Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction—I may say, a more heartfelt joy—than you have given me in your estimate of "Daniel Deronda."
I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.
Certainly if I had been asked to choose what should be written about my books, and who should write it, I should have sketched—well, not anything so good as what you have written, but an article which must be written by a Jew who showed not merely a sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind.
Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions.
Such a response holds for an author not only what is best in "the life that now is," but the promise of "that which is to come." I mean that the usual approximative narrow perception of what one has been intending and profoundly feeling in one's work, impresses one with the sense that it must be poor perishable stuff, without roots to take any lasting hold in the minds of men; while any instance of complete comprehension encourages one to hope that the creative prompting has foreshadowed and will continue to satisfy a need in other minds.
Excuse me that I write but imperfectly, and perhaps dimly, what I have felt in reading your article. It has affected me deeply, and though the prejudice and ignorant obtuseness which has met my effort to contribute something towards the ennobling of Judaism in the conceptions of the Christian community, and in the consciousness of the Jewish community, has never for a moment made me repent my choice, but rather has been added proof that the effort was needed—yet I confess that I had an unsatisfied hunger for certain signs of sympathetic discernment which you only have given.
I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish elements and those of English social life.
I write under the pressure of small hurries; for we are just moving into the country for the summer, and all things are in a vagrant condition around me. But I wished not to defer answering your letter to an uncertain opportunity.
Letter to Frederic Harrison, 14th June, 1877.
I am greatly indebted to you for your letter. It has done something towards rousing me from what I will not call self-despair but resignation to being of no use.