The Life of George Eliot, by George Eliot, J. W. Cross.

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The Life of George Eliot,

by George Eliot, J. W. Cross.

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Unlike the other writings about George Eliot included in most of the other collections of complete works of George Eliot, this work isn't from a fan, brimming over with syrupy adjectives, but genuine article composed and edited by her husband J. W. Cross, showing a person through her own writings, such as letters from her,

"With the materials in my hands I have endeavored to form an autobiography (if the term may be permitted) of George Eliot. The life has been allowed to write itself in extracts from her letters and journals. Free from the obtrusion of any mind but her own, this method serves, I think, better than any other open to me, to show the development of her intellect and character."

Cross, the co-author of this autobiography, was her last, and if legality counts, the first and only husband; George Eliot and her lifelong husband, George Lewes, had lived together as a married couple, until his death; his wife had left with someone, returned, and left again, this time for ever. Why he was unable to divorce her has more to do with the laws of the time that, coupled with gentleman's code of chivalry, had a good many stage being discovered with another woman, one who was paid only for such discovery and no more. Lewes presumably did not wish to go through that, and their friends accepted them - George Lewes and George Eliot - as a married couple.

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Some point, when she's famous, she cars about people not buying her books, about cheap editions, etc.

"It is rather a vexatious kind of tribute when people write, as my American correspondent did, to tell me of one paper-covered American copy of "Felix Holt" brought to Europe and serving for so many readers that it was in danger of being worn away under their hands. He, good man, finds it easy "to urge greater circulation by means of cheap sale," having "found so many friends in Ireland anxious but unable to obtain the book." I suppose putting it in a yellow cover with figures on it, reminding one of the outside of a show, and charging a shilling for it, is what we are expected to do for the good of mankind. Even then I fear it would hardly bear the rivalry of "The Pretty Milliner," or of "The Horrible Secret."

It's strange that someone who wasn't born exactly to wealth, and had known about having to economize, and, moreover, wrote about poverty, workers, at al, goes on yo carp about people evonomising about buying books, and disdain cheaper editions if her works to be sold st railway stations!

Or was her economy merely relative, and her writing about poor, mere fashion? If not, why didn't she comprehend instantly, that people who can't afford handsomely bound library editions coukd still appreciate good books? That education shouldn't be restricted to rich, and that Ireland was fleeced by British, as were colonies?

But for pocket editions of excellent books sold cheap on sidewalk of Mumbai, or in book exhibition held by central government of India in Delhi, or the excellent Delhi public libraries and a private library or two in Mumbai - life wouldn't be quite the same.

Yes, those who can afford a private library, often don't buy books because they've no time to read, or no inclination, or both. But isn't it better to make it possible for those who have the inclination and will find time, to read without starving, rather than hoping rich would learn? Or worse, that rich would have private libraries because it's de rigour for status, whether they open any book on their shelves - stacked beautifully by the interior designer with specially ordered complete sets - or never think of it, through their lives?

She wrote of Silas Marner and his bringing up a baby girl. Would it be so bad if they could read her books? Whether due to a cheap edition, or a public (or private circulating) library, or borrowing from a neighbour?

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Table of Contents

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

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VOLUME 1

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF CHILDHOOD.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

APPENDIX.

VOLUME 2

Table of Contents

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

VOLUME 3

Table of Contents

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

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Review

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VOLUME 1

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PREFACE.

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"In dealing with the correspondence I have been influenced by the desire to make known the woman, as well as the author, through the presentation of her daily life.

"On the intellectual side there remains little to be learned by those who already know George Eliot's books. In the twenty volumes which she wrote and published in her lifetime will be found her best and ripest thoughts. The letters now published throw light on another side of her nature—not less important, but hitherto unknown to the public—the side of the affections.

"The intimate life was the core of the root from which sprung the fairest flowers of her inspiration. Fame came to her late in life, and, when it presented itself, was so weighted with the sense of responsibility that it was in truth a rose with many thorns, for George Eliot had the temperament that shrinks from the position of a public character. The belief in the wide, and I may add in the beneficent, effect of her writing was no doubt the highest happiness, the reward of the artist which she greatly cherished: but the joys of the hearthside, the delight in the love of her friends, were the supreme pleasures in her life."

"Excepting a slight introductory sketch of the girlhood, up to the time when letters became available, and a few words here and there to elucidate the correspondence, I have confined myself to the work of selection and arrangement.

"I have refrained almost entirely from quoting remembered sayings by George Eliot, because it is difficult to be certain of complete accuracy, and everything depends upon accuracy. Recollections of conversation are seldom to be implicitly trusted in the absence of notes made at the time. The value of spoken words depends, too, so much upon the tone, and on the circumstances which gave rise to their utterance, that they often mislead as much as they enlighten, when, in the process of repetition, they have taken color from another mind. "All interpretations depend upon the interpreter," and I have judged it best to let George Eliot be her own interpreter, as far as possible."

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INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF CHILDHOOD.

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""Nov. 22, 1819.—Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm,1 at five o'clock this morning.""

It's an interesting little detail, that Jane Austen died, young by the standards of today in her early forties, around this time; a few months short of two years before George Eliot was born, to be more exact.

" ... The father was a remarkable man, and many of the leading traits in his character are to be found in Adam Bede and in Caleb Garth—although, of course, neither of these is a portrait. ... "

Unlike Jane, during whose life much of these events happened, but none reflect in any of her writings, not what was available to public, anyway, George Eliot was influenced by the tumultuous events across Europe, according to Cross.

"Let us remember what the England was upon which this observant child opened her eyes.

"The date of her birth was removed from the beginning of the French Revolution by just the same period of time as separates a child, born this year, 1884, from the beginning of the Crimean War. To a man of forty-six to-day, the latter event seems but of yesterday. It took place at a very impressionable period of his life, and the remembrance of every detail is perfectly vivid. Mr. Evans was forty-six when his youngest child was born. He was a youth of sixteen when the Revolution began, and that mighty event, with all its consequences, had left an indelible impression on him, and the convictions and conclusions it had fostered in his mind permeated through to his children, and entered as an indestructible element into the susceptible soul of his youngest daughter. There are bits in the paper "Looking Backward," in "Theophrastus Such," which are true autobiography."

Yes, a good deal of it gives that feeling.

"" ... That part of my father's prime to which he oftenest referred had fallen on the days when the great wave of political enthusiasm and belief in a speedy regeneration of all things had ebbed, and the supposed millennial initiative of France was turning into a Napoleonic empire. … To my father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary doctrine were, to speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the scoundrel; the welfare of the nation lay in a strong government which could maintain order; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word 'government' in a tone that charged it with awe, and made it part of my effective religion, in contrast with the word 'rebel,' which seemed to carry the stamp of evil in its syllables, and, lit by the fact that Satan was the first rebel, made an argument dispensing with more detailed inquiry.""

"The year 1819 is memorable as a culminating period of bad times and political discontent in England. The nation was suffering acutely from the reaction after the excitement of the last Napoleonic war. George IV. did not come to the throne till January, 1820, so that George Eliot was born in the reign of George III. The trial of Queen Caroline was the topic of absorbing public interest. Waterloo was not yet an affair of five years old. Byron had four years, and Goethe had thirteen years, still to live. The last of Miss Austen's novels had been published only eighteen months, and the first of the Waverley series only six years before. Thackeray and Dickens were boys at school, and George Sand, as a girl of fifteen, was leaving her loved freedom on the banks of the Indre for the Convent des Anglaises at Paris. That "Greater Britain" (Canada and Australia), which to-day forms so large a reading public, was then scarcely more than a geographical expression, with less than half a million of inhabitants, all told, where at present there are eight millions; and in the United States, where more copies of George Eliot's books are now sold than in any other quarter of the world, the population then numbered less than ten millions where to-day it is fifty-five millions. Including Great Britain, these English-speaking races have increased from thirty millions in 1820 to one hundred millions in 1884; and with the corresponding increase in education we can form some conception how a popular English writer's fame has widened its circle.

"There was a remoteness about a detached country-house, in the England of those days, difficult for us to conceive now, with our railways, penny-post, and telegraphs; nor is the Warwickshire country about Griff an exhilarating surrounding. There are neither hills nor vales, no rivers, lakes, or sea—nothing but a monotonous succession of green fields and hedgerows, with some fine trees. The only water to be seen is the "brown canal." The effect of such a landscape on an ordinary observer is not inspiring, but "effective magic is transcendent nature;" and with her transcendent nature George Eliot has transfigured these scenes, dear to Midland souls, into many an idyllic picture, known to those who know her books. In her childhood the great event of the day was the passing of the coach before the gate of Griff House, which lies at a bend of the high-road between Coventry and Nuneaton, and within a couple of miles of the mining village of Bedworth ... "

Cross gives a description of the land and people, familar from reading, perhaps from Felix Holt, but coukd be from another work. There is a lovely picture of her childhood home, Griff House.

" ... Her roots were down in the pre-railroad, pre-telegraphic period—the days of fine old leisure—but the fruit was formed during an era of extraordinary activity in scientific and mechanical discovery. Her genius was the outcome of these conditions. It would not have existed in the same form deprived of either influence. ... "

Cross gives interesting stories of her father.

"Mr. Evans was also, like Adam Bede, noteworthy for his extraordinary physical strength and determination of character. There is a story told of him, that one day when he was travelling on the top of a coach, down in Kent, a decent woman sitting next him complained that a great hulking sailor on her other side was making himself offensive. Mr. Evans changed places with the woman, and, taking the sailor by the collar, forced him down under the seat, and held him there with an iron hand for the remainder of the stage: and at Griff it is still remembered that the master, happening to pass one day while a couple of laborers were waiting for a third to help to move the high, heavy ladder used for thatching ricks, braced himself up to a great effort, and carried the ladder alone and unaided from one rick to the other, to the wide-eyed wonder and admiration of his men. With all this strength, however, both of body and of character, he seems to have combined a certain self-distrust, owing, perhaps, to his early imperfect education, which resulted in a general submissiveness in his domestic relations, more or less portrayed in the character of Mr. Garth.

"His second wife was a woman with an unusual amount of natural force; a shrewd, practical person, with a considerable dash of the Mrs. Poyser vein in her. Hers was an affectionate, warm-hearted nature, and her children, on whom she cast "the benediction of her gaze," were thoroughly attached to her. She came of a race of yeomen, and her social position was, therefore, rather better than her husband's at the time of their marriage. Her family are, no doubt, prototypes of the Dodsons in the "Mill on the Floss." There were three other sisters married, and all living in the neighborhood of Griff—Mrs. Everard, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Garner—and probably Mr. Evans heard a good deal about "the traditions in the Pearson family." Mrs. Evans was a very active, hard-working woman, but shortly after her last child's birth she became ailing in health, and consequently her eldest girl, Christiana, was sent to school, at a very early age, to Miss Lathom's, at Attleboro, a village a mile or two from Griff, while the two younger children spent some part of their time every day at the cottage of a Mrs. Moore, who kept a dame's school close to Griff gates. ... "

" ... They had everything to make children happy at Griff—a delightful old-fashioned garden, a pond and the canal to fish in, and the farm-offices close to the house, "the long cow-shed, where generations of the milky mothers have stood patiently, the broad-shouldered barns, where the old-fashioned flail once made resonant music," and where butter-making and cheese-making were carried on with great vigor by Mrs. Evans."

She was known for intelligence, and proficiency in various subjects, at school.

" ... In her classes for English Composition Mary Ann Evans was, from her first entering the school, far in advance of the rest; and while the themes of the other children were read, criticised, and corrected in class, hers were reserved for the private perusal and enjoyment of the teacher, who rarely found anything to correct. Her enthusiasm for music was already very strongly marked, and her music-master, a much-tried man, suffering from the irritability incident to his profession, reckoned on his hour with her as a refreshment to his wearied nerves, and soon had to confess that he had no more to teach her. ... "

"In talking about these early days, my wife impressed on my mind the debt she felt that she owed to the Miss Franklins for their excellent instruction, and she had also the very highest respect for their moral qualities. With her chameleon-like nature she soon adopted their religious views with intense eagerness and conviction, although she never formally joined the Baptists or any other communion than the Church of England. She at once, however, took a foremost place in the school, and became a leader of prayer-meetings among the girls. In addition to a sound English education the Miss Franklins managed to procure for their pupils excellent masters for French, German, and music; so that, looking to the lights of those times, the means of obtaining knowledge were very much above the average for girls. ... "

"This year, 1832, was not only memorable for the change to a new and superior school, but it was also much more memorable to George Eliot for the riot which she saw at Nuneaton, on the occasion of the election for North Warwickshire, after the passing of the great Reform Bill, and which subsequently furnished her with the incidents for the riot in "Felix Holt." ... "

Cross quotes a newspaper report. Military had to be called, and found mob hard to control.

""On Saturday the mob presented an appalling appearance, and but for the forbearance of the soldiery numerous lives would have fallen a sacrifice. Several of the officers of the Scots Greys were materially hurt in their attempt to quell the riotous proceedings of the mob. During the day the sub-sheriffs at the different booths received several letters from the friends of Mr. Dugdale, stating that they were outside of the town, and anxious to vote for that gentleman, but were deterred from entering it from fear of personal violence. Two or three unlucky individuals, drawn from the files of the military on their approach to the poll, were cruelly beaten, and stripped literally naked. We regret to add that one life has been sacrificed during the contest, and that several misguided individuals have been seriously injured.""

George Eliot describes a scene similar in Felix Holt, and it's obvious when one reads it that it wasn't from imagination, nevertheless it's horrifying how close it was to reality, and that she was softer in her description.

""You may try, but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl."6 This is a point of view that must be distinctly recognized by any one attempting to follow the development of George Eliot's character, and it will always be corrected by the other point of view which she has made so prominent in all her own writing—the soothing, strengthening, sacred influences of the home life, the home loves, the home duties."

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CHAPTER I.

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" ... life will be related in her own letters; or, rather, in extracts from her own letters, for no single letter is printed entire from the beginning to the end. ... "

"Mr. Isaac Evans himself tells me that what he remembers chiefly impressed her was the first hearing the great bell of St. Paul's. It affected her deeply. At that time she was so much under the influence of religious and ascetic ideas that she would not go to any of the theatres with her brother, but spent all her evenings alone, reading. A characteristic reminiscence is that the chief thing she wanted to buy was Josephus's "History of the Jews;" and at the same bookshop her brother got her this he bought for himself a pair of hunting sketches. ... "

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"Letter to Mrs. Samuel Evans, 5th Mch. 1839."

" ... The unprofitableness you lament in yourself, during your visit to us, had its true cause, not in your lukewarmness, but in the little improvement I sought to derive from your society, and in my lack of humility and Christian simplicity, that makes me willing to obtain credit for greater knowledge and deeper feeling than I really possess. Instead of putting my light under a bushel, I am in danger of ostentatiously displaying a false one. You have much too high an opinion, my dear aunt, of my spiritual condition, and of my personal and circumstantial advantages. ... "

Cross prints here George Eliot's poem "Farewell", written and sent in a letter, and using her own initials, published with a comment by editors.

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 4th Sept. 1839."

" ... My mind presents just such an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern; scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton; newspaper topics; morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology, and chemistry; reviews and metaphysics—all arrested and petrified and smothered by the fast-thickening every-day accession of actual events, relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations. How deplorably and unaccountably evanescent are our frames of mind, as various as the forms and hues of the summer clouds! A single word is sometimes enough to give an entirely new mould to our thoughts—at least, I find myself so constituted; and therefore to me it is pre-eminently important to be anchored within the veil, so that outward things may be unable to send me adrift. Write to me as soon as you can. Remember Michaelmas is coming, and I shall be engaged in matters so nauseating to me that it will be a charity to console me; to reprove and advise me no less."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 22d Nov. 1839."

" ... I have been so self-indulgent as to possess myself of Wordsworth at full length, and I thoroughly like much of the contents of the first three volumes, which I fancy are only the low vestibule of the three remaining ones. I never before met with so many of my own feelings expressed just as I could like them. The distress of the lower classes in our neighborhood is daily increasing, from the scarcity of employment for weavers, and I seem sadly to have handcuffed myself by unnecessary expenditure. To-day is my 20th birthday."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st May, 1840."

" ... I think there must be a break in the chart after the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, and I have come to a determination not to carry it beyond the first acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Pope by Phocas, in 606, when Mohammedanism became a besom of destruction in the hand of the Lord, and completely altered the aspect of ecclesiastical history. ... But it appears to me that there is unfairness in arbitrarily selecting a train of circumstances and a set of characters as a development of a class of opinions. In this way we might make atheism appear wonderfully calculated to promote social happiness. I remember, as I dare say you do, a very amiable atheist depicted by Bulwer in "Devereux;" and for some time after the perusal of that book, which I read seven or eight years ago, I was considerably shaken by the impression that religion was not a requisite to moral excellence."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th July, 1840.

"I believe it is decided that father and I should leave Griff and take up our residence somewhere in the neighborhood of Coventry, if we can obtain a suitable house, and this is at present a matter of anxiety. So you see I am likely still to have a home where I can independently welcome you. I am really so plunged in an abyss of books, preserves, and sundry important trivialities, that I must send you this bare proof that I have not cast the remembrance of you to a dusty corner of my heart. Ever believe that "my heart is as thy heart," that you may rely on me as a second self, and that I shall, with my usual selfishness, lose no opportunity of gratifying my duplicate."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st Oct. 1840."

" ... I have made an alteration in my plans with Mr. Brezzi, and shall henceforward take Italian and German alternately, so that I shall not be liable to the consciousness of having imperative employment for every interstice of time. There seems a greater affinity between German and my mind than Italian, though less new to me, possesses.

"I am reading Schiller's "Maria Stuart," and Tasso."

"Would not a parcel reach you by railway?"

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 27th Oct. 1840."

" ... Carlyle says that to the artisans of Glasgow the world is not one of blue skies and a green carpet, but a world of copperas-fumes, low cellars, hard wages, "striking," and whiskey; and if the recollection of this picture did not remind me that gratitude should be my reservoir of feeling, that into which all that comes from above or around should be received as a source of fertilization for my soul, I should give a lachrymose parody of the said description, and tell you all-seriously what I now tell you playfully, that mine is too often a world such as Wilkie can so well paint, a walled-in world furnished with all the details which he remembers so accurately, and the least interesting part whereof is often what I suppose must be designated the intelligent; but I deny that it has even a comparative claim to the appellation, for give me a three-legged stool, and it will call up associations—moral, poetical, mathematical—if I do but ask it, while some human beings have the odious power of contaminating the very images that are enshrined as our soul's arcana. ... We should aim to be like a plant in the chamber of sickness—dispensing purifying air even in a region that turns all pale its verdure, and cramps its instinctive propensity to expand. Society is a wide nursery of plants, where the hundreds decompose to nourish the future ten, after giving collateral benefits to their contemporaries destined for a fairer garden. ... Events are now so momentous, and the elements of society in so chemically critical a state, that a drop seems enough to change its whole form."

"I am reading eclectically Mrs. Hemans's poems, and venture to recommend to your perusal, if unknown to you, one of the longest ones—"The Forest Sanctuary." I can give it my pet adjective—exquisite."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 21st Dec. 1840.

"It is impossible, to me at least, to be poetical in cold weather. I understand the Icelanders have much national poetry, but I guess it was written in the neighborhood of the boiling springs. I will promise to be as cheerful and as Christmas-like as my rickety body and chameleon-like spirits will allow. I am about to commence the making of mince-pies, with all the interesting sensations characterizing young enterprise or effort."

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CHAPTER II.

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"New circumstances now created a change almost amounting to a revolution in Miss Evans's life. Mr. Isaac Evans, who had been associated for some time with his father in the land-agency business, married, and it was arranged that he should take over the establishment at Griff. This led to the removal in March, 1841, of Mr. Robert Evans and his daughter to a house on the Foleshill road, in the immediate neighborhood of Coventry. The house is still standing, although considerably altered—a semi-detached house with a good bit of garden round it, and from its upper windows a wide view over the surrounding country, the immediate foreground being unfortunately, however, disfigured by the presence of mills and chimneys. It is town life now instead of country life, and we feel the effects at once in the tone of the subsequent letters. The friendships now formed with Mr. and Mrs. Bray and Miss Sara Hennell particularly, and the being brought within reach of a small circle of cultivated people generally, render this change of residence an exceedingly important factor in George Eliot's development. It chanced that the new house was next door to Mrs. Pears', a sister of Mr. Bray, and as there had been some acquaintance in days gone by between him and the family at Griff, this close neighborhood led to an exchange of visits. ... "

Cross here gives another picture, one of the new house. It's unclear if any of the three pictures given so far are photographs, or are all sketches, but they're well done if latter.

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, Saturday evening, April, 1841.

"Last evening I mentioned you to my neighbor (Mrs. Pears), who is growing into the more precious character of a friend. I have seriously to be thankful for far better health than I have possessed, I think, for years, and I am imperatively called on to trade diligently with this same talent. ... "

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 28th April, 1841.

"One of the penalties women must pay for modern deference to their intellect is, I suppose, that they must give reasons for their conduct, after the fashion of men. The days are past for pleading a woman's reason. The truth is, that the hinderances to my writing have been like the little waves of the brooks that look so lovely just now—they have arisen one after another close to my side, but when I have looked back I have found the ripples too insignificant to be marked in the distance. My father's longer séjours at home than formerly, and multiplied acquaintances and engagements, are really valid excuses for me hitherto, but I do not intend to need them in future; I hope to be a "snapper-up of unconsidered" moments. I have just been interrupted by a visit from a lass of fourteen, who has despoiled me of half an hour, and I am going out to dinner, so that I cannot follow the famous advice, "Hasten slowly." I suppose that you framed your note on the principle that a sharp and sudden sound is the most rousing, but there are addenda about yourself that I want to know, though I dare not ask for them. I do not feel settled enough to write more at present. How is it that Erasmus could write volumes on volumes and multifarious letters besides, while I, whose labors hold about the same relation to his as an ant-hill to a pyramid or a drop of dew to the ocean, seem too busy to write a few? A most posing query!"

"Letter to Miss Lewis, Thursday morning, June, 1841.

"I have of late felt a depression that has disordered the vision of my mind's eye and made me alive to what is certainly a fact (though my imagination when I am in health is an adept at concealing it), that I am alone in the world. I do not mean to be so sinful as to say that I have not friends most undeservedly kind and tender, and disposed to form a far too favorable estimate of me, but I mean that I have no one who enters into my pleasures or my griefs, no one with whom I can pour out my soul, no one with the same yearnings, the same temptations, the same delights as myself. I merely mention this as the impression that obtrudes itself when my body tramples on its keeper—(a metaphor borrowed from a menagerie of wild beasts, if it should happen to puzzle you!)—mysterious "connection exquisite of distant worlds" that we present! A few drops of steel will perhaps make me laugh at the simple objects that, in gloom and mist, I conjure into stalking apparitions."

"Letter to Miss Lewis, at Margate, 31st July, 1841.

"I am beginning to be interlaced with multiplying ties of duty and affection, that, while they render my new home happier, forbid me to leave it on a pleasure-seeking expedition. I think, indeed, that both my heart and limbs would leap to behold the great and wide sea—that old ocean on which man can leave no trace."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 3d Sept. 1841.

"I have been revelling in Nichol's "Architecture of the Heavens and Phenomena of the Solar System," and have been in imagination winging my flight from system to system, from universe to universe, trying to conceive myself in such a position and with such a visual faculty as would enable me to enjoy what Young enumerates among the novelties of the "Stranger" man when he bursts the shell to

""Behold an infinite of floating worlds

"Divide the crystal waves of ether pure

"In endless voyage without port."

""Hospitable infinity!" Nichol beautifully says."

Here one might miss a little stumble.

" ... I am more impressed than ever with a truth beautifully expressed in "Woman's Mission"—"Learning is only so far valuable as it serves to enlarge and enlighten the bounds of conscience." ... "

Shouldn't that consciousness, rather? But the writer of "Woman's Mission", and George Eliot, both are rather thinking of their adherence and ties to church.

" ... This I believe it eminently does when pursued humbly and piously, and from a belief that it is a solemn duty to cultivate every faculty of our nature so far as primary obligations allow. ... "

But she veers away soon enough, thankfully.

" ... I am violently in love with the Italian fashion of repeating an adjective or adverb, and even noun, to give force to expression: there is so much more fire in it than in our circumlocutory phrases, our dull "verys" and "exceedinglys" and "extremelys." I strongly recommend Hallam to you. I shall read it again if I live. When a sort of haziness comes over the mind, making one feel weary of articulated or written signs of ideas, does not the notion of a less laborious mode of communication, of a perception approaching more nearly to intuition, seem attractive? Nathless, I love words: they are the quoits, the bows, the staves that furnish the gymnasium of the mind. Without them, in our present condition, our intellectual strength would have no implements. I have been rather humbled in thinking that if I were thrown on an uncivilized island, and had to form a literature for its inhabitants from my own mental stock, how very fragmentary would be the information with which I could furnish them! It would be a good mode of testing one's knowledge to set one's self the task of writing sketches of all subjects that have entered into one's studies entirely from the chronicles of memory. The prevalence of misery and want in this boasted nation of prosperity and glory is appalling, and really seems to call us away from mental luxury. O to be doing some little towards the regeneration of this groaning, travailing creation! I am supine and stupid—overfed with favors—while the haggard looks and piercing glance of want and conscious hopelessness are to be seen in the streets."

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 1st Oct. 1841.

"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

"Letter to Miss Lewis, 2d Nov. 1841.

"I am going, I hope, to-day to effect a breach in the thick wall of indifference behind which the denizens of Coventry seem inclined to intrench themselves; but I fear I shall fail."

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"This probably refers to the first visit paid by Miss Evans to Mr. and Mrs. Bray at their house. They had met in the previous May at Mrs. Pears'; but although they were at once mutually attracted, the acquaintance does not seem to have been immediately prosecuted further. Now, however, any time lost in the beginning was quickly made up, and it is astonishing how rapidly the most intimate relations were formed. Mr. Bray was a ribbon-manufacturer, well-to-do at that time, and had a charming house, Rosehill, with a beautiful lawn and garden, in the outskirts of Coventry. ... He had married Miss Caroline Hennell, sister of the Mr. Charles Hennell who published, in 1838, "An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity"—a remarkable book, which was translated into German, Strauss contributing a preface to the translation. It will be seen from subsequent letters how greatly Miss Evans was interested in this book—how much she admired it; and the reading of it, combined with the association with her new friends—with the philosophical speculations of Mr. Bray, and with Mrs. Bray's sympathy in her brother's critical and sceptical standpoint—no doubt hastened the change in her attitude towards the dogmas of the old religion. In the Analytical Catalogue of Mr. Chapman's publications, issued in 1852, there is an analysis of Hennell's "Inquiry," done by Miss Evans, which may be inserted here, as giving her idea of the book eleven years later.

""The first edition of this work appeared in 1838, when the present strong current of public opinion in favor of free religious discussion had not yet set in; and it probably helped to generate the tone of thought exhibited in more recent works of the same class, to which circumstances have given a wider fame—works which, like the above, in considering questions of Biblical criticism and the philosophy of Christianity, combine high refinement, purity of aim, and candor, with the utmost freedom of investigation, and with a popularity of style which wins them the attention not only of the learned but of the practical."

" ... This historical sketch, which is under the disadvantage of presenting, synthetically, ideas based on a subsequent analysis, is intended to meet the difficulty so often urged, and which might be held to nullify the value of a critical investigation, that Christianity is a fact for which, if the supposition of a miraculous origin be rejected, no adequate and probable causes can be assigned, and that thus, however defective may be the evidence of the New-Testament history, its acceptance is the least difficult alternative.

""In the writer's view, the characteristics of the Essene sect, as traced by Josephus and Philo, justify the supposition that Jesus was educated in their school of philosophy; but with the elevated belief and purity of life which belonged to this sect he united the ardent patriotic ideas which had previously animated Judas of Galilee, who resisted the Roman authority on the ground that God was the only ruler and lord of the Jews. The profound consciousness of genius, a religious fervor which made the idea of the divine ever present to him, patriotic zeal, and a spirit of moral reform, together with a participation in the enthusiastic belief of his countrymen that the long-predicted exaltation of Israel was at hand, combined to produce in the mind of Jesus the gradual conviction that he was himself the Messiah, with whose reign that exaltation would commence. He began, as John the Baptist had already done, to announce 'the kingdom of heaven,' a phrase which, to the Jewish mind, represented the national glorification of Israel; and by his preaching, and the influence of his powerful personality, he won multitudes in Galilee to a participation in his belief that he was the expected Son of David. His public entrance into Jerusalem in the guise which tradition associated with the Messiah, when he sanctioned the homage of the multitude, was probably the climax of his confidence that a great demonstration of divine power, in concurrence with popular enthusiasm, would seat him triumphantly on the throne of David. ... "

So far, good, but now, the author of the book being discussed by George Eliot, sticks to the antisemitic twist given by church after unifying with Rome.

" ... No such result appearing, his views of the divine dispensation with respect to himself began to change, and he felt the presentiment that he must enter on his Messianic reign through the gates of suffering and death. Viewing Jesus as a pretender not only to spiritual but to political power, as one who really expected the subversion of the existing government to make way for his own kingship (though he probably relied on divine rather than on human means), he must necessarily have appeared in a dangerous light to those of his countrymen who were in authority, and who were anxious at any price to preserve public tranquillity in the presence of the Roman power, ready to visit with heavy vengeance any breach of order, and to deprive them of the last remnants of their independence; and hence the motives for his arrest and execution. To account for the belief of the disciples in the resurrection of their Master—a belief which appears to have been sincere—the author thinks it necessary to suppose a certain nucleus of fact, and this he finds in the disappearance of the body of Jesus, a point attested by all the four evangelists. The secret of this disappearance probably lay with Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, who were anxious to avoid implicating themselves with that fermentation of regretful enthusiasm to which a resort of the disciples to the grave might give rise. ..."

This seems far more believable than alternatives and general picture discussed by either Strauss or Feuerbach, in books translated by George Eliot.

" ... Animated by a belief in the resurrection, which, being more harmless in the eyes of the authorities than that in a living Messiah, they were permitted to preach with little molestation; the zeal of the disciples won many converts; a new impulse was given to their cause by the accession of Paul, who became the chief missionary of the new faith, as construed by himself, to the Gentiles; and the concurrence of the causes indicated above, modifying the early creed of the apostles, and blending it with trains of thought already prevalent, bore along Christianity in its conquest over the minds of men until it became the dominant religion of the Roman world.

""Having sought to show, in this preliminary sketch, that a belief in miracles is not entailed on us by the fact of the early growth of Christianity, the author enters on the inquiry whether the claims of the evangelical writers on our credence are such as to sustain the miraculous part of their narratives. The answer is in the negative. He discusses, first, the date and credibility of each Gospel, and concludes that while Matthew has many marvellous stories, incongruous in themselves, and not only unsupported but contradicted by the other evangelists, he nevertheless presents the most comprehensible account of the career of Jesus; that in Mark, evidently more remote in time and circumstances, both from his events and from Jewish modes of thought, the idea conveyed of Jesus is much vaguer and less explicable; that in Luke there is a still further modification of his character, which has acquired a tinge of asceticism; while in John the style of his teaching is wholly changed, and instead of the graphic parable and the pithy apothegm, he utters long, mystical discourses in the style of the first epistle bearing the name of the same evangelist. Mr. Hennell, however, adheres to the conclusion that the substance of this Gospel came from the apostle John at an advanced age, when both the events of his early manhood and the scenes of his native land lay in the far distance. The writer then enters on a special examination of the Resurrection and Ascension, and the other miracles in the Gospels and the Acts, and inquires how far they are sustained by the apostolic Epistles. He examines the prophecies of the Old Testament supposed to have been fulfilled in Jesus, and also the predictions of Jesus himself concerning his death and resurrection; and, finally, he considers the character, views, and doctrine of Christ. According to him, an impartial study of the conduct and sayings of Jesus, as exhibited in the Gospels, produces the conviction that he was an enthusiast and a revolutionist, no less than a reformer and a moral and religious teacher. Passages are adduced from the Old Testament, and from the apocryphal and rabbinical writings, to show that there is scarcely anything absolutely original in the teaching of Jesus; but, in the opinion of the author, he manifests a freedom and individuality in the use of his materials, and a general superiority of tone and selection, which, united with the devotion of his life to what he held the highest purpose, mark him to be of an order of minds occurring but at rare intervals in the history of our race."

""Shortly after the appearance of this work it was translated into German through the instrumentality of Dr. Strauss, who, in the preface he prefixed to it, says: 'Not sufficiently acquainted with German to read continuously a learned work in that language, the labors of our theologians were only accessible to him' (the author of the 'Inquiry') 'so far as they were written in Latin, or translated into English, or treated of in English writings or periodicals: especially he is unacquainted with what the Germans have effected in the criticism of the gospels since Schleiermacher's work on Luke, and even the earlier commentators he knows but imperfectly. Only so much the more remarkable is it, however, that both in the principles and in the main results of his investigation, he is on the very track which has been entered on among us in recent years. … That at certain periods, certain modes of thought lie as it were in the atmosphere, … and come to light in the most remote places without perceptible media of communication, is shown, not only by the contents, but by the spirit, of Mr. Hennell's work. No further traces of the ridicule and scorn which characterize his countrymen of the deistical school; the subject is treated in the earnest and dignified tone of the truth-seeker, not with the rancor of a passionate polemic; we nowhere find him deriving religion from priestcraft, but from the tendencies and wants of human nature. … These elevated views, which the learned German of our day appropriates as the fruit of the religious and scientific advancement of his nation, this Englishman, to whom most of the means at our command were wanting, has been able to educe entirely from himself. … An Englishman, a merchant, a man of the world, he possesses, both by nature and by training, the practical insight, the sure tact, which lays hold on realities. The solution of problems over which the German flutters with many circuits of learned formulæ, our English author often succeeds in seizing at one spring. … To the learned he often presents things under a surprisingly new aspect; to the unlearned, invariably under that which is the most comprehensible and attractive.'""

This whole sequence explains George Eliot translating Strauss's related work, and that of Feuerbach.

"The reading of Mr. Hennell's book no doubt marks an epoch in George Eliot's development; but probably there had been a good deal of half-unconscious preparation beforehand (as indicated by Mrs. Cash's remarks on Isaac Taylor's work, in the last chapter), which was greatly stimulated now by the contact with new minds. ... "

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"Letter to Miss Lewis, 8th Dec. 1841.

"What a pity that while mathematics are indubitable, immutable, and no one doubts the properties of a triangle or a circle, doctrines infinitely important to man are buried in a charnel-heap of bones over which nothing is heard but the barks and growls of contention! ... "

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"The conclusion of the matter was that Mr. Evans withdrew his house from the agent's hands, and his daughter went to stay at Griff, with Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Evans, whence she writes the following letter to Mrs. Pears:"

"Letter to Mrs. Pears, Thursday, Mch. 1842."

" ... I am not inclined to be sanguine as to my dear father's future determination, and I sometimes have an intensely vivid consciousness, which I only allow to be a fleeting one, of all that is painful and that has been so. I can only learn that my father has commenced his alterations at Packington, but he only appears to be temporarily acquiescing in my brother's advice "not to be in a hurry." I do not intend to remain here longer than three weeks, or, at the very farthest, a month; and, if I am not then recalled, I shall write for definite directions. I must have a home, not a visiting-place. I wish you would learn something from my father, and send me word how he seems disposed. ... I had a note from Mrs. Bray this morning, and I liked it better than my breakfast. ... "

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"Miss Evans remained for about three weeks at Griff, at the end of which time, through the intervention of her brother, the Brays, and Miss Rebecca Franklin, the father was very glad to receive her again, and she resumed going to church as before.

"It will be seen from a subsequent noteworthy letter to Miss Sara Hennell, dated 19th October, 1843, that Miss Evans's views of the best course to be pursued under similar circumstances had already undergone considerable modifications, and in the last year of her life she told me that, although she did not think she had been to blame, few things had occasioned her more regret than this temporary collision with her father, which might, she thought, have been avoided with a little management.

"In July of this year (1842) Miss Sara Hennell—the gifted sister of Mrs. Bray—came to Rosehill, and completed the trio destined to exert the most important influence over the life of George Eliot. The individual characters of these three friends, and the relations each bore to their correspondent, will unfold themselves in the letters. It is only necessary here to say that the two ladies—Cara and Sara, as they are always addressed—now became like sisters to Miss Evans, and Mr. Bray her most intimate male friend, and the letters to them form an almost unbroken chain during all the remainder of George Eliot's life.

"To us Miss Sara Hennell is the most important correspondent, for it is to her that Miss Evans mainly turns now for intellectual sympathy; to Mrs. Bray when she is in pain or trouble, and wants affectionate companionship; with Mr. Bray she quarrels, and the humorous side of her nature is brought out. Every good story goes to him, with a certainty that it will be appreciated. With all three it is a beautiful and consistent friendship, running like a thread through the woof of the coming thirty-eight years. For the next twelve years, as will be seen, it is quite the most important thread; and although later it naturally became very much less important, it was never dropped except for a moment, in 1854, owing to a brief misunderstanding of letters, which will appear in its due place."

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th Aug. 1842.

"How I have delighted in the thought that there are beings who are better than their promises, beyond the regions of waking and sleeping dreams."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday, Sept. 1842."

" ... I think there can be few who more truly feel than I that this is a world of bliss and beauty—that is, that bliss and beauty are the end, the tendency of creation; and evils are the shadows that are the only conditions of light in the picture, and I live in much, much enjoyment.

"I am beginning to enjoy the "Eneid," though, I suppose, much in the same way as the uninitiated enjoy wine, compared with the connoisseurs."

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"Rosehill not only afforded a pleasant variety in the Coventry life, as most visitors to the town, of any note, found their way there, but the Brays were also frequently in the habit of making little holiday excursions, in many of which Miss Evans now joined. Thus we find them in May, 1843, all going to Stratford and Malvern, together with Mr. Charles Hennell and Miss Sara Hennell, for a week; and again, in July of that year the same party, accompanied by Miss Brabant, daughter of Dr. Brabant of Devizes, went on a fortnight's tour, visiting Tenby, among other places. This trip is chiefly memorable from the fact that it was indirectly responsible for Miss Evans undertaking the translation of Strauss's "Leben Jesu." For Miss Brabant (to whom the translation had been confided by Mr. Joseph Parkes of Birmingham and a group of friends) became engaged to be married to Mr. Charles Hennell; and shortly after her marriage she handed the work over to Miss Evans. ... "

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Oct. 1843."

" ... I am inclined to think that such a change of sentiment is likely to happen to most persons whose views on religious matters undergo a change early in life. The first impulse of a young and ingenuous mind is to withhold the slightest sanction from all that contains even a mixture of supposed error. When the soul is just liberated from the wretched giant's bed of dogmas on which it has been racked and stretched ever since it began to think, there is a feeling of exultation and strong hope. We think we shall run well when we have the full use of our limbs and the bracing air of independence, and we believe that we shall soon obtain something positive, which will not only more than compensate us for what we have renounced, but will be so well worth offering to others that we may venture to proselytize as fast as our zeal for truth may prompt us. But a year or two of reflection, and the experience of our own miserable weakness, which will ill afford to part even with the crutch of superstition, must, I think, effect a change. Speculative truth begins to appear but a shadow of individual minds. Agreement between intellects seems unattainable, and we turn to the truth of feeling as the only universal bond of union. We find that the intellectual errors which we once fancied were a mere incrustation have grown into the living body, and that we cannot, in the majority of cases, wrench them away without destroying vitality. We begin to find that with individuals, as with nations, the only safe revolution is one arising out of the wants which their own progress has generated. It is the quackery of infidelity to suppose that it has a nostrum for all mankind, and to say to all and singular, "Swallow my opinions and you shall be whole." ... An influential member chooses to omit an observance which, in the minds of all the rest, is associated with what is highest and most venerable. He cannot make his reasons intelligible, and so his conduct is regarded as a relaxation of the hold that moral ties had on him previously. The rest are infected with the disease they imagine in him. All the screws by which order was maintained are loosened, and in more than one case a person's happiness may be ruined by the confusion of ideas which took the form of principles. But, it may be said, how then are we to do anything towards the advancement of mankind? Are we to go on cherishing superstitions out of a fear that seems inconsistent with any faith in a Supreme Being? I think the best and the only way of fulfilling our mission is to sow good seed in good (i.e., prepared) ground, and not to root up tares where we must inevitably gather all the wheat with them. We cannot fight and struggle enough for freedom of inquiry, and we need not be idle in imparting all that is pure and lovely to children whose minds are unbespoken. ... "

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"After Miss Brabant's marriage to Mr. Charles Hennell, Miss Evans went to stay for a week or two with Dr. Brabant at Devizes, and some time about the beginning of January, 1844, the proposition was made for the transfer of the translation of Strauss from Mrs. Charles Hennell. At the end of April, 1844, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Sara Hennell that Miss Evans is "working away at Strauss six pages a day" ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Sunday, May, 1844."

" ... Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. Witness colic and whooping-cough and dread of ghosts, to say nothing of hell and Satan, and an offended Deity in the sky, who was angry when I wanted too much plumcake. Then the sorrows of older persons, which children see but cannot understand, are worse than all. All this to prove that we are happier than when we were seven years old, and that we shall be happier when we are forty than we are now, which I call a comfortable doctrine, and one worth trying to believe! ... "

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, end of 1844.

"I do not think it was kind to Strauss (I knew he was handsome) to tell him that a young lady was translating his book. I am sure he must have some twinges of alarm to think he was dependent on that most contemptible specimen of the human being for his English reputation. By the way, I never said that the Canons of the Council of Nice, or the Confession of Augsburg, or even the Thirty-nine Articles, are suggestive of poetry. I imagine no dogmas can be. But surely Christianity, with its Hebrew retrospect and millennial hopes, the heroism and divine sorrow of its founder, and all its glorious army of martyrs, might supply, and has supplied, a strong impulse not only to poetry, but to all the Fine Arts. Mr. Pears is coming home from Malvern to-night, and the children are coming to tea with me, so that I have to make haste with my afternoon matters. Beautiful little Susan has been blowing bubbles, and looking like an angel at sport. I am quite happy, only sometimes feeling "the weight of all this unintelligible world.""

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th April, 1845.

"If you think any of my future manuscript too untidy for the printer, only mark it to that effect, and I will rewrite it, for I do not mind that mechanical work; and my conscience is rather uneasy lest the illegibility of my hand should increase materially the expense of the publication. Do not be alarmed because I am not well just now: I shall be better very soon, and I am not really disgusted with Strauss. I only fancy so sometimes, as I do with all earthly things."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Aug. 1845.

"I have just been looking over some of the revise, and reading again your sweet letter to me from Hastings, and an impulse of gratitude and love will not let me rest without writing you a little note, though my hand has almost done its possible for the day under this intense heat. You do not guess how much pleasure it gives me to look over your pencillings, they prove so clearly that you have really entered into the meaning of every sentence, and it always gives one satisfaction to see the evidence of brain-work. I am quite indebted to you for your care, and I feel greatly the advantage of having a friend to undertake the office of critic. There is one word I must mention—Azazel is the word put in the original of the Old Testament for the scapegoat: now I imagine there is some dubiousness about the meaning, and that Strauss would not think it right to translate scapegoat, because, from the tenor of his sentence, he appears to include Azazel with the evil demons. I wonder if it be supposed by any one that Azazel is in any way a distinct being from the goat. I know no Hebrew scholar, and have access to no Hebrew lexicon. Have you asked Mr. Hennell about it?"

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, no date, 1845.

"I am never pained when I think Strauss right; but in many cases I think him wrong, as every man must be in working out into detail an idea which has general truth, but is only one element in a perfect theory—not a perfect theory in itself."

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November 07, 2021 - November 07, 2021.

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CHAPTER III.

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"The completion of the translation of Strauss is another milestone passed in the life journey of George Eliot, and the comparatively buoyant tone of the letters immediately following makes us feel that the galled neck is out of the yoke for a time. ... "

"On 25th September, 1846, Mrs. Bray writes to Miss Hennell that Miss Evans "looks very brilliant just now. We fancy she must be writing her novel" ... "

"The words of the reviewer of the Strauss translation in the Prospective are worth preserving: "A faithful, elegant, and scholarlike translation. Whoever reads these volumes without any reference to the German must be pleased with the easy, perspicuous, idiomatic, and harmonious force of the English style. But he will be still more satisfied when, on turning to the original, he finds that the rendering is word for word, thought for thought, and sentence for sentence. In preparing so beautiful a rendering as the present, the difficulties can have been neither few nor small in the way of preserving, in various parts of the work, the exactness of the translation, combined with that uniform harmony and clearness of style which imparts to the volumes before us the air and spirit of an original. Though the translator never obtrudes himself upon the reader with any notes or comments of his own, yet he is evidently a man who has a familiar knowledge of the whole subject; and if the work be the joint production of several hands, moving in concert, the passages of a specially scholastic character, at least, have received their version from a discerning and well-informed theologian. Indeed, Strauss may well say, as he does in the notice which he writes for the English edition, that, as far as he has examined it, the translation is 'et accurata et perspicua.'"

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Nov. 1846.

"Many things, both outward and inward, have concurred to make this November far happier than the last. One's thoughts

""Are widened with the process of the suns;"

" ... and if one is rather doubtful whether one is really wiser or better, it is some comfort to know that the desire to be so is more pure and dominant. I have been thinking of that most beautiful passage in Luke's Gospel—the appearance of Jesus to the disciples at Emmaus. How universal in its significance! The soul that has hopelessly followed its Jesus—its impersonation of the highest and best—all in despondency; its thoughts all refuted, its dreams all dissipated. Then comes another Jesus—another, but the same—the same highest and best, only chastened—crucified instead of triumphant—and the soul learns that this is the true way to conquest and glory. And then there is the burning of the heart, which assures that "this was the Lord!"—that this is the inspiration from above, the true comforter that leads unto truth. But I am not become a Methodist, dear Sara; on the contrary, if I am pious one day, you may be sure I was very wicked the day before, and shall be so again the next."

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Feb. 1847.

"Lying in bed this morning, grievously tormented, your "Heliados" visited me and revealed itself to me more completely than it had ever done before. How true that "it is only when all portions of an individual nature, or all members of society, move forward harmoniously together that religious progress is calm and beneficial!" I imagine the sorrowful amaze of a child who had been dwelling with delight on the idea that the stars were the pavement of heaven's court, and that there above them sat the kind but holy God, looking like a venerable Father who would smile on his good little ones—when it was cruelly told, before its mind had substance enough to bear such tension, that the sky was not real, that the stars were worlds, and that even the sun could not be God's dwelling, because there were many, many suns. These ideas would introduce atheism into the child's mind, instead of assisting it to form a nobler conception of God (of course I am supposing the bare information given, and left to the child to work upon); whereas the idea it previously had of God was perfectly adapted to its intellectual condition, and formed to the child as perfect an embodiment of the all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful as the most enlightened philosopher ever formed to himself."

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" ... My mother's grief, on hearing of this change in one whom she had begun to love, was very great; but she thought argument and expostulation might do much, and I well remember a long evening devoted to it, but no more of the subject-matter than her indignant refusal to blame the Jews for not seeing in a merely spiritual Deliverer a fulfilment of promises of a temporal one; and a still more emphatic protest against my father's assertion that we had no claim on God. To Miss Evans's affectionate and pathetic speech to my mother, 'Now, Mrs. Sibree, you won't care to have anything more to do with me,' my mother rejoined, 'On the contrary, I shall feel more interested in you than ever.' But it was very evident at this time that she stood in no need of sympathizing friends; that the desire for congenial society, as well as for books and larger opportunities for culture, which had led her most eagerly to seek a removal from Griff to a home near Coventry, had been met beyond her highest expectations. In Mr. and Mrs. Bray, and in the Hennell family, she had found friends who called forth her interest and stimulated her powers in no common degree. This was traceable even in externals—in the changed tone of voice and manner—from formality to a geniality which opened my heart to her, and made the next five years the most important epoch in my life. She gave me (as yet in my teens) weekly lessons in German, speaking freely on all subjects, but with no attempt to directly unsettle my evangelical beliefs, confining herself in these matters to a steady protest against the claim of the Evangelicals to an exclusive possession of higher motives to morality—or even to religion. Speaking to my mother of her dearest friend, Mrs. Bray, she said, 'She is the most religious person I know.' Of Mr. Charles Hennell, in whose writings she had great interest, she said, 'He is a perfect model of manly excellence.'

""On one occasion, at Mr. Bray's house at Rosehill, roused by a remark of his on the beneficial influence exercised by evangelical beliefs on the moral feelings, she said energetically, 'I say it now, and I say it once for all, that I am influenced in my own conduct at the present time by far higher considerations, and by a nobler idea of duty, than I ever was while I held the evangelical beliefs.' When, at length, after my brother's year's residence at the Hallé University (in 1842–43), my own mind having been much exercised in the matter of religion, I felt the moral difficulties press heavily on my conscience, and my whole heart was necessarily poured out to my 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' the steady turning of my attention from theoretical questions to a confession of my own want of thoroughness in arithmetic, which I pretended to teach; and the request that I would specially give attention to this study and get my conscience clear about it, and that I would not come to her again until my views of religion were also clear, is too characteristic of Miss Evans, as I knew her during those years, and too much in harmony with the moral teaching of George Eliot, to be omitted in reminiscences by one to whom that wholesome advice proved a turning-point in life. Two things more I cannot omit to mention: one, the heightened sense given to me by her of the duty of making conversation profitable, and, in general, of using time for serious purposes—of the positive immorality of frittering it away in ill-natured or in poor, profitless talk; another, the debt (so frequently acknowledged by Miss Evans to me) which she owed, during the years of her life with her father, to the intercourse she enjoyed with her friends at Rosehill. Mr. and Mrs. Bray and Miss Hennell, with their friends, were her world; and on my saying to her once, as we closed the garden-door together, that we seemed to be entering a paradise, she said, 'I do indeed feel that I shut the world out when I shut that door.'"

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"Letter to Miss Mary Sibree, 10th May, 1847."

"It is worth while to forget a friend for a week or ten days, just for the sake of the agreeable kind of startle it gives one to be reminded that one has such a treasure in reserve—the same sort of pleasure, I suppose, that a poor body feels who happens to lay his hand on an undreamed-of sixpence which had sunk to a corner of his pocket. When Mr. Sibree brought me your parcel, I had been to London for a week; and having been full of Mendelssohn oratorios and Italian operas, I had just this kind of delightful surprise when I saw your note and the beautiful purse. Not that I mean to compare you to a sixpence; you are a bright, golden sovereign to me, with edges all unrubbed, fit to remind a poor, tarnished, bruised piece, like me, that there are ever fresh and more perfect coinages of human nature forthcoming. I am very proud of my purse—first, because I have long had to be ashamed of drawing my old one out of my pocket; and, secondly, because it is a sort of symbol of your love for me—and who is not proud to be loved? For there is a beautiful kind of pride at which no one need frown—I may call it a sort of impersonal pride—a thrill of exultation at all that is good and lovely and joyous as a possession of our human nature.

"I am glad to think of all your pleasure among friends new and old. Mrs. D——'s mother is, I dare say, a valuable person; but do not, I beseech thee, go to old people as oracles on matters which date any later than their thirty-fifth year. Only trust them, if they are good, in those practical rules which are the common property of long experience. If they are governed by one special idea which circumstances or their own mental bias have caused them to grasp with peculiar firmness, and to work up into original forms, make yourself master of their thoughts and convictions, the residuum of all that long travail which poor mortals have to encounter in their threescore years and ten, but do not trust their application of their gathered wisdom; for however just old people may be their principles of judgment, they are often wrong in their application of them, from an imperfect or unjust conception of the matter to be judged. Love and cherish and venerate the old; but never imagine that a worn-out, dried-up organization can be so rich in inspiration as one which is full fraught with life and energy. I am not talking like one who is superlatively jealous for the rights of the old; yet such I am, I assure thee. I heard Mendelssohn's new oratorio, "Elijah," when I was in London. It has been performed four times in Exeter Hall to as large an audience as the building would hold—Mendelssohn himself the conductor. It is a glorious production, and altogether I look upon it as a kind of sacramental purification of Exeter Hall, and a proclamation of indulgence for all that is to be perpetrated there during this month of May. This is a piece of impiety which you may expect from a lady who has been guanoing her mind with French novels. This is the impertinent expression of D'Israeli, who, writing himself much more detestable stuff than ever came from a French pen, can do nothing better to bamboozle the unfortunates who are seduced into reading his "Tancred" than speak superciliously of all other men and things—an expedient much more successful in some quarters than one would expect. ... "

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Sept. 1847."

" ... Mr. Hennell ought to be one of the happiest of men that he has done such a life's work. I am sure if I had written such a book I should be invulnerable to all the arrows of all spiteful gods and goddesses. ... To say "Jewish philosopher" seems almost like saying a round square; yet those two words appear to me the truest description of Jesus. ... "

When did George Eliot shed antisemitism?

Or did she not quite, hence Daniel Deronda, where there's an extensive variety of Jewish lives and characters, intermingled with gentile and separate, yet one never quite knows if the separation is a mutual rejection or a need of a separate identity?

" ... I think the "Inquiry" furnishes the utmost that can be done towards obtaining a real view of the life and character of Jesus, by rejecting as little as possible from the Gospels. I confess that I should call many things "shining ether," to which Mr. Hennell allows the solid angularity of facts; but I think he has thoroughly worked out the problem—subtract from the New Testament the miraculous and highly improbable, and what will be the remainder?"

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th Oct. 1847.

"I heartily wish you had been with me to see all the beauties which have gladdened my soul and made me feel that this earth is as good a heaven as I ought to dream of. I have a much greater respect for the Isle of Wight, now I have seen it, than when I knew it only by report—a compliment which one can seldom very sincerely pay to things and people that one has heard puffed and bepraised. I do long for you to see Alum Bay. Fancy a very high precipice, the strata upheaved perpendicularly in rainbow-like streaks of the brightest maize, violet, pink, blue, red, brown, and brilliant white, worn by the weather into fantastic fretwork, the deep blue sky above, and the glorious sea below. It seems an enchanted land, where the earth is of more delicate, refined materials than this dingy planet of ours is wrought out of. You might fancy the strata formed of the compressed pollen of flowers, or powder from bright insects. You can think of nothing but Calypsos, or Prosperos and Ariels, and such-like beings.

"I find one very great spiritual good attendant on a quiet, meditative journey among fresh scenes. I seem to have removed to a distance from myself when I am away from the petty circumstances that make up my ordinary environment. I can take myself up by the ears and inspect myself, like any other queer monster on a small scale. I have had many thoughts, especially on a subject that I should like to work out—"The superiority of the consolations of philosophy to those of (so-called) religion." Do you stare?

"Thank you for putting me on reading Sir Charles Grandison. I have read five volumes, and am only vexed that I have not the two last on my table at this moment, that I might have them for my convives. I had no idea that Richardson was worth so much. I have had more pleasure from him than from all the Swedish novels together. The morality is perfect—there is nothing for the new lights to correct."

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th Nov. 1847.

"How do you like "Lelia," of which you have never spoken one word? I am provoked with you for being in the least pleased with "Tancred;" but if you have found out any lofty meaning in it, or any true picturing of life, tell it me, and I will recant. I have found two new readers of Strauss. One, a lady at Leamington, who is also reading the "Inquiry," but likes Strauss better! The other is a gentleman here in Coventry; he says "it is most clever and ingenious, and that no one whose faith rests only on the common foundation can withstand it." I think he may safely say that his faith rests on an uncommon foundation. The book will certainly give him a lift in the right direction, from its critical, logical character—just the opposite of his own. I was interested the other day in talking to a young lady who lives in a nest of clergymen, her brothers, but not of the evangelical school. She had been reading Blanco White's life, and seems to have had her spirit stirred within her, as every one's must be who reads the book with any power of appreciation. She is unable to account to herself for the results at which Blanco White arrived with his earnestness and love of truth; and she asked me if I had come to the same conclusions. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Jan. 1848.

"I am reading George Sand's "Lettres d'un Voyageur" with great delight, and hoping that they will some time do you as much good as they do me. In the meantime, I think the short letter about "Lelia" will interest you. It has a very deep meaning to my apprehension. You can send back the pages when you have duly digested them. I once said of you that yours was a sort of alkali nature which would detect the slightest acid of falsehood. You began to phiz-z-z directly it approached you. I want you as a test. I now begin to see the necessity of the arrangement (a bad word) that love should determine people's fate while they are young. It is so impossible to admire—"s'enthousiasmer" of—an individual as one gets older."

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Here's another more than bit of antisemitism from George Eliot.

"Letter to J. Sibree, beginning of 1848."

" ... I am glad you detest Mrs. Hannah More's letters. I like neither her letters, nor her books, nor her character. She was that most disagreeable of all monsters, a blue-stocking—a monster that can only exist in a miserably false state of society, in which a woman with but a smattering of learning or philosophy is classed along with singing mice and card-playing pigs. It is some time since I read "Tancred," so that I have no very vivid recollection of its details; but I thought it very "thin," and inferior in the working up to "Coningsby" and "Sybil." Young Englandism is almost as remote from my sympathies as Jacobitism, as far as its force is concerned, though I love and respect it as an effort on behalf of the people. D'Israeli is unquestionably an able man, and I always enjoy his tirades against liberal principles as opposed to popular principles—the name by which he distinguishes his own. As to his theory of races, it has not a leg to stand on, and can only be buoyed up by such windy eloquence as—You chubby-faced, squabby-nosed Europeans owe your commerce, your arts, your religion, to the Hebrews—nay, the Hebrews lead your armies: in proof of which he can tell us that Massena, a second-rate general of Napoleon's, was a Jew, whose real name was Manasseh. Extermination up to a certain point seems to be the law for the inferior races—for the rest fusion, both for physical and moral ends. ... "

At which point there's a sharp turn.

" ... It appears to me that the law by which privileged classes degenerate, from continual intermarriage, must act on a larger scale in deteriorating whole races. The nations have been always kept apart until they have sufficiently developed their idiosyncrasies, and then some great revolutionary force has been called into action, by which the genius of a particular nation becomes a portion of the common mind of humanity. ... "

It's not exactly an about turn, but recognition of a fact about genetics, positive in face of the very common intermarriage practices of West. And another turn here.

" ... Looking at the matter æsthetically, our idea of beauty is never formed on the characteristics of a single race. I confess the types of the pure races, however handsome, always impress me disagreeably; there is an undefined feeling that I am looking not at man, but at a specimen of an order under Cuvier's class Bimana. The negroes certainly puzzle me. All the other races seem plainly destined to extermination, not excepting even the Hebrew Caucasian. But the negroes are too important, physiologically and geographically, for one to think of their extermination; while the repulsion between them and the other races seems too strong for fusion to take place to any great extent. On one point I heartily agree with D'Israeli as to the superiority of the Oriental races—their clothes are beautiful and their manners are agreeable. ... "

If that -

" ... types of the pure races, however handsome, always impress me disagreeably; there is an undefined feeling that I am looking not at man, but at a specimen of an order under Cuvier's class Bimana. The negroes certainly puzzle me. All the other races seem plainly destined to extermination ... "

- wasn't a predecessor to the holocaust, it certainly was one of the millions of seeds thereof, sown over centuries by church, diligently, every sunday; and the reason for all others, but not African, being on their way to extermination, was it an unconscious affirmation of slavery?

" ... Did you not think the picture of the Barroni family interesting? I should like to know who are the originals. The fellowship of race, to which D'Israeli so exultingly refers the munificence of Sidonia, is so evidently an inferior impulse, which must ultimately be superseded, that I wonder even he, Jew as he is, dares to boast of it. My Gentile nature kicks most resolutely against any assumption of superiority in the Jews, and is almost ready to echo Voltaire's vituperation. I bow to the supremacy of Hebrew poetry, but much of their early mythology, and almost all their history, is utterly revolting. Their stock has produced a Moses and a Jesus; but Moses was impregnated with Egyptian philosophy, and Jesus is venerated and adored by us only for that wherein he transcended or resisted Judaism. The very exaltation of their idea of a national deity into a spiritual monotheism seems to have been borrowed from the other Oriental tribes. Everything specifically Jewish is of a low grade."

All of that might be considered excusable for someone young, with an intellectual flowering in progress; but that leaves the question, not only of how much further it did flower, but also of how much worse were those not so accomplished at reading, thinking, and more, and consequently all the more subject to all the vicious fraud of antisemitic propaganda, especially when delivered weekly from pulpit.

As to the praise of oriental, it probably included only East Asia - with no real understanding of them even at the most superficial level; she's looking at them as dolls, not humans. And Chinese are the most racist people, at that.

It's unclear if the following is in line with Feuerbach in his discourse regarding culture vs religion, because it followed her reading and translating his work, or did it precede the reading ?

"And do you really think that sculpture and painting are to die out of the world? If that be so, let another deluge come as quickly as possible, that a new race of Glums and Gowries may take possession of this melancholy earth. I agree with you as to the inherent superiority of music—as that questionable woman, the Countess Hahn-Hahn, says painting and sculpture are but an idealizing of our actual existence. Music arches over this existence with another and a diviner. Amen, too, to that ideenvoll observation of Hegel's. "We hardly know what it is to feel for human misery until we have heard a shriek; and a more perfect hell might be made out of sound than out of any preparation of fire and brimstone." When the tones of our voice have betrayed peevishness or harshness, we seem to be doubly haunted by the ghost of our sin; we are doubly conscious that we have been untrue to our part in the great Handel chorus. But I cannot assent to the notion that music is to supersede the other arts, or that the highest minds must necessarily aspire to a sort of Milton blindness, in which the tiefste der Sinne is to be a substitute for all the rest. I cannot recognize the truth of all that is said about the necessity of religious fervor to high art. I am sceptical as to the real existence of such fervor in any of the greatest artists. Artistic power seems to me to resemble dramatic power—to be an intimate perception of the varied states of which the human mind is susceptible, with ability to give them out anew in intensified expression. It is true that the older the world gets originality becomes less possible. Great subjects are used up, and civilization tends evermore to repress individual predominance, highly wrought agony, or ecstatic joy. But all the gentler emotions will be ever new, ever wrought up into more and more lovely combinations, and genius will probably take their direction.

"Have you ever seen a head of Christ taken from a statue, by Thorwaldsen, of Christ scourged? If not, I think it would almost satisfy you. There is another work of his, said to be very sublime, of the Archangel waiting for the command to sound the last trumpet. Yet Thorwaldsen came at the fag end of time.

But then, here's spiritual truth of her, breaking through all that cloud of teachings of Rome -

"I am afraid you despise landscape painting; but to me even the works of our own Stanfield, and Roberts, and Creswick bring a whole world of thought and bliss—"a sense of something far more deeply interfused." The ocean and the sky and the everlasting hills are spirit to me, and they will never be robbed of their sublimity."

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"Letter to J. Sibree, Feb 1848."

" ... Lamartine can act a poem if he cannot write one of the very first order. I hope that beautiful face given to him in the pictorial newspaper is really his; it is worthy of an aureole. I am chiefly anxious about Albert, the operative, but his picture is not to be seen. I have little patience with people who can find time to pity Louis Philippe and his moustachioed sons. Certainly our decayed monarchs should be pensioned off; we should have a hospital for them, or a sort of zoological garden, where these worn-out humbugs may be preserved. It is but justice that we should keep them, since we have spoiled them for any honest trade. Let them sit on soft cushions, and have their dinner regularly, but, for Heaven's sake, preserve me from sentimentalizing over a pampered old man when the earth has its millions of unfed souls and bodies. Surely he is not so Ahab-like as to wish that the revolution had been deferred till his son's days: and I think that the shades of the Stuarts would have some reason to complain if the Bourbons, who are so little better than they, had been allowed to reign much longer.

"I should have no hope of good from any imitative movement at home. Our working classes are eminently inferior to the mass of the French people. In France the mind of the people is highly electrified; they are full of ideas on social subjects; they really desire social reform—not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favorite proverb, "Yesterday for you, to-day for me." The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and embraced the rural population—not merely, as with us, the artisans of the towns. Here there is so much larger a proportion of selfish radicalism and unsatisfied brute sensuality (in the agricultural and mining districts especially) than of perception or desire of justice that a revolutionary movement would be simply destructive, not constructive. Besides, it would be put down. Our military have no notion of "fraternizing." They have the same sort of inveteracy as dogs have for the ill-dressed canaille. They are as mere a brute force as a battering-ram; and the aristocracy have got firm hold of them. And there is nothing in our constitution to obstruct the slow progress of political reform. This is all we are fit for at present. The social reform which may prepare us for great changes is more and more the object of effort both in Parliament and out of it. But we English are slow crawlers. The sympathy in Ireland seems at present only of the water-toast kind. The Glasgow riots are more serious; but one cannot believe in a Scotch Reign of Terror in these days. I should not be sorry to hear that the Italians had risen en masse, and chased the odious Austrians out of beautiful Lombardy. But this they could hardly do without help, and that involves another European war."

" ... I require utterance of my friends. What is it to me that I think the same thoughts? I think them in a somewhat different fashion. No mind that has any real life is a mere echo of another. If the perfect unison comes occasionally, as in music, it enhances the harmonies. It is like a diffusion or expansion of one's own life to be assured that its vibrations are repeated in another, and words are the media of those vibrations. Is not the universe itself a perpetual utterance of the one Being? So I say again, utter, utter, utter, and it will be a deed of mercy twice blessed, for I shall be a safety-valve for your communicativeness and prevent it from splitting honest people's brains who don't understand you; and, moreover, it will be fraught with ghostly comfort to me."

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This one is very interesting, especially in view of what came next in her own life.

Was George Eliot so very deeply impressed by Jane Eyre?

"Letter to Charles Bray, June, 1848.

"I have read "Jane Eyre," and shall be glad to know what you admire in it. All self-sacrifice is good, but one would like it to be in a somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical law which chains a man soul and body to a putrefying carcass. However, the book is interesting; only I wish the characters would talk a little less like the heroes and heroines of police reports."

And yet - she's unconscious of humanity of the wife whom she refers yo only as "putrefying carcass"!

What if it were reversed, and it was Jane Wahid been married off by her family to an invalid, who wasn't capable of giving her anything? In her Romola she gas the wife Romola chained to Tito Melema in just such a marriage, and there Romola has all but one defect in her marriage - Tito lacks a fortitude to stick to what's seen by others as his duty, and doesn't bother to convince others of his thinking. And yet, George Eliot does not allow Romola either a happiness of sticking to the husband nor being free. She would have freedom for Jane Eyre's married lover, but not for Romola. Isn't it duty of the husband in Jane Eyre, too, to stick by his lawfully wedded wife, and to care?

And in all this we've yet to consider that she was human too, that wife, treated as a prisoner, person of no account, kept imprisoned in her own husband's home that was hers to rule lawfully; this would be so even if it weren't her father's wealth that the husband enjoyed! But she's denied even humanity, and thus, only because she was only half English, other half being racially seen as of no consequence?

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"About the beginning of July Miss Evans and her father returned to Coventry; and the 13th July was a memorable day, as Emerson came to visit the Brays, and she went with them to Stratford. All she says herself about it is in this note."

The letter raises shivers, with its fatalistic ending note about how those striving for culture lose to the force of the unfettered lumpen - and what else was holocaust, or for that matter, the jihadist killings going on almost since the end of WWII?

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Friday, July, 1848.

"I have seen Emerson—the first man I have ever seen. But you have seen still more of him, so I need not tell you what he is. I shall leave Cara to tell how the day—the Emerson day—was spent, for I have a swimming head from hanging over the desk to write business letters for father. Have you seen the review of Strauss's pamphlet in the Edinburgh? The title is "Der Romantiker auf dem Throne der Cäsaren, oder Julian der Abtrünnige"—a sort of erudite satire on the King of Prussia; but the reviewer pronounces it to have a permanent value quite apart from this fugitive interest. The "Romantiker," or Romanticist, is one who, in literature, in the arts, in religion or politics, endeavors to revive the dead past. Julian was a romanticist in wishing to restore the Greek religion and its spirit, when mankind had entered on the new development. But you have very likely seen the review. I must copy one passage, translated from the conclusion of Strauss's pamphlet, lest you should not have met with it. "Christian writers have disfigured the death-scene of Julian. They have represented him as furious, blaspheming, despairing, and in his despair exclaiming, Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!—'νενίκηκας Γαλιλαῖε.' This phrase, though false as history, has a truth in it. It contains a prophecy—to us a consoling prophecy—and it is this: Every Julian—i.e., every great and powerful man—who would attempt to resuscitate a state of society which has died, will infallibly be vanquished by the Galilean—for the Galilean is nothing less than the genius of the future!""

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Feb. 1849."

" ... For instance, it would signify nothing to me if a very wise person were to stun me with proofs that Rousseau's views of life, religion, and government are miserably erroneous—that he was guilty of some of the worst bassesses that have degraded civilized man. I might admit all this: and it would be not the less true that Rousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions; which has made man and nature a fresh world of thought and feeling to me; and this not by teaching me any new belief. It is simply that the rushing mighty wind of his inspiration has so quickened my faculties that I have been able to shape more definitely for myself ideas which had previously dwelt as dim Ahnungen in my soul; the fire of his genius has so fused together old thoughts and prejudices that I have been ready to make new combinations.

"It is thus with George Sand. I should never dream of going to her writings as a moral code or text-book. I don't care whether I agree with her about marriage or not—whether I think the design of her plot correct, or that she had no precise design at all, but began to write as the spirit moved her, and trusted to Providence for the catastrophe, which I think the more probable case. It is sufficient for me, as a reason for bowing before her in eternal gratitude to that "great power of God manifested in her," that I cannot read six pages of hers without feeling that it is given to her to delineate human passion and its results, and (I must say, in spite of your judgment) some of the moral instincts and their tendencies, with such truthfulness, such nicety of discrimination, such tragic power, and, withal, such loving, gentle humor, that one might live a century with nothing but one's own dull faculties, and not know so much as those six pages will suggest. ... "

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November 07, 2021 - November 08, 2021.

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CHAPTER IV.

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"It fortunately happened that the Brays had planned a trip to the Continent for this month of June, 1849, and Miss Evans, being left desolate by the death of her father, accepted their invitation to join them. On the 11th June they started, going by way of Paris, Lyons, Avignon, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa, Milan, Como, Lago Maggiore, Martigny, and Chamounix, arriving at Geneva in the third week of July. Here Miss Evans determined to remain for some months, the Brays returning home. Before they went, however, they helped her to settle herself comfortably en pension, and, as will be seen from the following letters, the next eight months were quietly and peacefully happy. The pension selected in the first instance was the Campagne Plongeon, which stands on a slight eminence a few hundred yards back from the road on the route d'Hermance, some ten minutes' walk from the Hôtel Métropole. From the Hôtel National on the Quai de Mont Blanc one catches a pleasant glimpse of it nestling among its trees. A good-sized, gleaming white house, with a centre, and gables at each side, a flight of steps leading from the middle window to the ground. A meadow in front, nicely planted, slopes charmingly down to the blue lake, and behind the house, on the left-hand side, there is an avenue of remarkably fine chestnut-trees, whence there is a magnificent view of the Jura mountains on the opposite side of the lake. The road to Geneva is very beautiful, by the lake-side, bordered with plane-trees. It was a delightful, soothing change after the long illness and the painful death of her father—after the monotonous dulness, too, of an English provincial town like Coventry, where there is little beauty of any sort to gladden the soul. ... "

"Letter to the Brays, 5th Aug. 1849."

" ... Last Sunday I went with madame to a small church near Plongeon, and I could easily have fancied myself in an Independent chapel at home. The spirit of the sermon was not a whit more elevated than that of our friend Dr. Harris; the text, "What shall I do to be saved?" the answer of Jesus being blinked as usual."

"Letter to the Brays, 20th Aug. 1849."

"There is a fresh German family from Frankfurt here just now—Madame Cornelius and her children. She is the daughter of the richest banker in Frankfurt, and, what is better, full of heart and mind, with a face that tells you so before she opens her lips. She has more reading than the marquise, being German and Protestant; and it is a real refreshment to talk with her for half an hour. The dear marquise is a truly devout Catholic. It is beautiful to hear her speak of the comfort she has in the confessional—for our têtes-à-tête have lately turned on religious matters. She says I am in a "mauvaise voie sous le rapport de la religion. Peut être vous vous marierez, et le mariage, chère amie, sans la foi religieuse! … " She says I have isolated myself by my studies—that I am too cold and have too little confidence in the feelings of others towards me—that I do not believe how deep an interest she has conceived in my lot. She says Signor Goldrini (the young Italian who was here for a week) told her, when he had been talking to me one evening, "Vous aimerez cette demoiselle, j'en suis sûr"—and she has found his prediction true. They are leaving for their own country on Wednesday. She hopes I shall go to Italy and see her; and when I tell her that I have no faith that she will remember me long enough for me to venture on paying her a visit if ever I should go to Italy again, she shakes her head at my incredulity. She was born at Genoa. Her father was three years Sardinian Minister at Constantinople before she was married, and she speaks with enthusiasm of her life there—"C'est là le pays de la vraie poésie ou l'on sent ce que c'est que de vivre par le cœur.""

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Next one gives a clue why her work has no happy endings.

"Letter to the Brays, 28th Aug. 1849.

"Mme. de Ludwigsdorff, the wife of an Austrian baron, has been here for two days, and is coming again. She is handsome, spirited, and clever—pure English by birth, but quite foreign in manners and appearance. She, and all the world besides, are going to winter in Italy. Nothing annoys me now; I feel perfectly at home, and shall really be comfortable when I have all my little matters about me. This place looks more lovely to me every day—the lake, the town, the campagnes, with their stately trees and pretty houses, the glorious mountains in the distance; one can hardly believe one's self on earth; one might live here, and forget that there is such a thing as want or labor or sorrow. The perpetual presence of all this beauty has somewhat the effect of mesmerism or chloroform. I feel sometimes as if I were sinking into an agreeable state of numbness, on the verge of unconsciousness, and seem to want well pinching to rouse me. ... "

George Eliot was only happy when contemplating misery, or being miserable, thinking of peace and joy and beauty as something suspiciously dangerous, if not outright sign of unworthiness if one was comfortable with it all. Hence the twisted Romola, Daniel Deronda and Felix Holt.

"The other day (Sunday) there was a fête held on the lake—the fête of Navigation. I went out, with some other ladies, in M. de H——'s boat, at sunset, and had the richest draught of beauty. All the boats of Geneva turned out in their best attire. When the moon and stars came out there were beautiful fireworks sent up from the boats. The mingling of the silver and the golden rays on the rippled lake, the bright colors of the boats, the music, the splendid fireworks, and the pale moon looking at it all with a sort of grave surprise, made up a scene of perfect enchantment; and our dear old Mont Blanc was there, in his white ermine robe. I rowed all the time, and hence comes my palsy. I can perfectly fancy dear Mrs. Pears in her Leamington house. How beautiful all that Foleshill life looks now, like the distant Jura in the morning! She was such a sweet, dear, good friend to me. My walks with her, my little visits to them in the evening—all is remembered. I am glad you have seen Fanny again; any attention you show her is a real kindness to me, and I assure you she is worth it. You know, or, you do not know, that my nature is so chameleon-like I shall lose all my identity unless you keep nourishing the old self with letters; so, pray, write as much and as often as you can. It jumps admirably with my humor to live in two worlds at once in this way. I possess my dearest friends and my old environment in my thoughts, and another world of novelty and beauty in which I am actually moving, and my contrariety of disposition always makes the world that lives in my thoughts the dearer of the two, the one in which I more truly dwell."

Didn't a well known and loved poet sum it beautifully with "We look before and after, and pine for what is not!"?

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"Letter to the Brays, 13th Sept. 1849."

"My boxes arrived last Friday. The expense was fr. 150—perfectly horrible! Clearly, I must give myself for food to the fowls of the air or the fishes of the lake. It is a consolation to a mind imbued with a lofty philosophy that, when one can get nothing to eat, one can still be eaten—the evil is only apparent. It is quite settled that I cannot stay at Plongeon; I must move into town. But, alas! I must pay fr. 200 per month. If I were there I should see more conversable people than here. Do you think any one would buy my "Encyclopædia Britannica" at half-price, and my globes? If so, I should not be afraid of exceeding my means, and I should have a little money to pay for my piano, and for some lessons of different kinds that I want to take. The "Encyclopædia" is the last edition, and cost £42, and the globes £8 10s. I shall never have anywhere to put them, so it is folly to keep them, if any one will buy them. ... I shall leave here as soon as I am able to come to a decision, as I am anxious to feel settled, and the weather is becoming cold. This house is like a bird-cage set down in a garden. ... The Baronne de Ludwigsdorff seems to have begun to like me very much, and is really kind; so you see Heaven sends kind souls, though they are by no means kindred ones. Poor Mrs. Locke is to write to me—has given me a little ring; says, "Take care of yourself, my child—have some tea of your own—you'll be quite another person if you get some introductions to clever people; you'll get on well among a certain set—that's true;" it is her way to say "that's true" after all her affirmations. She says, "You won't find any kindred spirits at Plongeon, my dear.""

"Letter to the Brays, 20th Sept. 1849."

" ... Mme. Ludwigsdorff is so good to me—a charming creature—so anxious to see me comfortably settled—petting me in all sorts of ways. She sends me tea when I wake in the morning—orange-flower water when I go to bed—grapes—and her maid to wait on me. She says if I like she will spend the winter after this at Paris with me, and introduce me to her friends there; but she does not mean to attach herself to me, because I shall never like her long. I shall be tired of her when I have sifted her, etc. She says I have more intellect than morale, and other things more true than agreeable; however, she is "greatly interested" in me; has told me her troubles and her feelings, she says, in spite of herself; for she has never been able before in her life to say so much even to her old friends. It is a mystery she cannot unravel. She is a person of high culture, according to the ordinary notions of what feminine culture should be. She speaks French and German perfectly, plays well, and has the most perfect polish of manner—the most thorough refinement, both socially and morally. She is tall and handsome, a striking-looking person, but with a sweet feminine expression when she is with those she likes; dresses exquisitely; in fine, is all that I am not. ... I began to be uncomfortable under the idea that they fancied I was evangelical, and that I was gaining their affection under false pretences; so I told Miss F. that I was going to sacrifice her good opinion, and confess my heresies. I quite expected, from their manner and character, that they would forsake me in horror—but they are as kind as ever. They never go into the salon in the evening, and I have almost forsaken it, spending the evening frequently in Mme. de Ludwigsdorff's room, where we have some delightful tea. The tea of the house here is execrable; or, rather, as Mrs. A. says, "How glad we ought to be that it has no taste at all; it might have a very bad one!" I like the A.'s; they are very good-natured. Mrs. A., a very ugly but lady-like little woman, who is under an infatuation "as it regards" her caps—always wearing the brightest rose-color or intensest blue—with a complexion not unlike a dirty primrose glove. ... "

" ... I shall certainly stay at Geneva this winter, and shall return to England as early as the spring weather will permit, always supposing that nothing occurs to alter my plans. I am still thin; so how much will be left of me next April I am afraid to imagine. I shall be length without breadth. ... "

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"George Eliot retained so warm an admiration and love for M. d'Albert Durade to the end of her life that it seems fitting here to mention that he still lives, carrying well the weight of eighty winters. He is conservateur of the Athénée—a permanent exhibition of works of art in Geneva; and he published only last year (1883) a French translation of the "Scenes of Clerical Life," having already previously published translations of "Adam Bede," "Felix Holt," "Silas Marner," and "Romola." The description of his personal appearance, in the following letter, still holds good, save that the gray hair has become quite white. He lost his wife in 1873; and it will be seen from subsequent letters that George Eliot kept up a faithful attachment to her to the end. They were both friends after her own heart. The old apartment is now No. 18, instead of No. 107, Rue des Chanoines, and is occupied as the printing-office of the Journal de Genève. But half of the rooms remain just as they were five-and-thirty years ago. The salon, wainscoted in imitation light-oak panels, with a white China stove, and her bedroom opening off it—as she had often described it to me; and M. d'Albert has still in his possession the painting of the bunch of beautiful flowers thrown on an open Bible mentioned in the last letter. He told me that when Miss Evans first came to look at the house she was so horrified with the forbidding aspect of the stairs that she declared she would not go up above the first floor; but when she got inside the door she was reconciled to her new quarters. Calvin's house is close to the Rue des Chanoines, and she was much interested in it. It will be seen that she did some work in physics under Professor de la Rive; but she principally rested and enjoyed herself during the stay at Geneva. It was exactly the kind of life she was in need of at the time, and the letters show how much she appreciated it."

