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

Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 1st Nov. 1872.

We returned yesterday evening from six weeks' absence in Germany, and I found your dear, sad letter among the many awaiting me. I prize very highly the fact that you like to write to me and bear me in your mind as one who has a certain fellowship in your sorrow; and I do trust that this letter may reach you in time to prevent you from thinking, even for a moment, that I could be indifferent about responding to any word you send me. I shall address it to the care of Blackwood & Sons, because I imagine you to be by this time in Edinburgh with that delightful friend, Mrs. Stirling, whom I had much kindness from many years ago when I was on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. George Combe. She took me to hear Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Candlish, and through her I saw Craigcrook. I like to think of those hours and her pleasant talk.

Mr. Lewes, I am thankful to say, has been getting more robust for the last two years, and is very bright and active. I think there is hardly any one left to whom he would so willingly have written or talked about the subjects which are filling his mind as that dear one who is gone from your side, but is perpetually present in your consciousness. To-day I have been reading the memorial article in Blackwood, and have been hoping that there is nothing in it which jars on your feeling. Everybody will think as I do – that the bits from your pen are worth all the rest. I have been especially moved, though, by the two stanzas quoted at the end. Mr. Lewes judges that the writer of the article did not personally know your husband, and wishes that more special touches had been given. I know, dear friend, that the sorrow is irremediable; but the pain – the anguish – will become less sharp and life will be less difficult. You will think of things to do such as he would approve of your doing, and every day will be sacred with his memory – nay, his presence. There is no pretence or visionariness in saying that he is still part of you. Mr. Lewes sends his affectionate regards, which you will not reject. We mention your name to each other with a certain tenderness, as if your sorrow somehow belonged to our love for each other. But I hardly dare to think of what these words which I have written mean. Sometimes in the midst of happiness I cry suddenly at the thought that there must come a parting. Are not you and I very near to one another? I mean in feeling.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Nov. 1872.

I found a letter from dear Mrs. William Smith on my return, and I have had another since in answer to mine. It is inevitable that her sense of loss should deepen for some time to come. I am hoping that by-and-by active interests will arise to make her feel that her life is useful.

The article in Blackwood was chiefly valuable for the extracts it contained from Mrs. Smith's own memoir. One felt that the writer of the article had not known Mr. William Smith personally; but her sketches did something to supply that defect. Mr. Lewes felt a peculiar attachment to him. He had always been thoroughly sympathetic, both morally and intellectually, and it was a constant regret to us that he and Mrs. Smith were so far away. There was no man with whom Mr. Lewes would have found it so pleasant to discuss questions of science and philosophy – his culture was so rare and his disposition so free from littleness: and his wife was worthy of him.

Gertrude's little Blanche is a charming young lady – fat, cooing, and merry. It is a great comfort to see her with this hope fulfilled – I mean to see Gertrude with her hope fulfilled, and not Blanche, as the grammar seemed to imply. That small person's hopes are at present easy of fulfilment.

We have made but one expedition since our return, and that was to see the pictures at Bethnal Green – altogether a cheering and delightful sight. Of course you saw them long ago. The Troyon is my favorite.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Nov. 1872.

I will impute your total silence towards me for many, many months to your preoccupation with the work now announced, and will not believe that a greeting from me at this time of the year will be less welcome than of old. I remember that last year one of your prettily-expressed wishes was that I should write another book and – I think you added – send it to you to read. On the strength of this remembrance, you will be one of the three exceptional people to whom we order "Middlemarch" to be sent. But do not write to me about it, because until a book has quite gone away from me and become entirely of the non-ego– gone thoroughly from the wine-press into the casks – I would rather not hear or see anything that is said about it.

Cara sent me word that you were looking, as usual, very pretty, and showing great energy on interesting occasions. But this was two months ago, and some detailed news from yourself would be a delightful gift.

I am getting stronger, and showing some meagre benefit from being indulged in all possible ways. Mr. Lewes makes a martyr of himself in writing all my notes and business letters. Is not that being a sublime husband? For all the while there are studies of his own being put aside – studies which are a seventh heaven to him.

Is there any one who does not need patience? For when one's outward lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing.

You are never long without entering into my thoughts, though you may send nothing fresh to feed them. But I am ashamed of expressing regard for my friends, since I do no earthly thing for them.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1872.

