George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 3 (of 3)

Once more – ever more – thanks.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 10th June, 1879.

You will like to know that Mr. Frederic Harrison has sent me a brief paper, which is to be read to-day at the Metaphysical Society, on the "Social Factor in Psychology," opening with a quotation from the "Study of Psychology," and marking throughout his high appreciation of your father's work. Also the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, kindly sent (with his initials only) to Trübner four errata which he had found in reading the "Study of Psychology." Trübner did not know who was the kind corrector, and very properly sent the paper to me, offering to have the corrections made on the plates if I wished it. I said, "By all means," and have written to thank the Rector. What a blessing to find a man who really reads a book!

I have received the enclosed letter, with other papers (about country lodgings at Sevenoaks for poor children). Will you look out a single copy of as many of my books (poems included) as you can find, and send them in a parcel, saying that they come from me for the Free Library? Please not to mind this trouble, as it is for the impecunious readers. (You know I am nothing if not "sesquipedalian" and scientific; and a word of five syllables will do for both qualities.)

I wish you could see Coquelin in Tabourin. He is a wonderful actor, when he gets the right part for him. He has a penetrating personality that one cannot be indifferent to, though possibly it may be unpleasant to some people.

Letter to William Blackwood, 12th June, 1879.

I was beginning, with my usual apprehensiveness, to fear that you had no good news to tell me, since I did not hear from you, and I should have gone on fearing till to-morrow morning if I had not happened to drive to Godalming and ask for the second post. We only get one post a day at the benighted Witley, so that if you want me to get a letter quickly it must be posted early at Edinburgh.

I am heartily glad to know that the invalid is going on well, and I trust that the softer air we are having now will help him forward.

"Theophrastus" seems to be really welcomed by the public. Mr. Blackwood will be amused to hear that one gentleman told Charles, or implied, that "Theophrastus" was a higher order of book, and more difficult to write than a novel. Wait long enough, and every form of opinion will turn up. However, poor "Theophrastus" is certainly not composed of "chips" any more than my other books.

Another amusing bit of news is, that the other day Mrs. Pattison sent me an extract from the livret of the Paris Salon, describing a picture painted by a French artist from "The Lifted Veil," and representing the moment when the resuscitated woman, fixing her eyes on her mistress, accuses her of having poisoned her husband. I call this amusing – I ought rather to have said typical of the relation my books generally have with the French mind.

Thank you for sending me the list of orders. It does interest me to see the various country demands. I hope the movement will continue to cheer us all, and you are sure to let me know everything that is pleasant, so I do not need to ask for that kindness.

The weather is decidedly warmer, and Tuesday was a perfectly glorious day. But rain and storm have never let us rest long together. I am not very bright, and am ready to interpret everything in the saddest sense, but I have no definite ailment.

My best regards to the convalescent, who, I have no doubt, will write to me when he is able to do so. But I am only one of many who will be glad to hear from him.

Letter from Madame Bodichon to Miss Bonham-Carter, 12th June, 1879.

"I spent an hour with Marian (5th June). She was more delightful than I can say, and left me in good spirits for her – though she is wretchedly thin, and looks, in her long, loose, black dress, like the black shadow of herself. She said she had so much to do that she must keep well – 'the world was so intensely interesting.' She said she would come next year to see me. We both agreed in the great love we had for life. In fact, I think she will do more for us than ever."

Letter to John Blackwood, 20th June, 1879.

I have been having my turn of illness of rather a sharp kind. Yesterday, when your letter came, I was in more acute pain than I have ever known in my life before, but before the morning was over I was sufficiently relieved to read your pleasant news. I am writing in bed, but am in that most keenly conscious ease which comes after unusual suffering. The way in which the public takes "Theophrastus" is really a comfort to me. I have had some letters, not of the complimentary, but of the grateful kind, which are an encouragement to believe in the use of writing. But you would be screamingly amused with one, twenty-three pages long (from an Edinburgh man, by-the-bye), who has not read the book, but has read of it, and thinks that his own case is still more worthy of presentation than Merman's.