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"Letter to the Brays, 28th Oct. 1849.

"We have had some delicious autumn days here. If the fine weather last, I am going up the Salève on Sunday with M. d'Albert. On one side I shall have a magnificent view of the lake, the town, and the Jura; on the other, the range of Mont Blanc. The walks about Geneva are perfectly enchanting. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Oct. 1849.

"I like my town life vastly. I shall like it still better in the winter. There is an indescribable charm to me in this form of human nest-making. You enter a by no means attractive-looking house, you climb up two or three flights of cold, dark-looking stone steps, you ring at a very modest door, and you enter a set of rooms, snug, or comfortable, or elegant. One is so out of reach of intruders, so undiverted from one's occupations by externals, so free from cold, rushing winds through hall doors—one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree. ... "

"Letter to Charles Bray, 4th Dec. 1849.

"I write at once to answer your questions about business. Spinoza and I have been divorced for several months. My want of health has obliged me to renounce all application. I take walks, play on the piano, read Voltaire, talk to my friends, and just take a dose of mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becoming quite soft. ... "

"Letter to the Brays, 23d Dec. 1849."

" ... I am attending a course of lectures on Experimental Physics by M. le Professeur de la Rive, the inventor, among other things, of electroplating. ... "

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"Letter to Mrs. Houghton, 9th Feb. 1850."

" ... Shall you be as glad to see me as to hear the cuckoo? I mean to return to England as soon as the Jura is passable without sledges—probably the end of March or beginning of April. ... Decidedly England is the most comfortable country to be in in winter—at least, for all except those who are rich enough to buy English comforts everywhere. I hate myself for caring about carpets, easy-chairs, and coal fires—one's soul is under a curse, and can preach no truth while one is in bondage to the flesh in this way; but, alas! habit is the purgatory in which we suffer for our past sins. I hear much music. We have a reunion of musical friends every Monday. For the rest, I have refused soirées, which are as stupid and unprofitable at Geneva as in England. I save all more interesting details, that I may have them to tell you when I am with you. I am going now to a séance on Experimental Physics by the celebrated Professor de la Rive. This letter will at least convince you that I am not eaten up by wolves, as they have been fearing at Rosehill. The English papers tell of wolves descending from the Jura and devouring the inhabitants of the villages, but we have been in happy ignorance of these editors' horrors."

"Letter to the Brays, 15th Feb. 1850.

"If you saw the Jura to-day! The snow reveals its forests, ravines, and precipices, and it stands in relief against a pure blue sky. The snow is on the mountains only, now, and one is tempted to walk all day, particularly when one lies in bed till ten, as your exemplary friend sometimes does. I have had no discipline, and shall return to you more of a spoiled child than ever. Indeed, I think I am destined to be so to the end—one of the odious swarm of voracious caterpillars soon to be swept away from the earth by a tempest. I am getting better bodily. I have much less headache, but the least excitement fatigues me. ... You know that George Sand writes for the theatre? Her "François le Champi—une Comédie," is simplicity and purity itself. The seven devils are cast out. We are going to have more acting here on Wednesday. M. Chamel's talent makes maman's soirées quite brilliant. You will be amused to hear that I am sitting for my portrait—at M. d'Albert's request, not mine. If it turns out well, I shall long to steal it to give to you; but M. d'Albert talks of painting a second, and in that case I shall certainly beg one. The idea of making a study of my visage is droll enough. I have the kindest possible letters from my brother and sisters, promising me the warmest welcome. ... "

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November 08, 2021 - November 08, 2021.

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CHAPTER V.

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"M. d'Albert and his charge left Geneva towards the end of March, and as the railway was not yet opened all the way to France, they had to cross the Jura in sledges, and suffered terribly from the cold. They joined the railway at Tonnerre, and came through Paris, arriving in England on the 23d of March. After a day in London, Miss Evans went straight to her friends at Rosehill, where she stayed for a few days before going on to Griff. It will have been seen that she had set her hopes high on the delights of home-coming, and with her too sensitive, impressionable nature, it is not difficult to understand, without attributing blame to any one, that she was pretty sure to be laying up disappointment for herself. All who have had the experience of returning from a bright, sunny climate to England in March will recognize in the next letters the actual presence of the east wind, the leaden sky, the gritty dust, and le spleen."

Here an old note, of self flagellation, returns!

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, end of Mch. 1850, from Rosehill.

"No; I am not in England—I am only nearer the beings I love best. I try to forget all geography, and that I have placed myself irretrievably out of reach of nature's brightest glories and beauties to shiver in a wintry flat. I am unspeakably grateful to find these dear creatures looking well and happy, in spite of worldly cares, but your clear face and voice are wanting to me. But I must wait with patience, and perhaps by the time I have finished my visits to my relations you will be ready to come to Rosehill again. I want you to scold me, and make me good. I am idle and naughty—on ne peut plus—sinking into heathenish ignorance and woman's frivolity. Remember, you are one of my guardian angels."

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Here Cross gives a picture of Rosehill, which is very good too, but this one clearly a sketch.

"On the 4th of May Miss Evans went to Rosehill, and on the 7th M. d'Albert joined the party for a three days' visit. The strong affection existing between Mr. and Mrs. Bray and their guest, and the more congenial intellectual atmosphere surrounding them, led Miss Evans to make her home practically at Rosehill for the next sixteen months. She stayed there continuously till the 18th November, and, among other things, wrote a review of Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect." In October Mr. Mackay and Mr. Chapman, the editor of the Westminster Review, came to stay at Rosehill, and there was probably some talk then about her assisting in the editorial work of the Review, but it was not until the following spring that any definite understanding on this subject was arrived at. Meantime the article on Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect" came out in the January, 1851, number of the Westminster. It contains the following remarkable passages:"

""Our civilization, and yet more, our religion, are an anomalous blending of lifeless barbarisms, which have descended to us like so many petrifactions from distant ages, with living ideas, the offspring of a true process of development. We are in bondage to terms and conceptions, which, having had their roots in conditions of thought no longer existing, have ceased to possess any vitality, and are for us as spells which have lost their virtue. The endeavor to spread enlightened ideas is perpetually counteracted by these idola theatri, which have allied themselves, on the one hand, with men's better sentiments, and, on the other, with institutions in whose defence are arrayed the passions and the interests of dominant classes. Now, although the teaching of positive truth is the grand means of expelling error, the process will be very much quickened if the negative argument serve as its pioneer; if, by a survey of the past, it can be shown how each age and each race has had a faith and a symbolism suited to its need and its stage of development, and that for succeeding ages to dream of retaining the spirit, along with the forms, of the past, is as futile as the embalming of the dead body in the hope that it may one day be resumed by the living soul. … It is Mr. Mackay's faith that divine revelation is not contained exclusively or pre-eminently in the facts and inspirations of any one age or nation, but is coextensive with the history of human development, and is perpetually unfolding itself to our widened experience and investigation, as firmament upon firmament becomes visible to us in proportion to the power and range of our exploring-instruments. The master-key to this revelation is the recognition of the presence of undeviating law in the material and moral world—of that invariability of sequence which is acknowledged to be the basis of physical science, but which is still perversely ignored in our social organization, our ethics, and our religion. It is this invariability of sequence which can alone give value to experience, and render education, in the true sense, possible. ... While this belief sheds a bright beam of promise on the future career of our race, it lights up what once seemed the dreariest region of history with new interest; every past phase of human development is part of that education of the race in which we are sharing; every mistake, every absurdity, into which poor human nature has fallen, may be looked on as an experiment of which we may reap the benefit. A correct generalization gives significance to the smallest detail, just as the great inductions of geology demonstrate in every pebble the working of laws by which the earth has become adapted for the habitation of man. ... "

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"Miss Evans seems to have been in London from the beginning of January till the end of March, 1851; and Mr. Chapman made another fortnight's visit to Rosehill at the end of May and beginning of June. It was during this period that, with Miss Evans's assistance, the prospectus of the new series of the Westminster Review was determined on and put in shape. At the end of July she went with Mrs. Bray to visit Mr. and Mrs. Robert Noel, at Bishop Steignton, in Devonshire. ... "

"They went to London on the 13th of August, saw the Crystal Palace, and returned to Rosehill on the 16th. At the end of that month, Mr. George Combe (the distinguished phrenologist) arrived on a visit, and he and Mrs. Combe became good friends to Miss Evans, as will be seen from the subsequent correspondence. They came on a second visit to Rosehill the following month—Mr. Chapman being also in the house at the same time—and at the end of September Miss Evans went to stay with the Chapmans at No. 142 Strand, as a boarder, and as assistant editor of the Westminster Review. A new period now opens in George Eliot's life, and emphatically the most important period, for now she is to be thrown in contact with Mr. Lewes, who is to exercise so paramount an influence on all her future, with Mr. Herbert Spencer, and with a number of writers then representing the most fearless and advanced thought of the day. Miss Frederica Bremer, the authoress, was also boarding with the Chapmans at this time ... "

"Mr. Lewes had already secured for himself a wide reputation in the literary world by his "Biographical History of Philosophy," his two novels, "Ranthorpe," and "Rose, Blanche, and Violet"—all of which had been published five or six years before—and his voluminous contributions to the periodical literature of the day. He was also, at this time, the literary editor of the Leader newspaper, so that any criticism of his would carry weight, and be talked about. Much has already been written about his extraordinary versatility, the variety of his literary productions, his social charms, his talent as a raconteur, and his dramatic faculty; and it will now be interesting, for those who did not know him personally, to learn the deeper side of his character ... "

"Letter to Mr. Bray, end of Sept. 1851."

"I was introduced to Lewes the other day in Jeff's shop—a sort of miniature Mirabeau in appearance."

"Letter to the Brays, 2d Oct. (?) 1851.

"Professor Forbes is to write us a capital scientific article, whereat I rejoice greatly. The Peerage apparently will not "get itself done," as Carlyle says. It is not an urgent question, nor does one see that, if the undue influence of the Peers on the elections for the Commons were done away with, there would be much mischief from the House of Lords remaining for some time longer in statu quo. I have been reading Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" with great pleasure—not for its presentation of Sterling, but of Carlyle. There are racy bits of description in his best manner, and exquisite touches of feeling. Little rapid characterizations of living men too—of Francis Newman, for example—"a man of fine university and other attainments, of the sharpest cutting and most restlessly advancing intellect, and of the mildest pious enthusiasm." There is an inimitable description of Coleridge and his eternal monologue—"To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether one like it or not, can in the end be exhilarating to no creature.""

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3rd Nov. 1851.

"I must tell you a story Miss Bremer got from Emerson. Carlyle was very angry with him for not believing in a devil, and to convert him took him amongst all the horrors of London—the gin-shops, etc.—and finally to the House of Commons, plying him at every turn with the question, "Do you believe in a devil noo?" There is a severe attack on Carlyle's "Life of Sterling" in yesterday's Times—unfair as an account of the book, but with some truth in its general remarks about Carlyle. There is an article, evidently by James Martineau, in the Prospective, which you must read, "On the Unity of the Logical and Intuitive in the Ultimate Grounds of Religious Belief." I am reading with great amusement (!) J. H. Newman's "Lectures on the Position of Catholics." They are full of clever satire and description. My table is groaning with books, and I have done very little with them yet, but I trust in my star, which has hitherto helped me, to do all I have engaged to do. Pray remember to send the MS. translation of Schleiermacher's little book, and also the book itself."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Monday, 23d Nov. 1851.

"On Saturday afternoon came Mr. Spencer to ask Mr. Chapman and me to go to the theatre; so I ended the day in a godless manner, seeing the "Merry Wives of Windsor." You must read Carlyle's denunciation of the opera, published in the Keepsake! The Examiner quotes it at length. I send you the enclosed from Harriet Martineau. Please to return it. The one from Carlyle you may keep till I come. He is a naughty fellow to write in the Keepsake, and not for us, after I wrote him the most insinuating letter, offering him three glorious subjects. Yesterday we went to Mr. Mackay's, Dr. Brabant being there."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 27th Nov. 1851.

"Carlyle called the other day, strongly recommending Browning, the poet, as a writer for the Review, and saying, "We shall see," about himself. In other respects we have been stagnating since Monday, and now I must work, work, work, which I have scarcely done two days consecutively since I have been here. Lewes says his article on "Julia von Krüdener" will be glorious. He sat in the same box with us at the "Merry Wives of Windsor," and helped to carry off the dolorousness of the play."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 12th Jan. 1852.

"I had a comfortable journey all alone, except from Weedon to Blisworth. When I saw a coated animal getting into my carriage, I thought of all horrible stories of madmen in railways; but his white neckcloth and thin, mincing voice soon convinced me that he was one of those exceedingly tame animals, the clergy. A kind welcome and a good dinner—that is the whole of my history at present. I am in anything but company trim, or spirits. I can do nothing in return for all your kindness, dear Cara, but love you, as I do most heartily. You and all yours, for their own sake first, but if it were not so, for yours."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Jan. 1852.

"Harriet Martineau called on Monday morning with Mr. Atkinson. Very kind and cordial. I honor her for her powers and industry, and should be glad to think highly of her. I have no doubt that she is fascinating when there is time for talk. We have had two agreeable soirées. Last Monday I was talking and listening for two hours to Pierre Leroux—a dreamy genius. He was expounding to me his ideas. He belongs neither to the school of Proudhon, which represents Liberty only—nor to that of Louis Blanc, which represents Equality only—nor to that of Cabet, which represents Fraternity. Pierre Leroux's system is the synthèse which combines all three. He has found the true pont which is to unite the love of self with love of one's neighbor. He is, you know, a very voluminous writer. George Sand has dedicated some of her books to him. He dilated on his views of the "Origin of Christianity." Strauss deficient, because he has not shown the identity of the teaching of Jesus with that of the Essenes. This is Leroux's favorite idea. I told him of your brother. He, moreover, traces Essenism back to Egypt, and thence to India—the cradle of all religions, etc., etc., with much more, which he uttered with an unction rather amusing in a soirée tête-à-tête. ... Has a wife and children with him. He came to London in his early days, when he was twenty-five, to find work as a printer. All the world was in mourning for the Princess Charlotte. "Et moi, je me trouvais avoir un habit vert-pomme." So he got no work; went back to Paris; by hook or by crook founded the Globe journal; knew St. Simon; disagrees with him entirely, as with all other theorists except Pierre Leroux."

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"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 20th Feb. 1852.

"We went to the meeting of the Association for the Abolition of the Taxes on Knowledge on Wednesday, that I might hear Cobden, in whom I was wofully disappointed. George Dawson's speech was admirable. I think it undesirable to fix on a London residence at present, as I want to go to Brighton for a month or two next quarter. I am seriously concerned at my languid body, and feel the necessity of taking some measures to get vigor. Lewes inquired for Sara last Monday, in a tone of interest. He was charmed with her, as who would not be that has any taste? Do write to me, dear Cara; I want comforting: this world looks ugly just now; all people rather worse than I have been used to think them. Put me in love with my kind again, by giving me a glimpse of your own inward self, since I cannot see the outer one."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 25th Mch. 1852.

"I had two offers last night—not of marriage, but of music—which I find it impossible to resist. Mr. Herbert Spencer proposed to take me on Thursday to hear "William Tell," and Miss Parkes asked me to go with her to hear the "Creation" on Friday. I have had so little music this quarter, and these two things are so exactly what I should like, that I have determined to put off, for the sake of them, my other pleasure of seeing you. So, pray, keep your precious welcome warm for me until Saturday, when I shall positively set off by the two o'clock train. Harriet Martineau has written me a most cordial invitation to go to see her before July, but that is impossible."

"Letter to Mr. Bray, 17th April, 1852.

"There was an article on the bookselling affair in the Times of yesterday, which must be the knell of the Association. Dickens is to preside at a meeting in this house on the subject some day next week. The opinions on the various articles in the Review are, as before, ridiculously various. The Economist calls the article on Quakerism "admirably written." Greg says the article on India is "very masterly;" while he calls Mazzini's "sad stuff—mere verbiage.""

"Letter to the Brays, 22d April, 1852."

"I went to the opera on Saturday—"I Martiri," at Covent Garden—with my "excellent friend, Herbert Spencer," as Lewes calls him. We have agreed that we are not in love with each other, and that there is no reason why we should not have as much of each other's society as we like. He is a good, delightful creature, and I always feel better for being with him."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 27th May, 1852.

"My brightest spot, next to my love of old friends, is the deliciously calm, new friendship that Herbert Spencer gives me. We see each other every day, and have delightful camaraderie in everything. But for him my life would be desolate enough. What a wretched lot of old, shrivelled creatures we shall be by and by. Never mind, the uglier we get in the eyes of others the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship, and now it is in a slight degree my experience. Mme. d'Albert has sent me the sweetest letter, just like herself; and I feel grateful to have such a heart remembering and loving me on the other side of the Jura. They are very well and flourishing."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Wednesday, 2d June, 1852.

"I am bothered to death with article-reading and scrap-work of all sorts: it is clear my poor head will never produce anything under these circumstances; but I am patient. I am ashamed to tease you so, but I must beg of you to send me George Sand's works; and also I shall be grateful if you will lend me—what I think you have—an English edition of "Corinne," and Miss Austen's "Sense and Sensibility." Harriet Martineau's article on "Niebuhr" will not go in the July number. I am sorry for it; it is admirable. After all, she is a trump—the only Englishwoman that possesses thoroughly the art of writing. On Thursday morning I went to St. Paul's to see the charity children assembled, and hear their singing. Berlioz says it is the finest thing he has heard in England; and this opinion of his induced me to go. I was not disappointed; it is worth doing once, especially as we got out before the sermon. I had a long call from George Combe yesterday. He says he thinks the Westminster, under my management, the most important means of enlightenment of a literary nature in existence; the Edinburgh, under Jeffrey, nothing to it, etc.!!! I wish I thought so too."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 23d June, 1852.

"I have assured Herbert Spencer that you will think it a sufficiently formal answer to the invitation you sent him through Mr. Lewes, if I tell you that he will prefer waiting for the pleasure of a visit to you until I am with you—if you will have him then. I spent the evening at Mr. Parkes's on Monday. Yesterday Herbert Spencer brought his father to see me—a large-brained, highly informed man, with a certain quaintness and simplicity, altogether very pleasing."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th June, (?) 1852.

"After all, I begin to hope that our next number will be the best yet. Forbes is good; Froude ditto; and James Martineau, if I may judge from a glance at a few of his pages, admirable. Lewes has written us an agreeable article on "Lady Novelists." There is a mysterious contribution to the independent section. We are hoping that an article on "Edinburgh Literary Men," yet to come, will be very good. If not, we shall put in "Niebuhr;" it is capital."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th July, 1852."

"I had a note from Miss Florence Nightingale yesterday. I was much pleased with her. There is a loftiness of mind about her which is well expressed by her form and manner. Glad you are pleased with the Westminster. I do think it a rich number—matter for a fortnight's reading and thought. Lewes has not half done it justice in the Leader. To my mind the "Niebuhr" article is as good as any of them. If you could see me in my quiet nook! I am half ashamed of being in such clover, both spiritually and materially, while some of my friends are on the dusty highways, without a tuft of grass or a flower to cheer them. ... "

"Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 19th Aug. 1852.

"For the last two months I have been at this pretty, quiet place, which "David Copperfield" has made classic, far away from London noise and smoke.

"I am sorry now that I brought with me Fox's "Lectures," which I had not managed to read before I left town. But I shall return thither at the end of next week, and I will at once forward the volume to Gary Lane.

"One sees no novels less than a year old at the sea-side, so I am unacquainted with the "Blithedale Romance," except through the reviews, which have whetted my curiosity more than usual. Hawthorne is a grand favorite of mine, and I shall be sorry if he do not go on surpassing himself. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Sept. 1852."

" ... Harriet Martineau (in a private letter shown to me), with incomprehensible ignorance, jeers at Lewes for introducing psychology as a science in his Comte papers. Why, Comte himself holds psychology to be a necessary link in the chain of science. Lewes only suggests a change in its relations. There is a great, dreary article on the Colonies by my side, asking for reading and abridgment, so I cannot go on scribbling—indeed, my hands are so hot and tremulous this morning that it will be better for you if I leave off. ... "

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 11th Sept. 1852.

"The week has really yielded nothing worth telling you. I am a few degrees more wizened and muddle-headed; and the articles for the Review are, on the whole, unsatisfactory. I fear a discerning public will think this number a sad falling-off. This is the greater pity, that said public is patronizing us well at present. Scarcely a day passes that some one does not write to order the Review, as a permanent subscriber. You may as well expect news from an old spider or bat as from me. I can only tell you what I think of the "Blithedale Romance," of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the American Fishery Dispute—all which, I am very sure, you don't want to know. ... "

"Letter to Charles Bray, 18th Sept. 1852.

"Lewes called on me the other day and told me of a conversation with Professor Owen, in which the latter declared his conviction that the cerebrum was not the organ of the mind, but the cerebellum rather. He founds on the enormous comparative size of brain in the grampus! The professor has a huge anterior lobe of his own. What would George Combe say if I were to tell him? But every great man has his paradox, and that of the first anatomist in Europe ought to be a startling one."

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"Letter to the Brays, 7th Oct. 1852.

"Here I am in this beautiful Auld Reekie once more—hardly recognizing myself for the same person as the damozel who left it by the coach with a heavy heart some six years ago. The Combes are all kindness, and I am in clover—an elegant house, glorious fires, and a comfortable carriage—in short, just in the circumstances to nourish sleek optimism, convince one that this is le meilleur des mondes possibles, and make one shudder at the impiety of all who doubt it. Last evening Mr. Robert Cox came to tea, to be introduced to me as my cicerone through the lions of Edinburgh. The talk last night was pleasant enough, though, of course, all the interlocutors besides Mr. Combe have little to do but shape elegant modes of negation and affirmation, like the people who are talked to by Socrates in Plato's dialogues—"Certainly," "that I firmly believe," etc. I have a beautiful view from my room window—masses of wood, distant hills, the Firth, and four splendid buildings, clotted far apart—not an ugly object to be seen. When I look out in the morning, it is as if I had waked up in Utopia or Icaria, or one of Owen's parallelograms. The weather is perfect—all the more delightful to me for its northern sharpness, which is just what I wanted to brace me. I have been out walking and driving all day, and have only time before dinner to send this paar Worte, but I may have still less time to-morrow."

"Letter to the Brays, Thursday night, 22d Oct. 1852.

"The coach brought me to Miss Martineau's gate at half-past six yesterday evening, and she was there, with a beaming face, to welcome me. Mr. Atkinson joined us this morning, and is a very agreeable addition. There has been an intelligent gentleman visitor to-day, who is interested in Miss Martineau's building society; and we have been trudging about, looking at cottages and enjoying the sight of the mountains, spite of the rain and mist. The weather is not promising, that is the worst of it. Miss M. is charming in her own home—quite handsome from her animation and intelligence. She came behind me, put her hands round me, and kissed me in the prettiest way this evening, telling me she was so glad she had got me here. I send you her note that you may have an idea of "The Knoll.""

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"After a pleasant ten days' visit to Rosehill, Miss Evans returned to London on the 3d November.

"Letter to the Brays, 6th Nov. 1852.

"To get into a first-class carriage, fall asleep, and awake to find one's self where one would be, is almost as good as having Prince Hussein's carpet. This was my easy way of getting to London on Thursday. By 5 o'clock I had unpacked my boxes and made my room tidy, and then I began to feel some satisfaction in being settled down where I am of most use just now. After dinner came Herbert Spencer, and spent the evening. Yesterday morning Mr. Greg called on his way to Paris, to express his regret that he did not see me at Ambleside. He is very pleasing, but somehow or other he frightens me dreadfully. I am going to plunge into Thackeray's novel now ("Esmond")."

"Letter to the Brays, Monday, 20th Nov. 1852.

"I perceive your reading of the golden rule is "Do as you are done by;" and I shall be wiser than to expect a letter from you another Monday morning, when I have not earned it by my Saturday's billet. The fact is, both callers and work thicken—the former sadly interfering with the latter. I will just tell you how it was last Saturday, and that will give you an idea of my days. My task was to read an article of Greg's in the North British on "Taxation," a heap of newspaper articles, and all that J. S. Mill says on the same subject. When I had got some way into this magnum mare, in comes Mr. Chapman, with a thick German volume. "Will you read enough of this to give me your opinion of it?" Then of course I must have a walk after lunch, and when I had sat down again, thinking that I had two clear hours before dinner, rap at the door—Mr. Lewes, who, of course, sits talking till the second bell rings. After dinner another visitor, and so behold me, at 11 p.m., still very far at sea on the subject of Taxation, but too tired to keep my eyes open. We had Bryant the poet last evening—a pleasant, quiet, elderly man. Do you know of this second sample of plagiarism by D'Israeli, detected by the Morning Chronicle? It is worth sending for its cool impudence. Write me some news about trade, at all events. I could tolerate even Louis Napoleon, if somehow or other he could have a favorable influence on the Coventry trade."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Jan. 1853.

"Pray do not lay the sins of the article on the "Atomic Theory" to poor Lewes's charge. How you could take it for his I cannot conceive. It is as remote from his style, both of thinking and writing, as anything can be."

"Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 1st Feb. 1853."

"The article on "Slavery," in the last number of the Westminster—which I think the best article of them all—is by W. E. Forster, a Yorkshire manufacturer, who married Dr. Arnold's daughter. He is a very earnest, independent thinker, and worth a gross of literary hacks who have the "trick" of writing.

"I hope you are interested in the Slavery question, and in America generally—that cradle of the future. I used resolutely to turn away from American politics, and declare that the United States was the last region of the world I should care to visit. Even now I almost loathe the common American type of character. But I am converted to a profound interest in the history, the laws, the social and religious phases of North America, and long for some knowledge of them.

"Is it not cheering to think of the youthfulness of this little planet, and the immensely greater youthfulness of our race upon it? to think that the higher moral tendencies of human nature are yet only in their germ? I feel this more thoroughly when I think of that great western continent, with its infant cities, its huge, uncleared forests, and its unamalgamated races.

"I dare say you have guessed that the article on "Ireland" is Harriet Martineau's. Herbert Spencer did not contribute to the last number."

"Of course you have read "Ruth" by this time. Its style was a great refreshment to me, from its finish and fulness. How women have the courage to write, and publishers the spirit to buy, at a high price, the false and feeble representations of life and character that most feminine novels give, is a constant marvel to me. "Ruth," with all its merits, will not be an enduring or classical fiction—will it? Mrs. Gaskell seems to me to be constantly misled by a love of sharp contrasts—of "dramatic" effects. She is not contented with the subdued coloring, the half-tints, of real life. Hence she agitates one for the moment, but she does not secure one's lasting sympathy; her scenes and characters do not become typical. But how pretty and graphic are the touches of description! That little attic in the minister's house, for example, which, with its pure white dimity bed-curtains, its bright-green walls, and the rich brown of its stained floor, remind one of a snowdrop springing out of the soil. Then the rich humor of Sally, and the sly satire in the description of Mr. Bradshaw. Mrs. Gaskell has, certainly, a charming mind, and one cannot help loving her as one reads her books.

"A notable book just come out is Wharton's "Summary of the Laws relating to Women." "Enfranchisement of women" only makes creeping progress; and that is best, for woman does not yet deserve a much better lot than man gives her."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 15th Feb. 1853.

"I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I have been reading "Villette," a still more wonderful book than "Jane Eyre." There is something almost preternatural in its power."

"Letter to the Brays, 19th Feb. 1853.

"Mrs. Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has had from Mrs. Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying: "I am a little bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a decidedly used-up article." The whole letter is most fascinating, and makes one love her. "Villette," "Villette"—have you read it?"

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Mch. 1853.

"On Saturday I was correcting proofs literally from morning till night; yesterday ditto. The Review will be better than I once feared, but not so good as I once hoped. I suppose the weather has chilled your charity as well as mine. I am very hard and Mephistophelian just now, but I lay it all to this second winter. We had a pleasant evening last Wednesday. Lewes, as always, genial and amusing. He has quite won my liking, in spite of myself. Of course, Mr. Bray highly approves the recommendation of the Commissioners on Divorce. I have been to Blandford Square (Leigh Smith's) to an evening party this week. Dined at Mr. Parkes's on Sunday, and am invited to go there again to-night to meet the Smiths. Lewes was describing Currer Bell to me yesterday as a little, plain, provincial, sickly looking old maid. Yet what passion, what fire in her! Quite as much as in George Sand, only the clothing is less voluptuous."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 16th April, 1853.

"We had an agreeable soirée last Wednesday. I fell in love with Helen Faucit. She is the most poetic woman I have seen for a long time; there is the ineffable charm of a fine character which makes itself felt in her face, voice, and manner. I am taking doses of agreeable follies, as you recommend. Last night I went to the French theatre, and to-night I am going to the opera to hear "William Tell." People are very good to me. Mr. Lewes, especially, is kind and attentive, and has quite won my regard, after having had a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other people in the world, he is much better than he seems. A man of heart and conscience, wearing a mask of flippancy. When the warm days come, and the bearskin is under the acacia, you must have me again.

"6th May.—Went to Rosehill and returned on 23d to Strand."

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"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 3d Aug. 1853, from St. Leonards.

"I never felt the delight of the thorough change that the coast gives one so much as now, and I shall be longing to be off with you again in October. I am on a delightful hill looking over the heads of the houses, and having a vast expanse of sea and sky for my only view. The bright weather and genial air—so different from what I have had for a year before—make me feel as happy and stupid as a well-conditioned cow. I sit looking at the sea and the sleepy ships with a purely animal bien être."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Aug. 1853.

"For the first time in my experience I am positively revelling in the Prospective. James Martineau transcends himself in beauty of imagery in the article on Sir William Hamilton, but I have not finished him yet. Yesterday it rained sans intermission, and of course I said cui bono? and found my troubles almost more than I could bear; but to-day the sun shines, and there is blue above and blue below, consequently I find life very glorious, and myself a particularly fortunate diavolessa. The landlord of my lodgings is a German, comes from Saxe-Weimar, knows well the Duchess of Orleans, and talked to me this morning of Mr. Schiller and Mr. Goethe. À propos of Goethe, there is a most true, discriminating passage about him in the article on Shakespeare in the Prospective. Mr. Goethe is one of my companions here, and I had felt some days before reading the passage the truth which it expresses."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 3d Nov. 1853.

"Mr. Lewes was at Cambridge about a fortnight ago, and found that Herbert Spencer was a great deal talked of there for the article on the "Universal Postulate," as well as other things. Mr. Lewes himself has a knot of devotees there who make his "History of Philosophy" a private text-book. Miss Martineau's "Comte" is out now. Do you mean to do it? or Mr. Lewes's? We can get no one to write an article on Comte for the next number of the Westminster—Bain, our last hope, refusing."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 23d May, 1854.

"It is quite possible that I may wish to go to the Continent, or twenty other things. Mr. Lewes is going on a walking excursion to Windsor to-day with his doctor, who pronounces him better, but not yet fit for work. However, he is obliged to do a little, and must content himself with an approximation to his doctor's directions. In this world all things are approximations, and in the system of the Dog Star too, in spite of Dr. Whewell."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, Friday, no date, 1854."

" ... When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business—that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives, and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to our own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf, that at mid-day there will be no trace of. This is no high-flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection, which I find useful to me every day. I expect to see Mr. Lewes back again to-day. His poor head—his only fortune—is not well yet; and he has had the misery of being ennuyé with idleness, without perceiving the compensating physical improvement. Still, I hope the good he has been getting has been greater than he has been conscious of. I expect "Feuerbach" will be all in print by the end of next week, and there are no skippings, except such as have been made on very urgent grounds."

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"The translation of Ludwig Feuerbach's "Wesen des Christenthums" was published in July in "Chapman's Quarterly Series," with Miss Evans's name on the titlepage as the translator, the first and only time her real name appeared in print."

"Letter to the Brays, 20th July, 1854.

"Dear friends—all three—I have only time to say good-bye, and God bless you. Poste Restante, Weimar, for the next six weeks, and afterwards Berlin. Ever your loving and grateful Marian."

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"We have now been led up to the most important event in George Eliot's life—her union with Mr. George Henry Lewes. Here, as elsewhere, it seems to me to be of the first importance that she should speak for herself; and there is, fortunately, a letter to Mrs. Bray, dated in September, 1855—fourteen months after the event—which puts on record the point of view from which she regarded her own action. I give this letter here (out of its place as to date); and I may add, what, I think, has not been mentioned before, that not only was Mr. Lewes's previous family life irretrievably spoiled, but his home had been wholly broken up for nearly two years. In forming a judgment on so momentous a question, it is, above all things, necessary to understand what was actually undertaken, what was actually achieved; and, in my opinion, this can best be arrived at, not from any outside statement or arguments, but by consideration of the whole tenor of the life which follows, in the development of which Mr. Lewes's true character, as well as George Eliot's, will unfold itself. No words that any one else can write, no arguments any one else can use, will, I think, be so impressive as the life itself."

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"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Sept. 1855.

"If there is any one action or relation of my life which is, and always has been, profoundly serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes. It is, however, natural enough that you should mistake me in many ways, for not only are you unacquainted with Mr. Lewes's real character and the course of his actions, but also it is several years now since you and I were much together, and it is possible that the modifications my mind has undergone may be quite in the opposite direction of what you imagine. No one can be better aware than yourself that it is possible for two people to hold different opinions on momentous subjects with equal sincerity, and an equally earnest conviction that their respective opinions are alone the truly moral ones. If we differ on the subject of the marriage laws, I at least can believe of you that you cleave to what you believe to be good; and I don't know of anything in the nature of your views that should prevent you from believing the same of me. How far we differ I think we neither of us know, for I am ignorant of your precise views; and, apparently, you attribute to me both feelings and opinions which are not mine. We cannot set each other quite right in this matter in letters, but one thing I can tell you in few words. Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done. That any unworldly, unsuperstitious person who is sufficiently acquainted with the realities of life can pronounce my relation to Mr. Lewes immoral, I can only understand by remembering how subtile and complex are the influences that mould opinion. But I do remember this: and I indulge in no arrogant or uncharitable thoughts about those who condemn us, even though we might have expected a somewhat different verdict. From the majority of persons, of course, we never looked for anything but condemnation. We are leading no life of self-indulgence, except, indeed, that, being happy in each other, we find everything easy. We are working hard to provide for others better than we provide for ourselves, and to fulfil every responsibility that lies upon us. Levity and pride would not be a sufficient basis for that. Pardon me if, in vindicating myself from some unjust conclusions, I seem too cold and self-asserting. I should not care to vindicate myself if I did not love you and desire to relieve you of the pain which you say these conclusions have given you. Whatever I may have misinterpreted before, I do not misinterpret your letter this morning, but read in it nothing else than love and kindness towards me, to which my heart fully answers yes. I should like never to write about myself again; it is not healthy to dwell on one's own feelings and conduct, but only to try and live more faithfully and lovingly every fresh day. I think not one of the endless words and deeds of kindness and forbearance you have ever shown me has vanished from my memory. I recall them often, and feel, as about everything else in the past, how deficient I have been in almost every relation of my life. But that deficiency is irrevocable, and I can find no strength or comfort except in "pressing forward towards the things that are before," and trying to make the present better than the past. But if we should never be very near each other again, dear Cara, do bear this faith in your mind, that I was not insensible or ungrateful to all your goodness, and that I am one among the many for whom you have not lived in vain. I am very busy just now, and have been obliged to write hastily. Bear this in mind, and believe that no meaning is mine which contradicts my assurance that I am your affectionate and earnest friend."

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November 08, 2021 - November 08, 2021.

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CHAPTER VI.

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"Journal, 20th July, 1854.

"I said a last farewell to Cambridge Street on 20th July, 1854, and found myself on board the Ravensbourne, bound for Antwerp. The day was glorious, and our passage perfect. The sunset was lovely, but still lovelier the dawn as we were passing up the Scheldt between two and three in the morning. The crescent moon, the stars, the first faint blush of the dawn reflected in the glassy river, the dark mass of clouds on the horizon, which sent forth flashes of lightning, and the graceful forms of the boats and sailing-vessels, painted in jet-black on the reddish gold of the sky and water, made up an unforgettable picture. Then the sun rose and lighted up the sleepy shores of Belgium, with their fringe of long grass, their rows of poplars, their church spires and farm buildings."

She describes seeing works of art, chiefly about the cross, waxing eloquent succinctly.

"30th July.

"We breakfasted in the public room at the hotel at Cologne, and were joined there by Dr. Brabant and Strauss. After a short interview with them we went on board the steamboat which was to take us to Coblentz."

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George Eliot describes her sojourn in Weimar, published as a separate piece of her work, titled Three Months In Weimar. They moved on to Berlin thereafter.

"Berlin, Recollections, Nov. 1854 to Mch. 1855.

"There are certain persons without any physiognomy, the catalogue of whose features, as, item, a Roman nose, item, a pair of black eyes, etc., gives you the entire contents of their faces. There is no difference of opinion about the looks of such people. All the world is agreed either that they are pretty or ugly. So it is with Berlin. Every one tells you it is an uninteresting modern city, with broad, monotonous streets; and when you see it, you cannot for the life of you get up an emotion of surprise, or make a remark about the place which you have not heard before."

She describes their life in Berlin, and people they met.

"Du Bois Reymond spoke very decidedly of the German civilization as inferior to the English."

On one hand, she makes a remark that many would agree with.

" ... À propos of jokes, we noticed that during the whole seven months of our stay in Germany we never heard one witticism, or even one felicitous idea or expression, from a German!"

On the other, surprisingly, there were several excellent jokes quoted by Upton Sinclair in his series, World's End, in the parts about next rule, that were prevalent during the worst of the Nazi years. This is parallel to similar phenomenon in USSR, of jokes about the regime. Similarly, Mikes wrote about Berliners joking after USSR attempted cutting off East Europe, and West Berlin was fenced.

"Gruppe has a delightful library, with rare books, and books too good to be rare; and we often applied to him for some of them. He lent me "Lessing," and that is an additional circumstance to remember with pleasure in connection with the Laocoon. He one evening gave us an interesting account of his work on the cosmic system of the Greeks, and read us a translation, by himself, of one of the Homeric hymns—Aphrodite—which is very beautiful, a sort of Gegenstück to "Der Gott und die Bajadere:" and generally we were glad when he took up the book. He read us a specimen of his epic poem, "Firdusi," which pleased us. The fable on which this poem is founded is fine. The sultan had engaged Firdusi to write a great poem on his exploits, and had promised to pay for this one hundred thousand pieces (gold being understood). Firdusi had delighted in the thought of this sum, which he intended to devote to the benefit of his native city. When the poem was delivered, and the sack of money given to Firdusi, he found that the pieces were silver! He burst into a song of scorn against the sultan, and paid the miserable sum to his bath-man. Gruppe thinks Shakespeare more extensively sold in Germany than any other book, except the Bible and Schiller! One night we attempted "Brag" or "Pocher," but Gruppe presently became alarmed at G.'s play, and said "Das würde an zwölf Groschen reichen." He drew some Jews' faces with a pen admirably."

