejection of what other minds can give me. You once unhappily mistook my feeling and point of view in something I wrote à propos of an argument in your "Aids to Faith," and that made me think it better that we should not write on large and difficult subjects in hasty letters. But it has often been painful to me—I should say, it has constantly been painful to me—that you have ever since inferred me to be in a hard and unsympathetic state about your views and your writing. But I am habitually disposed myself to the same unbelief in the sympathy that is given me, and am the last person who should be allowed to complain of such unbelief in another. And it is very likely that I may have been faulty and disagreeable in my expressions.

Excuse all my many mistakes, dear Sara, and never believe otherwise than that I have a glow of joy when you write to me, as if my existence were some good to you. I know that I am, and can be, very little practically; but to have the least value for your thought is what I care much to be assured of.

Perhaps, in the cooler part of the autumn, when your book is out of your hands, you will like to move from home a little and see your London friends?

Our travelling in Brittany was a good deal marred and obstructed by the emperor's fête, which sent all the world on our track towards Cherbourg and Brest. But the Norman churches, the great cathedrals at Le Mans, Tours, and Chartres, with their marvellous painted glass, were worth much scrambling to see.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Oct. 1865.

I have read Mr. Masson's book on "Recent Philosophy." The earlier part is a useful and creditable survey, and the classification ingenious. The later part I thought poor. If, by what he says of Positivism, you mean what he says at p. 246, I should answer it is simply "stuff"—he might as well have written a dozen lines of jargon. There are a few observations about Comte, scattered here and there, which are true and just enough. But it seems to me much better to read a man's own writing than to read what others say about him, especially when the man is first-rate and the "others" are third-rate. As Goethe said long ago about Spinoza, "Ich zog immer vor von dem Menschen zu erfahren wie er dachte als von einem anderen zu hören wie er hätte denken sollen."[41] However, I am not fond of expressing criticism or disapprobation. The difficulty is to digest and live upon any valuable truth one's self.

Journal, 1865.

Nov. 15.—During the last three weeks George has been very poorly, but now he is better. I have been reading Fawcett's "Economic Condition of the Working Classes," Mill's "Liberty," looking into Strauss's second "Life of Jesus," and reading Neale's "History of the Puritans," of which I have reached the fourth volume. Yesterday the news came of Mrs. Gaskell's death. She died suddenly, while reading aloud to her daughter.

Nov. 16.—Writing Mr. Lyon's story, which I have determined to insert as a narrative. Reading the Bible.

Nov. 24.—Finished Neale's "History of the Puritans." Began Hallam's "Middle Ages."

Dec. 4.—Finished second volume of Hallam. The other day read to the end of chapter nine of my novel to George, who was much pleased and found no fault.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th Dec. 1865.

We send to-day "Orley Farm," "The Small House at Allington," and the "Story of Elizabeth." The "Small House" is rather lighter than "Orley Farm." "The Story of Elizabeth" is by Miss Thackeray. It is not so cheerful as Trollope, but is charmingly written. You can taste it and reject it if it is too melancholy. I think more of you than you are likely to imagine, and I believe we talk of you all more than of any other mortals.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th Dec. 1865.

It is worth your while to send for the last Fortnightly to read an article of Professor Tyndall's "On the Constitution of the Universe." It is a splendid piece of writing on the higher physics, which I know will interest you. À propos of the feminine intellect, I had a bit of experience with a superior woman the other day, which reminded me of Sydney Smith's story about his sermon on the Being of a God. He says, that after he had delivered his painstaking argument, an old parishioner said to him, "I don't agree wi' you, Mr. Smith; I think there be a God."

Journal, 1865.

Dec. 11.—For the last three days I have been foundering from a miserable state of head. I have written chapter ten. This evening read again Macaulay's Introduction.

Dec. 15.—To-day is the first for nearly a week on which I have been able to write anything fresh. I am reading Macaulay and Blackstone. This evening we went to hear "The Messiah" at Exeter Hall.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Dec. 1865.

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" is a sort of hieroglyph for I love you and wish you well all the year round. Christmas to me is like a great many other pleasures, which I am glad to imagine as enjoyed by others, but have no delight in myself. Berried holly and smiling faces and snap-dragon, grandmamma and the children, turkey and plum-pudding—they are all precious things, and I would not have the world without them; but they tire me a little. I enjoy the common days of the year more. But for the sake of those who are stronger I rejoice in Christmas.

Journal, 1865.

Dec. 24.—For two days I have been sticking in the mud from doubt about my construction. I have just consulted G., and he confirms my choice of incidents.

Dec. 31.—The last day of 1865. I will say nothing but that I trust—I will strive—to add more ardent effort towards a good result from all the outward good that is given to me. My health is at a lower ebb than usual, and so is George's. Bertie is spending his holidays with us, and shows hopeful characteristics. Charles is happy.

SUMMARY.

JANUARY, 1862, TO DECEMBER, 1865.