I think a valuable series (or couple of volumes) might be made up from "Maga" of articles written hot by travellers and military men, and not otherwise republished – chronicles and descriptions by eye-witnesses – which might be material for historians.

What a comfort that the Afghan war is concluded! But on the back of it comes the black dog of Indian finance, which means, alas! a great deal of hardship to poor Hindûs. Let me hear more news of you before long.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 29th June, 1879.

Your description of the effects you feel from the restless, tormenting winds would serve well to represent my experience too. It seems something incredible written in my memory that when I was a little girl I loved the wind – used to like to walk about when it was blowing great guns. And now the wind is to me what it was to early peoples – a demon-god, cruelly demanding all sorts of human sacrifices. Thank you, dear, for caring whether I have any human angels to guard me. None are permanently here except my servants, but Sir James Paget has been down to see me, I have a very comfortable country practitioner to watch over me from day to day, and there is a devoted friend who is backward and forward continually to see that I lack nothing.

It is a satisfaction to me that you felt the need for "Debasing the Moral Currency" to be written. I was determined to do it, though it might make me a stone of stumbling and rock of offence to all the comic tribe.

Do not rate my illness too high in the scale of mortal misery. I am prone to make much of my ailments, and am among the worst at enduring pain.

Letter to John Blackwood, 29th June, 1879.

Thank you for sending me the pretty little book.³⁷ I am deeply touched by the account of its origin, and I remember well everything you said to me of Mr. Brown in old days when he was still with you. I had only cut a very little way into the volume when a friend came and carried it off, but my eyes had already been arrested by some remarks on the character of Harold Transome, which seemed to me more penetrating and finely felt than almost anything I have read in the way of printed comment on my own writing. When my friend brings back the volume I shall read it reverentially, and most probably with a sense of being usefully admonished. For praise and sympathy arouse much more self-suspicion and sense of shortcoming than all the blame and depreciation of all the Pepins.

I am better, and I hope on the way to complete recovery, but I am still at some distance from that goal. Perhaps if the winds would give one some rest from their tormenting importunity, both you and I should get on faster.

I am looking forward to reading the "Recollections of Ekowe" in "Maga," which came to me yesterday, with its list of my own doings and misdoings on the cover.

Does not this Zulu war seem to you a horribly bad business?

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 30th June, 1879.

Sir Henry Maine has sent me the one letter that has rejoiced my heart about the "Study of Psychology." He says: "In this branch of Mr. Lewes's studies I am almost as one of the ignorant, but I think I have understood every sentence in the book, and I believe I have gained great knowledge from it. It has been the most satisfactory piece of work I have done for a long time." I have written to tell him that he has rescued me from my scepticism as to any one's reading a serious book except the author or editor.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1879.

The sight of your handwriting on the pamphlet sent me urges me to do the sooner what I should have already done but for a rather sharp illness, which has kept me chiefly in bed for nearly a fortnight, and from which I am not yet quite free.

I enclose a copy of Michael Foster's draft of conditions for the studentship, which I put into the lawyer's hands some ten or twelve days ago, and which is now come to me drawn up in legal form. You said it would interest you to see the draft, and I have been bearing this in mind, but have not been able to go to the desk where the copy lay.

I hope to hear that you have been going on well despite the cruel, restless winds and sad intermittence of sunshine. On the 12th I am going to have two daughters-in-law, five grandchildren, and servant for a week – if I can get well enough, as I have good hope now that I shall. The strawberries will be ripe then, and as I don't eat any myself it would be dolorous not to be able to have the children, and see them enjoy the juicy blessing.

Letter to John Blackwood, 16th July, 1879.