She mentions a phenomenon that got worse, and one that still carries on.

"We spent one evening with Professor Stahr and his wife—Fanny Lewald—after their marriage. Stahr has a copy of the charming miniature of Schiller, taken when he was about thirty—a miniature in the possession of a certain Madame von Kalb. There are the long Gänsehals,48 the aquiline nose, the blue eyes and auburn hair. It is a most real and striking portrait. I saw also a portrait and bust of Madame d'Agoult here, both rather handsome. The first evening Stahr told us some of the grievances which the Prussians have to bear from their government, and among the rest the vexatious necessity for a "concession" or license, before any, the simplest vocation, can be entered on. He observed, with justice, that the English are apt to suppose the German Revolution of '48 was mere restlessness and aping of other nations, when in fact there were real oppressions which the Germans had to bear, and which they had borne with a patience that the English would not imitate for a month. ... "

Well, Germany still requires a license for anyone practicing a trade, obtained only after a suitable training; even more, we were informed we coukdnt call ourselves Doctor, despite a valid degree each from a university in U.S., of standing. That was going too far, we thought.

"By far the most distinguished-looking man we saw at Berlin, and, indeed, next to Liszt, in Germany, was Rauch the sculptor. Schöll had given G. a letter for him, and soon after it had been left at his house he called on us in the evening, and at once won our hearts by his beautiful person and the benignant and intelligent charm of his conversation. He is indeed the finest old man I ever saw—more than seventy-six, I believe, but perfectly upright, even stately, in his carriage. His features are harmonious, his complexion has a delicate freshness, his silky white hair waves gracefully round his high forehead, and his brown eyes beam with benevolence and intelligence. He is above the common height, and his stature and beauty together ennoble the gray working surtout and cap which he wears in his atelier into a picturesque and distinguished costume. The evening he was with us he talked delightfully of Goethe, dwelling especially on his lovable nature. He described very graphically Goethe's way of introducing subjects, showing plates, etc., bringing in the cast of Schiller's skull, and talking of it and other little particulars of interest. We went one morning to his atelier, and found him superintending his pupil's work at a large group representing Moses with his hands held up by Aaron and Hur. It was extremely interesting to me to see Rauch's original little clay model of this group, for I had never seen statuary in that first stage before. The intense expression of entreaty in the face of the Moses was remarkable. But the spirit of this group is so alien to my sympathies that I could feel little pleasure in the idea of its production. On the other hand, my heart leaped at the sight of old Kant's quaint figure, of which Rauch is commissioned to produce a colossal statue for Königsberg. In another atelier, where the work is in a different stage, we saw a splendid marble monument, nearly completed, of the late king of Hanover. Pitiable that genius and spotless white marble should be thrown away on such human trash! Our second visit to Rauch's atelier was paid shortly before we left Berlin. The group of Moses, Aaron, and Hur was clothed up, and the dark-eyed, olive-complexioned pupil was at work on a pretty little figure of Hope—a child stepping forward with upturned face, a bunch of flowers in her hand. In the other atelier we saw a bust of Schleiermacher, which, with the equestrian statue of Fritz, and its pedestal, Rauch was going to send to the Paris Exhibition. Schleiermacher's face is very delicately cut, and indicates a highly susceptible temperament. The colossal head of Fritz, seen on a level with one's eye, was perfectly startling from its living expression. One can't help fancying that the head is thinking and that the eyes are seeing."

"Dessoir the actor was another pleasant variety in our circle of acquaintance. ... When he was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, acting at Spandau, he walked to Berlin (about nine miles) and back in the evening, accompanied by a watchmaker named Naundorff, an enthusiast for the theatre. On their way Dessoir declaimed at the top of his voice, and was encouraged by the applause of his companion to more and more exertion of lungs and limbs, so that people stared at them, and followed them, as if they thought them two madmen. This watchmaker was Louis XVII.! ... "

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th Jan. 1855.

"Our days are so accurately parcelled out that my time for letter-writing is rather restricted, and for every letter I write I have to leave out something which we have learned to think necessary. We have been to hear "Fidelio" this evening—not well executed, except so far as the orchestra was concerned; but the divine music positively triumphs over the defects of execution. One is entirely wrapped in the idea of the composer. Last week we had "Orpheus and Eurydice," and I heard, for the first time, at once an opera of Gluck's and Johanna Wagner. It is one of the glories of Berlin to give Gluck's operas, and it is also something of a glory to have "die Wagner." She is really a fine actress and a fine singer; her voice is not ravishing, but she is mistress of it. ... The scene in which Orpheus (Johanna Wagner) enters Tartarus, is met by the awful Shades, and charms them into ecstatic admiration till they make way for him to pass on, is very fine. The voices—except in the choruses—are all women's voices; and there are only three characters—Orpheus, Amor, and Eurydice. One wonders that Pluto does not come as a basso; and one would prefer Mercury as a tenor to Amor in the shape of an ugly German soprano; but Gluck wished it otherwise, and the music is delightful. I am reading a charming book by Professor Stahr—who is one of our acquaintances here—"Torso: Kunst, Künstler, und Kunst Werke der Alten." It feeds the fresh interest I am now feeling in art. Professor Stahr is a very erudite man, and, what is very much rarer among Germans, a good writer, who knows how to select his materials, and has, above all, a charming talent for description. We saw at his house the other night the first portrait of Schiller which convinces me of a likeness to him. It is the copy of a miniature which has never been engraved. The face is less beautiful than that of the ordinary busts and portraits, but is very remarkable—the eyes blue, the complexion very fair (the picture was taken in his youth), and the hair sunny. He has the long "goose-neck" which he describes as belonging to Carl Moor in the "Robbers," and the forehead is fuyant in correspondence with the skull. The piteous contrast there is between the anxiety poor Schiller is constantly expressing about a livelihood—about the thalers he has to pay for this and the thalers he has to receive for that—and Goethe's perfect ease in that respect! For the "History of the Netherlands" he got little more than fifteen shillings per sheet. I am very much interested in Professor Gruppe as a type of the German Gelehrter. He has written books on everything—on the Greek drama, a great book on the cosmic system of the Greeks, an epic, numberless lyric poems, etc.; he has a philosophical work and a history of literature in the press; is professor of philosophy at the university; is enthusiastic about boar-hunting, and has written a volume of hunting poems—and ich weiss nicht was. Withal he is as simple as a child. When we go to see them in the evening we find him wrapped in a moth-eaten gray coat and a cap on his head. Then he reads us a translation of one of the Homeric hymns, and goes into the most naïve impersonal ecstasy at the beauty of his own poetry (which is really good). The other night he read us part of an epic which is still in MS., and is to be read before the king—such is the fashion here. And his little wife, who is about twenty years younger than himself, listens with loving admiration. Altogether, they and their two little children are a charming picture."

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"Berlin, Recollections, 1854–55."

"Vivier is amusing. He says Germans take off their hats on all possible pretexts—not for the sake of politeness, but pour être embarrassants. They have wide streets, simply to embarrass you, by making it impossible to descry a shop or a friend. A German always has three gloves—"On ne sait pas pourquoi." There is a dog-tax in order to maintain a narrow trottoir in Berlin, and every one who keeps a dog feels authorized to keep the trottoir and move aside for no one. If he has two dogs he drives out of the trottoir the man who has only one: the very dogs begin to be aware of it. If you kick one when he is off the trottoir he will bear it patiently, but on the trottoir he resents it vehemently. He gave us quite a bit of Molière in a description of a mystification at a restaurant. He says to the waiter—"Vous voyez ce monsieur là. C'est le pauvre M. Colignon." (Il faut qu'il soit quelq'un qui prend très peu—une tasse de café ou comme ça, et qui ne dépense pas trop.) "Je suis son ami. Il est fou. Je le garde. Combien doit-il payer?" "Un franc." "Voilà." Then Vivier goes out. Presently the so-called M. Colignon asks how much he has to pay, and is driven to exasperation by the reiterated assurance of the waiter—"C'est payé, M. Colignon." ... "

"The collection of pictures at the old museum has three gems, which remain in the imagination—Titian's Daughter, Correggio's Jupiter and Io, and his Head of Christ on the Handkerchief. I was pleased also to recognize among the pictures the one by Jan Steen, which Goethe describes in the "Wahlverwandschaften" as the model of a tableau vivant, presented by Luciane and her friends. It is the daughter being reproved by her father, while the mother is emptying her wine-glass. It is interesting to see the statue of Napoleon, the worker of so much humiliation to Prussia, placed opposite that of Julius Cæsar.

"They were very happy months we spent at Berlin, in spite of the bitter cold which came on in January and lasted almost till we left. How we used to rejoice in the idea of our warm room and coffee as we battled our way from dinner against the wind and snow! Then came the delightful long evening, in which we read Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, and Macaulay, with German Pfefferkuchen and Semmels at the end to complete the noctes cenæque deûm.

"We used often to turn out for a little walk in the evening, when it was not too cold, to refresh ourselves by a little pure air as a change from the stove-heated room. Our favorite walk was along the Linden, in the broad road between the trees. We used to pace to old Fritz's monument, which loomed up dark and mysterious against the sky. Once or twice we went along the gas-lighted walk towards Kroll's. One evening in our last week we went on to the bridge leading to the Wilhelm Stadt, and there by moon and gas light saw the only bit of picturesqueness Berlin afforded us. The outline of the Schloss towards the water is very varied, and a light in one of the windows near the top of a tower was a happy accident. The row of houses on the other side of the water was shrouded in indistinctness, and no ugly object marred the scene. The next day, under the light of the sun, it was perfectly prosaic.

"Our table d'hôte at the Hotel de l'Europe was so slow in its progress from one course to another, and there was so little encouragement to talk to our neighbors, that we used to take our books by way of beguiling the time. Lessing's "Hamburgische Briefe," which I am not likely to take up again, will thus remain associated in my memory with my place at the table d'hôte. The company here, as almost everywhere else in Berlin, was sprinkled with officers. Indeed, the swords of officers threaten one's legs at every turn in the streets, and one sighs to think how these unproductive consumers of Wurst, with all their blue and scarlet broadcloth, are maintained out of the pockets of the community. Many of the officers and privates are startlingly tall; indeed, some of them would match, I should think, with the longest of Friedrich Wilhelm's lange Kerle.

"It was a bitterly cold, sleety morning—the 11th of March—when we set out from Berlin, leaving behind us, alas! G.'s rug, which should have kept his feet warm on the journey. Our travelling companions to Cologne were fat Madame Roger, her little daughter, and her dog, and a queen's messenger—a very agreeable man, who afterwards persuaded another of the same vocation to join us for the sake of warmth. This poor man's teeth were chattering with cold, though he was wrapped in fur; and we, all furless as we were, pitied him, and were thankful that at least we were not feverish and ill, as he evidently was. We saw the immortal old town of Wolfenbüttel at a distance, as we rolled along; beyond this there was nothing of interest in our first day's journey, and the only incident was the condemnation of poor Madame Roger's dog to the dog-box, apart from its mistress with her warm cloaks. She remonstrated in vain with a brutal German official, and it was amusing to hear him say to her in German, "Wenn sie Deutsch nicht verstehen können." "Eh bien—prenez la." "Ah! quel satan de pays!" was her final word, as she held out the shivering little beast.

"We stayed at Cologne, and next morning walked out to look at the cathedral again. Melancholy as ever in its impression upon me! From Cologne to Brussels we had some rather interesting companions, in two French artists who were on their way from Russia. Strange beings they looked to us at first, in their dirty linen, Russian caps, and other queer equipments; but in this, as in many other cases, I found that a first impression was an extremely mistaken one—for instead of being, as I imagined, common, uncultivated men, they were highly intelligent.

"At Brussels, as we took our supper, we had the pleasure of looking at Berlioz's fine head and face, he being employed in the same way on the other side of the table. The next morning to Calais."

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"They were pleasant days those at Weimar and Berlin, and they were working days. Mr. Lewes was engaged in completing his "Life of Goethe," which had been begun some time before, but which was now for the most part rewritten. At Weimar, George Eliot wrote the article on Victor Cousin's "Madame de Sablé" for the Westminster Review. It was begun on 5th August, and sent off on 8th September. At Berlin she nearly finished the translation of Spinoza's "Ethics"—begun on 5th November—and wrote an article on Vehse's "Court of Austria," which was begun on 23d January, and finished 4th March, 1855. ... "

Cross includes here a list of books she read, quite impressive.

"This writing and reading, combined with visiting, theatre-going, and opera-going, make a pretty full life for these eight months—a striking contrast to the coming months of complete social quietness in England. Both lives had their attractions, the superficial aspects of which may be summed up in a passage from the Journal, dated 13th March, 1855, on arrival at the Lord Warden Hotel, at Dover:

"English mutton and an English fire were likely to be appreciated by creatures who had had eight months of Germany, with its questionable meat and its stove-heated rooms. The taste and quietude of a first-rate English hotel were also in striking contrast with the heavy finery, the noise, and the indiscriminate smoking of German inns. But, after all, Germany is no bad place to live in; and the Germans, to counterbalance their want of taste and politeness, are at least free from the bigotry of exclusiveness of their more refined cousins. I even long to be among them again—to see Dresden and Munich and Nürnberg and the Rhine country. May the day soon come!"

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November 08, 2021 - November 09, 2021.

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CHAPTER VII.

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" ... After dinner read "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and some of the "Sonnets." That play disgusted me more than ever in the final scene, where Valentine, on Proteus's mere begging pardon, when he has no longer any hope of gaining his ends, says: "All that was mine in Sylvia, I give thee!" Silvia standing by. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Mch. 1855."

" ... I am well and calmly happy—feeling much stronger and clearer in mind for the last eight months of new experience. We were sorry to leave our quiet rooms and agreeable friends in Berlin, though the place itself is certainly ugly, and am Ende must become terribly wearisome for those who have not a vocation there. We went again and again to the new museum to look at the casts of the Parthenon Sculptures, and registered a vow that we would go to feast on the sight of the originals the first day we could spare in London. I had never cast more than a fleeting look on them before, but now I can in some degree understand the effect they produced on their first discovery."

"Journal, 1855.

"March 25.—A note from Mr. Chapman, in which he asks me to undertake part of the Contemporary Literature for the Westminster Review.

"April 18.—Came to town, to lodgings in Bayswater.

"April 23.—Fixed on lodgings at East Sheen.

"April 25.—Went to the British Museum.

"April 28.—Finished article on "Weimar," for Fraser.

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"During this month George Eliot was finishing the translating and revising of Spinoza's "Ethics," and was still reading Scherr's book, Schrader's "German Mythology"—a poor book—"The Tempest," "Macbeth," "Niebelungenlied," "Romeo and Juliet," article on "Dryden" in the Westminster, "Reineke Fuchs," "Genesis of Science," Gibbon, "Henry V.," "Henry VIII.," first, second, and third parts of "Henry VI.," "Richard II.""

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"May 2.—Came to East Sheen, and settled in our lodgings.

"May 28.—Sent Belles-lettres section to Westminster Review. During May several articles were written for the Leader.

"June 13.—Began Part IV. of Spinoza's "Ethics." Began also to read Cumming, for article in the Westminster. We are reading in the evenings now Sydney Smith's letters, Boswell, Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," "The Odyssey," and occasionally Heine's "Reisebilder." I began the second book of the "Iliad," in Greek, this morning.

June 21.—Finished article on Brougham's "Lives of Men of Letters.""

"June 23.—Read "Lucrezia Floriani." We are reading White's "History of Selborne" in the evening, with Boswell and the "Odyssey.""

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 23d June, 1855.

"I have good hope that you will be deeply interested in the "Life of Goethe." It is a book full of feeling, as well as of thought and information, and I even think will make you love Goethe as well as admire him. Eckermann's is a wonderful book, but only represents Goethe at eighty. We were fortunate enough to be in time to see poor Eckermann before his total death. His mind was already half gone, but the fine brow and eyes harmonized entirely with the interest we had previously felt in him. We saw him in a small lodging, surrounded by singing birds, and tended by his son—an intelligent youth of sixteen, who showed some talent in drawing. I have written a castigation of Brougham for the Leader, and shall be glad if your sympathy goes along with it. Varnhagen has written "Denkwurdigkeiten," and all sorts of literature, and is, or, rather was, the husband of Rahel, the greatest of German women."

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"On 1st August, 1855, Mr. Lewes went down to Ramsgate for change, taking his three boys with him for a week's holiday. Meantime George Eliot was continuing her article-writing, and in this week wrote an article for the Leader, having written one for the same journal three weeks before. On 22d August she wrote another article for the Leader, and on the 24th she finished the one on Cumming for the Westminster. Mr. C. Lewes tells me that he remembers it was after reading this article that his father was prompted to say to George Eliot, while walking one day with her in Richmond Park, that it convinced him of the true genius in her writing. Mr. Lewes was not only an accomplished and practised literary critic, but he was also gifted with the inborn insight accompanying a fine artistic temperament, which gave unusual weight to his judgment. Up to this time he had not been quite sure of anything beyond great talent in her productions.

"The first three weeks in September were again busily occupied in article-writing. She contributed three papers to the Leader, as well as the Belles-lettres section for the October number of the Westminster. On the 19th September they left East Sheen, and after spending a couple of weeks at Worthing for a sea change, they took rooms at 8 Park Shot, Richmond, which remained their home for more than three years. Here some of George Eliot's most memorable literary work was accomplished. Both she and Mr. Lewes were now working very hard for what would bring immediate profit, as they had to support not only themselves but his children and their mother. They had only one sitting-room between them; and I remember, in a walk on St. George's Hill, near Weybridge, in 1871, she told me that the scratching of another pen used to affect her nerves to such an extent that it nearly drove her wild. On the 9th October she finished an article on Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft, and on the 12th October one on Carlyle for the Leader, and began an article on Heine for the January number of the Westminster."

For one, Lewes might have been daunted by her intelligence, and very likely, worried due to the caustic tone of her writing in the article on Cumming; thus, more than any thought of her being any good as a writer, is likely to have prompted him to steer her off towards creative rather than criticism. For one, thus he nipped competition, from someone quite possibly superior, in the bud; for another, he woukdnt have to face awkward situations where she'd honestly castigate a fellow writer, and he'd hsve to take sides.

Reading her works, her intelligence is far clearer than any inner urge of creation; her writing doesn't flow, and most love stories part thereof have endings unhappy in some way that leaves a reader puzzled, unhappy, dissatisfied. And she didn't begin creative writing until urged by Lewes, which amounts to it really not being her own field.

Whether any critic says this or not, notice how they all write praising her - but outside professional and academic field of English literature, how limited her readership remains, unlike, say, of Jane Austen, and other authors whose writing flows. Jane Austen in particular published little compared to how prolifically she wrote from early childhood, and how explosively delightful that early work is, how different from the comparatively polished quality of her published work.

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"Letter to Charles Bray, Monday, Oct. (?) 1855.

"Since you have found out the "Cumming," I write by to-day's post just to say that it is mine, but also to beg that you will not mention it as such to any one likely to transmit the information to London, as we are keeping the authorship a secret. The article appears to have produced a strong impression, and that impression would be a little counteracted if the author were known to be a woman. I have had a letter addressed "to the author of Article No. 4," begging me to print it separately "for the good of mankind in general!" It is so kind of you to rejoice in anything I do at all well. I am dreadfully busy again, for I am going to write an article for the Westminster Review again, besides my other work. We enjoy our new lodgings very much—everything is the pink of order and cleanliness."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Oct. 1855.

"Why you should object to Herbert Spencer speaking of Sir William Hamilton's contributions to a theory of perception as "valuable" I am unable to conceive. Sir William Hamilton has been of service to him as well as to others; and instead of repressing acknowledgments of merit in others, I should like them to be more freely given. I see no dignity, or anything else that is good, in ignoring one's fellow-beings. Herbert Spencer's views, like every other man's views, could not have existed without the substratum laid by his predecessors. But perhaps you mean something that I fail to perceive. Your bit of theology is very fine. Here is a delicious Hibernicism in return. In a treatise on consumption, sent yesterday, the writer says: "There is now hardly any difference on this subject—at least I feel none." Our life has no incidents except such as take place in our own brains, and the occasional arrival of a longer letter than usual. Yours are always read aloud and enjoyed. Nevertheless our life is intensely occupied, and the days are far too short. We are reading Gall's "Anatomie et Physiologie du Cerveau," and Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," aloud in the evenings; and I am trying to fix some knowledge about plexuses and ganglia in my soft brain, which generally only serves me to remember that there is something I ought to remember, and to regret that I did not put the something down in my note-book. ... "

"Letter to Charles Bray, 21st Nov. 1855.

"You will receive by rail to-morrow a copy of the "Life and Works of Goethe" (published on 1st November), which I hope you will accept as a keepsake from me. I should have been glad to send it you earlier, but as Mr. Lewes has sold the copyright of the first edition, he has only a small number of copies at his disposal, and so I doubted whether I ought to ask for one. I think you will find much to interest you in the book. I can't tell you how I value it, as the best product of a mind which I have every day more reason to admire and love. We have had much gratification in the expression of individual opinion. The press is very favorable, but the notices are for the most part too idiotic to give us much pleasure, except in a pecuniary point of view. I am going out to-day, for the first time for nearly a fortnight."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Nov. 1855.

"I have just finished a long article on Heine for the Westminster Review, which none of you will like. En revanche, Mr. Lewes has written one on "Lions and Lion Hunters," which you will find amusing."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Jan. 1856.

"I believe there have been at least a thousand copies of the "Goethe" sold, which is a wonderfully good sale in less than three months for a thirty-shilling book. We have a charming collection of letters, both from remarkable acquaintances and remarkable non-acquaintances, expressing enthusiastic delight in the book—letters all the more delightful because they are quite spontaneous, and spring from a generous wish to let the author know how highly the writers value his work. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Feb. 1856."

" ... Have you seen any numbers of the Saturday Review, a new journal, on which "all the talents" are engaged? It is not properly a newspaper, but—what its title expresses—a political and literary review. We are delighting ourselves with Ruskin's third volume, which contains some of the finest writing I have read for a long time (among recent books). I read it aloud for an hour or so after dinner; then we jump to the old dramatists, when Mr. Lewes reads to me as long as his voice will hold out, and after this we wind up the evening with Rymer Jones's "Animal Kingdom," by which I get a confused knowledge of branchiæ, and such things—perhaps, on the whole, a little preferable to total ignorance. These are our noctes—without cenæ for the present—occasionally diversified by very dramatic singing of Figaro, etc., which, I think, must alarm "that good man, the clergyman," who sits below us. We have been half laughing, half indignant, over Alison's new volume of his "History of Europe," in which he undertakes to give an account of German literature."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th Feb. 1856.

"What you tell me of Harriet Martineau interests me very much. I feel for her terrible bodily suffering, and think of her with deep respect and admiration. Whatever may have been her mistakes and weaknesses, the great and good things she has done far outweigh them; and I should be grieved if anything in her memoir should cast a momentary shadow over the agreeable image of her that the world will ultimately keep in its memory. I wish less of our piety were spent on imaginary perfect goodness, and more given to real imperfect goodness."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 26th Mch. 1856."

" ... By the way, when the Spinoza comes out, be so good as not to mention my name in connection with it. I particularly wish not to be known as the translator of the "Ethics," for reasons which it would be "too tedious to mention." You don't know what a severely practical person I am become, and what a sharp eye I have to the main chance. I keep the purse, and dole out sovereigns with all the pangs of a miser. ... "

"Letter to Charles Bray, 31st Mch. 1856.

"My mind is more rebellious than yours, and I can't help being saddened by the idea of you and Cara being in any other home than the dear old one. But I know that your cheerful courage is yet stronger in deed than in word. Will not business or pleasure bring you to London soon, and will you not come to see us? We can give you a bed—not a sumptuous one, but one which you will perhaps not find intolerable for a night. I know the trip up the Thames is charming, and we should like to do it with you, but I don't think we can manage it this summer. We are going to send or take the boys (Mr. Lewes's sons) to school in Germany at midsummer, and are at present uncertain about our arrangements. If we can send them, we shall go to the coast as soon as the warm weather comes, and remain there for three months. But our plans are not yet crystallized."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 1st April, 1856.

"After I wrote you yesterday morning we had a letter from Germany which has made Mr. Lewes incline to defer sending the boys thither till next year. But he is anxious to remove them from their present school: and, in the course of our consultations on the subject, we thought of Mr. John Sibree as a person in whom we should feel confidence as to the moral influence he would exercise as a tutor. The risk of placing children with entire strangers is terrible. So I tease you with another letter to ask you if Mr. J. Sibree continues in the same position as formerly, and if he is still anxious to obtain pupils. ... "

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" ... In the middle of April Mr. Herbert Spencer, who had been abroad for some time, returned to England, and dined with them at Park Shot on the 15th, and on the 18th they went with him to Sydenham. On the 22d April George Eliot began her article on Young; and on the 29th she began to read Riehl's book,50 on which she was to write another article for the Westminster. ... "

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" ... We only twice took the walk beyond Watermouth towards Berrynarbor. The road lies through what are called the "Meadows," which look like a magnificent park. A stream, fringed with wild-flowers and willows, runs along the valley, two or three yards from the side of the road. This stream is clear as crystal, and about every twenty yards it falls over a little artificial precipice of stones. The long grass was waving in all the glory of June, before the mower has come to make it suffer a "love change" from beauties into sweet odors; and the slopes on each side of us were crowned or clothed with fine trees. The last time we went through these meadows was on our last day at Ilfracombe. Such sunlight and such deep peace on the hills and by the stream! ... "

"I have talked of the Ilfracombe lanes without describing them, for to describe them one ought to know the names of all the lovely wild-flowers that cluster on their banks. Almost every yard of these banks is a "Hunt" picture—a delicious crowding of mosses and delicate trefoil and wild strawberries and ferns great and small. But the crowning beauty of the lanes is the springs that gush out in little recesses by the side of the road—recesses glossy with liverwort and feathery with fern. Sometimes you have the spring when it has grown into a brook, either rushing down a miniature cataract by the lane-side, or flowing gently as a "braided streamlet" across your path. I never before longed so much to know the names of things as during this visit to Ilfracombe. The desire is part of the tendency that is now constantly growing in me to escape from all vagueness and inaccuracy into the daylight of distinct, vivid ideas. The mere fact of naming an object tends to give definiteness to our conception of it. We have then a sign which at once calls up in our minds the distinctive qualities which mark out for us that particular object from all others.

"We ascended the Tors only twice; for a tax of 3d. per head was demanded on this luxury, and we could not afford a sixpenny walk very frequently: yet the view is perhaps the very finest to be had at Ilfracombe. Bay behind bay, fringed with foam, and promontory behind promontory, each with its peculiar shades of purple light—the sweep of the Welsh coast faintly visible in the distance, and the endless expanse of sea, flecked with ships, stretching on our left."

"Ilfracombe, Recollections, June, 1856.

"One evening we went down to the shore through the "Tunnels" to see the sunset. Standing in the "Ladies' Cove," we had before us the sharp fragments of rock jutting out of the waves and standing black against the orange and crimson sky. How lovely to look into that brilliant distance and see the ship on the horizon seeming to sail away from the cold and dim world behind it right into the golden glory! I have always that sort of feeling when I look at sunset; it always seems to me that there in the West lies a land of light and warmth and love.

"On the 26th of June we said good-bye to Ilfracombe. The sight of the cockle-women at Swansea, where we had to wait, would make a fine subject for a painter. One of them was the grandest woman I ever saw—six feet high, carrying herself like a Greek warrior, and treading the earth with unconscious majesty. Her face was weather-beaten and wizened, but her eyes were bright and piercing, and the lines of her face, with its high cheek-bones, strong and characteristic. The guard at the railway station told us that one of the porters had been insolent the other day to a cockle-woman, and that she immediately pitched him off the platform into the road below!"

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 29th June, 1856."

" ... I understand your wish to have as much of Rosehill as possible this year, and I am so glad that you will associate a visit from Herbert Spencer with this last summer. I suppose he is with you now. If so, give him my very evil regards, and tell him that because he has not written to us we will diligently not tell him a great many things he would have liked to know. ... It is pleasant to think that Harriet Martineau can make so much of her last days. Her energy and her habit of useful work are admirable."

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"On the 8th August they left Tenby, and on 9th arrived at Richmond "with terrible headache, but enjoyed the sense of being 'at home' again." On the 18th, "walked in Kew Park, and talked with G. of my novel. Finished 'César Birotteau' aloud." On the 25th August Mr. Lewes set off for Hofwyl, near Berne, taking his two eldest boys, Charles and Thornton, to place them at school there. He returned on 4th September, and in his absence George Eliot had been busy with her article on "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists." This was finished on the 12th September, and on the 19th she sent off the Belles-lettres section for the October number of the Westminster.

"We have now arrived at the period of the new birth, and, fortunately, in the following memorandum, we have George Eliot's own words as to how it came about:"

"How I came to write fiction."

"September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it was then I began to write fiction. It had always been a vague dream of mine that some time or other I might write a novel; and my shadowy conception of what the novel was to be, varied, of course, from one epoch of my life to another. But I never went further towards the actual writing of the novel than an introductory chapter describing a Staffordshire village and the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years passed on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel, just as I desponded about everything else in my future life. I always thought I was deficient in dramatic power, both of construction and dialogue, but I felt I should be at my ease in the descriptive parts of a novel. My "introductory chapter" was pure description, though there were good materials in it for dramatic presentation. It happened to be among the papers I had with me in Germany, and one evening at Berlin something led me to read it to George. He was struck with it as a bit of concrete description, and it suggested to him the possibility of my being able to write a novel, though he distrusted—indeed, disbelieved in—my possession of any dramatic power. Still, he began to think that I might as well try some time what I could do in fiction, and by and by, when we came back to England, and I had greater success than he ever expected in other kinds of writing, his impression that it was worth while to see how far my mental power would go towards the production of a novel, was strengthened. ... "

So it did have to do with her quality, likely threat to his own, of her other writings.

" ... He began to say very positively, "You must try and write a story," and when we were at Tenby he urged me to begin at once. I deferred it, however, after my usual fashion with work that does not present itself as an absolute duty. But one morning, as I was thinking what should be the subject of my first story, my thoughts merged themselves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined myself writing a story, of which the title was "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton." I was soon wide awake again and told G. He said, "Oh, what a capital title!" and from that time I had settled in my mind that this should be my first story. George used to say, "It may be a failure—it may be that you are unable to write fiction. Or, perhaps, it may be just good enough to warrant your trying again." Again, "You may write a chef-d'œuvre at once—there's no telling." But his prevalent impression was, that though I could hardly write a poor novel, my effort would want the highest quality of fiction—dramatic presentation. He used to say, "You have wit, description, and philosophy—those go a good way towards the production of a novel. It is worth while for you to try the experiment.""

So he presented it as a challenge, without discouraging.

"We determined that if my story turned out good enough we would send it to Blackwood; but G. thought the more probable result was that I should have to lay it aside and try again.

"But when we returned to Richmond I had to write my article on "Silly Novels," and my review of Contemporary Literature for the Westminster, so that I did not begin my story till September 22. After I had begun it, as we were walking in the park, I mentioned to G. that I had thought of the plan of writing a series of stories, containing sketches drawn from my own observation of the clergy, and calling them "Scenes from Clerical Life," opening with "Amos Barton." He at once accepted the notion as a good one—fresh and striking; and about a week afterwards, when I read him the first part of "Amos," he had no longer any doubt about my ability to carry out the plan. The scene at Cross Farm, he said, satisfied him that I had the very element he had been doubtful about—it was clear I could write good dialogue. There still remained the question whether I could command any pathos; and that was to be decided by the mode in which I treated Milly's death. One night G. went to town on purpose to leave me a quiet evening for writing it. I wrote the chapter from the news brought by the shepherd to Mrs. Hackit, to the moment when Amos is dragged from the bedside, and I read it to G. when he came home. We both cried over it, and then he came up to me and kissed me, saying, "I think your pathos is better than your fun.""

Her process was thought out structure before filling in the events, and thus the nature descriptions hold, but don't tell with characters or events. Its chief lack is not drama, but lack of a natural flow of writing. It's constructed like a crafted piece by an artisan, with painstaking labour; not a thought that glowed in from infinite and onto paper from her mind through her pen.

"Letter from G. H. Lewes, to John Blackwood, 6th Nov. 1856.

""I trouble you with a MS. of 'Sketches of Clerical Life' which was submitted to me by a friend who desired my good offices with you. It goes by this post. I confess that before reading the MS. I had considerable doubts of my friend's powers as a writer of fiction; but, after reading it, these doubts were changed into very high admiration. I don't know what you will think of the story, but, according to my judgment, such humor, pathos, vivid presentation, and nice observation have not been exhibited (in this style) since the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' and, in consequence of that opinion, I feel quite pleased in negotiating the matter with you.

""This is what I am commissioned to say to you about the proposed series. It will consist of tales and sketches illustrative of the actual life of our country clergy about a quarter of a century ago—but solely in its human, and not at all in its theological aspects; the object being to do what has never yet been done in our literature, for we have had abundant religious stories, polemical and doctrinal, but since the 'Vicar' and Miss Austen, no stories representing the clergy like every other class, with the humors, sorrows, and troubles of other men. He begged me particularly to add, that—as the specimen sent will sufficiently prove—the tone throughout will be sympathetic, and not at all antagonistic.

""Some of these, if not all, you may think suitable for 'Maga.' If any are sent of which you do not approve, or which you do not think sufficiently interesting, these he will reserve for the separate republication, and for this purpose he wishes to retain the copyright. Should you only print one or two, he will be well satisfied; and still better, if you should think well enough of the series to undertake the separate republication.""

So, whether deliberately or otherwise unconsciously, "he" was used for hiding identity; presumably using "author" wasn't concealing enough.

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Blackwood's critique of the book and the writer, of which only the praise part is quoted in various biographies of her by other authors, is spot on!

"Letter from John Blackwood, to G. H. Lewes, 12th Nov. 1856.

""I am happy to say that I think your friend's reminiscences of Clerical Life will do. If there is any more of the series written I should like to see it, as, until I saw more, I could not make any decided proposition for the publication of the tales, in whole or in part, in the Magazine. This first specimen, 'Amos Barton,' is unquestionably very pleasant reading. Perhaps the author falls into the error of trying too much to explain the characters of his actors by description instead of allowing them to evolve in the action of the story; but the descriptions are very humorous and good. The death of Milly is powerfully done, and affected me much. I am not sure whether he does not spoil it a little by specifying so minutely the different children and their names. The wind-up is perhaps the lamest part of the story; and there, too, I think the defect is caused by the specifications as to the fortunes of parties of whom the reader has no previous knowledge, and cannot, consequently, feel much interest. At first, I was afraid that in the amusing reminiscences of childhood in church there was a want of some softening touch, such as the remembrance of a father or mother lends, in after-years, to what was at the time considerable penance.

""I hate anything of a sneer at real religious feeling as cordially as I despise anything like cant, and I should think this author is of the same way of thinking, although his clergymen, with one exception, are not very attractive specimens of the body. The revulsion of feeling towards poor Amos is capitally drawn, although the asinine stupidity of his conduct about the countess had disposed one to kick him.

""I dare say I shall have a more decided opinion as to the merits of the story when I have looked at it again and thought over it; but in the meantime I am sure that there is a happy turn of expression throughout, also much humor and pathos. If the author is a new writer, I beg to congratulate him on being worthy of the honors of print and pay. I shall be very glad to hear from you or him soon.""

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"On Christmas Day, 1856, "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story" was begun, and during December and January the following are mentioned among the books read: The "Ajax" of Sophocles, Miss Martineau's "History of the Peace," Macaulay's "History" finished, Carlyle's "French Revolution," Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution," and "Mansfield Park.""

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"Journal, 1857.

"The first part of "Amos Barton" appeared in the January number of Blackwood. Before the appearance of the Magazine, on sending me the proof, Mr. John Blackwood already expressed himself with much greater warmth of admiration; and when the first part had appeared he sent me a charming letter, with a check for fifty guineas, and a proposal about republication of the series. When the story was concluded he wrote me word how Albert Smith had sent him a letter saying he had never read anything that affected him more than Milly's death, and, added Blackwood, "The men at the club seem to have mingled their tears and their tumblers together. It will be curious if you should be a member and be hearing your own praises." There was clearly no suspicion that I was a woman. It is interesting, as an indication of the value there is in such conjectural criticism generally, to remember that when G. read the first part of "Amos" to a party at Helps's, they were all sure I was a clergyman—a Cambridge man. Blackwood seemed curious about the author, and, when I signed my letter "George Eliot," hunted up some old letters from Eliot Warburton's brother to compare the handwritings, though, he said, "'Amos' seems to me not in the least like what that good artilleryman would write.""

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"I may mention here that my wife told me the reason she fixed on this name was that George was Mr. Lewes's Christian name, and Eliot was a good, mouth-filling, easily pronounced word."

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 5th Mch. 1857."

" ... I showed the passage on the eye, p. 157, to Herbert Spencer, and he agrees with us that you have not stated your idea so as to render it a logical argument against design. You appear to imply that development and gradation in organs and functions are opposed to that conception, which they are not. I suppose you are aware that we all three hold the conception of creative design to be untenable. We only think you have not made out a good case against it.

"Thank you for sending me some news of Harriet Martineau. I have often said lately, "I wonder how she is.""

"Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1857.

"I am glad you retain a doubt in favor of the dagger, and wish I could convert you to entire approval, for I am much more satisfied when your feeling is thoroughly with me. But it would be the death of my story to substitute a dream for the real scene. Dreams usually play an important part in fiction, but rarely, I think, in actual life.

"So many of us have reason to know that criminal impulses may be felt by a nature which is nevertheless guarded by its entire constitution from the commission of crime, that I can't help hoping that my Caterina will not forfeit the sympathy of all my readers.

"The answer you propose to give to curious inquirers is the best possible. For several reasons I am very anxious to retain my incognito for some time to come, and, to an author not already famous, anonymity is the highest prestige. Besides, if George Eliot turns out a dull dog and an ineffective writer—a mere flash in the pan—I, for one, am determined to cut him on the first intimation of that disagreeable fact.

"The fates have willed that this shall be a very melancholy story, and I am longing to be a little merrier again."

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"On the 16th March Mr. Lewes and George Eliot started for Plymouth, Penzance, and the Scilly Isles, and we have the following recollections of their stay there:"

" ... Now and then, however, we had a clear sky and a calm sea, and on such days it was delicious to look up after the larks that were soaring above us, or to look out on the island and reef studded sea. I never enjoyed the lark before as I enjoyed it at Scilly—never felt the full beauty of Shelley's poem on it before. A spot we became very fond of towards the close of our stay was Carne Lea, where, between two fine, jutting piles of granite, there was a soft down, gay with the pretty pink flowers of the thrift, which, in this island, carpets the ground like greensward. Here we used to sit and lie in the bright afternoons, watching the silver sunlight on the waves—bright silver, not golden—it is the morning and evening sunlight that is golden. ... I was repeatedly told, in order to make me aware who Mr. Hall was, that he married a Miss Lemon. The people at St. Mary's imagine that the lawyers and doctors at Penzance are a sort of European characters that every one knows. We heard a great deal about Mr. Quill, an Irishman, the Controller of the Customs; and one day, when we were making a call on one of the residents, our host said two or three times, at intervals, "I wish you knew Quill!" At last, on our farewell call, we saw the distinguished Quill, with his hair plastered down, his charming smile, and his trousers with a broad stripe down each leg. Our host amused us by his contempt for curs: "Oh, I wouldn't have a cur—there's nothing to look at in a cur!""

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th April, 1857."

