Journal, 1871.
Dec. 1.—This day the first part of "Middlemarch" was published. I ought by this time to have finished the fourth part, but an illness which began soon after our return from Haslemere has robbed me of two months.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1871.
If you have not yet fallen in with Dickens's "Life" be on the lookout for it, because of the interest there is in his boyish experience, and also in his rapid development during his first travels in America. The book is ill organized, and stuffed with criticism and other matter which would be better in limbo; but the information about the childhood, and the letters from America, make it worth reading. We have just got a photograph of Dickens, taken when he was writing, or had just written, "David Copperfield"—satisfactory refutation of that keepsakey, impossible face which Maclise gave him, and which has been engraved for the "Life" in all its odious beautification. This photograph is the young Dickens, corresponding to the older Dickens whom I knew—the same face, without the unusually severe wear and tear of years which his latest looks exhibited.
Journal, 1872.
Dec. 20.—My health has become very troublesome during the last three weeks, and I can get on but tardily. Even now I am only at page 227 of my fourth part. But I have been also retarded by construction, which, once done, serves as good wheels for progress.
Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Jan. 1872.
Your good wishes and pleasant bits of news made the best part of my breakfast this morning. I am glad to think that, in desiring happiness for you during the new year, I am only desiring the continuance of good which you already possess.
I suppose we two, also, are among the happiest of mortals, yet we have had a rather doleful Christmas, the one great lack, that of health, having made itself particularly conspicuous in the surrounding fog. Having no grandchildren to get up a Christmas-tree for, we had nothing to divert our attention from our headaches.
Mr. Main's book broke the clouds a little, and now the heavens have altogether cleared, so that we are hoping to come back from a visit of three days to Weybridge with our strength renewed—if not like the eagle's, at least like a convalescent tomtit's.