I was beginning to want some news of you, and was almost ready to ask for it. It is the more welcome for having had time to ripen into a decidedly good report of your condition. About myself I have a very poor story to tell, being now in the fifth week of a troublesome illness, in which, like you, I have been partly fed on "poisonous decoctions." To-day, however, happens to show a considerable improvement in my symptoms, and I have been walking in the warmer air with more ease than hitherto. Driving I have not been able to manage for some time, the motion of the carriage shaking me too much. The best of care has been taken of me. I have an excellent country doctor (Mr. Parsons of Godalming) who watches me daily; and Sir James Paget and Dr. Andrew Clark have been down to add their supervision. I begin to think that if I can avoid any evil condition, such as a chill that would bring on a relapse, I may soon be pretty well again. The point to be achieved is to stop the wasting of my not too solid flesh.

I am glad to hear that the third edition of "Theophrastus" has had so lively a movement. If the remainder should be sold off I think it would be well just to print a small number of copies to carry on, and avoid bringing out a cheaper edition too soon after people have been paying for the expensive one.

I have been always able to write my letters and read my proofs, usually in bed before the fatigue of dressing, but the rest of my time has been very unprofitable – spent chiefly in pain and languor. I am feeling easy now, and you will well understand that after undergoing pain this ease is opening paradise. Invalids must be excused for being eloquent about themselves.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 22d July, 1879.

I feel a perhaps too selfish need to tell you that things have gone ill with me since I last wrote to you. Why do I want to let you know this not agreeable news about myself? Chiefly because I want you to be quite clear that if I do not write to say, "When can you come to me?" it is not from indifference, but from misfortune of another sort. Meanwhile it will do me good to have little items of news from you, when you can find half an hour for the kind deed of writing me a letter. What helps me most is to be told things about others, and your letters are just of the sort I like to have.

I am just now in one of my easier hours, and the demon wind has abated. He seems to enter into my pains with hideous rejoicing.

Letter to James Sully, 7th Aug. 1879.

Thank you for your kind note. There are to be more than as many proofs as you have already had, for which I must crave the valuable aid of your reading.

You will understand all the better how much comfort it is to me to have your help as well as Professor Foster's, when I tell you that for the last eight weeks I have been seriously out of health, and have often been suffering much pain – a state which I imagine you know by experience to heighten all real anxieties, and usually to create unreal.

It cheers me to be told by you that you think the volume interesting. In reading the MS. again and again I had got into a state of tremor about it which deprived me of judgment – just as if it were writing of my own, which I could not trust myself to pronounce upon.

I hope that your own health, and Mrs. Sully's too, will have been benefited by your change from south to north.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 11th Aug. 1879.

I think that I am really getting better, and shall have to stay among the minority in this world a little longer than I had expected.

Will you send me word how long you shall be at liberty, and whether you would think it worth while to come down to me one morning and stay till the afternoon of the following day? Your letter is delightful to me. Several spiritual kisses for it.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Aug. 1879.

Thank you for your sweet affection. I have had rather a trying illness, which lasted, without great relief, for nearly eight weeks. But I hope that I am now out of it – that is, so far established that I may go on without a relapse. The cold weather was against me, as it was and is against much more important matters. The days of warmth and sunlight which have now and then blessed us have been my best medicine, though I acknowledge the benefit of pepsin and steel, and many other drugs. The gray skies and recurring rain are peculiarly dispiriting to me, and one seems to feel their influence all the more for the wide, beautiful view of field and hill which they sadden and half conceal. In town one thinks less of the sky.

If you are ever writing to our dear Mrs. William Smith do give my love to her, and tell her I am very grateful to her for the letter she wrote me with the postmark Ventnor upon it. With her usual delicacy of feeling she did not send her address, so that I could not write in return.

Letter to William Blackwood, 3d Sept. 1879.

I am much obliged to you for writing me your letter of pleasant news.