" ... We are more and more in love with these little islands. There is not a tree to be seen, but there are grand granite hills on the coast, such as I never saw before, and furze-covered hills with larks soaring and singing above them, and zoological wonders on the shore to fill our bottles and our souls at once. For some time I have been unusually weak and knock-up-able. Our landlady is an excellent woman, but, like almost all peculiarly domestic women, has not more than rudimentary ideas of cooking; and in an island where you can get nothing but beef, except by sending to Penzance, that supreme science has its maximum value. She seems to think eating a purely arbitrary procedure—an abnormal function of mad people who come to Scilly; and if we ask her what the people live on here, is quite at a loss to tell us, apparently thinking the question relates to the abstruser portion of natural history. But I insist, and give her a culinary lecture every morning, and we do, in the end, get fed. Altogether our life here is so far better than the golden age that we work as well as play. That is the happy side of things. But there is a very sad one to me which I shall not dwell upon—only tell you of. More than a week ago I received the news that poor Chrissey had lost one of her pretty little girls of fever; that the other little one—they were the only two she had at home with her—was also dangerously ill, and Chrissey herself and her servant apparently attacked by typhus too. The thought of her in this state is a perpetual shadow to me in the sunshine."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th April, 1857."

" ... But there is one new book we have been enjoying, and so, I hope, have you—the "Life of Charlotte Brontë." Deeply affecting throughout; in the early part romantic, poetic, as one of her own novels; in the later years tragic, especially to those who know what sickness is. Mrs. Gaskell has done her work admirably, both in the industry and care with which she has gathered and selected her material, and in the feeling with which she has presented it. There is one exception, however, which I regret very much. She sets down Branwell's conduct entirely to remorse. Remorse may make sad work with a man, but it will not make such a life as Branwell's was in the last three or four years, unless the germs of vice had sprouted and shot up long before, as it seems clear they had in him. What a tragedy!—that picture of the old father and the three sisters trembling, day and night, in terror at the possible deeds of their drunken, brutal son and brother! That is the part of the life which affects me most."

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"Letter to Isaac P. Evans, 16th April, 1857.

"I have been looking anxiously for some further tidings of Chrissey since your last letter, which told me that she and Kate were better, though not out of danger. I try to hope that no news is good news; but if you do not think it troublesome to write, I shall be thankful to have that hope changed into certainty.

"Meanwhile, to save multiplying letters—which I know you are not fond of—I mention now what will take no harm from being mentioned rather prematurely. I should like Chrissey to have £15 of my next half-year's income, due at the beginning of June, to spend in taking a change of air as soon as she is able to do so; and perhaps, if it were desirable for her to leave before the money has been paid in, you would be so kind as to advance it for a few weeks. I am writing, of course, in ignorance of her actual state; but I should think it must be good for her, as soon as she is able to move, to leave that fever-infected place for a time, and I know the money must have gone very fast in recent expenses. I only suggest the change of air as the thing that I should think best for Chrissey; but, in any case, I should like her to have the money, to do what she pleases with it. If she is well enough please to give her the enclosed note, in which I have suggested to her what I have just written to you.

"I am much obliged to you for your last letter, and shall be still more so if you will write me word of Chrissey's present condition."

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"Jersey, Recollections, 1857.

"It was a beautiful moment (12th May) when we came to our lodgings at Gorey. The orchards were all in blossom—and this is an island of orchards. They cover the slopes; they stretch before you in shady, grassy, indefinite extent through every other gateway by the roadside; they flourish in some spots almost close to the sea. What a contrast to the Scilly Isles! There you stand on the hills like a sparrow on the housetop; here you are like the same sparrow when he is hopping about on the branches with green above him, green below, and green all round. Gorey stands in Granville Bay, where the grand old castle of Mont Orgueil stands and keeps guard on a fine rocky promontory overlooking the little harbor dotted with fishing craft. There is a charming piece of common, or down, where you can have the quietest, easiest walking, with a carpet of minute wild-flowers that are not hindered from flourishing by the sandy rain of the coast. I delighted extremely in the brownish-green softness of this undulating common, here and there varied with a patch of bright green fern—all the prettier for two little homesteads set down upon it, with their garden-fence and sheltering trees. It was pretty in all lights, but especially the evening light, to look round at the castle and harbor, the village and the scattered dwellings peeping out from among trees on the hill. The castle is built of stone which has a beautiful pinkish-gray tint, and the bright green ivy hangs oblique curtains on its turreted walls, making it look like a natural continuation or outgrowth of the rocky and grassy height on which it stands. Then the eye wanders on to the right and takes in the church standing half-way down the hill, which is clothed with a plantation, and shelters the little village, with its cloud of blue smoke; still to the right, and the village breaks off, leaving nothing but meadows in front of the slope that shuts out the setting sun, and only lets you see a hint of the golden glory that is reflected in the pink, eastern clouds.

"The first lovely walk we found inland was the Queen's Fern Valley, where a broad strip of meadow and pasture lies between two high slopes covered with woods and ferny wilderness. When we first saw this valley it was in the loveliest spring-time; the woods were a delicious mixture of red and tender green and purple. We have watched it losing that spring beauty and passing into the green and flowery luxuriance of June, and now into the more monotonous summer tint of July.

"When the blossoms fell away from the orchards my next delight was to look at the grasses mingled with the red sorrel; then came the white umbelliferous plants, making a border or inner frame for them along the hedgerows and streams. Another pretty thing here is the luxuriance of the yellow iris, that covers large pieces of moist ground with its broad blades. Everywhere there are tethered cows, looking at you with meek faces—mild-eyed, sleek, fawn-colored creatures, with delicate, downy udders.

"Another favorite walk of ours was round by Mont Orgueil, along the coast. Here we had the green or rocky slope on one side of us, and on the other the calm sea stretching to the coast of France, visible on all but the murkiest days. But the murky days were not many during our stay, and our evening walks round the coast usually showed us a peaceful, scarcely rippled sea, plashing gently on the purple pebbles of the little scalloped bays. There were two such bays within the boundary of our sea-side walk in that direction, and one of them was a perpetual wonder to us, in the luxuriant verdure of meadows and orchards and forest-trees that sloped down to the very shore. No distressed look about the trees as if they were ever driven harshly back by the winter winds—it was like an inland slope suddenly carried to the coast.

"As for the inland walks, they are inexhaustible. The island is one labyrinth of delicious roads and lanes, leading you by the most charming nooks of houses with shady grounds and shrubberies, delightful farm homesteads, and trim villas."

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"In May Mr. Lewes writes to Mr. John Blackwood: "We were both amused with the divination of the Manx seer and his friend Liggers." This is the first mention of the individual, whose real name was Liggins of Nuneaton, who afterwards became notorious for laying claim to the authorship of the "Scenes of Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede."

""Janet's Repentance" had been begun on the 18th April, and the first three parts were finished in Jersey."

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"Journal, 1857.

"June.—Blackwood writes from London that he hears nothing but approval of "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story." Lord Stanley, among other people, had spoken to him about the "Clerical Scenes," at Bulwer's, and was astonished to find Blackwood in the dark as to the author."

"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 5th June, 1857."

" ... Yes! we like our wandering life at present, and it is fructifying, and brings us material in many ways; but we keep in perspective the idea of a cottage among green fields and cows, where we mean to settle down (after we have once been to Italy), and buy pots and kettles and keep a dog. Wherever we are we work hard—and at work which brings present money; for we have too many depending on us to be dilettanti or idlers. ... "

"Journal, June, 1857.

"I sent off the first part of "Janet's Repentance," but to my disappointment Blackwood did not like it so well—seemed to misunderstand the characters, and to be doubtful about the treatment of clerical matters. I wrote at once to beg him to give up printing the story if he felt uncomfortable about it, and he immediately sent a very anxious, cordial letter, saying the thought of putting a stop to the series "gave him quite a turn:" he "did not meet with George Eliots every day"—and so on."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 11th June, 1857."

"My sketches, both of Churchmen and Dissenters, with whom I am almost equally acquainted, are drawn from close observation of them in real life, and not at all from hearsay or from the descriptions of novelists. If I were to undertake to alter language or character. I should be attempting to represent some vague conception of what may possibly exist in other people's minds, but has no existence in my own. Such of your marginal objections as relate to a mere detail I can meet without difficulty by alteration; but as an artist I should be utterly powerless if I departed from my own conceptions of life and character. There is nothing to be done with the story, but either to let Dempster and Janet and the rest be as I see them, or to renounce it as too painful. I am keenly alive at once to the scruples and alarms an editor may feel, and to my own utter inability to write under cramping influence, and on this double ground I should like you to consider whether it will not be better to close the series for the Magazine now. I dare say you will feel no difficulty about publishing a volume containing the story of "Janet's Repentance," and I shall accept that plan with no other feeling than that you have been to me the most liberal and agreeable of editors, and are the man of all others I would choose for a publisher.

"My irony, so far as I understand myself, is not directed against opinions—against any class of religious views—but against the vices and weaknesses that belong to human nature in every sort of clothing. But it is possible that I may not affect other minds as I intend and wish to affect them, and you are a better judge than I can be of the degree in which I may occasionally be offensive. I should like not to be offensive—I should like to touch every heart among my readers with nothing but loving humor, with tenderness, with belief in goodness. But I may have failed in this case of "Janet," at least so far as to have made you feel its publication in the Magazine a disagreeable risk. If so, there will be no harm done by closing the series with No. 2, as I have suggested. If, however, I take your objections to be deeper than they really are—if you prefer inserting the story in spite of your partial dissatisfaction, I shall, of course, be happy to appear under "Maga's" wing still.

"When I remember what have been the successes in fiction, even as republications from "Maga," I can hardly believe that the public will regard my pictures as exceptionally coarse. But in any case there are too many prolific writers who devote themselves to the production of pleasing pictures, to the exclusion of all disagreeable truths, for me to desire to add to their number. In this respect, at least, I may have some resemblance to Thackeray, though I am not conscious of being in any way a disciple of his, unless it constitute discipleship to think him, as I suppose the majority of people with any intellect do, on the whole the most powerful of living novelists."

"Letter to John Blackwood, Tuesday, 17th Aug. 1857."

"Mr. Tryan is not a portrait of any clergyman, living or dead. He is an ideal character, but I hope probable enough to resemble more than one evangelical clergyman of his day.

"If Mr. Jones's deceased brother was like Mr. Tryan so much the better, for in that case he was made of human nature's finer clay. I think you will agree with me that there are few clergymen who would be depreciated by an identification with Mr. Tryan. But I should rather suppose that the old gentleman, misled by some similarity in outward circumstances, is blind to the discrepancies which must exist where no portrait was intended. As to the rest of my story, so far as its elements were suggested by real persons, those persons have been, to use good Mr. Jones's phrase, "long in eternity."

"I think I told you that a persecution of the kind I have described did actually take place, and belongs as much to the common store of our religious history as the Gorham Controversy, or as Bishop Blomfield's decision about wax candles. But I only know the outline of the real persecution. The details have been filled in from my imagination. I should consider it a fault which would cause me lasting regret if I had used reality in any other than the legitimate way common to all artists, who draw their materials from their observation and experience. It would be a melancholy result of my fictions if I gave just cause of annoyance to any good and sensible person. But I suppose there is no perfect safeguard against erroneous impressions or a mistaken susceptibility. We are all apt to forget how little there is about us that is unique, and how very strongly we resemble many other insignificant people who have lived before us. I shouldn't wonder if several nieces of pedantic maiden ladies saw a portrait of their aunt in Miss Pratt, but I hope they will not think it necessary, on that ground, to increase the already troublesome number of your correspondents."

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"Journal, Oct. 1857.

"Oct. 9.—Finished "Janet's Repentance." I had meant to carry on the series, and especially I longed to tell the story of the "Clerical Tutor," but my annoyance at Blackwood's want of sympathy in the first part (although he came round to admiration at the third part) determined me to close the series and republish them in two volumes.

"Oct. 22.—Began my new novel, "Adam Bede."

"Oct. 29.—Received a letter from Blackwood offering me £120 for the first edition of "Scenes of Clerical Life.""

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"Journal, 1857.

"Nov. 28.—A glorious day, still autumnal and not wintry. We have had a delicious walk in the Park, and I think the coloring of the scenery is more beautiful than ever. Many of the oaks are still thickly covered with leaves of a rich yellow-brown; the elms, golden sometimes, still with lingering patches of green. On our way to the Park the view from Richmond hill had a delicate blue mist over it, that seemed to hang like a veil before the sober brownish-yellow of the distant elms. As we came home, the sun was setting on a fog-bank, and we saw him sink into that purple ocean—the orange and gold passing into green above the fog-bank, the gold and orange reflected in the river in more sombre tints. The other day, as we were coming home through the Park, after having walked under a sombre, heavily clouded sky, the western sun shone out from under the curtain, and lit up the trees and grass, thrown into relief on a background of dark purple cloud. Then, as we advanced towards the Richmond end of the Park, the level, reddening rays shone on the dry fern and the distant oaks, and threw a crimson light on them. I have especially enjoyed this autumn, the delicious greenness of the turf, in contrast with the red and yellow of the dying leaves.

"Dec. 6 (Sunday).—Finished the "Agamemnon" to-day. In the evenings of late we have been reading Harriet Martineau's "Sketch of the British Empire in India," and are now following it up with Macaulay's articles on Clive and Hastings. We have lately read Harriet Martineau's Introduction to the "History of the Peace."

"Dec. 8.—I am reading "Die Familie," by Riehl, forming the third volume of the series, the two first of which, "Land und Volk" and "Die Bürgerliche Gesellschaft," I reviewed for the Westminster."

"Dec. 10.—Major Blackwood called—an unaffected, agreeable man. It was evident to us, when he had only been in the room a few minutes, that he knew I was George Eliot."

"Dec. 25 (Christmas Day).—George and I spent this lovely day together—lovely as a clear spring day. We could see Hampstead from the Park so distinctly that it seemed to have suddenly come nearer to us. We ate our turkey together in a happy solitude à deux.

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November 09, 2021 - November 09, 2021.

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APPENDIX.

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"As this volume is going through the press, I have to thank Mrs. John Cash of Coventry for the following valuable additional information in regard to the important subject of Miss Evans's change of religious belief in 1841–42, and for her further general recollections of the Coventry period of George Eliot's life ... "

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"It is natural then that, early awed by and attracted towards beliefs cherished by the best persons she had known, and advocated in the best books she had read, the mind of Miss Evans should have been stirred by exhibitions of a theoretic severance of religion from morality, whether presented among the disciples of "Ancient Christianity" or by the subjects of its modern revivals: it is probable that she may thereby have been led, as others have been, to a reconsideration of the creeds of Christendom, and to further inquiry concerning their origin."

"Upon my father's using an argument (common enough in those days) drawn from the present condition of the Jews as a fulfilment of prophecy, and saying, "If I were tempted to doubt the truth of the Bible, I should only have to look at a Jew to confirm my faith in it." "Don't talk to me of the Jews!" Miss Evans retorted, in an irritated tone; "to think that they were deluded into expectations of a temporal deliverer, and then punished because they couldn't understand that it was a spiritual deliverer that was intended!" To something that followed from her, intimating the claim of creatures upon their Creator, my father objected, "But we have no claim upon God." "No claim upon God!" she reiterated indignantly; "we have the strongest possible claim upon him.""

"The impression allowed to remain upon the minds of her friends, for some time after she had made declaration of her heresies, was of her being in a troubled, unsettled state. So great were her simplicity and candor in acknowledging this, and so apparent was her earnest desire for truth, that no hesitation was felt in asking her to receive visits from persons of different persuasions, who were judged competent to bring forward the best arguments in favor of orthodox doctrines. One of these was a Baptist minister, introduced to her by Miss Franklin; he was said to be well read in divinity, and I remember him as an original and interesting preacher. After an interview with Miss Evans, meeting my father, he said: "That young lady must have had the devil at her elbow to suggest her doubts, for there was not a book that I recommended to her in support of Christian evidences that she had not read."

"Mr. Watts, one of the professors at Spring Hill College (Independent), Birmingham, a colleague of Mr. Henry Rogers, author of the "Eclipse of Faith," and who had himself studied at the Hallé University, and enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Tholück, was requested (I think by my mother) to call on Miss Evans. His acquaintance with German Rationalism (rare in England in those days) qualified him to enter into, and it was hoped to meet, difficulties raised by a critical study of the New Testament. After his first or second interview, my brother remembers his observing with emphasis, "She has gone into the question;" and I can recall a reference made by him at a later date in my hearing to Miss Evans's discontent with her own solutions—or rather with her own standpoint at that time. This discontent, he said, "was so far satisfactory." Doubtless it gave him hope of the reconversion of one who had, as he told my mother, awakened deep interest in his own mind, as much by the earnestness which characterized her inquiries as by her exceptional attainments."

""In my father's absence we (my mother and I) called on Miss Evans. She now takes up a different position. Her views are not altogether altered, but she says it would be extreme arrogance in so young a person to suppose she had obtained yet any just ideas of truth. She had been reading Dr. Tholück's reply to Strauss's 'Life of Jesus,' but said Mr. Watts had advised her not to read his 'Guido and Julius.'""

"In another letter, addressed to my brother at Hallé, and dated October 28, 1842, I tell him: "Last week mother and I spent an evening with Miss Evans. She seemed more settled in her views than ever, and rests her objections to Christianity on this ground, that Calvinism is Christianity, and, this granted, that it is a religion based on pure selfishness. She occupied, however, a great part of the time in pleading for works of imagination, maintaining that they perform an office for the mind which nothing else can. On the mention of Shakespeare, she praised him with her characteristic ardor, was shocked at the idea that mother should disapprove the perusal of his writings, and quite distressed lest, through her influence, I should be prevented from reading them. She could be content were she allowed no other book than Shakespeare; and in educating a child, this would be the first book she would place in its hands.

""She seems to have read a great deal of Italian literature, and speaks with rapture of Metastasio's novels. She has lent me 'Le mie Prigioni' di Silvio Pellico, in his own tongue, as a book to begin with. She says there is a prevailing but very mistaken idea that Italian is an easy language, though she is exceedingly delighted with it. If at any time I wish to begin German, she would very much like to give me some instruction."

"In addition to the above relating to Shakespeare, I recall the protest that my mother's objection to his plays (my mother had been an ardent lover of "the play"), on the ground that there were things in them that offended her, was as reasonable as the objection to walk in a beautiful garden, "because toads and weeds are to be found in it.""

"Once only do I remember such contrast being made by herself. She attended the service at the opening of a new church at Foleshill, with her father, and remarked to me the next day that, looking at the gayly dressed people, she could not help thinking how much easier life would be to her, and how much better she should stand in the estimation of her neighbors, if only she could take things as they did, be satisfied with outside pleasures, and conform to the popular beliefs without any reflection or examination. Once, too, after being in the company of educated persons "professing and calling themselves Christians," she commented to me on the tone of conversation, often frivolous, sometimes ill-natured, that seemed yet to excite in no one any sense of impropriety.

"It must have been in those early days that she spoke to me of a visit from one of her uncles in Derbyshire, a Wesleyan, and how much she had enjoyed talking with him, finding she could enter into his feelings so much better than she had done in past times, when her views seemed more in accordance with his own, but were really less so.

"Among other books, I remember the "Life of Dr. Arnold" interested her deeply. Speaking of it to me one morning, she referred to a conversation she had had with a friend the evening before, and said they had agreed that it was a great good for such men to remain within the pale of orthodoxy, that so they might draw from the old doctrines the best that was to be got from them."

"The reading of dramas and romances naturally gives rise to discussion of their main theme. In treating of love and marriage, Miss Evans's feeling was so fine as to satisfy a young girl in her teens, with her impossible ideals. The conception of the union of two persons by so close a tie as marriage, without a previous union of minds as well as hearts, was to her dreadful. "How terrible it must be," she once said to me, "to find one's self tied to a being whose limitations you could see, and must know were such as to prevent your ever being understood!" She thought that though in England marriages were not professedly "arrangés," they were so too often practically: young people being brought together, and receiving intimations that mutual interest was desired and expected, were apt to drift into connections on grounds not strong enough for the wear and tear of life; and this, too, among the middle as well as in the higher classes. After speaking of these and other facts, of how things were and would be, in spite of likelihood to the contrary, she would end by saying, playfully, "Now, remember I tell you this, and I am sixty!"

"She thought the stringency of laws rendering the marriage-tie (at that date) irrevocable, practically worked injuriously; the effect being "that many wives took far less pains to please their husbands in behavior and appearance, because they knew their own position to be invulnerable." And at a later time she spoke of marriages on the Continent, where separations did not necessarily involve discredit, as being very frequently far happier.

"One claim, as she regarded it, from equals to each other was this, the right to hear from the aggrieved, "You have ill-treated me; do you not see your conduct is not fair, looked at from my side?" Such frankness would, she said, bring about good understanding better than reticent endurance. Her own filial piety was sufficiently manifest; but of the converse obligation, that of the claim of child upon parent, she was wont to speak thus strongly. "There may be," she would say, "conduct on the part of a parent which should exonerate his child from further obligation to him; but there cannot be action conceivable which should absolve the parent from obligation to serve his child, seeing that for that child's existence he is himself responsible." I did not at the time see the connection between this view and the change of a fundamental nature marked by Miss Evans's earlier contention for our "claim on God." The bearing of the above on orthodox religion I did not see. Some time ago, however, I came across this reflection, made by a clergyman of the Broad Church school—that since the claims of children had, in the plea for schools, been based on the responsibility of parents towards them, a higher principle had been maintained on the platform than was preached from the pulpit, as the basis of the popular theology."

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November 09, 2021 - November 09, 2021.

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VOLUME 2

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CHAPTER VIII.

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"Letter from Charles Dickens to George Eliot, 17th Jan. 1858.

""Tavistock House, London, Monday, 17th Jan. 1858.

""My dear Sir—I have been so strongly affected by the two first tales in the book you have had the kindness to send me, through Messrs. Blackwood, that I hope you will excuse my writing to you to express my admiration of their extraordinary merit. The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humor and the pathos of these stories, I have never seen the like of; and they have impressed me in a manner that I should find it very difficult to describe to you, if I had the impertinence to try.

""In addressing these few words of thankfulness to the creator of the Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, and the sad love-story of Mr. Gilfil, I am (I presume) bound to adopt the name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can suggest no better one: but I should have been strongly disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seemed to me such womanly touches in those moving fictions, that the assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so like a woman since the world began.

""You will not suppose that I have any vulgar wish to fathom your secret. I mention the point as one of great interest to me—not of mere curiosity. If it should ever suit your convenience and inclination to show me the face of the man, or woman, who has written so charmingly, it will be a very memorable occasion to me. If otherwise, I shall always hold that impalpable personage in loving attachment and respect, and shall yield myself up to all future utterances from the same source, with a perfect confidence in their making me wiser and better.—Your obliged and faithful servant and admirer,

""Charles Dickens.

""George Eliot, Esq.""

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Jan. 1858.

"I am sure you will be interested in Dickens's letter, which I enclose, begging you to return it as soon as you can, and not to allow any one besides yourself and Major Blackwood to share in the knowledge of its contents. There can be no harm, of course, in every one's knowing that Dickens admires the "Scenes," but I should not like any more specific allusion made to the words of a private letter. There can hardly be any climax of approbation for me after this; and I am so deeply moved by the finely felt and finely expressed sympathy of the letter, that the iron mask of my incognito seems quite painful in forbidding me to tell Dickens how thoroughly his generous impulse has been appreciated. If you should have an opportunity of conveying this feeling of mine to him in any way, you would oblige me by doing so. By-the-bye, you probably remember sending me, some months ago, a letter from the Rev. Archer Gurney—a very warm, simple-spoken letter—praising me for qualities which I most of all care to be praised for. I should like to send him a copy of the "Scenes," since I could make no acknowledgment of his letter in any other way. I don't know his address, but perhaps Mr. Langford would be good enough to look it out in the Clergy List."

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"Letter from Mrs. Carlyle to George Eliot, 21st Jan. 1858.

""5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 21st Jan. 1858.

""Dear Sir—I have to thank you for a surprise, a pleasure, and a—consolation (!) all in one book! And I do thank you most sincerely. I cannot divine what inspired the good thought to send me your book; since (if the name on the title-page be your real name) it could not have been personal regard; there has never been a George Eliot among my friends or acquaintance. But neither, I am sure, could you divine the circumstances under which I should read the book, and the particular benefit it should confer on me! I read it—at least the first volume—during one of the most (physically) wretched nights of my life—sitting up in bed, unable to get a wink of sleep for fever and sore throat—and it helped me through that dreary night as well—better than the most sympathetic helpful friend watching by my bedside could have done!

""You will believe that the book needed to be something more than a 'new novel' for me; that I could at my years, and after so much reading, read it in positive torment, and be beguiled by it of the torment! that it needed to be the one sort of book, however named, that still takes hold of me, and that grows rarer every year—a human book—written out of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an author—full of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of sentimentality, of sense without dogmatism, of earnestness without twaddle—a book that makes one feel friends at once and for always with the man or woman who wrote it!

""In guessing at why you gave me this good gift, I have thought amongst other things, 'Oh, perhaps it was a delicate way of presenting the novel to my husband, he being over head and ears in history.' If that was it, I compliment you on your tact! for my husband is much likelier to read the 'Scenes' on my responsibility than on a venture of his own—though, as a general rule, never opening a novel, he has engaged to read this one whenever he has some leisure from his present task.

""I hope to know some day if the person I am addressing bears any resemblance in external things to the idea I have conceived of him in my mind—a man of middle age, with a wife, from whom he has got those beautiful feminine touches in his book—a good many children, and a dog that he has as much fondness for as I have for my little Nero! For the rest—not just a clergyman, but brother or first cousin to a clergyman! How ridiculous all this may read beside the reality. Anyhow—I honestly confess I am very curious about you, and look forward with what Mr. Carlyle would call 'a good, healthy, genuine desire' to shaking hands with you some day.—In the meanwhile, I remain, your obliged

"Jane W. Carlyle.""

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"Journal, 1858.

"Jan. 30.—Received a letter from Faraday, thanking me very gracefully for the present of the "Scenes." Blackwood mentions, in enclosing this letter, that Simpkin & Marshall have sent for twelve additional copies—the first sign of a move since the subscription. The other night we looked into the life of Charlotte Brontë, to see how long it was before "Jane Eyre" came into demand at the libraries, and we found it was not until six weeks after publication. It is just three weeks now since I heard news of the subscription for my book."

Vanity there?

"Letter from M. Faraday to George Eliot, 28th Jan. 1858."

""Royal Institution, 28th Jan. 1858.

""Sir—I cannot resist the pleasure of thanking you for what I esteem a great kindness: the present of your thoughts embodied in the two volumes you have sent me. They have been, and will be again, a very pleasant relief from mental occupation among my own pursuits. Such rest I find at times not merely agreeable, but essential.—Again thanking you, I beg to remain, your very obliged servant,

"M. Faraday.

""George Eliot, Esq., &c., &c.""

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"Journal, 1858."

"Feb. 4.—Yesterday brought the discouraging news, that though the book is much talked of, it moves very slowly. Finished the "Eumenides." Bessie Parkes has written asking me to contribute to the Englishwoman's Journal—a new monthly which, she says, "We are beginning with £1000, and great social interest.""

"Feb. 28.—Mr. John Blackwood called on us, having come to London for a few days only. He talked a good deal about the "Clerical Scenes" and George Eliot, and at last asked, "Well, am I to see George Eliot this time?" G. said, "Do you wish to see him?" "As he likes—I wish it to be quite spontaneous." I left the room, and G. following me a moment, I told him he might reveal me. Blackwood was kind, came back when he found he was too late for the train, and said he would come to Richmond again. He came on the following Friday and chatted very pleasantly—told us that Thackeray spoke highly of the "Scenes," and said they were not written by a woman. Mrs. Blackwood is sure they are not written by a woman. Mrs. Oliphant, the novelist, too, is confident on the same side. I gave Blackwood the MS. of my new novel, to the end of the second scene in the wood. He opened it, read the first page, and smiling, said, "This will do." We walked with him to Kew, and had a good deal of talk. Found, among other things, that he had lived two years in Italy when he was a youth, and that he admires Miss Austen.

"Since I wrote these last notes several encouraging fragments of news about the "Scenes" have come to my ears—especially that Mrs. Owen Jones and her husband—two very different people—are equally enthusiastic about the book. But both have detected the woman."

"Letter to Charles Bray, 31st March, 1858.

"Thanks for your disclaimer. It shows me that you take a right view of the subject. There is no undertaking more fruitful of absurd mistakes than that of "guessing" at authorship; and as I have never communicated to any one so much as an intention of a literary kind, there can be none but imaginary data for such guesses. If I withhold anything from my friends which it would gratify them to know, you will believe, I hope, that I have good reasons for doing so, and I am sure those friends will understand me when I ask them to further my object—which is not a whim but a question of solid interest—by complete silence. I can't afford to indulge either in vanity or sentimentality about my work. I have only a trembling anxiety to do what is in itself worth doing, and by that honest means to win very necessary profit of a temporal kind. "There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed" in due time. But till that time comes—till I tell you myself, "This is the work of my hand and brain"—don't believe anything on the subject. There is no one who is in the least likely to know what I can, could, should, or would write."

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"Journal, 1858.

"April 1, 1858.—Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm praise of "Adam Bede," but wanting to know the rest of the story in outline before deciding whether it should go in the Magazine. I wrote in reply refusing to tell him the story.

"On Wednesday evening, April 7th, we set off on our journey to Munich, and now we are comfortably settled in our lodgings, where we hope to remain three months at least. I sit down in my first leisure moments to write a few recollections of our journey, or rather of our twenty-four hours' stay at Nürnberg; for the rest of our journey was mere endurance of railway and steamboat in cold and sombre weather, often rainy. I ought to except our way from Frankfort to Nürnberg, which lay for some distance—until we came to Bamberg—through a beautifully varied country. Our view both of Würzburg and Bamberg, as we hastily snatched it from our railway carriage, was very striking—great old buildings, crowning heights that rise up boldly from the plain in which stand the main part of the towns. From Bamberg to Nürnberg the way lay through a wide rich plain sprinkled with towns. We had left all the hills behind us. At Bamberg we were joined in our carriage by a pleasant-looking elderly couple, who spoke to each other and looked so affectionately that we said directly, "Shall we be so when we are old?" It was very pretty to see them hold each other's gloved hands for a minute like lovers. As soon as we had settled ourselves in our inn at Nürnberg—the Baierische Hof—we went out to get a general view of the town. Happily it was not raining, though there was no sun to light up the roof and windows."

"Journal, April, 1858.

"How often I had thought I should like to see Nürnberg, and had pictured to myself narrow streets with dark quaint gables! The reality was not at all like my picture, but it was ten times better. No sombre coloring, except the old churches: all was bright and varied, each façade having a different color—delicate green, or buff, or pink, or lilac—every now and then set off by the neighborhood of a rich reddish brown. And the roofs always gave warmth of color with their bright red or rich purple tiles. Every house differed from its neighbor, and had a physiognomy of its own, though a beautiful family likeness ran through them all, as if the burghers of that old city were of one heart and one soul, loving the same delightful outlines, and cherishing the same daily habits of simple ease and enjoyment in their balcony-windows when the day's work was done.

"The balcony window is the secondary charm of the Nürnberg houses; it would be the principal charm of any houses that had not the Nürnberg roofs and gables. It is usually in the centre of the building, on the first floor, and is ornamented with carved stone or wood, which supports it after the fashion of a bracket. In several of these windows we saw pretty family groups—young fair heads of girls or of little children, with now and then an older head surmounting them. One can fancy that these windows are the pet places for family joys—that papa seats himself there when he comes home from the warehouse, and the little ones cluster round him in no time. But the glory of the Nürnberg houses is the roofs, which are no blank surface of mere tiling, but are alive with lights and shadows, cast by varied and beautiful lines of windows and pinnacles and arched openings. The plainest roof in Nürnberg has its little windows lifting themselves up like eyelids, and almost everywhere one sees the pretty hexagonal tiles. But the better houses have a central, open sort of pavilion in the roof, with a pinnacle surmounted by a weathercock. This pavilion has usually a beautifully carved arched opening in front, set off by the dark background which is left by the absence of glass. One fancies the old Nürnbergers must have gone up to these pavilions to smoke in the summer and autumn days. There is usually a brood of small windows round this central ornament, often elegantly arched and carved. A wonderful sight it makes to see a series of such roofs surmounting the tall, delicate-colored houses. They are always high-pitched, of course, and the color of the tiles was usually of a bright red. I think one of the most charming vistas we saw was the Adler-Gasse, on the St. Lorenz side of the town. Sometimes, instead of the high-pitched roof, with its pavilion and windows, there is a richly ornamented gable fronting the street; and still more frequently we get the gables at right angles with the street at a break in the line of houses."

Who could then have known what Nürnberg would later come to be known for! The Nazi rallies, the massacre of S.A., ....

"Coming back from the Burg we met a detachment of soldiers, with their band playing, followed by a stream of listening people; and then we reached the market-place, just at the point where stands "The Beautiful Fountain"—an exquisite bit of florid Gothic which has been restored in perfect conformity with the original. Right before us stood the Frauen-Kirche, with its fine and unusual façade, the chief beauty being a central chapel used as the choir, and added by Adam Krafft. It is something of the shape of a mitre, and forms a beautiful gradation of ascent towards the summit of façade. We heard the organ and were tempted to enter, for this is the one Catholic Church in Nürnberg. The delicious sound of the organ and voices drew us farther and farther in among the standing people, and we stayed there I don't know how long, till the music ceased. How the music warmed one's heart! I loved the good people about me, even to the soldier who stood with his back to us, giving us a full view of his close-cropped head, with its pale yellowish hair standing up in bristles on the crown, as if his hat had acted like a forcing-pot. ... "

How few the decades before that spectacle invoked very different feelings, throughout Europe!

" ... Nothing could be more wretched as art than the painted St. Veronica opposite me, holding out the sad face on her miraculous handkerchief. Yet it touched me deeply; and the thought of the Man of Sorrows seemed a very close thing—not a faint hearsay."

And yet, it wasn't a century before the truth of holocaust perpetrators was exposed here, with documents and photographs leaving no doubts. Rome crucified the king of Jews, and fraudulent, vicious church propaganda led to genocide of his blood relatives, in two millennia.

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 17th April, 1858."

" ... I feel sure that when I have seen as much of Raphael I shall like him better; but at present Rubens, more than any one else, makes me feel that painting is a great art, and that he was a great artist. His are such real, breathing men and women, moved by passions, not mincing and grimacing, and posing in mere aping of passion! ... "

Is George Eliot taunting El Greco?

" ... We stayed at Nürnberg only twenty-four hours, and I felt sad to leave it so soon. A pity the place became Protestant, so that there is only one Catholic church where one can go in and out as one would. We turned into the famous St. Sebald's for a minute, where a Protestant clergyman was reading in a cold, formal way under the grand Gothic arches. Then we went to the Catholic church, the Frauen-Kirche, where the organ and voices were giving forth a glorious mass; and we stood with a feeling of brotherhood among the standing congregation till the last note of the organ had died out."

"Journal, 1858."

"We went into the modern Saal also, glancing on our way at the Cornelius frescoes, which seem to me stiff and hideous. An Adonis, by Thorwaldsen, is very beautiful."

George Eliot continues with description of her visit, waxing eloquent about Germany and Germans, from "waxen heads" to most other things.

This feeling prevailed, one would think, only until cousin Willy was displeased, and caused havoc across Europe, resulting in toppling several cousins, getting several of them murdered, and millions of normal citizens too, apart from rifts across the clans that had knitted Europe - most royals related to either Queen Victoria, or Christian of Denmark, or both.

But here's a curious detail.

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th May, 1858."

" ... Among the awful mysterious names, hitherto known only as marginal references whom we have learned to clothe with ordinary flesh and blood, is Professor Martius (Spix and Martius), now an old man, and rich after the manner of being rich in Germany. He has a very sweet wife—one of those women who remain pretty and graceful in old age—and a family of three daughters and one son, all more than grown up. I learned that she is Catholic, that her daughters are Catholic, and her husband and son Protestant—the children having been so brought up according to the German law in cases of mixed marriage. I can't tell you how interesting it was to me to hear her tell of her experience in bringing up her son conscientiously as a Protestant, and then to hear her and her daughters speak of the exemplary priests who had shown them such tender fatherly care when they were in trouble. They are the most harmonious, affectionate family we have seen; and one delights in such a triumph of human goodness over the formal logic of theorists."

Did such a solution of harmony exist for those who married, not merely across branches of church, but out of it? Historically?

It's unclear, but then, in post WWI regime of third Reich, it was all wiped out - if you had one grandparent of the unapproved race or faith (which was same then in Germany), you were destined for extermination.

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 28th May, 1858."

"We pay for our sight of the snowy mountains here by the most capricious of climates. English weather is steadfast compared with Munich weather. You go to dinner here in summer and come away from it in winter. You are languid among trees and feathery grass at one end of the town, and are shivering in a hurricane of dust at the other. This inconvenience of climate, with the impossibility of dining (well) at any other hour than one o'clock is not friendly to the stomach—that great seat of the imagination. And I shall never advise an author to come to Munich except ad interim. The great Saal, full of Rubens's pictures, is worth studying; and two or three precious bits of sculpture, and the sky on a fine day, always puts one in a good temper—it is so deliciously clear and blue, making even the ugliest buildings look beautiful by the light it casts on them."

"Munich to Dresden, 1858."

"At the Rosenheim station we got into the longest of omnibuses, which took us to the Gasthof, where we were to dine and lunch, and then mount into the Stell-wagen, which would carry us to Prien, on the borders of the Chiem See. Rosenheim is a considerable and rather quaint-looking town, interrupted by orchards and characterized in a passing glance by the piazzas that are seen everywhere fronting the shops. It has a grand view of the mountains, still a long way off. The afternoon was cloudy, with intermittent rain, and did not set off the landscape. Nevertheless, I had much enjoyment in this four or five hours' journey to Prien. The little villages, with picturesque, wide gables, projecting roofs, and wooden galleries—with abundant orchards—with felled trunks of trees and stacks of fir-wood, telling of the near neighborhood of the forest—were what I liked best in this ride.

"We had no sooner entered the steamboat to cross the Chiem See than it began to rain heavily, and I kept below, only peeping now and then at the mountains and the green islands, with their monasteries. From the opposite bank of the See we had a grand view of the mountains, all dark purple under the clouded sky. Before us was a point where the nearer mountains opened and allowed us a view of their more distant brethren receding in a fainter and fainter blue—a marsh in the foreground, where the wild-ducks were flying. Our drive from this end of the lake to Traunstein was lovely—through fertile, cultivated land, everywhere married to bits of forest. The green meadow or the golden corn sloped upward towards pine woods, or the bushy greenness seemed to run with wild freedom far out into long promontories among the ripening crops. Here and there the country had the aspect of a grand park from the beautiful intermingling of wood and field, without any line of fence."

"The next morning the weather looked doubtful, and so we gave up going to the König See for that day, determining to ramble on the Mönchsberg and enjoy the beauties of Salzburg instead. The morning brightened as the sun ascended, and we had a delicious ramble on the Mönchsberg—looking down on the lovely, peaceful plain, below the grand old Untersberg, where the sleeping Kaiser awaits his resurrection in that "good time coming;" watching the white mist floating along the sides of the dark mountains, and wandering under the shadow of the plantation, where the ground was green with luxuriant hawkweed, as at Nymphenburg, near Munich. The outline of the castle and its rock is remarkably fine, and reminded us of Gorey in Jersey. But we had a still finer view of it when we drove out to Aigen. On our way thither we had sight of the Watzmann, the highest mountain in Bavarian Tyrol—emerging from behind the great shoulder of the Untersberg. It was the only mountain within sight that had snow on its summit. Once at Aigen, and descended from our carriage, we had a delicious walk, up and up, along a road of continual steps, by the course of the mountain-stream, which fell in a series of cascades over great heaps of bowlders; then back again, by a round-about way, to our vehicle and home, enjoying the sight of old Watzmann again, and the grand mass of Salzburg Castle on its sloping rock."

