I am very grateful to you for your generous words about my work. That you not only feel so much sympathy, but are moved to express it so fully, is a real help to me.
I am very glad to have had the revise of the "Address." I feel the danger of not being understood. Perhaps, by a good deal longer consideration and gradual shaping, I might have put the ideas into a more concrete, easy form.
Mr. Lewes read the proof of the poem all through to himself for the first time last night, and expressed great satisfaction in the impression it produced. Your suggestion of having it put into type is a benefit for which we have reason to be obliged to you.
I cannot help saying again that it is a strong cordial to me to have such letters as yours, and to know that I have such a first reader as you.
Journal, 1867.
Dec. 21.—Finished reading "Averroës and Averroisme" and "Les Médicins Juifs." Reading "First Principles."
Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Dec. 1867.
Our Christmas will be very quiet. On the 27th Mr. Lewes means to start on a solitary journey to Bonn, and perhaps to Würzburg, for anatomical purposes. I don't mean that he is going to offer himself as an anatomical subject, but that he wants to get answers to some questions bearing on the functions of the nerves. It is a bad time for him to travel in, but he hopes to be at home again in ten days or a fortnight, and I hope the run will do him good rather than harm.
Journal, 1867.
Dec. 25.—George and I dined happily alone; he better for weeks than he has been all the summer before; I more ailing than usual, but with much mental consolation, part of it being the delight he expresses in my poem, of which the first part is now in print.