Do write me good news as often as you can. I owe thanks to Major Blackwood for a very charming letter.
Letter to John Blackwood, 10th April, 1859.
The other day I received a letter from an old friend in Warwickshire, containing some striking information about the author of "Adam Bede." I extract the passage for your amusement:
"I want to ask you if you have read 'Adam Bede,' or the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' and whether you know that the author is Mr. Liggins?... A deputation of dissenting parsons went over to ask him to write for the 'Eclectic,' and they found him washing his slop-basin at a pump. He has no servant, and does everything for himself; but one of the said parsons said that he inspired them with a reverence that would have made any impertinent question impossible. The son of a baker, of no mark at all in his town, so that it is possible you may not have heard of him. You know he calls himself 'George Eliot.' It sounds strange to hear the Westminster doubting whether he is a woman, when here he is so well known. But I am glad it has mentioned him. They say he gets no profit out of 'Adam Bede,' and gives it freely to Blackwood, which is a shame. We have not read him yet, but the extracts are irresistible."
Conceive the real George Eliot's feelings, conscious of being a base worldling—not washing his own slop-basin, and not giving away his MS.! not even intending to do so, in spite of the reverence such a course might inspire. I hope you and Major Blackwood will enjoy the myth.
Mr. Langford sent me a letter the other day from Miss Winkworth, a grave lady, who says she never reads novels, except a few of the most famous, but that she has read "Adam" three times running. One likes to know such things—they show that the book tells on people's hearts, and may be a real instrument of culture. I sing my Magnificat in a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments of success. I think I should soon begin to believe that Liggins wrote my books—it is so difficult to believe what the world does not believe, so easy to believe what the world keeps repeating.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th April, 1859.
The very day you wrote we were driving in an open carriage from Ryde to the Sandrock Hotel, taking in a month's delight in the space of five hours. Such skies—such songs of larks—such beds of primroses! I am quite well now—set up by iron and quinine, and polished off by the sea-breezes. I have lost my young dislike to the spring, and am as glad of it as the birds and plants are. Mr. Lewes has read "Adam Bede," and is as dithyrambic about it as others appear to be, so I must refresh my soul with it now as well as with the spring-tide. Mr. Liggins I remember as a vision of my childhood—a tall, black-coated, genteel young clergyman-in-embryo.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th April, 1859.
Mr. Lewes is "making himself into four" in writing answers to advertisements and other exertions which he generously takes on himself to save me. A model husband!