"We thought it wisest the next morning to renounce the König See, and pursue our way to Ischl by the Stell-wagen. We were fortunate enough to secure two places in the coupé, and I enjoyed greatly the quiet outlook, from my comfortable corner, on the changing landscape—green valley and hill and mountain; here and there a picturesque Tyrolese village, and once or twice a fine lake.

"The greatest charm of charming Ischl is the crystal Traun, surely the purest of streams. Away again early the next morning in the coupé of the Stell-wagen, through a country more and more beautiful—high, woody mountains sloping steeply down to narrow, fertile, green valleys, the road winding amongst them so as to show a perpetual variety of graceful outlines where the sloping mountains met in the distance before us. As we approached the Gmunden See the masses became grander and more rocky, and the valley opened wider. It was Sunday, and when we left the Stell-wagen we found quite a crowd in Sunday clothes standing round the place of embarkation for the steamboat that was to take us along the lake. Gmunden is another pretty place at the head of the lake, but apart from this one advantage inferior to Ischl. ... Behind the great fall there is a sort of inner chamber, where the water rushes perpetually over a stone altar. At the station, as we waited for the train, it began to rain, and the good-natured looking woman asked us to take shelter in her little station-house—a single room not more than eight feet square, where she lived with her husband and two little girls all the year round. The good couple looked more contented than half the well-lodged people in the world. He used to be a drozchky driver; and after that life of uncertain gains, which had many days quite penniless and therefore dinnerless, he found his present position quite a pleasant lot.

"On to Linz, when the train came, gradually losing sight of the Tyrolean mountains and entering the great plain of the Danube. Our voyage the next day in the steamboat was unfortunate: we had incessant rain till we had passed all the finest parts of the banks. But when we had landed, the sun shone out brilliantly, and so our entrance into Vienna, through the long suburb, with perpetual shops and odd names (Prschka, for example, which a German in our omnibus thought not at all remarkable for consonants!) was quite cheerful. ... "

"The aspect of the city is that of an inferior Paris; the shops have an elegance that one sees nowhere else in Germany; the streets are clean, the houses tall and stately. ... "

Why does she say "nowhere else in Germany"??? Neither Vienna nor Linz were ever in Germany!

George Eliot writes about Vienna, and Prague where they travelled to, next.

"Dresden, 1858.

"The next morning early by railway to Dresden—a charming journey, for it took us right through the Saxon Switzerland, with its castellated rocks and firs. At four o'clock we were dining comfortably at the Hotel de Pologne, and the next morning (Sunday) we secured our lodgings—a whole apartment of six rooms, all to ourselves, for 18s. per week! By nine o'clock we were established in our new home, where we were to enjoy six weeks' quiet work, undisturbed by visits and visitors. And so we did. ... Holbein's Madonna is very exquisite—a divinely gentle, golden haired blonde, with eyes cast down, in an attitude of unconscious, easy grace—the loveliest of all the Madonnas in the Dresden Gallery except the Sistine. ... "

But - aren't they all forgetting that this was a Jewish woman, even if they call her Madonna- which in Italian is simply, literally, "my lady", or Madame in French? That change from Hebrew to Italian, just because Rome appropriated them after they killed him, doesn't change her being Jewish, or his, does it? Why insist on them bring blond, or blue eyed? And if this doesn't matter, why make a point about kissing a lovely dark eyed Jewish child in Prague despite it being dirty, as George Eliot does a page or do back?

"I did not half satisfy my appetite for the rich collection of Flemish and Dutch pictures here—for Teniers, Ryckart, Gerard Dow, Terburg, Mieris, and the rest. Rembrandt looks great here in his portraits, but I like none of the other pictures by him; the Ganymede is an offence. Guido is superlatively odious in his Christs, in agonized or ecstatic attitudes—much about the level of the accomplished London beggar. Dear, grand old Rubens does not show to great advantage, except in the charming half-length Diana returning from Hunting, the Love Garden, and the sketch of his Judgment of Paris."

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"Journal, 1858."

"Nov. 4.—Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm praise of my third volume, and offering £800 for the copyright of "Adam Bede" for four years. I wrote to accept."

Cross gives George Eliot's story, in her own words, regarding evolution of Adam Bede.

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November 09, 2021 - November 09, 2021.

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CHAPTER IX.

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"Journal, 1859."

"Jan. 31.—Received a check for £400 from Blackwood, being the first instalment of the payment for four years' copyright of "Adam Bede." To-morrow the book is to be subscribed, and Blackwood writes very pleasantly—confident of its "great success." Afterwards we went into town, paid money into the bank, and ordered part of our china and glass towards house-keeping."

"Journal, 1859."

"Feb. 6.—Yesterday we went to take possession of Holly Lodge, Wandsworth, which is to be our dwelling, we expect, for years to come. ... "

"Journal, 1859."

"March 15.—Chrissey died this morning at a quarter to 5."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st March, 1859.

"It was worth your while to write me those feeling words, for they are the sort of things that I keep in my memory and feel the influence of a long, long while. Chrissey's death has taken from the possibility of many things towards which I looked with some hope and yearning in the future. I had a very special feeling towards her—stronger than any third person would think likely."

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 10th April, 1859.

"The other day I received a letter from an old friend in Warwickshire, containing some striking information about the author of "Adam Bede." I extract the passage for your amusement:

""I want to ask you if you have read 'Adam Bede,' or the 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' and whether you know that the author is Mr. Liggins? … A deputation of dissenting parsons went over to ask him to write for the 'Eclectic,' and they found him washing his slop-basin at a pump. He has no servant, and does everything for himself; but one of the said parsons said that he inspired them with a reverence that would have made any impertinent question impossible. The son of a baker, of no mark at all in his town, so that it is possible you may not have heard of him. You know he calls himself 'George Eliot.' It sounds strange to hear the Westminster doubting whether he is a woman, when here he is so well known. But I am glad it has mentioned him. They say he gets no profit out of 'Adam Bede,' and gives it freely to Blackwood, which is a shame. We have not read him yet, but the extracts are irresistible."

"Conceive the real George Eliot's feelings, conscious of being a base worldling—not washing his own slop-basin, and not giving away his MS.! not even intending to do so, in spite of the reverence such a course might inspire. I hope you and Major Blackwood will enjoy the myth.

"Mr. Langford sent me a letter the other day from Miss Winkworth, a grave lady, who says she never reads novels, except a few of the most famous, but that she has read "Adam" three times running. One likes to know such things—they show that the book tells on people's hearts, and may be a real instrument of culture. I sing my Magnificat in a quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors, I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments of success. I think I should soon begin to believe that Liggins wrote my books—it is so difficult to believe what the world does not believe, so easy to believe what the world keeps repeating."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 20th April, 1859.

"This myth about Liggins is getting serious, and must be put a stop to. We are bound not to allow sums of money to be raised on a false supposition of this kind. Don't you think it would be well for you to write a letter to the Times, to the effect that, as you find in some stupid quarters my letter has not been received as a bonâ-fide denial, you declare Mr. Liggins not to be the author of "Clerical Scenes" and "Adam Bede;" further, that any future applications to you concerning George Eliot will not be answered, since that writer is not in need of public benevolence. Such a letter might save us from future annoyance and trouble, for I am rather doubtful about Mr. Liggins's character. The last report I heard of him was that he spent his time in smoking and drinking. I don't know whether that is one of the data for the Warwickshire logicians who have decided him to be the author of my books."

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"Journal, 1859.

"April 29.—Finished a story—"The Lifted Veil"—which I began one morning at Richmond as a resource when my head was too stupid for more important work.

"Resumed my new novel, of which I am going to rewrite the two first chapters. I shall call it provisionally "The Tullivers," for the sake of a title quelconque, or perhaps "St. Ogg's on the Floss.""

"Journal, 1859.

"May 9.—We had a delicious drive to Dulwich, and back by Sydenham. We stayed an hour in the gallery at Dulwich, and I satisfied myself that the St. Sebastian is no exception to the usual "petty prettiness" of Guido's conceptions. The Cuyp glowing in the evening sun, the Spanish beggar boys of Murillo, and Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs. Sheridan and her sister, are the gems of the gallery. But better than the pictures was the fresh greenth of the spring—the chestnuts just on the verge of their flowering beauty, the bright leaves of the limes, the rich yellow-brown of the oaks, the meadows full of buttercups. We saw for the first time Clapham Common, Streatham Common, and Tooting Common—the two last like parks rather than commons."

"Letter to Major Blackwood, 6th June, 1859.

"The "Liggins business" does annoy me, because it subjects you and Mr. John Blackwood to the reception of insulting letters, and the trouble of writing contradictions. Otherwise, the whole affair is really a subject for a Molière comedy—"The Wise Men of Warwickshire," who might supersede "The Wise Men of Gotham."

"The letter you sent me was a very pleasant one from Mrs. Gaskell, saying that since she came up to town she has had the compliment paid her of being suspected to have written "Adam Bede." "I have hitherto denied it; but really, I think, that as you want to keep your real name a secret, it would be very pleasant for me to blush acquiescence. Will you give me leave?""

"Journal, 1859.

"June 20.—We went to the Crystal Palace to hear the "Messiah," and dined afterwards with the Brays and Sara Hennell. I told them I was the author of "Adam Bede" and "Clerical Scenes," and they seemed overwhelmed with surprise. This experience has enlightened me a good deal as to the ignorance in which we all live of each other."

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"Journal, 1859.

"July 9.—We started for Switzerland. Spent a delightful day in Paris. To the Louvre first, where we looked chiefly at the Marriage at Cana, by Paul Veronese. This picture, the greatest I have seen of his, converted me to high admiration of him.

"July 12.—Arrived at Lucerne in the evening. Glad to make a home at the charming Schweizerhof on the banks of the Lake. G. went to call on the Congreves, and in the afternoon Mrs. Congreve came to chat with us. In the evening we had a boat on the Lake.

"July 13.—G. set off for Hofwyl at five o'clock, and the three next days were passed by me in quiet chat with the Congreves and quiet resting on my own sofa.

"July 19.—Spent the morning in Bâle, chiefly under the chestnut-trees, near the Cathedral, I reading aloud Flourens's sketch of Cuvier's labors. In the afternoon to Paris.

"July 21.—Holly Lodge, Wandsworth. Found a charming letter from Dickens, and pleasant letters from Blackwood; nothing to annoy us. Before we set off we had heard the excellent news that the fourth edition of "Adam Bede" (5000) had all been sold in a fortnight. The fifth edition appeared last week."

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"Journal, 1859.

"Aug. 25.—In the evening of this day we set off on our journey to Penmaenmawr. We reached Conway at half-past three in the morning; and finding that it was hopeless to get a bed anywhere, we walked about the town till the morning began to dawn, and we could see the outline of the fine old castle's battlemented walls. In the morning we went to Llandudno, thinking that might suit us better than Penmaenmawr. We found it ugly and fashionable. Then we went off to Penmaenmawr, which was beautiful to our hearts' content—or rather discontent—for it would not receive us, being already filled with visitors. Back again in despair to Conway, where we got temporary lodgings at one of the numerous Joneses. ... And the winds were so cold on this northerly coast that George was not sorry, preferring rather to take flight southward. So we set out again on 31st, and reached Lichfield about half-past five. Here we meant to pass the night, that I might see my nieces—dear Chrissey's orphan children—Emily and Kate. I was much comforted by the sight of them, looking happy, and apparently under excellent care in Miss Eborall's school. ... "

"Journal, 1859.

"Nov. 10.—Dickens dined with us to-day, for the first time, and after he left I went to the Congreves, where George joined me, and we had much chat—about George Stephenson, religion, etc."

"Journal, 1859.

"Dec. 15.—Blackwood proposes to give me for "The Mill on the Floss" £2000 for 4000 copies of an edition at 31s. 6d., and after the same rate for any more that may be printed at the same price: £150 for 1000 at 12s., and £60 for 1000 at 6s. I have accepted."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Jan. 1860.

""The Mill on the Floss" be it then! The only objections are, that the mill is not strictly on the Floss, being on its small tributary, and that the title is of rather laborious utterance. But I think these objections do not deprive it of its advantage over "The Tullivers; or, Life on the Floss"—the only alternative, so far as we can see. Pray give the casting-vote."

"Journal, 1860.

"Feb. 29.—G. has been in the town to-day, and has agreed for £300 for "The Mill on the Floss" from Harpers of New York. This evening, too, has come a letter from Williams & Norgate, saying that Tauchnitz will give £100 for the German reprint; also, that "Bede Adam" is translated into Hungarian.

"March 5.—Yesterday Mr. Lawrence, the portrait-painter, lunched with us, and expressed to G. his wish to take my portrait.

"March 9.—Yesterday a letter from Blackwood, expressing his strong delight in my third volume, which he had read to the beginning of "Borne on the tide." To-day young Blackwood called, and told us, among other things, that the last copies of "Clerical Scenes" had gone to-day—twelve for export. Letter came from Germany, announcing a translation of G.'s "Biographical History of Philosophy."

"March 11.—To-day the first volume of the German translation of "Adam Bede" came. It is done by Dr. Frese, the same man who translated the "Life of Goethe."

"March 20.—Professor Owen sent me his "Palæontology" to-day. Have missed two days of work from headache, and so have not yet finished my book.

"March 21.—Finished this morning "The Mill on the Floss," writing from the moment when Maggie, carried out on the water, thinks of her mother and brother. We hope to start for Rome on Saturday, 24th."

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CHAPTER X.

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" ... Travelling can hardly be without a continual current of disappointment, if the main object is not the enlargement of one's general life, so as to make even weariness and annoyances enter into the sum of benefit. ... "

"The first striking moment in our journey was when we arrived, I think about eleven o'clock at night, at the point in the ascent of the Mont Cenis where we were to quit the diligences and take to the sledges. After a hasty drink of hot coffee in the roadside inn, our large party—the inmates of three diligences—turned out into the starlight to await the signal for getting into the sledges. That signal seemed to be considerably on in the future—to be arrived at through much confusion of luggage-lifting, voices, and leading about of mules. The human bustle and confusion made a poetic contrast with the sublime stillness of the starlit heavens spread over the snowy table-land and surrounding heights. The keenness of the air contributed strongly to the sense of novelty; we had left our every-day, conventional world quite behind us, and were on a visit to Nature in her private home.

"Once closely packed in our sledge, congratulating ourselves that, after all, we were no more squeezed than in our diligence, I gave myself up to as many naps as chose to take possession of me, and actually slept without very considerable interruption till we were near the summit of the mighty pass. Already there was a faint hint of the morning in the starlight, which showed us the vast, sloping snow-fields as we commenced the descent. I got a few glimpses of the pure, far-stretching whiteness before the sharpening edge of cold forced us to close the window. Then there was no more to be seen till it was time to get out of the sledge and ascend the diligence once more; not, however, without a preliminary struggle with the wind, which fairly blew me down on my slippery standing-ground. The rest of our descent showed us fine, varied scenes of mountain and ravine till we got down at Susa, where breakfast and the railway came as a desirable variety after our long mountain journey and long fast. One of our companions had been a gigantic French soldier, who had in charge a bag of government money. He was my vis-à-vis for some time, and cramped my poor legs not a little with his precious bag, which he would by no means part from.

"The approach to Turin by the railway gave us a grand view of snowy mountains surrounding the city on three sides. A few hours of rest spent there could leave no very vivid impression. A handsome street, well broken by architectural details, with a glimpse of snowy mountains at the end of the vista, colonnades on each side, and flags waving their bright colors in sign of political joy, is the image that usually rises before me at the mention of Turin. I fancy the said street is the principal one, but in our walk about the town we saw everywhere a similar character of prosperous, well-lodged town existence—only without the colonnades and without the balconies and other details, which make the principal street picturesque.

"We lost no time in turning out, after breakfast, into the morning sunshine. George was enchanted with the aspect of the place, as we drove or walked along the streets. It was his first vision of anything corresponding to his preconception of Italy. After the Adlergasse, in Nürnberg, surely no streets can be more impressive than the Strada Nuova and Strada Nuovissima, at Genoa. In street architecture I can rise to the highest point of the admiration given to the Palladian style. And here in these chief streets of Genoa the palaces have two advantages over those of Florence: they form a series, creating a general impression of grandeur of which each particular palace gets the benefit; and they have the open gateway, showing the cortile within—sometimes containing grand stone staircases. And all this architectural splendor is accompanied with the signs of actual prosperity. Genova la Superba is not a name of the past merely."

"Leghorn on a brilliant, warm morning, with five or six hours before us to fill as agreeably as possible! Of course, the first thought was to go to Pisa, but the train would not start till eleven; so, in the meantime, we took a drive about the prosperous-looking town, and saw the great reservoir which receives the water brought from the distant mountains; a beautiful and interesting sight—to look into the glassy depth and see columns and grand arches reflected as if in mockery and frustration of one's desire to see the bottom. But in one corner the light fell so as to reveal that reality instead of the beautiful illusion. On our way back we passed the Hebrew synagogue, and were glad of our coachman's suggestion that we should enter, seeing it was the Jews' Sabbath."

She describes Rome, including Vatican and most other famius spots, in detail.

"Our journey to Frascati by railway was fortunate. The day was fine, except, indeed, for the half hour that we were on the heights of Tusculum, and longed for a clear horizon. But the weather was so generally gloomy during our stay in Rome that we were "thankful for small mercies" in the way of sunshine. I enjoyed greatly our excursion up the hill on donkey-back to the ruins of Tusculum—in spite of our loquacious guide, who exasperated George. The sight of the Campagna on one side, and of Mount Algidus, with its snow-capped fellows, and Mount Albano, with Rocca di Papa on its side, and Castel Gandolfo below on the other side, was worth the trouble—to say nothing of the little theatre, which was the most perfect example of an ancient theatre I had then seen in that pre-Pompeian period of my travels. ... "

"Our excursion to Tivoli, reserved till nearly the end of our stay, happened on one of those cruel, seductive days that smile upon you at five o'clock in the morning, to become cold and cloudy at eight, and resolutely rainy at ten. And so we ascended the hill through the vast, venerable olive grove, thinking what would be the effect of sunshine among those gray, fantastically twisted trunks and boughs; and paddled along the wet streets under umbrellas to look at the Temple of the Sibyl, and to descend the ravine of the waterfalls. Yet it was enjoyable; for the rain was not dense enough to shroud the near view of rock and foliage. We looked for the first time at a rock of Travertine, with its curious petrified vegetable forms, and lower down at a mighty cavern, under which the smaller cascade rushes—an awful hollow in the midst of huge, rocky masses. But—rain, rain, rain! No possibility of seeing the Villa of Hadrian, chief wonder of Tivoli: and so we had our carriage covered up and turned homeward in despair."

She goes on to describe more of Rome, especially museums.

It's a tad surprising that this account was not published separately as a travelogue.

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"Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th April, 1860."

" ... We are glad to have been driven into apartments, instead of remaining at the hotel, as we had intended; for we enjoy the abundance of room and the quiet that belong to this mode of life, and we get our cooking and all other comforts in perfection at little more than a third of the hotel prices. Most of the visitors to Rome this season seem to come only for a short stay; and, as apartments can't be taken for less than a month, the hotels are full and the lodgings are empty. Extremely unpleasant for the people who have lodgings to let, but very convenient for us, since we get excellent rooms in a good situation for a moderate price. ... We had several fellow-travellers who belonged to Savoy, and were full of chagrin at the prospect of the French annexation. Our most agreeable companion was a Baron de Magliano, a Neapolitan who has married a French wife with a large fortune, and has been living in France for years, but has now left his wife and children behind for the sake of entering the Sardinian army, and, if possible, helping to turn out the Neapolitan Bourbons. I feel some stirrings of the insurrectionary spirit myself when I see the red pantaloons at every turn in the streets of Rome. I suppose Mrs. Browning could explain to me that this is part of the great idea nourished in the soul of the modern saviour, Louis Napoleon, and that for the French to impose a hateful government on the Romans is the only proper sequence to the story of the French Revolution."

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"It was on the 29th of April that we left Rome, and on the morning of the 30th we arrived at Naples—under a rainy sky, alas! but not so rainy as to prevent our feeling the beauty of the city and bay, and declaring it to surpass all places we had seen before. The weather cleared up soon after our arrival at the Hotel des Étrangers, and after a few days it became brilliant, showing us the blue sea, the purple mountains, and bright city, in which we had almost disbelieved as we saw them in the pictures. Hardly anything can be more lovely than Naples seen from Posilippo under a blue sky: the irregular outline with which the town meets the sea, jutting out in picturesque masses, then lifted up high on a basis of rock, with the grand Castle of St. Elmo and the monastery on the central height crowning all the rest; the graceful outline of purple Vesuvius rising beyond the Molo, and the line of deeply indented mountains carrying the eye along to the Cape of Sorrento; and, last of all, Capri sleeping between sea and sky in the distance. Crossing the promontory of Posilippo, another wonderful scene presents itself: white Nisida on its island rock; the sweep of bay towards Pozzuoli; beyond that, in fainter colors of farther distance, the Cape of Miseno and the peaks of Ischia."

"But the most impressive collection of remains found at Pompeii and Herculaneum is that of the ornaments, articles of food and domestic utensils, pieces of bread, loaves with the bakers' names on them, fruits, corn, various seeds, paste in the vessel, imperfectly mixed, linen just wrung in washing, eggs, oil consolidated in a glass bottle, wine mixed with the lava, and a piece of asbestos; gold lace, a lens, a lantern with sides of talc, gold ornaments of Etruscan character, patty-pans (!), moulds for cakes; ingenious portable cooking apparatus, urn for hot water, portable candelabrum, to be raised or lowered at will, bells, dice, theatre-checks, and endless objects that tell of our close kinship with those old Pompeians. In one of the rooms of this collection there are the Farnese cameos and engraved gems, some of them—especially of the latter—marvellously beautiful, complicated, and exquisitely minute in workmanship. I remember particularly one splendid yellow stone engraved with an elaborate composition of Apollo and his chariot and horses—a masterpiece of delicate form."

"Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 5th May, 1860

"We left Rome a week ago, almost longing, at last, to come southward in search of sunshine. Every one likes to boast of peculiar experience, and we can boast of having gone to Rome in the very worst spring that has been known for the last twenty years. Here, at Naples, we have had some brilliant days, though the wind is still cold, and rain has often fallen heavily in the night. It is the very best change for us after Rome; there is comparatively little art to see, and there is nature in transcendent beauty. We both think it the most beautiful place in the world, and are sceptical about Constantinople, which has not had the advantage of having been seen by us. That is the fashion of travellers, as you know: for you must have been bored many times in your life by people who have insisted on it that you must go and see the thing they have seen—there is nothing like it. We shall bore you in that way, I dare say—so prepare yourself. Our plan at present is to spend the next week in seeing Pæstum, Amalfi, Castellamare, and Sorrento, and drinking in as much of this Southern beauty, in a quiet way, as our souls are capable of absorbing."

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"On approaching Pæstum, the first thing one catches sight of is the Temple of Vesta, which is not beautiful either for form or color, so that we began to tremble lest disappointment were to be the harvest of our dusty journey. But the fear was soon displaced by almost rapturous admiration at the sight of the great Temple of Neptune—the finest thing, I verily believe, that we had yet seen in Italy. It has all the requisites to make a building impressive: First, form. What perfect satisfaction and repose for the eye in the calm repetition of those columns; in the proportions of height and length, of front and sides; the right thing is found—it is not being sought after in uneasy labor of detail or exaggeration. Next, color. It is built of Travertine, like the other two temples; but while they have remained, for the most part, a cold gray, this Temple of Neptune has a rich, warm, pinkish brown, that seems to glow and deepen under one's eyes. Lastly, position. It stands on the rich plain, covered with long grass and flowers, in sight of the sea on one hand, and the sublime blue mountains on the other. Many plants caress the ruins; the acanthus is there, and I saw it in green life for the first time; but the majority of the plants on the floor, or bossing the architrave, are familiar to me as home flowers—purple mallows, snapdragons, pink hawksweed, etc. ... "

"The next day we went in the morning from Salerno to Amalfi. It is an unspeakably grand drive round the mighty rocks with the sea below; and Amalfi itself surpasses all imagination of a romantic site for a city that once made itself famous in the world. ... "

"In the morning we set off, again in brightest weather, to Sorrento, coasting the opposite side of the promontory to that which we had passed along the day before, and having on our right hand Naples and the distant Posilippo. The coast on this side is less grand than on the Amalfi side, but it is more friendly as a place for residence. The most charming spot on the way to Sorrento, to my thinking, is Vico, which I should even prefer to Sorrento, because there is no town to be traversed before entering the ravine and climbing the mountain in the background. But I will not undervalue Sorrento, with its orange-groves embalming the air, its glorious sunsets over the sea, setting the gray olives aglow on the hills above us, its walks among the groves and vineyards out to the solitary coast. ... "

After Rome and Naples, she describes Florence extensively. She thinks little of Michaelangelo, and has not a word of appreciation for any of his works.

" ... The splendid chapel in San Lorenzo, containing the tombs of the Medici, is ugly and heavy, with all its precious marbles; and the world-famous statues of Michael Angelo on the tombs in another smaller chapel—the Notte, the Giorno, and the Crepuscolo—remained to us as affected and exaggerated in the original as in copies and casts."

"We left Florence on the evening of the 1st of June, by diligence, travelling all night and until eleven the next morning to get to Bologna. I wish we could have made that journey across the Apennines by daylight, though in that case I should have missed certain grand, startling effects that came to me in my occasional wakings. Wonderful heights and depths I saw on each side of us by the fading light of the evening. Then, in the middle of the night, while the lightning was flashing and the sky was heavy with threatening storm-clouds, I waked to find the six horses resolutely refusing or unable to move the diligence—till, at last, two meek oxen were tied to the axle, and their added strength dragged us up the hill. But one of the strangest effects I ever saw was just before dawn, when we seemed to be high up on mighty mountains, which fell precipitously, and showed us the awful, pale horizon far, far below."

" ... At Santa Cecilia—now used as a barrack or guard-room—there are two frescoes by Francia, the Marriage and Burial of St. Cecilia, characteristic, but miserably injured. At the great Church of San Domenico the object of chief interest is the tomb of the said saint, by the ever-to-be-honored Nicolo Pisano. I believe this tomb was his first great work, and very remarkable it is; but there is nothing on it equal to the Nativity on the pulpit at Pisa. On this tomb stands a lovely angel, by Michael Angelo. It is small in size, holding a small candle-stick, and is a work of his youth; it shows clearly enough how the feeling for grace and beauty were strong in him, only not strong enough to wrestle with his love of the grandiose and powerful."

Pretty much what can be said of mist of works of George Eliot herself!

"We left Bologna in the afternoon, rested at Ferrara for the night, and passed the Euganean Mountains on our left hand as we approached Padua in the middle of the next day."

She describes Padua, but not as extensively as Rome or Naples or Florence.

"There is a piazza with a plantation and circular public walk, with wildly affected statues of small and great notorieties, which remains with one as a peculiarity of Padua; in general the town is merely old and shabbily Italian, without anything very specific in its aspect.

"From Padua to Venice!

"It was about ten o'clock on a moonlight night—the 4th of June—that we found ourselves apparently on a railway in the midst of the sea; we were on the bridge across the Lagoon. Soon we were in a gondola on the Grand Canal, looking out at the moonlit buildings and water. What stillness! What beauty! Looking out from the high window of our hotel on the Grand Canal I felt that it was a pity to go to bed. Venice was more beautiful than romances had feigned."

Descriptions of Venice are naturally more extensive.

"We made the journey to Chioggia, but with small pleasure, on account of my illness, which continued all day. Otherwise that long floating over the water, with the forts and mountains looking as if they were suspended in the air, would have been very enjoyable. Of all dreamy delights that of floating in a gondola along the canals and out on the Lagoon is surely the greatest. We were out one night on the Lagoon when the sun was setting, and the wide waters were flushed with the reddened light. I should have liked it to last for hours; it is the sort of scene in which I could most readily forget my own existence and feel melted into the general life."

"Another charm of evening-time was to walk up and down the Piazza of San Marco as the stars were brightening and look at the grand, dim buildings, and the flocks of pigeons flitting about them; or to walk on to the Bridge of La Paglia and look along the dark canal that runs under the Bridge of Sighs—its blackness lit up by a gaslight here and there, and the plash of the oar of blackest gondola slowly advancing."

"The young proprietor was walking about transacting business in the rooms as we passed through them—a handsome, refined-looking man. The chief treasure left—the Entombment, by Titian—is perhaps a superior duplicate of the one in the Louvre. After this we went to a private house (once the house of Bianca Capello) to see a picture which the joint proprietors are anxious to prove to be a Leonardo da Vinci. It is a remarkable—an unforgetable—picture. The subject is the Supper at Emmaus; and the Christ, with open, almost tearful eyes, with loving sadness spread over the regular beauty of his features, is a masterpiece. This head is not like the Leonardo sketch at Milan; and the rest of the picture impressed me strongly with the idea that it is of German, not Italian, origin. Again, the head is not like that of Leonardo's Christ in the National Gallery—it is far finer, to my thinking.

"Farewell, lovely Venice! and away to Verona, across the green plains of Lombardy, which can hardly look tempting to an eye still filled with the dreamy beauty it has left behind. Yet I liked our short stay at Verona extremely. ... "

"Heavy rain came on our way to Milan, putting an end to the brilliant weather we had enjoyed ever since our arrival at Naples. The line of road lies through a luxuriant country, and I remember the picturesque appearance of Bergamo—half of it on the level, half of it lifted up on the green hill.

"In this second visit of mine to Milan my greatest pleasures were the Brera Gallery and the Ambrosian Library, neither of which I had seen before. ... "

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"We left Milan for Como on a fine Sunday morning, and arrived at beautiful Bellagio by steamer in the evening. Here we spent a delicious day—going to the Villa Somma Riva in the morning, and in the evening to the Serbellone Gardens, from the heights of which we saw the mountain-peaks reddened with the last rays of the sun. The next day we reached lovely Chiavenna, at the foot of the Splügen Pass, and spent the evening in company with a glorious mountain torrent, mountain peaks, huge bowlders, with rippling miniature torrents and lovely young flowers among them, and grassy heights with rich Spanish chestnuts shadowing them. Then, the next morning, we set off by post and climbed the almost perpendicular heights of the Pass—chiefly in heavy rain that would hardly let us discern the patches of snow when we reached the table-land of the summit. About five o'clock we reached grassy Splügen and felt that we had left Italy behind us. Already our driver had been German for the last long post, and now we had come to a hotel where host and waiters were German. Swiss houses of dark wood, outside staircases and broad eaves, stood on the steep, green, and flowery slope that led up to the waterfall; and the hotel and other buildings of masonry were thoroughly German in their aspect. In the evening we enjoyed a walk between the mountains, whose lower sides down to the torrent bed were set with tall, dark pines. But the climax of grand—nay, terrible—scenery came the next day as we traversed the Via Mala."

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November 09, 2021 - November 10, 2021.

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CHAPTER XI.

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"Journal, 1860.

"July 1.—We found ourselves at home again, after three months of delightful travel. From Berne we brought our eldest boy Charles, to begin a new period in his life, after four years at Hofwyl. During our absence "The Mill on the Floss" came out (April 4), and achieved a greater success than I had ever hoped for it. The subscription was 3600 (the number originally printed was 4000); and shortly after its appearance, Mudie having demanded a second thousand, Blackwood commenced striking off 2000 more, making 6000. While we were at Florence I had the news that these 6000 were all sold, and that 500 more were being prepared. From all we can gather, the votes are rather on the side of "The Mill" as a better book than "Adam."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 3d July, 1860."

"A French translation of "Adam Bede," by a Genevese gentleman23 well known to me, is now in the press; and the same translator has undertaken "The Mill on the Floss." He appears to have rendered "Adam" with the most scrupulous care. I think these are all the incidents we gathered on our homeward journey that are likely to interest you."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Aug. 1860.

"I think I must tell you the secret, though I am distrusting my power to make it grow into a published fact. When we were in Florence I was rather fired with the idea of writing an historical romance—scene, Florence; period, the close of the fifteenth century, which was marked by Savonarola's career and martyrdom. Mr. Lewes has encouraged me to persevere in the project, saying that I should probably do something in historical romance rather different in character from what has been done before. But I want first to write another English story, and the plan I should like to carry out is this: to publish my next English novel when my Italian one is advanced enough for us to begin its publication a few months afterwards in "Maga." It would appear without a name in the Magazine, and be subsequently reprinted with the name of George Eliot. I need not tell you the wherefore of this plan. You know well enough the received phrases with which a writer is greeted when he does something else than what was expected of him. But just now I am quite without confidence in my future doings, and almost repent of having formed conceptions which will go on lashing me now until I have at least tried to fulfil them.

"I am going to-day to give my last sitting to Lawrence, and we were counting on the Major's coming to look at the portrait and judge of it. I hope it will be satisfactory, for I am quite set against going through the same process a second time.

"We are a little distracted just now with the prospect of removal from our present house, which some obliging people have at last come to take off our hands."

This genesis, of both, Silas Marner and Romola?

"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Sept. 1860.

"My fingers have been itching to write to you for the last week or more, but I have waited and waited, hoping to be able to tell you that we had decided on our future house. This evening, however, I have been reading your description of Algiers, and the desire to thank you for it moves me too strongly to be resisted. It is admirably written, and makes me see the country. I am so glad to think of the deep draughts of life you get from being able to spend half your life in that fresh, grand scenery. It must make London and English green fields all the more enjoyable in their turn."

And there, seed of The Spanish Gypsy.

"Journal, 1860.

"Sept. 27.—To-day is the third day we have spent in our new home here at 10 Harewood Square. It is a furnished house, in which we do not expect to stay longer than six months at the utmost. Since our return from Italy I have written a slight tale, "Mr. David Faux, Confectioner" ("Brother Jacob"), which G. thinks worth printing."

................................................................................................

"Journal, 1860.

"Nov. 28.—Since I last wrote in this Journal I have suffered much from physical weakness, accompanied with mental depression. The loss of the country has seemed very bitter to me, and my want of health and strength has prevented me from working much—still worse, has made me despair of ever working well again. I am getting better now by the help of tonics, and shall be better still if I could gather more bravery, resignation, and simplicity of striving. In the meantime my cup is full of blessings: my home is bright and warm with love and tenderness, and in more material, vulgar matters we are very fortunate.

"Last Tuesday—the 20th—we had a pleasant evening. Anthony Trollope dined with us, and made me like him very much by his straightforward, wholesome Wesen. Afterwards Mr. Helps came in, and the talk was extremely agreeable. He told me the queen had been speaking to him in great admiration of my books—especially "The Mill on the Floss." It is interesting to know that royalty can be touched by that sort of writing, and I was grateful to Mr. Helps for his wish to tell me of the sympathy given to me in that quarter.

"To-day I have had a letter from M. d'Albert, saying that at last the French edition of "Adam Bede" is published. He pleases me very much by saying that he finds not a sentence that he can retrench in the first volume of "The Mill."

"I am engaged now in writing a story—the idea of which came to me after our arrival in this house, and which has thrust itself between me and the other book I was meditating. It is "Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe." I am still only at about the 62d page, for I have written slowly and interruptedly."

So - what she intended, had planned, to write before Romola was another one; and Silas Marner "intervened", and she was slow in writing it.

All this confirms- that's the odd such that flew, the work that flowed, unlike her other - painstakingly belaboured - constructions!

"Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1861.

"I am writing a story which came across my other plans by a sudden inspiration. I don't know at present whether it will resolve itself into a book short enough for me to complete before Easter, or whether it will expand beyond that possibility. It seems to me that nobody will take any interest in it but myself, for it is extremely unlike the popular stories going; but Mr. Lewes declares that I am wrong, and says it is as good as anything I have done. It is a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet-seed of thought. I think I get slower and more timid in my writing, but perhaps worry about houses and servants and boys, with want of bodily strength, may have had something to do with that. I hope to be quiet now."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1861.

"I don't wonder at your finding my story, as far as you have read it, rather sombre; indeed, I should not have believed that any one would have been interested in it but myself (since Wordsworth is dead) if Mr. Lewes had not been strongly arrested by it. But I hope you will not find it at all a sad story, as a whole, since it sets—or is intended to set—in a strong light the remedial influences of pure, natural human relations. The Nemesis is a very mild one. I have felt all through as if the story would have lent itself best to metrical rather than to prose fiction, especially in all that relates to the psychology of Silas; except that, under that treatment, there could not be an equal play of humor. It came to me first of all quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment.

"My chief reason for wishing to publish the story now is that I like my writings to appear in the order in which they are written, because they belong to successive mental phases, and when they are a year behind me I can no longer feel that thorough identification with them which gives zest to the sense of authorship. I generally like them better at that distance, but then I feel as if they might just as well have been written by somebody else. It would have been a great pleasure to me if Major Blackwood could have read my story. I am very glad to have the first part tested by the reading of your nephew and Mr. Simpson, and to find that it can interest them at all."

................................................................................................

"Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Mch. 1861.

"The latest number I had heard of was three thousand three hundred, so that your letter brought me agreeable information. I am particularly gratified, because this spirited subscription must rest on my character as a writer generally, and not simply on the popularity of "Adam Bede." There is an article on "The Mill" in Macmillan's Magazine which is worth reading. I cannot, of course, agree with the writer in all his regrets; if I could have done so I should not have written the book I did write, but quite another. Still, it is a comfort to me to read any criticism which recognizes the high responsibilities of literature that undertakes to represent life. The ordinary tone about art is that the artist may do what he will, provided he pleases the public.

"I am very glad to be told—whenever you can tell me—that the major is not suffering heavily. I know so well the preciousness of those smiles that tell one the mind is not held out of all reach of soothing.

"We are wavering whether we shall go to Florence this spring or wait till the year and other things are more advanced."

................................................................................................

"Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th April, 1861.

"I feel more at ease in omitting formalities with you than I should with most persons, because I know you are yourself accustomed to have other reasons for your conduct than mere fashion, and I believe you will understand me without many words when I tell you what Mr. Lewes felt unable to explain on the instant when you kindly expressed the wish to see us at your house; namely, that I have found it a necessity of my London life to make the rule of never paying visits. Without a carriage, and with my easily perturbed health, London distances would make any other rule quite irreconcilable for me with any efficient use of my days; and I am obliged to give up the few visits which would be really attractive and fruitful in order to avoid the many visits which would be the reverse. It is only by saying, "I never pay visits," that I can escape being ungracious or unkind—only by renouncing all social intercourse but such as comes to our own fireside, that I can escape sacrificing the chief objects of my life.

"I think it very good of those with whom I have much fellow-feeling, if they will let me have the pleasure of seeing them without their expecting the usual reciprocity of visits; and I hope I need hardly say that you are among the visitors who would be giving me pleasure in this way. I think your imagination will supply all I have left unsaid, all the details that run away with our hours when our life extends at all beyond our own homes; and I am not afraid of your misinterpreting my stay-at-home rule into churlishness."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th April, 1861.

"We went to hear Beethoven's "Mass in D" last night, and on Wednesday to hear Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Nacht" and Beethoven's "Symphony in B," so that we have had two musical treats this week; but the enjoyment of such things is much diminished by the gas and bad air. Indeed, our long addiction to a quiet life, in which our daily walk among the still grass and trees was a fête to us, has unfitted us for the sacrifices that London demands. Don't think about reading "Silas Marner" just because it is come out. I hate obligato reading and obligato talk about my books. I never send them to any one, and never wish to be spoken to about them, except by an unpremeditated, spontaneous prompting. They are written out of my deepest belief, and, as well as I can, for the great public, and every sincere, strong word will find its mark in that public. Perhaps the annoyance I suffered (referring to the Liggins' affair) has made me rather morbid on such points; but, apart from my own weaknesses, I think the less an author hears about himself the better. Don't mistake me: I am writing a general explanation, not anything applicable to you."

