Letter to Madame Bodichon, 10th April, 1866.
The happiness in your letter was delightful to me, as you guessed it would be. See how much better things may turn out for all mankind, since they mend for single mortals even in this confused state of the bodies social and politic.
As soon as we can leave we shall go away, probably to Germany, for six weeks or so. But that will not be till June. I am finishing a book which has been growing slowly, like a sickly child, because of my own ailments; but now I am in the later acts of it I can't move till it is done.
You know all the news, public and private—all about the sad cattle plague, and the reform bill, and who is going to be married and who is dead—so I need tell you nothing. You will find the English world extremely like what it was when you left it—conversation more or less trivial and insincere, literature just now not much better, and politics worse than either. Bring some sincerity and energy to make a little draught of pure air in your particular world. I shall expect you to be a heroine in the best sense, now you are happier after a time of suffering. See what a talent I have for telling other people to be good!
We are getting patriarchal, and think of old age and death as journeys not far off. All knowledge, all thought, all achievement seems more precious and enjoyable to me than it ever was before in life. But as soon as one has found the key of life, "it opes the gates of death." Youth has not learned the art of living, and we go on bungling till our experience can only serve us for a very brief space. That is the "external order" we must submit to.
I am too busy to write except when I am tired, and don't know very well what to say, so you must not be surprised if I write in a dreamy way.
Journal, 1866.
April 21.—Sent MS. of two volumes to Blackwood.
April 25.—Blackwood has written to offer me £5000 for "Felix Holt." I have been ailing, and uncertain in my strokes, and yesterday got no further than p. 52 of Vol. III.
Letter to John Blackwood, 25th April, 1866.