It is wonderful how "Theophrastus" goes on selling in these bad times, and I have only to hope in addition that the buyers will be the better for it. Apparently we shall get through this last edition before Christmas, and then perhaps you will think of adding the volume to the Cabinet Edition. I am especially rejoiced to hear that your uncle is better again, and I trust that Strathtyrum is sharing our sunshine, which will be the best cure for him as for me. I am getting strong, and also am gaining flesh on my moderate scale. It really makes a difference to one's spirits to think that the harvest may now possibly be got in without utter ruin to the produce and unhappy producers. But this year will certainly prove a serious epoch, and initiate many changes in relation to farming. I fear, from what I have read, that the rich Lothians will have to be called compassionately the poor Lothians. By the way, if you happen to want any translation done from the French, and have not just the right person to do it, I think I can recommend a Miss Bradley Jenkins, of 5 °Cornwall Road, Wesbourne Park, as one who has an unusually competent knowledge of French. We sat side by side on the same form translating Miss Edgeworth into French when we were girls.

I have not seen her for many years, but I know that she has been engaged in a high order of teaching, and I have lately heard from her that she is anxious to get work of the kind in question. She already spoke French well when we were pupils together, and she has since been an unintermitting student.

I wonder, talking of translators, how the young Mr. Ferrier is going on, who translated Kaufmann's pamphlet on "Deronda." What Mr. Blackwood told me of him interested me about his future.

Oblige us all by not falling into another accident when the next hunting season comes.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 3d Sept. 1879.

Before I received your letter the other day I was intending to write to you to ask whether, now that I am stronger and the fine weather shows some signs of permanence, you feel any revival of the inclination to come and see me for a couple of days. I hardly like to propose your taking the journey, now that you are not being brought near me by other visits – for the railway from you to us is, I think, rather tiresome. But if your inclination really lies towards coming you will be affectionately welcomed.

About the sea-side I am hopeless. The latter part of October is likely to be too cold for me to move about without risk of chills; and I hope to be back in town before the end of the month. I am not very fond of the sea-side, and this year it is likely to be crowded with people who have been hindered by the bad weather from going earlier. I prefer the Surrey hills and the security from draughts in one's own home. The one attraction of a coast place to me is a great breadth of sand to pace on when it is in its fresh firmness after the fall of the tide. But the sea itself is melancholy to me, only a little less so under warm sunlight, with plenty of fishing-smacks changing their shadows. All this is to let you know why I do not yield to the attraction of being with you, where we could chat as much or as little as we liked. I feel very much your affectionateness in wishing to have me near you.

Write me word soon whether you feel able to come as far as this for my sake.

Letter to James Sully, 10th Sept. 1879.

I have read the article³⁸ with very grateful feelings. I think that he would himself have regarded it as a generally just estimate. And I am much obliged to you for sending it to me in proof.

Your selection of subjects for remark, and the remarks themselves, are in accordance with my feeling to a comforting extent; and I shall always remain your debtor for writing the article.

I trust you will not be forced to omit anything about his scientific and philosophical work, because that is the part of his life's labor which he most valued.

Perhaps you a little underrate the (original) effect of his "Life of Goethe in Germany." It was received with enthusiasm, and an immense number of copies, in both the English and German form, have been sold in Germany since its appearance in 1854.

I wish you were allowed to put your name to the article.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 17th Sept. 1879.

I am getting strong now after a long spell of medical discipline. All these long months I have been occupied with my husband's manuscripts: also with the foundation of a Physiological Studentship, which is my monument to his memory, and which is now all settled, as you may perhaps have seen by advertisements.³⁹ But I am not yet through the proof-reading of the final volume of "Problems of Life and Mind," which will contain the last sheets he ever wrote.

I hear very good accounts of Madame Bodichon, who is coming to me for a couple of days on the 29th.

You are wonderful for life and energy, in spite of your delicate looks. May you have all the strength you need for your sympathetic tasks!

Letter to James Sully, 7th Oct. 1879.

I have not yet thanked you – and I do so now very gratefully – for the help you have given me in my sad and anxious task. Your eyes have been a most precious aid, not only as a matter of fact, but as a ground of confidence. For I am not at all a good proof-reader, and have a thorough distrust of myself.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 18th Oct. 1879.