"Journal, 1861.

"April 19.—We set off on our second journey to Florence, through France and by the Cornice Road. Our weather was delicious, a little rain, and we suffered neither from heat nor from dust."

"Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 25th April, 1861.

"We have had a paradisaic journey hitherto. It does one good to look at the Provençals—men and women. They are quite a different race from the Northern French—large, round-featured, full-eyed, with an expression of bonhomie, calm and suave. They are very much like the pleasantest Italians. The women at Arles and Toulon are remarkably handsome. On Tuesday morning we set out about ten on our way to Nice, hiring a carriage and taking post-horses. The sky was gray, and after an hour or so we had rain; nevertheless our journey to Vidauban, about half-way to Nice, was enchanting. Everywhere a delicious plain, covered with bright green corn, sprouting vines, mulberry-trees, olives, and here and there meadows sprinkled with buttercups, made the nearer landscapes, and, in the distance, mountains of varying outline. Mutter felt herself in a state of perfect bliss from only looking at this peaceful, generous nature; and you often came across the green blades of corn, and made her love it all the better. We had meant to go on to Fréjus that night, but no horses were to be had; so we made up our minds to rest at Vidauban, and went out to have a stroll before our six-o'clock dinner. Such a stroll! The sun had kindly come out for us, and we enjoyed it all the more for the grayness of the morning. There is a crystally clear river flowing by Vidauban, called the Argent: it rushes along between a fringe of aspens and willows; and the sunlight lay under the boughs, and fell on the eddying water, making Pater and me very happy as we wandered. The next morning we set off early, to be sure of horses before they had been used up by other travellers. The country was not quite so lovely, but we had the sunlight to compensate until we got past Fréjus, where we had our first view of the sea since Toulon, and where the scenery changes to the entirely mountainous, the road winding above gorges of pine-clad masses for a long way. To heighten the contrast, a heavy storm came, which thoroughly laid the dust for us, if it had no other advantage. The sun came out gloriously again before we reached Cannes, and lit up the yellow broom, which is now in all its splendor, and clothes vast slopes by which our road wound. We had still a four-hours' journey to Nice, where we arrived at six o'clock, with headaches that made us glad of the luxuries to be found in a great hotel."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 19th May, 1861.

"We have been industriously foraging in old streets and old books. I feel very brave just now, and enjoy the thought of work—but don't set your mind on my doing just what I have dreamed. It may turn out that I can't work freely and fully enough in the medium I have chosen, and in that case I must give it up; for I will never write anything to which my whole heart, mind, and conscience don't consent, so that I may feel that it was something—however small—which wanted to be done in this world, and that I am just the organ for that small bit of work.

"I am very much cheered by the way in which "Silas" is received. I hope it has made some slight pleasure for you too, in the midst of incomparably deeper feelings of sadness.31 Your quiet tour among the lakes was the best possible thing for you. What place is not better "out of the season"?—although I feel I am almost wicked in my hatred of being where there are many other people enjoying themselves. I am very far behind Mr. Buckle's millennial prospect, which is, that men will be more and more congregated in cities and occupied with human affairs, so as to be less and less under the influence of Nature—i.e., the sky, the hills, and the plains; whereby superstition will vanish and statistics will reign for ever and ever."

"I look forward with keen anxiety to the next outbreak of war—longing for some turn of affairs that will save poor Venice from being bombarded by those terrible Austrian forts."

"Journal, 1861.

"May and June.—At the end of May Mr. T. Trollope came back and persuaded us to stay long enough to make the expedition to Camaldoli and La Vernia in his company. We arrived at Florence on the 4th May, and left it on the 7th June—thirty-four days of precious time spent there. Will it be all in vain? Our morning hours were spent in looking at streets, buildings, and pictures, in hunting up old books at shops or stalls, or in reading at the Magliabecchian Library. Alas! I could have done much more if I had been well; but that regret applies to most years of my life. Returned by Lago Maggiore and the St. Gothard ... "

................................................................................................

"Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 11th Sept. 1861, from Malvern.

"Your letter was a great delight to us, as usual; and the check, too, was welcome to people under hydropathic treatment, which appears to stimulate waste of coin as well as of tissue. Altogether, we are figures in keeping with the landscape when it is well damped or "packed" under the early mist.

"We thought rather contemptuously of the hills on our arrival; like travelled people, we hinted at the Alps and Apennines, and smiled with pity at our long-past selves, that had felt quite a thrill at the first sight of them. But now we have tired our limbs by walking round their huge shoulders we begin to think of them with more respect. We simply looked at them at first; we feel their presence now, and creep about them with due humility—whereby, you perceive, there hangs a moral. I do wish you could have shared for a little while with us the sight of this place. I fear you have never seen England under so lovable an aspect. On the southeastern side, where the great green hills have their longest slope, Malvern stands, well nestled in fine trees—chiefly "sounding sycamores"—and beyond there stretches to the horizon, which is marked by a low, faint line of hill, a vast level expanse of grass and cornfields, with hedge-rows everywhere plumed with trees, and here and there a rolling mass of wood; it is one of the happiest scenes the eyes can look on—freundlich, according to the pretty German phrase. On the opposite side of this main range of hills there is a more undulated and more thickly wooded country which has the sunset all to itself, and is bright with departing lights when our Malvern side is in cold evening shadow. We are so fortunate as to look out over the wide southeastern valley from our sitting-room window.

"Our landlady is a quaint old personage, with a strong Cheshire accent. She is, as she tells us, a sharp old woman, and "can see most things pretty quick;" and she is kind enough to communicate her wisdom very freely to us less crisply baked mortals."

................................................................................................

"Diary, 1861.

"Oct. 7.—Began the first chapter of my novel ("Romola")."

"Diary, 1861.

"Oct. 28 and 30.—Not very well. Utterly desponding about my book.

"Oct. 31.—Still with an incapable head—trying to write, trying to construct, and unable.

"Nov. 6.—So utterly dejected that, in walking with G. in the Park, I almost resolved to give up my Italian novel.

"Nov. 10 (Sunday).—New sense of things to be done in my novel, and more brightness in my thoughts. Yesterday I was occupied with ideas about my next English novel; but this morning the Italian scenes returned upon me with fresh attraction. In the evening read "Monteil." A marvellous book; crammed with erudition, yet not dull or tiresome.

"Nov. 14.—Went to the British Museum reading-room for the first time—looking over costumes.

"Nov. 20.—Mrs. Congreve, Miss Bury, and Mr. Spencer to lunch."

Cross gives at this point a large lust of books she read at this point.

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CHAPTER XII.

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"Journal, 1862.

"January 1.—Mr. Blackwood sent me a note enclosing a letter from Montalembert about "Silas Marner." I began again my novel of "Romola."

"Journal, 1862."

"Feb. 27.—George Smith, the publisher, brought the proof of G.'s book, "Animal Studies," and laid before him a proposition to give me £10,000 for my new novel—i.e., for its appearance in the Cornhill, and the entire copyright at home and abroad.

"March 1.—The idea of my novel appearing in the Cornhill is given up, as G. Smith wishes to have it commenced in May, and I cannot consent to begin publication until I have seen nearly to the end of the work."

"Journal, 1862.

"May 23.—Since I wrote last, very important decisions have been made. I am to publish my novel of "Romola" in the Cornhill Magazine for £7000, paid in twelve monthly payments. There has been the regret of leaving Blackwood, who has written me a letter in the most perfect spirit of gentlemanliness and good-feeling."

"Journal, 1862.

"Oct. 31.—Finished Part VII., having determined to end at the point where Romola has left Florence."

"Journal, 1862.

"Nov. 30 (Sunday).—Finished Part VIII. Mr. Burton came.

"Dec. 16.—In the evening Browning paid us a visit for the first time.

"Dec. 17.—At page 22 only. I am extremely spiritless, dead, and hopeless about my writing. The long state of headache has left me in depression and incapacity. The constantly heavy-clouded and often wet weather tend to increase the depression. I am inwardly irritable, and unvisited by good thoughts. Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola. After this record I read aloud what I had written of Part IX. to George, and he, to my surprise, entirely approved of it."

"Journal, 1862.

"Dec. 31 (Last day of the kind old year).—Clear and pleasantly mild. Yesterday a pleasant message from Mr. Hannay about "Romola." We have had many blessings this year. Opportunities which have enabled us to acquire an abundant independence; the satisfactory progress of our two eldest boys; various grounds of happiness in our work; and ever-growing happiness in each other. I hope with trembling that the coming year may be as comforting a retrospect—with trembling because my work is not yet done. Besides the finishing of "Romola," we have to think of Thornie's passing his final examination, and, in case of success, his going out to India; of Bertie's leaving Hofwyl, and of our finding a new residence. I have had more than my average amount of comfortable health until this last month, in which I have been constantly ailing, and my work has suffered proportionately."

................................................................................................

"I remember my wife telling me, at Witley, how cruelly she had suffered at Dorking from working under a leaden weight at this time. The writing of "Romola" ploughed into her more than any of her other books. She told me she could put her finger on it as marking a well-defined transition in her life. In her own words, "I began it a young woman—I finished it an old woman.""

"Journal, 1863.

"May 16.—Finished Part XIII. Killed Tito in great excitement."

"Journal, 1863.

"June 6.—We had a little evening party with music, intended to celebrate the completion of "Romola," which, however, is not absolutely completed, for I have still to alter the epilogue.

"June 9.—Put the last stroke to "Romola." Ebenezer! Went in the evening to hear La Gazza Ladra."

"Letter to R. H. Hutton, 8th Aug. 1863.

"After reading your article on "Romola," with careful reference to the questions you put to me in your letter, I can answer sincerely that I find nothing fanciful in your interpretation. On the contrary, I am confirmed in the satisfaction I felt, when I first listened to the article, at finding that certain chief elements of my intention have impressed themselves so strongly on your mind, notwithstanding the imperfect degree in which I have been able to give form to my ideas."

"Journal, 1863.

"Nov. 5.—We moved into our new house—The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park.

"Nov. 14.—We are now nearly in order, only wanting a few details of furniture to finish our equipment for a new stage in our life's journey. I long very much to have done thinking of upholstery, and to get again a consciousness that there are better things than that to reconcile one with life."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Jan. 1864.

"I often imagine you, not without a little longing, turning out into the fields whenever you list, as we used to do in the old days at Rosehill. That power of turning out into the fields is a great possession in life—worth many luxuries.

"Here is a bit of news not, I think, too insignificant for you to tell Cara. The other day Mr. Spencer, senior (Herbert Spencer's father), called on us, and knowing that he has been engaged in education all his life, that he is a man of extensive and accurate knowledge, and that, on his son's showing, he is a very able teacher, I showed him Cara's "British Empire." Yesterday Herbert Spencer came, and on my inquiring told me that his father was pleased with Cara's book, and thought highly of it. Such testimonies as this, given apart from personal influence and by a practised judge, are, I should think, more gratifying than any other sort of praise to all faithful writers."

"Journal, 1864.

"Jan. 30.—We had Browning, Dallas, and Burton to dine with us, and in the evening a gentlemen's party.

"Feb. 14.—Mr. Burton dined with us, and asked me to let him take my portrait."

"Journal, 1864.

"April 18.—We went to the Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 25th June, 1864."

"Our "boy" Charles has just become engaged, and it is very pretty to see the happiness of a pure first love, full at present of nothing but promise. It will interest you to know that the young lady who has won his heart, and seems to have given him her own with equal ardor and entireness, is the grand-daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, whom he adopted when she was three years old, and brought up under his own eye. She is very handsome, and has a splendid contralto voice."

Isn't that part of another story of hers? The adopted girl who has a great voice? Life, hers anyway, imitates her work?

................................................................................................

"Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 16th March, 1865.

"I did not promise, like Mr. Collins, that you should receive a letter of thanks for your kind entertainment of me; but I feel the need of writing a word or two to break the change from your presence to my complete absence from you. ... "

Either George Eliot was so well versed with work of Jane Austen that she wrote this without thought or very possibly, Jane Austen's work had already become so much a part of everyone that such usage was common! Wow! George Eliot doesn't easily praise another artist, not even Michaelangelo, and Jane Austen wasn't obsessed with religion the way George Eliot was; so this is a pleasant surprise.

"Journal, 1865.

"May 4.—Sent an article on Lecky's "History of Rationalism" for the Fortnightly. For nearly a fortnight I have been ill, one way or other."

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CHAPTER XIII.

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"Journal, 1866.

"April 21.—Sent MS. of two volumes to Blackwood.

"April 25.—Blackwood has written to offer me £5000 for "Felix Holt." I have been ailing, and uncertain in my strokes, and yesterday got no further than p. 52 of Vol. III."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 25th April, 1866.

"It is a great pleasure to me to be writing to you again, as in the old days. After your kind letters, I am chiefly anxious that the publication of "Felix Holt" may be a satisfaction to you from beginning to end."

"I think I ought to tell you that I have consulted a legal friend about my law, to guard against errors. The friend is a Chancery barrister, who "ought to know."

"After I had written the first volume, I applied to him, and he has since read through my MS."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 30th April, 1866."

"I am in a horrible fidget about certain points which I want to be sure of in correcting my proofs. They are chiefly two questions. I wish to know,

"1. Whether, in Napoleon's war with England, after the breaking-up of the Treaty of Amiens, the seizure and imprisonment of civilians was exceptional, or whether it was continued throughout the war?

"2. Whether, in 1833, in the case of transportation to one of the colonies, when the sentence did not involve hard labor, the sentenced person might be at large on his arrival in the colony?

"It is possible you may have some one near at hand who will answer these questions. I am sure you will help me if you can, and will sympathize in my anxiety not to have even an allusion that involves practical impossibilities.

"One can never be perfectly accurate, even with one's best effort, but the effort must be made."

"Journal, 1866. M

"ay 31.—Finished "Felix Holt.""

................................................................................................

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Aug. 1866.

"I have had a delightful holiday, and find my double self very much the better for it. We made a great round in our journeying. From Antwerp to Rotterdam, the Hague, Leyden, Amsterdam, Cologne; then up the Rhine to Coblentz, and thence to Schwalbach, where we stayed a fortnight. From Schwalbach to Schlangenbad, where we stayed till we feared the boats would cease to go to and fro; and, in fact, only left just in time to get down the Rhine to Bonn by the Dutch steamer. From Bonn, after two days, we went to Aix; then to dear old Liége, where we had been together thirteen years before; and, to avoid the King of the Belgians, ten minutes backwards to the baths of pretty Chaudfontaine, where we remained three days. Then to Louvain, Ghent, and Bruges; and, last of all, to Ostend, where we waited for a fine day and calm sea, until we secured—a very rough passage indeed."

Would that be the father of the king of Belgium who earned devotion of his citizens, and respect of others, during WWI by his conduct?

Why was George Eliot avoiding him?

"Rotterdam, with the grand approach to it by the broad river; the rich red brick of the houses; the canals, uniformly planted with trees, and crowded with the bright brown masts of the Dutch boats—is far finer than Amsterdam. ... "

Is that why nazis destroyed it?

" ... The color of Amsterdam is ugly; the houses are of a chocolate color, almost black (an artificial tinge given to the bricks), and the woodwork on them screams out in ugly patches of cream-color; the canals have no trees along their sides, and the boats are infrequent. We looked about for the very Portuguese synagogue where Spinoza was nearly assassinated as he came from worship. But it no longer exists. There are no less than three Portuguese synagogues now—very large and handsome. And in the evening we went to see the worship there. Not a woman was present, but of devout men not a few—a curious reversal of what one sees in other temples. ... "

One sees germination of Daniel Deronda.

"Journal, 1866.

"Aug. 30.—I have taken up the idea of my drama, "The Spanish Gypsy," again, and am reading on Spanish subjects—Bouterwek, Sismondi, Depping, Llorante, etc."

"Journal, 1866.

"Sept. 15.—Finished Depping's "Juifs au Moyen Âge." Reading Chaucer, to study English. Also reading on Acoustics, Musical Instruments, etc.

"Oct. 15.—Recommenced "The Spanish Gypsy," intending to give it a new form."

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VOLUME 3

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CHAPTER XIV.

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"The new year of 1867 opens with the description of the journey to Spain."

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"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d Feb. 1867."

" ... We left Biarritz for San Sebastian, where we stayed three days; and both there and all our way to Barcelona our life has been a succession of delights. We have had perfect weather, blue skies, and a warm sun. We travelled from San Sebastian to Saragossa, where we passed two nights; then to Lerida for one night, and yesterday to Barcelona. You know the scenery from San Sebastian to Alsasua, through the lower Pyrenees, because it lies on the way to Burgos and Madrid. At Alsasua we turned off through Navarre into Aragon, seeing famous Pampeluna, looking as beautiful as it did ages ago among the grand hills. At Saragossa the scene was thoroughly changed; all through Aragon, as far as we could see, I should think the country resembles the highlands of Central Spain. There is the most striking effect of hills, flanking the plain of Saragossa, I ever saw. They are of palish clay, washed by the rains into undulating forms, and some slight herbage upon them makes the shadows of an exquisite blue.

"These hills accompanied us in the distance all the way through Aragon, the snowy mountains topping them in the far distance. The land is all pale brown, the numerous towns and villages just match the land, and so do the sheepfolds, built of mud or stone. The herbage is all of an ashy green. Perhaps if I had been in Africa I should say, as you do, that the country reminded me of Africa; as it is, I think of all I have read about the East. The men who look on while others work at Saragossa also seem to belong to the East, with a great striped blanket wrapped grandly round them, and a kerchief tied about their hair. But though Aragon was held by the Moors longer than any part of Northern Spain, the features and skins of the people seem to me to bear less traces of the mixture there must have been than one would fairly expect. Saragossa has a grand character still, in spite of the stucco with which the people have daubed the beautiful small brick of which the houses are built. Here and there one sees a house left undesecrated by stucco; and all of them have the fluted tiles and the broad eaves beautifully ornamented. Again, one side of the old cathedral still shows the exquisite inlaid work which, in the façade, has been overlaid hideously. Gradually, as we left Aragon and entered Catalonia, the face of the country changed, and we had almost every sort of beauty in succession; last of all, between Monserrat and Barcelona, a perfect garden, with the richest red soil—blossoms on the plum and cherry trees, aloes thick in the hedges. ... We are actually going by steam-boat to Alicante, and from Alicante to Malaga. Then we mean to see Granada, Cordova, and Seville. We shall only stay here a few days—if this weather continues."

"Letter to Frederic Harrison, 18th Feb. 1867, from Granada."

" ... At Alicante we walked among the palm-trees with their golden fruit hanging in rich clusters, and felt a more delightful warmth than that of an English summer. Last night we walked out and saw the towers of the Alhambra, the wide Vega, and the snowy mountains, by the brilliant moonlight. You see, we are getting a great deal of pleasure, but we are not working, as you seem charitably to imagine. We tire ourselves, but only with seeing or going to see unforgetable things. You will say that we ought to work to better purpose when we get home. Amen. But just now we read nothing but Spanish novels—and not much of those. We said good-bye to philosophy and science when we packed up our trunks at Biarritz."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1867.

"We are both heartily rejoiced that we came to Spain. It was a great longing of mine, for, three years ago, I began to interest myself in Spanish history and literature, and have had a work lying by me, partly written, the subject of which is connected with Spain. Whether I shall ever bring it to maturity so as to satisfy myself sufficiently to print it is a question not settled; but it is a work very near my heart. We have had perfect weather ever since the 27th of January—magnificent skies and a summer sun. At Alicante, walking among the palm-trees, with the bare brown rocks and brown houses in the background, we fancied ourselves in the tropics; and a gentleman who travelled with us assured us that the aspect of the country closely resembled Aden, on the Red Sea. Here, at Granada, of course, it is much colder, but the sun shines uninterruptedly; and in the middle of the day, to stand in the sunshine against a wall, reminds me of my sensations at Florence in the beginning of June. The aspect of Granada as we first approached it was a slight disappointment to me, but the beauty of its position can hardly be surpassed. To stand on one of the towers of the Alhambra and see the sun set behind the dark mountains of Loja, and send its after-glow on the white summits of the Sierra Nevada, while the lovely Vega spreads below, ready to yield all things pleasant to the eye and good for food, is worth a very long, long journey. We shall start to-morrow evening for Cordova; then we shall go to Seville, back to Cordova, and on to Madrid.

"During our short stay in Paris we went a little into society, and saw, among other people who interested us, Professor Scherer, of whom you know something. He charmed me greatly. He is a Genevese, you know, and does not talk in ready-made epigrams, like a clever Frenchman, but with well-chosen, moderate words, intended to express what he really thinks and feels. He is highly cultivated; and his wife, who was with him, is an Englishwoman of refined, simple manners."

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 18th Mch. 1867."

"Among the letters awaiting me was one from an American travelling in Europe, who gives me the history of a copy of "Felix Holt," which, he says, has been read by no end of people, and is now on its way through Ireland, "where he found many friends anxious but unable to get it." It seems people nowadays economize in nothing but books. I found also the letter of a "Conveyancer" in the Pall Mall, justifying the law of "Felix Holt" in answer to the Edinburgh reviewer. I did not know, before I was told of this letter in reply, that the Edinburgh reviewer had found fault with my law."

"Journal, 1867.

"March 21.—Received from Blackwood a check for £2166 13s. 4d., being the second instalment of £1666 13s. 4d. towards the £5000 for "Felix Holt," together with £500 as the first instalment of £1000 for ten years' copyright of the cheap edition of my novels."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Mch. 1867."

"The work connected with Spain is not a romance. It is—prepare your fortitude—it is—a poem. I conceived the plot, and wrote nearly the whole as a drama in 1864. Mr. Lewes advised me to put it by for a time and take it up again, with a view to recasting it. He thinks hopefully of it. I need not tell you that I am not hopeful, but I am quite sure the subject is fine. It is not historic, but has merely historic connections. The plot was wrought out entirely as an incorporation of my own ideas. Of course, if it is ever finished to my satisfaction, it is not a work for us to get money by, but Mr. Lewes urges and insists that it shall be done. I have also my private projects about an English novel, but I am afraid of speaking as if I could depend on myself; at present I am rather dizzy, and not settled down to home habits of regular occupation."

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"Journal, 1867.

"July 29.—We went to Dover this evening as the start on a journey into Germany (North).

"Oct. 1.—We returned home after revisiting the scenes of cherished memories—Ilmenau, Dresden, and Berlin. Of new places we have seen Wetzlar, Cassel, Eisenach, and Hanover. At Ilmenau I wrote Fedalma's soliloquy after her scene with Silva, and the following dialogue between her and Juan. At Dresden I rewrote the whole scene between her and Zarca."

"Oct. 19.—George returned last evening from a walking expedition in Surrey with Mr. Spencer."

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"This entry is an interesting one to me, as it fixes the date of the first acquaintance with my family. Mr. Herbert Spencer was an old friend of ours, and in the course of their walk he and Mr. Lewes happened to pass through Weybridge, where my mother at that time lived. They came to dinner. Mr. Lewes, with his wonderful social powers, charmed all, and they passed a delightful evening. I was myself in America at the time, where I was in business as a banker at New York. My eldest sister had just then published a little volume of poems,1 which was kindly received by the press. On the invitation of Mr. Lewes she went shortly afterwards to see George Eliot, then in the zenith of her fame; nor did she ever forget the affectionate manner in which the great author greeted her. This was the beginning of a close friendship between the families, which lasted, and increased in intimacy, to the end. Mr. Spencer, in writing to tell me that it was he who first made Mr. Lewes acquainted with George Eliot, adds, "You will perhaps be struck by the curious coincidence that it was also by me that Lewes was introduced to your family at Weybridge and remoter issues entailed.""

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"Journal, 1867.

"Nov. 22.—Began an "Address to the Working Men, by Felix Holt," at Blackwood's repeated request."

Wonder if Blackwood repented! Having asked for it, he couldn't very well refuse to publish the ridiculous, atrocious piece, could he! Unless there was never any pretence that it was supposedly a speech by an educated man to rough working men?

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Nov. 1867.

"Yes, indeed—when I do not reciprocate "chaos is come again." I was quite sure your letter would come, and was grateful beforehand.

"There is a scheme on foot for a Woman's College, or, rather, University, to be built between London and Cambridge, and to be in connection with the Cambridge University, sharing its professors, examinations, and degrees! Si muove."

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CHAPTER XV.

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 22d Mch. 1868.

"I don't know whether you have ever seen Torquay. It is pretty, but not comparable to Ilfracombe; and, like all other easily accessible sea-places, it is sadly spoiled by wealth and fashion, which leave no secluded walks, and tattoo all the hills with ugly patterns of roads and villa gardens. Our selfishness does not adapt itself well to these on-comings of the millennium."

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"Among my wife's papers were four or five pages of MS. headed, "Notes on the Spanish Gypsy and Tragedy in General." There is no evidence as to the date at which this fragment was written, and it seems to have been left unfinished. But there was evidently some care to preserve it; and as I think she would not have objected to its presentation, I give it here exactly as it stands. It completes the history of the poem."

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"Notes on "The Spanish Gypsy.""

"The subject of "The Spanish Gypsy" was originally suggested to me by a picture which hangs in the Scuola di' San Rocco at Venice, over the door of the large Sala containing Tintoretto's frescoes. It is an Annunciation, said to be by Titian. Of course I had seen numerous pictures of this subject before; and the subject had always attracted me. But in this my second visit to the Scuola di' San Rocco, this small picture of Titian's, pointed out to me for the first time, brought a new train of thought. It occurred to me that here was a great dramatic motive of the same class as those used by the Greek dramatists, yet specifically differing from them. A young maiden, believing herself to be on the eve of the chief event of her life—marriage—about to share in the ordinary lot of womanhood, full of young hope, has suddenly announced to her that she is chosen to fulfil a great destiny, entailing a terribly different experience from that of ordinary womanhood. She is chosen, not by any momentary arbitrariness, but as a result of foregoing hereditary conditions: she obeys. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." Here, I thought, is a subject grander than that of Iphigenia, and it has never been used. I came home with this in my mind, meaning to give the motive a clothing in some suitable set of historical and local conditions. My reflections brought me nothing that would serve me except that moment in Spanish history when the struggle with the Moors was attaining its climax, and when there was the gypsy race present under such conditions as would enable me to get my heroine and the hereditary claim on her among the gypsies."

No wonder that part seems false! George Eliot imposed on her heroine, and on Gypsy people, a twist on the lie that was imposed by Rome on the original real history! She never did stop to ask anyone if this could be believed by a Gypsy, or would they laught st the notion?

" ... I required the opposition of race to give the need for renouncing the expectation of marriage. I could not use the Jews or the Moors, because the facts of their history were too conspicuously opposed to the working-out of my catastrophe. ... "

And why not use a slave of African origin, if a cancellation of marriage was the tragedy she needed? Because she'd hate to admit Europe was, is, racist?

" ... I saw it might be taken as a symbol of the part which is played in the general human lot by hereditary conditions in the largest sense, and of the fact that what we call duty is entirely made up of such conditions; for even in cases of just antagonism to the narrow view of hereditary claims, the whole background of the particular struggle is made up of our inherited nature. ... "

That could be used to excuse most of atrocities perpetrated across time around the world, including Roman executions of Jews and holocaust, Mongolian invasions and massacres through Asia into Europe, and much, much more! No, none of it is excusable, and race does not exculpates leaders of such events, or major players. Perhaps small fry cannot stay out when overall pressure is to comply or lose everything, but nevertheless, most do have an option to refrain, and bigger the player, more and bigger, better the options.

" ... Suppose for a moment that our conduct at great epochs was determined entirely by reflection, without the immediate intervention of feeling, which supersedes reflection, our determination as to the right would consist in an adjustment of our individual needs to the dire necessities of our lot, partly as to our natural constitution, partly as sharers of life with our fellow-beings. Tragedy consists in the terrible difficulty of this adjustment—

""The dire strife of poor Humanity's afflicted will,

"Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny."

"Looking at individual lots, I seemed to see in each the same story, wrought out with more or less of tragedy, and I determined the elements of my drama under the influence of these ideas. ... "

That could fit to justify any story of a Nazi active in holocaust. As it is, she used it to put love, and much else, lower than active involvement in inquisition, by seemingly bringing it on par with a Gypsy demanding his daughter sticks to her tribe!

" ... In order to judge properly of the dramatic structure it must not be considered first in the light of doctrinal symbolism, but in the light of a tragedy representing some grand collision in the human lot. And it must be judged accordingly. A good tragic subject must represent a possible, sufficiently probable, not a common, action; and to be really tragic, it must represent irreparable collision between the individual and the general (in differing degrees of generality). It is the individual with whom we sympathize, and the general of which we recognize the irresistible power. The truth of this test will be seen by applying it to the greatest tragedies. ... "

Would it have been impossible for George Eliot to conceive that Fedalma had mire of a Gypsy in her, a will to be with her own, not forced by her father, not destiny but ties of blood? That'd be natural, and not so discordant.

" ... The collision of Greek tragedy is often that between hereditary, entailed Nemesis and the peculiar individual lot, awakening our sympathy, of the particular man or woman whom the Nemesis is shown to grasp with terrific force. Sometimes, as in the Oresteia, there is the clashing of two irreconcilable requirements, two duties, as we should say in these times. The murder of the father must be avenged by the murder of the mother, which must again be avenged. These two tragic relations of the individual and general, and of two irreconcilable "oughts," may be—will be—seen to be almost always combined. The Greeks were not taking an artificial, entirely erroneous standpoint in their art—a standpoint which disappeared altogether with their religion and their art. They had the same essential elements of life presented to them as we have, and their art symbolized these in grand schematic forms. The Prometheus represents the ineffectual struggle to redeem the small and miserable race of man, against the stronger adverse ordinances that govern the frame of things with a triumphant power. ... "

George Eliot wanted this grand tragedy, but failed, by not working sufficiently on it, and giving little importance to the Gypsy identity - making it ridiculous - whike attempting to make the prior respectable.

"Coming to modern tragedies, what is it that makes Othello a great tragic subject? A story simply of a jealous husband is elevated into a most pathetic tragedy by the hereditary conditions of Othello's lot, which give him a subjective ground for distrust."

What she, and everyone else, is unwilling to admit, is that they all see Othello as filled with distrust because he's of African blood, and hence doesn't trust that that a blond blue eyed delicate European wife wouldn't find another like her more attractive. If they weren't so full of themselves, they might realise, that most people prefer, genuinely prefer, one of their own; that Othello might despise a European wife for being unfaithful, but it takes a racist European to portray him as blind in fury, due to an inferiority complex topped by jealousy and distrust.

" ... Faust, Rigoletto (Le Roi s'Amuse), Brutus. It might be a reasonable ground of objection against the whole structure of "The Spanish Gypsy" if it were shown that the action is outrageously improbable—lying outside all that can be congruously conceived of human actions. It is not a reasonable ground of objection that they would have done better to act otherwise, any more than it is a reasonable objection against the Iphigenia that Agamemnon would have done better not to sacrifice his daughter.

"As renunciations coming under the same great class, take the renunciation of marriage, where marriage cannot take place without entailing misery on the children."

George Eliot forced the tragedy for the same reason that Shakespeare did, which reason she states explicitly in the "entailing misery on the children"; but this never stopped anyone of European descent from reproducing thoughtlessly with women of other races, as long as it did not involve giving them social status of a wife in the husband's own society. From natives of Australia to Africans forced into slavery across Atlantic, children of mixed races existed with father's who cared little to nothing about them; and this happened across Asia, too, except where such conduct was dangerous to the European male, due to women being not allowed by a religion to mix with someone not explicitly allowed by their family. So the hypocrisy here belongs to the European culture that keeps their men but shuts the doors to their offspring.

"A tragedy has not to expound why the individual must give way to the general; it has to show that it is compelled to give way; the tragedy consisting in the struggle involved, and often in the entirely calamitous issue in spite of a grand submission. Silva presents the tragedy of entire rebellion; Fedalma of a grand submission, which is rendered vain by the effects of Silva's rebellion. Zarca, the struggle for a great end, rendered vain by the surrounding conditions of life."

It doesn't come across as that, but instead, rather as attempt to validate inquisition, by the father suddenly owning and forcing the daughter. And she proceeds further with this validation.

"Now, what is the fact about our individual lots? A woman, say, finds herself on the earth with an inherited organization; she may be lame, she may inherit a disease, or what is tantamount to a disease; she may be a negress, or have other marks of race repulsive in the community where she is born, etc. One may go on for a long while without reaching the limits of the commonest inherited misfortunes. It is almost a mockery to say to such human beings, "Seek your own happiness." The utmost approach to well-being that can be made in such a case is through large resignation and acceptance of the inevitable, with as much effort to overcome any disadvantage as good sense will show to be attended with a likelihood of success. Any one may say, that is the dictate of mere rational reflection. But calm can, in hardly any human organism, be attained by rational reflection. Happily, we are not left to that. Love, pity, constituting sympathy, and generous joy with regard to the lot of our fellow-men comes in—has been growing since the beginning—enormously enhanced by wider vision of results, by an imagination actively interested in the lot of mankind generally; and these feelings become piety—i.e., loving, willing submission and heroic Promethean effort towards high possibilities, which may result from our individual life.

"There is really no moral "sanction" but this inward impulse. The will of God is the same thing as the will of other men, compelling us to work and avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from any perceived good, the divine will is simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which compel obedience at our peril. Any other notion comes from the supposition of arbitrary revelation."

This equating "The will of God is the same thing as the will of other men" is not merely horror and worse, it's another ceiling of horrors perpetrated by men against others, as church of Rome did after unification with Roman empire, by defying a king of Jews they'd executed and thereafter to forever claim they were his sole agdntcy; and this was carried on during inquisition as justification thereof, apart from atrocities perpetrated around the world by colonial invaders and rulers, migrants and more.

"That favorite view, expressed so often in Clough's poems, of doing duty in blindness as to the result, is likely to deepen the substitution of egoistic yearnings for really moral impulses. We cannot be utterly blind to the results of duty, since that cannot be duty which is not already judged to be for human good. To say the contrary is to say that mankind have reached no inductions as to what is for their good or evil."

Why then portray Don Silva as wrong and guilty, when in reality it was the prior, wrong on most counts?

"The art which leaves the soul in despair is laming to the soul, and is denounced by the healthy sentiment of an active community. ... "

And yet, that's the effect of most of works of George Eliot, chuefly because she dared not disapprove of church authorities.

" ... The consolatory elements in "The Spanish Gypsy" are derived from two convictions or sentiments which so conspicuously pervade it that they may be said to be its very warp, on which the whole action is woven. These are: (1) The importance of individual deeds. (2) The all-sufficiency of the soul's passions in determining sympathetic action."

And yet, those are not only doomed, but condemned, consistently, in "The Spanish Gypsy".

"In Silva is presented the claim of fidelity to social pledges. In Fedalma the claim constituted by an hereditary lot less consciously shared.

"With regard to the supremacy of love: if it were a fact without exception that man or woman never did renounce the joys of love, there could never have sprung up a notion that such renunciation could present itself as a duty. If no parents had ever cared for their children, how could parental affection have been reckoned among the elements of life? But what are the facts in relation to this matter? Will any one say that faithfulness to the marriage tie has never been regarded as a duty, in spite of the presence of the profoundest passion experienced after marriage? Is Guinivere's conduct the type of duty?"

One is bound to doubt, with such thoughts expressed by George Eliot, and how rare is a happy ending if a love story in her works, if she's expressing truth of her own life.

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"Journal, 1868.

"May 26.—We set out this evening on our journey to Baden, spending the night at Dover. Our route was by Tournay, Liége, Bonn, and Frankfort, to Baden, where we stayed nine days; then to Petersthal, where we stayed three weeks; then to Freiburg, St. Märgen, Basle, Thun, and Interlaken. From Interlaken we came by Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Dijon, to Paris and Folkestone."

This seems to have prompted her poem Agatha.

"Letter to John Blackwood, 7th July, 1868.

"We got your letter yesterday here among the peaceful mountain-tops. After ascending gradually (in a carriage) for nearly four hours, we found ourselves in a region of grass, corn, and pine woods, so beautifully varied that we seem to be walking in a great park laid out for our special delight. The monks, as usual, found out the friendly solitude, and this place of St. Märgen was originally nothing but an Augustinian monastery. About three miles off is another place of like origin, called St. Peter's, formerly a Benedictine monastery, and still used as a place of preparation for the Catholic priesthood. The monks have all vanished, but the people are devout Catholics. At every half-mile by the roadside is a carefully kept crucifix; and last night, as we were having our supper in the common room of the inn, we suddenly heard sounds that seemed to me like those of an accordion. "Is that a zittern?" said Mr. Lewes to the German lady by his side. "No—it is prayer." The servants, by themselves—the host and hostess were in the same room with us—were saying their evening prayers, men's and women's voices blending in unusually correct harmony. The same loud prayer is heard at morning, noon, and evening, from the shepherds and workers in the fields. We suppose that the believers in Mr. Home and in Madame Rachel would pronounce these people "grossly superstitious." The land is cultivated by rich peasant proprietors, and the people here, as in Petersthal, look healthy and contented. This really adds to one's pleasure in seeing natural beauties. In North Germany, at Ilmenau, we were constantly pained by meeting peasants who looked underfed and miserable. Unhappily, the weather is too cold and damp, and our accommodations are too scanty, under such circumstances, for us to remain here and enjoy the endless walks and the sunsets that would make up for other negatives in fine, warm weather. We return to Freiburg to-morrow, and from thence we shall go on by easy stages through Switzerland, by Thun and Vevay to Geneva, where I want to see my old friends once more."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 30th July, 1868."

" ... Do you happen to remember that saying of Balzac's, "When I want the world to praise my novels I write a drama; when I want them to praise my drama I write a novel"?"

"Journal, 1868."

"Sept. 19.—We returned from a visit to Yorkshire. On Monday we went to Leeds, and were received by Dr. Clifford Allbut, with whom we stayed till the middle of the day on Wednesday. Then we went by train to Ilkley, and from thence took a carriage to Bolton. The weather had been gray for two days, but on this evening the sun shone out, and we had a delightful stroll before dinner, getting our first view of the Priory. On Thursday we spent the whole day in rambling through the woods to Barden Tower and back. Our comfortable little inn was the Red Lion, and we were tempted to lengthen our stay. But on Friday morning the sky was threatening, so we started for Newark, which we had visited in old days on our expedition to Gainsborough. At Newark we found our old inn, the Ram, opposite the ruins of the castle, and then we went for a stroll along the banks of the Trent, seeing some charming, quiet landscapes."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Oct. 1868."

"I sympathize with your melancholy at the prospect of quitting the country; though, compared with London, beautiful Edinburgh is country. Perhaps some good, thick mists will come to reconcile you with the migration.

"We have been using the fine autumn days for flights into Kent between Sundays. The rich woods about Sevenoaks and Chislehurst are a delight to the eyes, and the stillness is a rest to every nerve."

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"Letter to Hon. Robert Lytton (now Lord Lytton). No date. Probably in 1868.

"I am much obliged to you for mentioning, in your letter to Mr. Lewes, the two cases of inaccuracy (I fear there may be more) which you remembered in the "Spanish Gypsy." How I came to write Zincálo instead of Zíncalo is an instance which may be added to many sadder examples of that mental infirmity which makes our senses of little use to us in the presence of a strong prepossession. As soon as I had conceived my story with its gypsy element, I tried to learn all I could about the names by which the gypsies called themselves, feeling that I should occasionally need a musical name, remote from the vulgar English associations which cling to "gypsy." I rejected Gitana, because I found that the gypsies themselves held the name to be opprobrious; and Zíncalo—which, with a fine capacity for being wrong, I at once got into my head as Zincálo—seemed to be, both in sound and meaning, just what I wanted. Among the books from which I made notes was "Pott, die Zigeuner," etc.; and in these notes I find that I have copied the sign of the tonic accent in Romanó, while in the very same sentence I have not copied it in Zíncalo, though a renewed reference to Pott shows it in the one word as well as the other. But "my eyes were held"—by a demon prepossession—"so that I should not see it." Behold the fallibility of the human brain, and especially of George Eliot's.