A kiss to you on your birthday! with gratitude for your delightful letter, such as only you can write me. How impossible it is to feel that we are as old as we are! Sometimes it seems a little while since you and I were walking over the Radford fields, with the youth in our limbs, talking and laughing with that easy companionship which it is difficult to find in later life. I am busy now reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript, which has been accumulating fast during my "Middlemarch" time. Did I tell you that in the last two years he has been mastering the principles of mathematics? That is an interesting fact, impersonally, at his age. Old Professor Stowe – Mrs. H. B. Stowe's husband – sent me this story, which is almost better than Topsy. He heard a school-master asking a little black girl the usual questions about creation – who made the earth, the sea, etc. At last came, "And who made you?" Some deliberation was necessary, after which she said, "Nobody; I was so afore." Expect to be immensely disappointed with the close of "Middlemarch." But look back to the Prelude. I wish I could take the wings of the morning every now and then to cheer you with an hour's chat, such as you feel the need of, and then fly back on the wings of the wind. I have the most vivid thoughts of you, almost like a bodily presence; but these do you no good, since you can only believe that I have them – and you are tired of believing after your work is done.

Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Dec. 1872.

Before your letter came, Mr. Lewes had been expressing to me his satisfaction (and he is very hard to satisfy with articles on me) in the genuineness of judgment, wise moderation, and excellent selection of points in "Maga's" review of "Middlemarch." I have just now been reading the review myself – Mr. Lewes had meant at first to follow his rule of not allowing me to see what is written about myself – and I am pleased to find the right moral note struck everywhere, both in remark and quotation. Especially I am pleased with the writer's sensibility to the pathos in Mr. Casaubon's character and position, and with the discernment he shows about Bulstrode. But it is a perilous matter to approve the praise which is given to our own doings.

I think that such an article as that which you hint at on the tone of the Bar is very desirable. We are usually at one on points of feeling. Is it not time now to insist that ability and not lying is the force of a barrister – that he has not to make himself a bad actor in order to put a case well, but to get the clearness and breadth of vision which will enable him to handle the evidence effectively? Untruthfulness usually ends by making men foolish. I have never read "Spiritual Wives," but judging from the extracts which have come before me, it must be a nasty book. Still, if people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by the disproportionateness of the condemnation which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.

I shall be agreeably surprised if there is a respectable subscription for the four volumes. Already the numbers taken have been satisfactorily large, considering the indisposition of the public to buy books by comparison with other wares, and especially to buy novels at a high price. I fancy every private copy has done duty for a circle. Friends of mine in the country have implied that they lent their copies to all the readers in their neighborhood. A little fuss of advertisement, together with the reviews, will perhaps create a few more curious inquirers after the book, and impress its existence on the slower part of the reading world. But really the reading world is, after all, very narrow, as, according to the Spectator, the "comfortable" world also is – the world able to give away a sovereign without pinching itself. Those statistics just given about incomes are very interesting.

Letter to J. W. Cross, 11th Dec. 1872.

A thousand thanks for your kind interest in our project, and for the trouble you have taken in our behalf. I fear the land buying and building²⁰ is likely to come to nothing, and our construction to remain entirely of the aerial sort. It is so much easier to imagine other people doing wise things than to do them one's self! Practically, I excel in nothing but paying twice as much as I ought for everything. On the whole, it would be better if my life could be done for me, and I could look on. However, it appears that the question of the land at Shere may remain open until we can discuss it with you at Weybridge; and there is no telling what we may not venture on with your eyes to see through.

But, oh dear, I don't like anything that is troublesome under the name of pleasure.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 12th Dec. 1872.

