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.