I cannot wish not to have been cheered by your triple letter, even though I have caused you to rise earlier in the morning, and to feel a disproportionate remorse. "Maggior difetto men vergogna lava," as says Virgil to the blushing Dante. And you have given me the fuller measure because I had to wait a little.

Your legend of "Fair Women" interests me very much. I feel a citizen of the world again, knowing all the news. But the core of good news in your letter is that your husband is well again, and again happy in his work. Your collapse is what I feared for you; and you must call the getting change of air and scene – I was going to say "a duty," but are you one of those wonderful beings who find everything easier under that name? But at least one prefers doing a hard duty to grimacing with a pretence of pleasure in things that are no pleasure.

I am greatly comforted this morning by the fact that the (apparently) right man is found for the George Henry Lewes Studentship – an ardent worker, who could not have carried on his pursuit without this help. I know you are not unmindful of what touches me deeply.

Go on your visit, dear, and come back well – then show yourself without unnecessary delay to your loving friend.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, Saturday, 20th Oct. 1879.

I have had a delightful bit of news from Dr. Foster this morning. He had mentioned to me before that there was an Edinburgh student whom he had in his mind as the right one to elect. This morning he writes: "The trustees meet to-morrow to receive my nomination. I have chosen Dr. Charles Roy, an Edinburgh man, and Scotchman – not one of my own pupils. He is, I think, the most promising – by far the most promising – of our young physiologists, putting aside those who do not need the pecuniary assistance of the studentship. And the help comes to him just when it is most needed – he is in full swing of work, and was casting about for some means of supporting himself which would least interfere with his work, when I called his attention to the studentship. I feel myself very gratified that I can, at the very outset, recommend just the man, as it appears to me, for the post."

This is a thing your father would have chosen as a result of his life.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, Tuesday, 27th Oct. 1879.

I have just had some news that grieves me. Mr. Blackwood is dangerously ill, and I fear, from Mr. William's letter, that there is little hope of recovery. He will be a heavy loss to me. He has been bound up with what I most cared for in my life for more than twenty years; and his good qualities have made many things easy to me that, without him, would often have been difficult.⁴⁰

I wrote to Mr. Trübner to tell him that the printing of the "Problems" being finished, I should be glad if he would arrange with you about the conditions of publication. Bear in mind your father's wish that the volumes should not be made dearer than necessary.

I am going to Weybridge on Friday, and I intend to be at the Priory by Saturday before dusk. But it is just possible I may be detained till Monday morning. So if you have any good occupation for Sunday you had better call on your way home on Monday.

Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 29th Oct. 1879.

Your affectionate note would quite have determined me to do what, when your brother kindly proposed it, raised a certain longing in me. I thought that I should like to see you all in the remembered home again. But I have had a little check in health, and I am feeling so depressed that I shrink from making any engagement which involves others.

A visitor to-day and my own languor threatens to throw me backward in my arrangements for leaving, and I have a sense of impossibility about everything that, under other conditions, would be a pleasure. I am afraid lest a fit of sadness should make me an oppression to you all; and my conclusion this morning is that I must give up the few hours' happiness of feeling your family love around me as I used to do, and simply go straight up to town with my servants.

But if Friday morning brings me better hopes I will telegraph to you, since you allow me to wait till the eleventh hour. If you receive no telegram you will understand that I am still too downhearted to venture on a visit even to those who are among the best-loved of my friends. In that case you must all make me amends for my loss by coming to see me in the old place in town.

Came to Weybridge on 31st October, and returned to the Priory on 1st November.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 8th Nov. 1879.

I came here just a week ago, and I had a superstition that you would come to me yesterday. But I used no enchantments – and so you didn't come.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1879, from the Priory.