I have had the news that you are safely landed at Pooree, so now I can write with some courage. I have got some comfort – I trust it is not false comfort – out of the probability that there will be much good mingled with the evil of this winter's exile for you. You must be the richer for it mentally, and your health may be the better – and then, you will be back again in the late spring. In this way I make myself contented under the incompleteness of our life without you, and I am determined not to grumble at my share of the loss which falls so sadly on Dr. Congreve and the children. Dr. Congreve kindly let me know when you had got through the trials of the Red Sea, rather better than might have been expected; and Sophie tells me that you speak of the brilliant coloring in your new world as quite equal to any description you had read. Beyond that all is a blank to me except the fact of your arrival at Pooree, and all my feeling is taken up with the joy there must have been in the meeting with Mr. Geddes. You find it very difficult to write in the heat – so don't make the thought of me disagreeable by associating it with a claim on you for a letter. I will be grateful for scraps from your correspondence with home, and wait for my turn when you come back to us. For ourselves, we think our little granddaughter, Blanche, the perfection of a baby. She is, dispassionately speaking, very pretty, and has a cooing, chanting song of her own which it makes me happy to hear. Mr. Lewes goes on at his writing with as much interest as ever, and is bringing the first part of his work into its final shape. Since we came home I have been reading his manuscript, which has been piling itself up in preparation for my leisure, and I have been wearing my gravest philosophic cap. Altogether we are dangerously happy. You remember Mrs. Blank of Coventry? You know hers was another name for astonishing cleverness in that town. Now, of course, she is old, and her cleverness seems to have a mouldy flavor. Apropos of the seventh book of "Middlemarch" – which you may not have read, but never mind – Mrs. Blank, having lain awake all night from compassion for Bulstrode, said, "Poor, dear creature, after he had done so much for that wretch, sitting up at night and attending on him! and I don't believe it was the brandy that killed him– and what is to become of Bulstrode now, he has nobody left but Christ!" I think this is worth sending to India, you see; it is a little bit of old Coventry life that may make you and Emily laugh with all the more lively memory in the midst of your strange scenery. But there is a hovering terror while I write to you from far off, lest my trivialities should find you when you are ill or have some cause for being sad. In any case, however, you will take my letter for a simple proof that I dwell on you and Emily as images constantly present in my mind, and very often moving to the foreground in my contemplation. Mr. Lewes is one with me in many affectionate thoughts about you, and your names are often on our lips. We are going to pass the Christmas week with our friends at Weybridge; and I shall be glad to escape the London aspects of that season – aspects that are without any happy association for me. Mr. Lewes has just been in to speak to me, and begs me to say that he hopes baby is raised to the nth power. You see the lofty point of view from which he regards the world at present. But there is enough of the sap of affection in him to withstand all the dryness of the dryest mathematics, and he has very hearty regards for you all, including Mr. Geddes, not as a matter of course, but with special emphasis. Good-bye, dear, dear friend. May it give you some little satisfaction to think of me as yours always lovingly.

Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith, 18th Dec. 1872.

Your letter was very welcome to me. I wanted to know how you were; and I think that I discern in your words some growth of courage to face the hard task – it is a hard task – of living a separate life. I reckon it a great good to me that any writing of mine has been taken into companionship by you, and seemed to speak with you of your own experience. Thank you for telling me of that.

This weather, which is so melancholy in the privation it must cause to those who are worst off in the world, adds a little weight to everybody's griefs. But I trust that you find it a comfort, not an oppression, to be among friends who make a little claim on your attention. When you go to How, please tell me all about the place, and whom you have near you, because I like to be able to imagine your circumstances.

I have been, and am still, reading Mr. Lewes's manuscript – and I often associate this with your dear husband, to whom I imagine mine would have liked to send his proofs when the matter had reached the printing stage.

We are both very well, and Mr. Lewes is enjoying his morning at his desk. He likes very much to be included in your love, and has always thought you one of the most charming women among our acquaintance. Please not to say that he has bad taste in women. We both cherish very tender thoughts of your sorrow, dear friend. Let me always be assured that you think of me as yours affectionately.

Letter to Mr. Simpson, 18th Dec. 1872.

We have to thank you for two things especially. First, for the good bargain you have made for "Middlemarch" with Australia; and secondly, for the trouble you have kindly taken with the MS., which has come to us safely in its fine Russian coat.

The four volumes, we imagine, must have been subscribed long ago; and we should be glad to know, if it were convenient – perhaps even if it were inconvenient – what are the figures representing the courage of "the trade" in the matter of a 42s. novel, which has already been well distributed.

We both hope that your health is well confirmed, and that you are prepared for Christmas pleasures, among which you would probably, like Caleb Garth, reckon the extra "business" which the jolly season carries in its hinder wallet.