Begins "Romola" again—Letter to Miss Hennell—Max Müller's book—"Orley Farm"—Anthony Trollope—T. A. Trollope's "Beata"—Acquaintance with Mr. Burton and Mr. W. G. Clark—George Smith, publisher, suggests a "magnificent offer"—Depression about "Romola"—Letter to Mrs. Bray asking for loan of music—Pantomime—First visit to Dorking—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Impatience of concealment—Anxiety about war with America—Sympathy with queen—Mr. Lewes begins "History of Science"—Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows"—Depression—George Smith offers £10,000 for "Romola" for the Cornhill—Idea given up—Visit to Englefield Green—Working under a weight—Second visit to Dorking for three weeks—Delight in spring—Accepts £7000 for "Romola" in Cornhill—Regret at leaving Blackwood—Palsy in writing—Visit to Littlehampton and to Dorking third time—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Mr. Lewes at Spa—George Eliot in better spirits—Letter to Miss Hennell—Joachim's playing—New Literary Club—Reading Poliziano—Suggestion of Tennyson's "Palace of Art"—Visit from Browning—Depression—Letter to Madame Bodichon—No negative propaganda—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—"The Messiah" on Christmas day—Letter to Miss Hennell—St. Paul's "Charity"—The Poetry of Christianity—The Bible—Adieu to year 1862—Letter to Miss Hennell—Encouragement about "Romola"—Literary Club dissolves—Miss Cobbe—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Depression—Fourth visit to Dorking for fortnight—Letter to Charles Lewes on Thackeray's Lectures—The effect of writing "Romola"—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Odiousness of intellectual superciliousness—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Thinking of the Priory—"Romola" finished—Inscription—Visit to Isle of Wight—Ristori—Letter to Miss Hennell—Thornton Lewes—London amusements—Opera—Reading Mommsen, Liddell's "Rome," and "Roba di Roma"—Letter from Frederick Maurice referred to as most generous tribute ever given—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Renan's "Vie de Jésus"—Visit to Worthing—Mrs. Hare—Return to London—Depression—Letter to R. H. Hutton on "Romola"—The importance of the medium in which characters move—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Effect of London on health—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Delight in autumn—Mommsen's History—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—The "Discours Préliminaire"—Removal to the Priory—Mr. Owen Jones decorates the house—Jansa the violinist—Letter to Mrs. Bray—"Physiology for Schools"—Letter to Madame Bodichon—Enjoying rest, and music with Jansa—Letter to Miss Hennell—Renan—Letter to Mrs. Bray—Enjoyment of Priory—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Mr. Lewes's "Aristotle" finished—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Compensation—Letter to Mrs. P. A. Taylor—Effect of sunshine—Death of Mrs. Hare—"David Gray"—Letter to Miss Hennell—Dislike of note-writing—Visit to Glasgow—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor—Joy in Federal successes—Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi—Mr. Burton's picture of a Legendary Knight in Armor—Third visit to Italy with Mr. Burton for seven weeks—Return to London—Charles Lewes's engagement to Miss Gertrude Hill—Pleasure in Mr. Burton's companionship in travel—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Present of mats—Depression—Reading Gibbon—Gieseler—Letter to Miss Hennell—Reading Max Müller—Reference to the "Apologia"—Newman—Reading about Spain—Trying a drama—Letter to Miss Hennell—Harrogate—Development of Industries—Scarborough—Letters to Mrs. Congreve—Pleasure in her visit—Letter to Miss Hennell—Learning Spanish—Two acts of drama written—Sticking in construction of remainder—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Christmas greeting—Retrospect of year 1864—Letter to Mrs. Congreve, first payment to Positivist Fund—Comparison with "small upper room" 1866 years ago—Mrs. Congreve staying at the Priory—Poem "My Vegetarian Friend" written—Visit to Paris—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Visit to Comte's apartment in Paris—Finished poem on "Utopias"—Letter to Miss Sara Hennell—Delight in dual solitude—Fortnightly Review—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Charades—Depression—Mr. Lewes takes away drama—Article for the Pall Mall, "A Word for the Germans"—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—Visit to Wandsworth—Depression—Letter to Mrs. Congreve after visit—Letter to Mrs. Bray on a young friend's death—Deep depression—Admiration of Mr. Lewes's good spirits—"Felix Holt" begun—Article on Lecky's "History of Rationalism" in Fortnightly—Reading Æschylus, "Theatre of the Greeks"—Klein's "History of the Drama"—Letter to Mrs. Congreve—First number of the Fortnightly—Frederic Harrison's article—Reading Mill, Comte, and Blackstone—Aristotle's "Poetics"—Dine with Congreves at Wandsworth—"Faust" at Covent Garden—Sunday reception—Browning, Huxley, and Bagehot—Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on J. S. Mill—The Fortnightly Review—Mr. Burton's portrait finished—Mazzini subscription—Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve—Expedition to Brittany for month—Letter to Miss Hennell—"Pretended comforts"—Recollection of early feelings—Delight in her friendship—Masson's "Recent Philosophy"—Comte—Goethe on Spinoza—Reading Fawcett's "Economic Condition of Working Classes"—Mill's "Liberty"—Strauss's second "Life of Jesus"—Neale's "History of the Puritans"—Hallam's "Middle Ages"—Letter to Miss Hennell on Tyndall's article on "The Constitution of the Universe"—View of Christmas day—Retrospect of 1865.

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