I have been telling the patient about your letter and suggestion that he should send a form of slip as advertisement for the Magazine. He says—and the answer seems to have been a matter of premeditation with him—that it will be better not to announce the book in this way at once—"the Americans and Germans will be down on us." I cannot question him further at present, but I have no doubt he has been thinking about the matter, and we must not cross his wish in any way.
I have thought that a good form of advertisement, to save people from disappointment in a book of mine not being a story, would be to print the list of contents, which, with the title, would give all but the very stupid a notion to what form of writing the work belongs. But this is a later consideration. I am glad you were pleased with the opening.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Sunday evening, 24th Nov. 1878.
For the last week I have been in deep trouble. Mr. Lewes has been alarmingly ill. To-day Sir James Paget and Dr. Quain pronounce him in all respects better, and I am for the first time comforted. You will not wonder now at my silence. Thanks for your affectionate remembrances.
Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Nov. 1878.
Mr. Lewes continues sadly ill, and I am absorbed in nursing him. When he wrote about Parliament meeting, he was thinking that it would be called together at the usual time—perhaps February. The book can be deferred without mischief. I wish to add a good deal, but, of course, I can finish nothing now, until Mr. Lewes is better. The doctors pronounced him in every respect better yesterday, and he had a quiet night, but since five o'clock this morning he has had a recurrence of trouble. You can feel for him and me, having so lately known what severe illness is.
Mr. Lewes died on the 28th November, 1878.
SUMMARY.
MARCH, 1876, TO NOVEMBER, 1878.