SUMMARY

JANUARY, 1869, TO DECEMBER, 1872

Poem on Agatha – Reading on Philology, "Iliad," "Faery Queen," Clough's Poems, Bright's Speeches, "Volpone," Lecture by Sir Wm. Thomson – Writing "How Lisa Loved the King" – Browning and Rector of Lincoln on Versification – Letter to Miss Hennell – Browning's "Elisha" – Fourth visit to Italy – Two months away – Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Paris – Dr. Congreve's Reply to Professor Huxley in Fortnightly– Meeting in Rome with Mrs. Bullock and Mr. and Mrs. Cross – Letter to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe – Effect of books – Religion of the future – Arrival of Thornton Lewes from Natal – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Marriage engagements of Mr. Beesley, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and Dr. Clifford Allbut – Finished five "Sonnets on Childhood" – Letter to Mrs. Stowe – "Old Town Folks" – Presentation of alien religious convictions – Spiritualism – Reading Drayton and Grote – Writing Introduction to "Middlemarch" – Reading Theocritus – Burne-Jones's Pictures – Reading Littré on Comte – Sainte Beuve – Thornton Lewes's continued illness – Visit to Mrs. Cross at Weybridge – Reading for "Middlemarch" – Asks Mrs. Congreve to get information about provincial hospitals – Letter to Miss Hennell – The Byron scandal – Byron a vulgar-minded genius – The Kovilevskys – "Legend of Jubal" begun – Mr. W. G. Clark – Reading Max Müller – Lecky and Herbert Spencer – Death of Thornton Lewes – Letter to Miss Hennell describing month's visit to Limpsfield – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Mr. Doyle – Letter to F. Harrison on the Positivist Problem – Aversion to personal statements – Shrinking from deliverances – Letter to Miss Hennell on Charles Hennell's "Inquiry" – Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Berlin – Sees Mommsen, Bunsen, and Du Bois Reymond – Visit to Vienna – Return to London – Three days' visit to the Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Mrs. Pattison – Meets Sir Benjamin Brodie – Professor Rawlinson and Professor Phillips – Dr. Rolleston and the Miss Gaskells, and Miss Arnold – Mr. Jowett, Professor Henry Smith, and Mr. Fowler – Re-reading Grove "On the Correlation of the Physical Forces" – Letter to Miss Hennell – Dickens's Death, and his story of President Lincoln – Letter to Mme. Bodichon – Visit to Cromer – Growing dislike of migratory life – Letter to Mrs. Lytton on the death of Lord Clarendon – Danger of women living too exclusively in the affections – Reading Mendelssohn's letters – From Cromer to Harrogate and Whitby – Meets Mrs. Burne-Jones there – "Armgart" begun – Three weeks' visit to Limpsfield – Letter to Miss Hennell on the beginning of the war between Germany and France – Jowett's "Plato" – Letter to Mme. Bodichon – The French nation – "Armgart" finished at Limpsfield – Return to the Priory – Letter to Miss Hennell – A popular preacher – Growing influence of ideas – Goethe's contempt for revolution of 1830 – Letter to Mme. Bodichon on the faults of one's friends – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Industrial schemes – Greater cheerfulness – Frederic Harrison on Bismarckism – Writing "Miss Brooke" – Reading Wolf's "Prolegomena to Homer" and "Wilhelm Meister" – Visit to Mme. Bodichon at Ryde – Letter to Miss Hennell – Ritualism at Ryde – Brutalizing effect of German war – Trollope's "Sir Harry Hotspur" – Limits of woman's constancy – Miss Bury's engagement to Mr. Geddes – Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor – Three and a half months' visit to Petersfield – Mode of life – Letter to Mme. Bodichon – Lowell's "My Study Windows" – "Diethelm von Buchenberg" in Deutschen Novellenschatz– Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Mrs. Geddes's marriage – Letter to John Blackwood – Relinquishment of Scott Commemoration – Captain Lockhart – Letter to John Blackwood on MS. of "Middlemarch" – Visit from Tennyson – Letter to Mrs. Lytton on death of her son – Letter to Miss Mary Cross on story in Macmillan's Magazine– Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor – Suffering from cold – Got's acting – Crystal Palace music – Letter to Mrs. Bray – Delight in intellectual activity – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Enjoyment of Cherrimans – Letter to John Blackwood – Visit to Weybridge – Mr. Main, the collector of the "Sayings" – Reception of "Middlemarch" – Letters to Miss Hennell – Foster's "Life of Dickens" – Low health – Tichborne trial – Letters to John Blackwood: pleased with the "Sayings" – Visit to Weybridge – Length of "Middlemarch" – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Reading Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" – Finished second volume of "Middlemarch" – Letter to Mrs. Stowe – Spiritualistic phenomena – Letter to John Blackwood – German and French interest in "Middlemarch" – Asher's edition – German readers – Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on death of Mazzini – Letter to Miss Hennell – Low health – Letter to Mrs. Stowe – Spirit communications – Letter to Mrs. Congreve on Wallace's "Eastern Archipelago" – Tylor's "Primitive Culture" – Letter to John Blackwood – "Middlemarch" finished – Letter to Mrs. Cross on invitation to Six-Mile Bottom, Cambridge – Month's visit to Homburg – Letter to Mrs. Cross – Trèves – On gambling at Homburg – Letter to John Blackwood – Play of a young lady at Homburg – German reading – Letter to Mrs. Cross from Boulogne – Letter to Mrs. Wm. Smith of condolence on loss of her husband – Memorial article on Mr. Wm. Smith – Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor on Mr. Wm. Smith – Letters to Miss Hennell – Presentation copies of "Middlemarch" – Mr. Lewes studying mathematics – Letter to John Blackwood – "Maga's" review of "Middlemarch" – Tone of the Bar – Letter to J. W. Cross on building a house at Shere – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Happiness – Story of Coventry lady and Bulstrode – Letter to Mr. Simpson – MS. of "Middlemarch."