I am very grateful to you for your kind letter. News about you all had been much desired by me; but I have now so many business letters to write that I am apt to defer such as are not absolutely necessary. The careful index is a sign of your effective industry, and I have no doubt that it will be a great help to yourself as well as to your readers. One very often needs an index to one's own writing. My chief objects are quite completed now. The Dr. Roy appointed to the studentship is held by competent persons to be the most hopeful of our young physiologists: and there is a volume of 501 pages (the last) of "Problems of Life and Mind" ready to appear next month. I am quite recovered from the ailment which made me good for little in the summer, and indeed am stronger than I ever expected to be again. People are very good to me, and I am exceptionally blessed in many ways; but more blessed are the dead who rest from their labors, and have not to dread a barren, useless survival.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th Dec. 1879, from the Priory.

I am very well, dear kind friend, all things considered. One cannot help getting occasional chills and headaches in this hard, wintry time.

Oh, yes, I read the Times with great interest, and am much concerned to know what my contemporaries are doing. My time is very fully occupied, for I have now to write a great many letters, such as used to be written for me, and I would willingly spend the time thus taken up in another sort of reading and writing.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 5th Jan. 1880.

Thank you a thousand times, my dear friend, for your tender New Year's greeting and inquiries. I have passed well from "under the saws and harrows" of the severe cold, and am better, both in apparent organic soundness and in strength for all occupation, than I once thought was possible for me.

Our dear Barbara is painting in water colors again from her window – just as of old. I know you will be glad to hear of this. And I am now seeing many other friends, who interest me and bring me reports of their several worlds. The great public calamities of the past year have helped to quiet one's murmuring spirit in relation to private sorrows, and the prospect for the future is not yet very bright. One thinks of mothers like Mrs. Ruck, whose best-loved sons are in Afghanistan. But we must live as much as we can for human joy, dwelling on sorrow and pain only so far as the consciousness of it may help us in striving to remedy them.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 19th Jan. 1880.

Life has seemed worse without my glimpses of you. And now I have not the amends of thinking that you are out of our Egyptian darkness and getting health in the country. I must drive over to ask about you as soon as I can.

As the year went on, George Eliot began to see all her old friends again. But her life was nevertheless a life of heart-loneliness. Accustomed as she had been for so many years to solitude à deux, the want of close companionship continued to be very bitterly felt. She was in the habit of going with me very frequently to the National Gallery, and to other exhibitions of pictures, to the British Museum sculptures, and to South Kensington. This constant association engrossed me completely, and was a new interest to her. A bond of mutual dependence had been formed between us. On the 28th March she came down to Weybridge and stayed till the 30th; and on the 9th April it was finally decided that our marriage should take place as soon, and as privately, as might be found practicable.

Letter to Miss Eleanor Cross, 13th April, 1880.

You can hardly think how sweet the name sister is to me, that I have not been called by for so many, many years.

Without your tenderness I do not believe it would have been possible for me to accept this wonderful renewal of my life. Nothing less than the prospect of being loved and welcomed by you all could have sustained me. But now I cherish the thought that the family life will be the richer and not the poorer through your brother's great gift of love to me.

Yet I quail a little in facing what has to be gone through – the hurting of many whom I care for. You are doing everything you can to help me, and I am full of gratitude to you all for his sake as well as my own. The springs of affection are reopened in me, and it will make me better to be among you – more loving and trustful.

I valued Florence's little visit very much. You and she will come again – will you not? – to your sister.

Letter to Frederic Harrison, 19th April, 1880.

I have found the spot in "The Prelude" where the passage I mentioned occurs. It is in book viii., "The Retrospect," towards the end:

 
"The human nature unto which I felt
That I belonged, and reverenced with love,
Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit
Diffused through time and space, with aid derived
Of evidence from monuments, erect,
Prostrate, or leaning towards their common rest
In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime
Of vanished nations."
 

The bit of brickwork in the rock is

"With aid derived from evidence."

I think you would find much to suit your purpose in "The Prelude," such as —

 
"There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble Living and the noble Dead."
 

Except for travelling, and for popular distribution, I prefer Moxon's one-volumed edition of Wordsworth to any selection. No selection gives you the perfect gems to be found in single lines, or in half a dozen lines which are to be found in the "dull" poems.