Letter to Mrs. Bray, 20th March, 1877.
You must read Harriet Martineau's "Autobiography." The account of her childhood and early youth is most pathetic and interesting; but as in all books of the kind, the charm departs as the life advances, and the writer has to tell of her own triumphs. One regrets continually that she felt it necessary not only to tell of her intercourse with many more or less distinguished persons—which would have been quite pleasant to everybody—but also to pronounce upon their entire merits and demerits, especially when, if she had died as soon as she expected, these persons would nearly all have been living to read her gratuitous rudenesses. Still I hope the book will do more good than harm. Many of the most interesting little stories in it about herself and others she had told me (and Mr. Atkinson) when I was staying with her, almost in the very same words. But they were all the better for being told in her silvery voice. She was a charming talker, and a perfect lady in her manners as a hostess.
We are only going to bivouac in our Surrey home for a few months, to try what alterations are necessary. We shall come back to this corner in the autumn. We don't think of giving up London altogether at present, but we may have to give up life before we come to any decision on that minor point.
Letter to Madame Bodichon, 15th May, 1877.
Pray bring Madame Mario to see us again. But bear in mind that on Sunday the 27th—which probably will be our last Sunday in London—Holmes the violinist is coming to play, with Mrs. Vernon Lushington to accompany him. Don't mention to any one else that they are coming, lest the audience should be larger than he wishes.
We are working a little too hard at "pleasure" just now. This morning we are going for the third time to a Wagner rehearsal at 10 o'clock.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th May, 1877.
I have not read, and do not mean to read, Mrs. Chapman's volume, so that I can judge of it only by report. You seem to me to make a very good case for removing the weight of blame from her shoulders and transferring it to the already burdened back of Harriet Martineau. But I confess that the more I think of the book and all connected with it, the more it deepens my repugnance—or, rather, creates a new repugnance in me—to autobiography, unless it can be so written as to involve neither self-glorification nor impeachment of others. I like that the "He, being dead, yet speaketh," should have quite another meaning than that. But however the blame may be distributed, it remains a grievously pitiable thing to me that man, or woman, who has cared about a future life in the minds of a coming generation or generations, should have deliberately, persistently mingled with that prospect the ignoble desire to perpetuate personal animosities, which can never be rightly judged by those immediately engaged in them. And Harriet Martineau, according to the witness of those well acquainted with facts which she represents in her Autobiography, was quite remarkably apt to have a false view of her relations with others. In some cases she gives a ridiculously inaccurate account of the tenor or bearing of correspondence held with her. One would not for a moment want to dwell on the weakness of a character on the whole valuable and beneficent, if it were not made needful by the ready harshness with which she has inflicted pain on others.
No; I did not agree with you about the Byron case. I understand by the teaching of my own egoism—and therefore I can sympathize with—any act of self-vindicating or vindictive rage under the immediate infliction of what is felt to be a wrong or injustice. But I have no sympathy with self-vindication, or the becoming a proxy in vindication, deliberately bought at such a price as that of vitiating revelations—which may even possibly be false. To write a letter in a rage is very pardonable—even a letter full of gall and bitterness, meant as a sort of poisoned dagger. We poor mortals can hardly escape these sins of passion. But I have no pity to spare for the rancor that corrects its proofs and revises, and lays it by chuckling with the sense of its future publicity.
Letter to Professor Dr. David Kaufmann, 31st May, 1877.