"I have been questioned about my use of Andalus for Andalusia, but I had a sufficient authority for that in the "Mohammedan Dynasties," translated by Gayangos.

"It may interest you, who are familiar with Spanish literature, to know that after the first sketch of my book was written I read Cervantes' novel "La Gitanélla," where the hero turns gypsy for love. The novel promises well in the earlier part, but falls into sad commonplace towards the end. I have written my explanation partly to show how much I value your kind help towards correcting my error, and partly to prove that I was not careless, but simply stupid. For in authorship I hold carelessness to be a mortal sin."

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CHAPTER XVI.

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"Journal, 1869.

"Jan. 1.—I have set myself many tasks for the year—I wonder how many will be accomplished?—a novel called "Middlemarch," a long poem on Timoleon, and several minor poems."

One has to wonder if the title was subtle satire on her age, and whether Dorothea was not only an ironic self portrait, but her marriage reflected the truth of George Eliot's own.

"Jan. 23.—Since I wrote last I have finished a little poem on old Agatha. ... "

"Jan. 27.—The last two days I have been writing a rhymed poem on Boccaccio's story of "Lisa." ... "

"Feb. 6.—We went to the third concert. Madame Schumann played finely in Mendelssohn's quintet, and a trio of Beethoven's. As a solo she played the sonata in D minor."

"Feb. 14.—Finished the poem from Boccaccio. We had rather a numerous gathering of friends to-day, and among the rest came Browning, who talked and quoted admirably à propos of versification. The Rector of Lincoln thinks the French have the most perfect system of versification in these modern times!

"Feb. 15.—I prepared and sent off "How Lisa Loved the King" to Edinburgh."

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"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Feb. 1869.

"I have looked back to the verses in Browning's poem about Elisha, and I find no mystery in them. The foregoing context for three pages describes that function of genius which revivifies the past. Man, says Browning (I am writing from recollection of his general meaning), cannot create, but he can restore: the poet gives forth of his own spirit, and reanimates the forms that lie breathless. His use of Elisha's story is manifestly symbolical, as his mention of Faust is—the illustration which he abandons the moment before to take up that of the Hebrew seer. I presume you did not read the context yourself, but only had the two concluding verses pointed out or quoted to you by your friends. It is one of the afflictions of authorship to know that the brains which should be used in understanding a book are wasted in discussing the hastiest misconceptions about it; and I am sure you will sympathize enough in this affliction to set any one right, when you can, about this quotation from Browning."

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"Journal, 1869.

"Feb. 20.—A glorious concert: Hallé, Joachim, and Piatti winding up with Schubert's trio.

"Feb. 21.—Mr. Deutsch and Mrs. Pattison lunched with us—he in farewell before going to the East. A rather pleasant gathering of friends afterwards.

"Feb. 24.—I am reading about plants, and Helmholtz on music. A new idea of a poem came to me yesterday.

"March 3.—We started on our fourth visit to Italy, viâ France and the Cornice."

"Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1869, from Paris.

"I found your letter at Florence on our arrival there (on the 23d); but until now bodily ease and leisure enough to write to you have never happened to me in the same moments. Our long journey since we left home on the 3d March, seen from a point of view which, happily, no one shares with me, has been a history of ailments. In shunning the English March, we found one quite as disagreeable, without the mitigation of home comforts; and though we went even as far as Naples in search of warmth, we never found it until we settled in Rome, at the beginning of April. Here we had many days of unbroken sunshine, and enjoyed what we were never able to enjoy during our month's stay in 1860—the many glorious views of the city and the mountains. The chief novelty to us in our long route has been the sight of Assisi and Ravenna; the rest has been a revisiting of scenes already in our memories; and to most of them we have probably said our last good-bye. Enough of us and our travels. The only remarkable thing people can tell of their doings in these days is that they have stayed at home."

"Journal, 1869.

"May 5.—We reached home after our nine weeks' absence. In that time we have been through France to Marseilles, along the Cornice to Spezia, then to Pisa, Florence, Naples, Rome, Assisi, Perugia, Florence again, Ravenna, Bologna, Verona; across the Brenner Pass to Munich; then to Paris viâ Strasburg."

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"It was during this journey that I, for the first time, saw my future wife, at Rome. My eldest sister had married Mr. W. H. Bullock (now Mr. W. H. Hall), of Six-Mile-Bottom, Cambridgeshire, and they were on their wedding journey at Rome when they happened to meet Mr. and Mrs. Lewes by chance in the Pamfili Doria Gardens. They saw a good deal of one another, and when I arrived, with my mother and another sister, we went by invitation to call at the Hôtel Minerva, where Mr. Lewes had found rooms on their first arrival in Rome. I have a very vivid recollection of George Eliot sitting on a sofa with my mother by her side, entirely engrossed with her. Mr. Lewes entertained my sister and me on the other side of the room. But I was very anxious to hear also the conversation on the sofa, as I was better acquainted with George Eliot's books than with any other literature. And through the dimness of these fifteen years, and all that has happened in them, I still seem to hear, as I first heard them, the low, earnest, deep, musical tones of her voice; I still seem to see the fine brows, with the abundant auburn-brown hair framing them, the long head, broadening at the back, the gray-blue eyes, constantly changing in expression, but always with a very loving, almost deprecating, look at my mother, the finely-formed, thin, transparent hands, and a whole Wesen that seemed in complete harmony with everything one expected to find in the author of "Romola." The next day Mr. and Mrs. Lewes went on to Assisi and we to Naples, and we did not meet again till the following August at Weybridge."

................................................................................................

"Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th May, 1869.

"I value very highly the warrant to call you friend which your letter has given me. It lay awaiting me on our return, the other night, from a nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost wish that you could have a momentary vision of the discouragement—nay, paralyzing despondency—in which many days of my writing life have been passed, in order that you might fully understand the good I find in such sympathy as yours—in such an assurance as you give me that my work has been worth doing. But I will not dwell on any mental sickness of mine. The best joy your words give me is the sense of that sweet, generous feeling in you which dictated them, and I shall always be the richer because you have in this way made me know you better. I must tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman came through a letter of yours, and charmed me very much. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Follen; and one morning when I called on her in London (how many years ago!7) she was kind enough to read it to me because it contained a little history of your life, and a sketch of your domestic circumstances. I remember thinking that it was very kind of you to write that long letter in reply to the inquiries of one who was personally unknown to you; and looking back with my present experience I think it was still kinder than it then appeared. For at that time you must have been much oppressed with the immediate results of your fame. I remember, too, that you wrote of your husband as one who was richer in Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as the ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar interest to me, I have rarely had your image in my mind without the accompanying image (more or less erroneous) of such a scholar by your side. I shall welcome the fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes. ... "

"I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as to the obstacles your new book may find here from its thorough American character. Most readers who are likely to be really influenced by writing above the common order will find that special aspect an added reason for interest and study, and I dare say you have long seen, as I am beginning to see with new clearness, that if a book which has any sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular, widely circulated book, its power over the social mind for any good is, after all, due to its reception by a few appreciative natures, and is the slow result of radiation from that narrow circle. I mean, that you can affect a few souls, and that each of these in turn may affect a few more, but that no exquisite book tells properly and directly on a multitude, however largely it may be spread by type and paper. ... "

"When you say, "We live in an orange grove and are planting many more," and when I think that you must have abundant family love to cheer you, it seems to me that you must have a paradise about you. ... "

If H. B. is Harriet Beecher, then she's of New England, specifically Maine, quite North too; orange grove around the house?

"Journal, 1869.

"May 8 (Saturday).—Poor Thornie arrived from Natal, sadly wasted by suffering.

"May 24.—Sold "Agatha" to Fields & Osgood, for the Atlantic Monthly, for £300."

"Journal, 1869.

"July 3.—Finished my reading in Lucretius. Reading Victor Hugo's "L'homme qui rit;" also the Frau von Hillern's novel, "Ein Arzt der Seele." This week G. and I have been to Sevenoaks, but were driven home again by the cold winds and cloudy skies. "Sonnets on Childhood"—five—finished.

"July 10.—I wrote to Mrs. Stowe, in answer to a second letter of hers, accompanied by one from her husband.

................................................................................................

"Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 11th July, 1869."

"Immediately on our return from Italy, Mr. Lewes's second son, a fine young man of five-and-twenty, returned to us from Natal, wasted by suffering from a long-standing spinal injury. This was on the 8th of May, and since then we have both been absorbed in our duties to this poor child, and have felt our own health and nervous energy insufficient for our needful activity of body and mind. He is at present no better, and we look forward to a long trial. Nothing but a trouble so great as this would have prevented me from writing again to you, not only to thank you and Professor Stowe for your letters, but also to tell you that I have received and read "Old Town Folks." I think few of your many readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root—one, in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases, from my father and mother, with their relations; the other is, my experimental acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own, except by indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance. A thorough comprehension of the mixed moral influence shed on society by dogmatic systems is rare even among writers, and one misses it altogether in English drawing-room talk. I thank you sincerely for the gift (in every sense) of this book, which, I can see, has been a labor of love."

So far, so good - but then she says -

"Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the indications which the Professor gives of his peculiar psychological experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in every way distinguished mind. He will, I am sure, accept the brief thanks which I can give in this letter, for all that he has generously written to me. He says, "I have had no connection with any of the modern movements, except as father confessor;" and I can well believe that he must be peculiarly sensitive to the repulsive aspects which those movements present. ... "

Since she does not name which movements and what exactly the repulsive aspects, one must ask, did she stop to think that perhaps that's how any "modern movement" might look to anyone who is comfortable with orthodox, which would include Rome throwing followers of Paul to lions due to such discomfort? And in view of what the followers did in Alexandria - burning the library, execution of learned intellectual teacher Hypatia due to her non compliance with requirements of conversion - perhaps Romans did not have enough lions?

" ... Your view as to the cause of that "great wave of spiritualism" which is rushing over America—namely, that it is a sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement towards the invisible existence of the loved ones, is deeply affecting. But so far as "spiritualism" (by which I mean, of course, spirit-communication, by rapping, guidance of the pencil, etc.) has come within reach of my judgment on our side of the water, it has appeared to me either as degrading folly, imbecile in the estimate of evidence, or else as impudent imposture. So far as my observation and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured methods of studying the open secret of the universe any large amount of attention to alleged manifestations which are so defiled by low adventurers and their palpable trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the doubtfulness of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed, which testimonies are no more true objectively because they are honest subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is true because it seemed to Tycho Brahé a better explanation of the heavenly movements than the Copernican. ... "

And which objective evidence, exactly fits stories propagated by church, other than manuscripts claimed to be written by a bunch of men who supposedly witnessed resurrection etc, but since discovered to be a lie by church after unification with Roman empire, and mostly written or rewritten after council of Nicea?

Yours is ridiculous superstition, but mine is faith, is the argument from all missionaries et sl, used by George Eliot too, of course.

................................................................................................

"Journal, 1869."

"July 19.—Writing an introduction to "Middlemarch." ... and have written three more sonnets."

"Aug. 1.—Since last Sunday I have had an uncomfortable week from mental and bodily disturbance. I have finished eleven sonnets on "Brother and Sister," ... "

"Journal, 1869.

"Aug. 2.—Began "Middlemarch" (the Vincy and Featherstone parts)."

"Aug. 5.— ... This morning I finished the first chapter of "Middlemarch."

................................................................................................

"This visit to Weybridge is a very memorable one to me, because there my own first intimacy with George Eliot began, and the bonds with my family were knitted very much closer. Mr. and Mrs. Bullock were staying with us; and my sister, who had some gift for music, had set one or two of the songs from the "Spanish Gypsy." She sang one of them—"On through the woods, the pillared pines"—and it affected George Eliot deeply. She moved quickly to the piano, and kissed Mrs. Bullock very warmly, in her tears. Mr. and Mrs. Lewes were in deep trouble owing to the illness of Thornton Lewes; we were also in much anxiety as to the approaching confinement of my sister with her first child; and I was on the eve of departure for America. Sympathetic feelings were strong enough to overleap the barrier (often hard to pass) which separates acquaintanceship from friendship. A day did the work of years. Our visitors had come to the house as acquaintances, they left it as lifelong friends. And the sequel of that day greatly intensified the intimacy. For within a month my sister had died in childbirth, and her death called forth one of the most beautiful of George Eliot's letters. A month later Thornton Lewes died."

................................................................................................

"Journal, 1869.

"Sept. 1.—I meditated characters and conditions for "Middlemarch," which stands still in the beginning of chapter iii."

"Sept. 11.—I do not feel very confident that I can make anything satisfactory of "Middlemarch." I have need to remember that other things which have been accomplished by me were begun under the same cloud. G. has been reading "Romola" again, and expresses profound admiration. This is encouraging."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st Sept. 1869.

"As to the Byron subject, nothing can outweigh to my mind the heavy social injury of familiarizing young minds with the desecration of family ties. The discussion of the subject in newspapers, periodicals, and pamphlets is simply odious to me, and I think it a pestilence likely to leave very ugly marks. One trembles to think how easily that moral wealth may be lost which it has been the work of ages to produce in the refinement and differencing of the affectionate relations. As to the high-flown stuff which is being reproduced about Byron and his poetry, I am utterly out of sympathy with it. He seems to me the most vulgar-minded genius that ever produced a great effect in literature."

Was it only fortunate accident that George Eliot did not have children, or was it intended, so they escape an expected treatment from society?

................................................................................................

"Journal, 1869."

"Oct. 5.—Ever since the 28th I have been good for little, ailing in body and disabled in mind. On Sunday an interesting Russian pair came to see us—M. and Mme. Kovilevsky: she, a pretty creature, with charming modest voice and speech, who is studying mathematics (by allowance, through the aid of Kirchhoff) at Heidelberg; he, amiable and intelligent, studying the concrete sciences apparently—especially geology; and about to go to Vienna for six months for this purpose, leaving his wife at Heidelberg!"

Why the exclamation mark?

"I have begun a long-meditated poem, "The Legend of Jubal," but have not written more than twenty or thirty verses."

"Oct. 13.—Yesterday Mr. W. G. Clark of Cambridge came to see us, and told of his intention to give up his oratorship and renounce his connection with the Church.

"I have read rapidly through Max Müller's "History of Sanskrit Literature," and am now reading Lecky's "History of Morals." I have also finished Herbert Spencer's last number of his "Psychology." My head has been sadly feeble, and my whole body ailing of late. I have written about one hundred verses of my poem. Poor Thornie seems to us in a state of growing weakness."

"Oct. 19.—This evening at half-past six our dear Thornie died. He went quite peacefully. For three days he was not more than fitfully and imperfectly conscious of the things around him. He went to Natal on the 17th October, 1863, and came back to us ill on the 8th May, 1869. Through the six months of his illness his frank, impulsive mind disclosed no trace of evil feeling. He was a sweet-natured boy—still a boy, though he had lived for twenty-five years and a half. On the 9th of August he had an attack of paraplegia, and although he partially recovered from it, it made a marked change in him. After that he lost a great deal of his vivacity, but he suffered less pain. This death seems to me the beginning of our own."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Dec. 1869."

"The day after our dear boy's funeral we went into the quietest and most beautiful part of Surrey, four miles and a half from any railway station. I was very much shaken in mind and body, and nothing but the deep calm of fields and woods would have had a beneficent effect on me. We both of us felt, more than ever before, the blessedness of being in the country, and we are come back much restored. It will interest you, I think, to know that a friend of ours, Mr. W. G. Clark, the public orator at Cambridge, laid down his oratorship as a preparatory step to writing a letter to his bishop renouncing, or, rather, claiming to be free from, his clerical status, because he no longer believes what it presupposes him to believe. Two other men whom we know are about to renounce Cambridge fellowships on the same ground."

"Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 3d April, 1870.

"We shall leave Berlin on Tuesday, so that I must ask you to send me the much-desired news of you to Vienna, addressed to the Hon. Robert Lytton, British Embassy. ... Berlin has been growing very fast since our former stay here, and luxury in all forms has increased so much that one only here and there gets a glimpse of the old-fashioned German housekeeping. But though later hours are becoming fashionable, the members of the Reichstag who have other business than politics complain of having to begin their sitting at eleven, ending, instead of beginning, at four, when the solid day is almost gone. We went to the Reichstag one morning, and were so fortunate as to hear Bismarck speak. But the question was one of currency, and his speech was merely a brief winding-up."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th May, 1870."

"I like to know that you have felt in common with me while you read "Jubal." Curiously enough, Mr. Lewes, when I first read it to him, made just the remark you make about the scene of Jubal coming with the lyre. We laughed at Mr. Bray's sharp criticism. Tell him it is not the fashion for authors ever to be in the wrong. They have always justifying reasons. But also it is the fashion for critics to know everything, so that the authors don't think it needful to tell their reasons."

"Journal, 1870."

"May 27.— ... After lunch we went to the Bodleian, and then to the Sheldonian Theatre, where there was a meeting à propos of Palestine Exploration. Captain Warren, conductor of the Exploration at Jerusalem, read a paper, and then Mr. Deutsch gave an account of the interpretation, as hitherto arrived at, of the Moabite Stone. I saw squeezes of this stone for the first time, with photographs taken from the squeezes. After tea Mrs. Thursfield kindly took us to see a boat-race. We saw it from the Oriel barge, under the escort of Mr. Crichton, Fellow of Merton, who, on our return, took us through the lovely gardens of his college. At supper were Mr. Jowett, Professor Henry Smith, and Miss Smith, his sister, Mr. Fowler, author of "Deductive Logic," etc."

................................................................................................

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 13th June, 1870."

" ... Dickens's death came as a great shock to us. He lunched with us just before we went abroad, and was telling us a story of President Lincoln having told the Council, on the day he was shot, that something remarkable would happen, because he had just dreamt, for the third time, a dream which twice before had preceded events momentous to the nation. The dream was, that he was in a boat on a great river, all alone, and he ended with the words, "I drift—I drift—I drift." Dickens told this very finely. I thought him looking dreadfully shattered then. It is probable that he never recovered from the effect of the terrible railway accident."

"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 23d June, 1870, from Cromer.

"We have been driven away from home again by the state of Mr. Lewes's health. Dr. Reynolds recommended the Yorkshire coast; but we wanted to know Cromer, and so we came here first, for the sake of variety. To me the most desirable thing just now seems to be to have one home, and stay there till death comes to take me away. I get more and more disinclined to the perpetual makeshifts of a migratory life, and care more and more for the order and habitual objects of home. However, there are many in the world whose whole existence is a makeshift, and perhaps the formula which would fit the largest number of lives is "a doing without, more or less patiently." The air just now is not very invigorating anywhere, I imagine, and one begins to be very anxious about the nation generally, on account of the threatening drought."

................................................................................................

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 12th Aug. 1870.

"We, too, you see, have come back to a well-tried refuge—the same place that soothed us in our troubles last October—and we especially delight in this deep country after the fuss which belongs even to quiet watering-places, such as Cromer, Harrogate, and Whitby, which are, after all, "alleys where the gentle folks live." We are excited, even among the still woods and fields, by the vicissitudes of the war, and chiefly concerned because we cannot succeed in getting the day's Times. We have entered into the period which will be marked in future historical charts as "The period of German ascendency." But how saddening to think of the iniquities that the great harvest-moon is looking down on! I am less grieved for the bloodshed than for the hateful trust in lies which is continually disclosed. Meanwhile Jowett's "Translation of Plato" is being prepared for publication, and he has kindly sent us the sheets of one volume. So I pass from discussions of French lying and the Nemesis that awaits it to discussions about rhetorical lying at Athens in the fourth century before Christ. The translations and introductions to the "Dialogues" seem to be charmingly done."

"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 25th Aug. 1870.

"We shall return to town on Monday, various small reasons concurring to make us resolve on quitting this earthly paradise. I am very sorry for the sufferings of the French nation; but I think these sufferings are better for the moral welfare of the people than victory would have been. The war has been drawn down on them by an iniquitous government; but in a great proportion of the French people there has been nourished a wicked glorification of selfish pride, which, like all other conceit, is a sort of stupidity, excluding any true conception of what lies outside their own vain wishes. The Germans, it seems, were expected to stand like toy-soldiers for the French to knock them down. It is quite true that the war is in some respects the conflict of two differing forms of civilization. But whatever charm we may see in the southern Latin races, this ought not to blind us to the great contributions which the German energies have made in all sorts of ways to the common treasure of mankind. And who that has any spirit of justice can help sympathizing with them in their grand repulse of the French project to invade and divide them? If I were a Frenchwoman, much as I might wail over French sufferings, I cannot help believing that I should detest the French talk about the "Prussians." They wanted to throttle the electric eel for their own purposes."

Wonder if she, they, ever thought they were wrong in looting India, that Macaulay was no better than Herod and Pontius Pilate, that his policy was no different from lies of Rome and antisemitic propaganda by church? But then she's sympathetic and admiring of Germans, and calls French "latin" and thinks they're merely cute, so one can't expect a view from her that's wider than that imposed by church and its murderous racism.

................................................................................................

"Journal, 1870.

"Oct. 27.—On Monday the 8th August we went to our favorite Surrey retreat—Limpsfield—and enjoyed three weeks there reading and walking together. The weather was perfect, and the place seemed more lovely to us than before. Aloud I read the concluding part of Walter Scott's Life, which we had begun at Harrogate; two volumes of Froude's "History of England," and Comte's "Correspondence with Valat." We returned on Monday the 29th. During our stay at Limpsfield I wrote the greater part of "Armgart," and finished it at intervals during September. ... "

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 18th Nov. 1870.

"Yesterday, for the first time, we went to hear A. (a popular preacher). I remembered what you had said about his vulgar, false emphasis; but there remained the fact of his celebrity. I was glad of the opportunity. But my impressions fell below the lowest judgment I ever heard passed upon him. He has the gift of a fine voice, very flexible and various; he is admirably fluent and clear in his language, and every now and then his enunciation is effective. But I never heard any pulpit reading and speaking which in its level tone was more utterly common and empty of guiding intelligence or emotion; it was as if the words had been learned by heart and uttered without comprehension by a man who had no instinct of rhythm or music in his soul. And the doctrine! It was a libel on Calvinism that it should be presented in such a form. ... "

This led to an article, included in her essay collections, one would guess.

"Journal, 1870."

"Here is the last day of 1870. I have written only one hundred pages—good printed pages—of a story which I began about the opening of November, and at present mean to call "Miss Brooke." Poetry halts just now."

Isn't that part of Middlemarch?

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Jan. 1871."

"In this cruel time, I no sooner hear of an affliction than I see it multiplied in some one of the endless forms of suffering created by this hellish war. In the beginning I could feel entirely with the Germans, and could say of that calamity called "victory," I am glad. But now I can be glad of nothing. No people can carry on a long, fierce war without being brutalized by it, more or less, and it pains me that the educated voices have not a higher moral tone about national and international duties and prospects. But, like every one else, I feel that the war is too much with me, and am rather anxious to avoid unwise speech about it than to utter what may seem to me to be wisdom. The pain is that one can do so little.

"I have not read "Sir Harry Hotspur," but as to your general question, I reply that there certainly are some women who love in that way, but "their sex as well as I may chide them for it." Men are very fond of glorifying that sort of dog-like attachment. It is one thing to love because you falsely imagine goodness—that belongs to the finest natures—and another to go on loving when you have found out your mistake. But married constancy is a different affair. I have seen a grandly heroic woman who, out of her view as to the responsibilities of the married relation, condoned everything, took her drunken husband to her home again, and at last nursed and watched him into penitence and decency. But there may be two opinions even about this sort of endurance—i.e., about its ultimate tendency, not about the beauty of nature which prompts it. This is quite distinct from mere animal constancy. It is duty and human pity."

What price Romola, unable to correct Or save her husband, keeping him away from her feeling of superiority but not giving him freedom, .... George Eliot's definition of virtue?

"Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 6th June, 1871."

"Ever since the 1st of May we have been living in this queer cottage, which belongs to Mrs. Gilchrist, wife of the Gilchrist who wrote the life of William Blake the artist. We have a ravishing country round us, and pure air and water; in short, all the conditions of health, if the east wind were away. ... "

"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th June, 1871."

" ... Our country could hardly be surpassed in its particular kind of beauty—perpetual undulation of heath and copse, and clear views of hurrying water, with here and there a grand pine wood, steep, wood-clothed promontories, and gleaming pools."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 15th July, 1871.

"I still feel that I owe you my thanks for your kind letter, although Mr. Lewes undertook to deliver them in the first instance. You certainly made a seat at the Commemoration Table14 look more tempting to me than it had done before; but I think that prudence advises me to abstain from the fatigue and excitement of a long railway journey, with a great gathering at the end of it. If there is a chance that "Middlemarch" will be good for anything, I don't want to break down and die without finishing it. And whatever "the tow on my distaff" may be, my strength to unwind it has not been abundant lately."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 24th July, 1871.

"Thanks for the prompt return of the MS., which arrived this morning.

"I don't see how I can leave anything out, because I hope there is nothing that will be seen to be irrelevant to my design, which is to show the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional, and to show this in some directions which have not been from time immemorial the beaten path—the Cremorne walks and shows of fiction. But the best intentions are good for nothing until execution has justified them. And you know I am always compassed about with fears. I am in danger in all my designs of parodying dear Goldsmith's satire on Burke, and think of refining when novel-readers only think of skipping.

"We are obliged to turn out of this queer cottage next week; but we have been fortunate enough to get the more comfortable house on the other side of the road, so that we can move without any trouble. Thus our address will continue to be the same until the end of August.

"Tennyson, who is one of the "hill-folk" about here, has found us out.""Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 14th Aug. 1871.

"We shall stay here only till the end of this month—at least, I have no hope that our propriétaires will be induced to protract their absence; and if the lingering smell of paint does not drive us away from the Priory again, we expect to stay there from the first of September, without projects of travel for many, many months.

"We enjoy our roomy house and pretty lawn greatly. Imagine me seated near a window, opening under a veranda, with flower-beds and lawn and pretty hills in sight, my feet on a warm-water bottle, and my writing on my knees. In that attitude my mornings are passed. We dine at two; and at four, when the tea comes in, I begin to read aloud. About six or half-past we walk on to the commons and see the great sky over our head. At eight we are usually in the house again, and fill our evening with physics, chemistry, or other wisdom if our heads are at par; if not, we take to folly, in the shape of Alfred de Musset's poems, or something akin to them."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 29th Oct. 1871."

"As for me, I get more and more unable to be anything more than a feeble sceptic about all publishing plans, and am thankful to have so many good heads at work for me. Allah illah allah!"

????!!!!!

She was wrong about Germany, though, so this is merely one more.

"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 John Blackwood, 18th Jan. 1872.

"It is like your kindness to write me your encouraging impressions on reading the third book. I suppose it is my poor health that just now makes me think my writing duller than usual. For certainly the reception of the first book by my old readers is quite beyond my most daring hopes. One of them, who is a great champion of "Adam Bede" and "Romola," told Mr. Lewes yesterday that he thought "Middlemarch" surpassed them. ... "

"Journal, 1872.

"Jan. 29.—It is now the last day but one of January. I have finished the fourth part—i.e., the second volume—of "Middlemarch." The first part, published on December 1, has been excellently well received; and the second part will be published the day after to-morrow. About Christmas a volume of extracts from my works was published, under the title, "Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings, in Prose and Verse." It was proposed and executed by Alexander Main, a young man of thirty, who began a correspondence with me by asking me how to pronounce Romola, in the summer, when we were at Shottermill. Blackwood proposed that we should share the profits, but we refused."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1872."

"Thanks for the list of sales since February 12th. Things are encouraging, and the voices that reach us are enthusiastic. But you can understand how people's interest in the book heightens my anxiety that the remainder should be up to the mark. It has caused me some uneasiness that the third part is two sheets less than the first. But Mr. Lewes insisted that the death of old Featherstone was the right point to pause at; and he cites your approbation of the part as a proof that effectiveness is secured in spite of diminished quantity. Still it irks me to ask 5s. for a smaller amount than that already given at the same price. Perhaps I must regard the value as made up solely by effectiveness, and certainly the book will be long enough."

"Journal, 1872.

"May 8.—I have been reposing for more than a week in the hope of getting stronger, my life having been lately a swamp of illness, with only here and there a bit of firm walking. In consequence of this incessant interruption (almost every week having been half nullified for me so far as my work has been concerned) I have only finished the fifth book, and have still three books to write—equal to a large volume and a half.

"The reception of the book hitherto has been quite beyond what I could have believed beforehand, people exalting it above everything else I have written. Kohn is publishing an English edition in Germany; Duncker is to publish a translation; and Harpers pay me £1200 for reprinting it in America."

"Letter to Mrs. Cross, Oct. 1872, from Homburg.

"It was a delightful surprise to see your handwriting when we went to inquire at the Poste Restante. We had, on the whole, a fortunate journey, and are especially grateful to Mr. Hall for suggesting the route by Trèves, where we spent two nights and an exquisite day. I was continually reminded of Rome when we were wandering in the outskirts in search of the antiquities, and the river banks are a loveliness into the bargain which Rome has not. We had even an opportunity of seeing some dissipation, for there happened to be an excellent circus, where we spent our evening. The pretty country through which we passed had an additional interest for us about Libramont.

"The air, the waters, the plantations here are all perfect—"only man is vile." I am not fond of denouncing my fellow-sinners, but gambling being a vice I have no mind to, it stirs my disgust even more than my pity. The sight of the dull faces bending round the gaming-tables, the raking up of the money, and the flinging of the coins towards the winners by the hard-faced croupiers, the hateful, hideous women staring at the board like stupid monomaniacs—all this seems to me the most abject presentation of mortals grasping after something called a good that can be seen on the face of this little earth. Burglary is heroic compared with it. I get some satisfaction in looking on, from the sense that the thing is going to be put down. Hell is the only right name for such places."

Daniel Deronda begins now?

"It is good to have in our memories the two happy days at Six-Mile Bottom; and the love that surrounded me and took care of me there is something very precious to believe in among hard-faced strangers. Much gratitude for the anticipated letter that will come to tell us more news of you by-and-by."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Oct. 1872.

"At last I begin a letter which is intended not as a payment but as an acknowledgment of debt. It will have at least the recommendation of requiring no answer. After some perfect autumnal days we are languishing with headache from two days' damp and mugginess, and feel it almost as much work as we are equal to to endure our malaise. But on the whole we are not sorry that we came to this place rather than any other. On dry days the air is perfect, and the waters are really an enticing drink. Then there is a wood close by where we can wander in delicious privacy: which is really better than the company here, save and except a few friends whom we found at first, and who have now moved off to Baden. The Kursaal is to me a hell, not only for the gambling but for the light and heat of the gas, and we have seen enough of its monstrous hideousness. There is very little dramatic Stoff to be picked up by watching or listening. The saddest thing to be witnessed is the play of a young lady, who is only twenty-six years old, and is completely in the grasp of this mean, money-making demon. It made me cry to see her young, fresh face among the hags and brutally stupid men around her. Next year, when the gambling has vanished, the place will be delightful; there is to be a subvention from Government to keep up the beautiful grounds; and it is likely that there will be increase enough in the number of decent visitors to keep the town tolerably prosperous. One attraction it has above other German baths that I have seen is the abundance of pleasant apartments to be had, where one can be as peaceful as the human lot allows in a world of pianos. "

Daniel Deronda begins!

"Asher's cheap editions are visible everywhere by the side of Tauchnitz, but the outside is not, I think, quite equally recommendable and recommending."

" ... In the mean time we hope to have the proof of the finale to "Middlemarch.""

"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."

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CHAPTER XVII.

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"Jan. 1.—At the beginning of December the eighth and last book of "Middlemarch" was published, the three final numbers having been published monthly. No former book of mine has been received with more enthusiasm—not even "Adam Bede;" and I have received many deeply affecting assurances of its influence for good on individual minds. Hardly anything could have happened to me which I could regard as a greater blessing than the growth of my spiritual existence when my bodily existence is decaying. The merely egoistic satisfactions of fame are easily nullified by toothache, and that has made my chief consciousness for the last week. This morning, when I was in pain, and taking a melancholy breakfast in bed, some sweet-natured creature sent a beautiful bouquet to the door for me, bound round with the written wish that "Every year may be happier and happier, and that God's blessing may ever abide with the immortal author of 'Silas Marner.'""

"Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Aug. 1873."

"We happened to be at Nancy just as the Germans were beginning to quit it, and we saw good store of tricolores and paper lanterns ready in the shop windows for those who wished to buy the signs of national rejoicing. I can imagine that, as a Prussian lady told us, the Germans themselves were not at all rejoiced to leave that pretty town for "les bords de la Spree," where, in French dialogue, all Germans are supposed to live."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 19th Sept. 1873.

"I quite assent to your proposal that there should be a new edition of "Middlemarch" in one volume, at 7s. 6d.—to be prepared at once, but not published too precipitately.

"I like your project of an illustration; and the financial arrangements you mention are quite acceptable to me.

"For one reason especially I am delighted that the book is going to be reprinted—namely, that I can see the proof-sheets and make corrections. Pray give orders that the sheets be sent to me. I should like the binding to be of a rich, sober color, with very plain Roman lettering. It might be called a "revised edition.""

................................................................................................

"Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Mch. 1874.

"I send you by this post a small collection of my poems, which Mr. Lewes wishes me to get published in May.

"Such of them as have been already printed in a fugitive form have been received with many signs of sympathy, and every one of those I now send you represents an idea which I care for strongly, and wish to propagate as far as I can. Else I should forbid myself from adding to the mountainous heap of poetical collections.

"The form of volume I have in my eye is a delightful duodecimo edition of Keats's poems (without the "Endymion") published during his life: just the volume to slip in the pocket. Mine will be the least bit thicker.

"I should like a darkish green cover, with Roman lettering. But you will consider the physique and price of the book, and kindly let me know your thoughts."

"Journal, 1874.

"May 19.—This month has been published a volume of my poems—"Legend of Jubal, and other Poems." On the 1st of June we go into the country to the cottage, Earlswood Common, for four months, and I hope there to get deep shafts sunk in my prose book. My health has been a wretched drag on me during this last half-year. I have lately written "a symposium.""

"Journal, 1875.

"Jan. 13.—Here is a great gap since I last made a record. But the time has been filled full of happiness. A second edition of "Jubal" was published in August; and the fourth edition of the "Spanish Gypsy" is all sold. This morning I received a copy of the fifth edition. The amount of copies sold of "Middlemarch" up to 31st December is between nineteen and twenty thousand."

................................................................................................

"Letter to John Blackwood, 15th Dec. 1875."

"Apparently there are wild reports about the subject-matter of "Deronda"—among the rest, that it represents French life! But that is hardly more ridiculous than the supposition that after refusing to go to America, I should undertake to describe society there! It is wonderful how "Middlemarch" keeps afloat in people's minds. Somebody told me that Mr. Henry Sidgwick said it was a bold thing to write another book after "Middlemarch," and we must prepare ourselves for the incalculableness of the public reception in the first instance. I think I have heard you say that the chief result of your ample experience has been to convince you of that incalculableness."

"Journal, 1875. Dec. 25.—After our return from Wales in October I grew better and wrote with some success. For the last three weeks, however, I have been suffering from a cold and its effects so as to be unable to make any progress. Meanwhile the two first volumes of "Daniel Deronda" are in print, and the first book is to be published on February 1st. I have thought very poorly of it myself throughout, but George and the Blackwoods are full of satisfaction in it. Each part as I see it before me im werden seems less likely to be anything else than a failure; but I see on looking back this morning—Christmas Day—that I really was in worse health and suffered equal depression about "Romola;" and, so far as I have recorded, the same thing seems to be true of "Middlemarch."

"I have finished the fifth book, but am not far on in the sixth, as I hoped to have been; the oppression under which I have been laboring having positively suspended my power of writing anything that I could feel satisfaction in."

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CHAPTER XVIII.

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 17th March, 1876.

"We have just come in from Weybridge, but are going to take refuge there again on Monday for a few days more of fresh air and long, breezy afternoon walks. Many thanks for your thoughtfulness in sending me the cheering account of sales.

"Mr. Lewes has not heard any complaints of not understanding Gwendolen, but a strong partisanship for and against her. My correspondence about the misquotation of Tennyson has quieted itself since the fifth letter. But one gentleman has written me a very pretty note, taxing me with having wanted insight into the technicalities of Newmarket ... "

"Journal, 1876.

"April 12.—On February 1st began the publication of "Deronda," and the interest of the public, strong from the first, appears to have increased with Book III. The day before yesterday I sent off Book VII. The success of the work at present is greater than that of "Middlemarch" up to the corresponding point of publication. What will be the feeling of the public as the story advances I am entirely doubtful. The Jewish element seems to me likely to satisfy nobody. ... "

"Letter to John Blackwood, 18th April, 1876."

"People tell us that the book is enormously discussed, and I must share with you rather a neat coincidence which pleased us last week. Perhaps you saw what Mr. Lewes told me of—namely, that [a critic] opined that the scenes between Lush and Grandcourt were not vraisemblable—were of the imperious feminine, not the masculine, character. Just afterwards Mr. Lewes was chatting with a friend who, without having read the [criticism] or having the subject in the least led up to by Mr. Lewes, said that he had been at Lady Waldegraves', where the subject of discussion had been "Deronda;" and Bernal Osborne, delivering himself on the book, said that the very best parts were the scenes between Grandcourt and Lush. Don't you think that Bernal Osborne has seen more of the Grandcourt and Lush life than that critic has seen? But several men of experience have put their fingers on those scenes as having surprising verisimilitude; and I naturally was peculiarly anxious about such testimony, where my construction was founded on a less direct knowledge."

"The printers have sadly spoiled the beautiful Greek name Kalonymos, which was the name of a celebrated family of scholarly Jews, transplanted from Italy into Germany in mediæval times. But my writing was in fault."

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"Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 6th May, 1876.

"Your letter was one of the best cordials I could have. Is there anything that cheers and strengthens more than the sense of another's worth and tenderness? And it was that sense that your letter stirred in me, not only by the words of fellowship and encouragement you give directly to me, but by all you tell me of your own feeling under your late painful experience. I had felt it long since I had heard of your and the Professor's well being; but I need not say one word to you of the reasons why I am not active towards my distant friends except in thought. I do think of them, and have a tenacious memory of every little sign they have given me. Please offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am ruthlessly proud that I kept him out of his bed. I hope that both you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children. My cares for them are nearly at an end, and in a few weeks we expect to set out on a Continental journey, as the sort of relaxation which carries one most thoroughly away from studies and social claims. You rightly divine that I am a little overdone, but my fatigue is due not to any excess of work so much as to the vicissitudes of our long winter, which have affected me severely as they have done all delicate people. It is true that some nervous wear, such as you know well, from the excitement of writing, may have made me more susceptible to knife-like winds and sudden chills."

"I make a delightful picture of your life in your orange-grove—taken care of by dear daughters. Climate enters into my life with an influence the reverse of what I like to think of in yours. Sunlight and sweet air make a new creature of me. But we cannot bear now to exile ourselves from our own country, which holds the roots of our moral and social life. One fears to become selfish and emotionally withered by living abroad, and giving up the numerous connections with fellow countrymen and women whom one can further a little towards both public and private good.

"I wonder whether you ever suffered much from false writing (about your biography and motives) in the newspapers. I dare say that pro-slavery prints did not spare you. But I should be glad to think that there was less impudent romancing about you as a citoyenne of the States than there appears to be about me as a stranger. But it is difficult for us English, who have not spent any time in the United States, to know the rank that is given to the various newspapers; and we may make the mistake of giving emphasis to some American journalism which is with you as unknown to respectable minds as any low-class newspaper with us."

"Journal, 1876.

"June 3.—Book V. published a week ago. Growing interest in the public, and growing sale, which has from the beginning exceeded that of "Middlemarch;" the Jewish part apparently creating strong interest."

"Journal, 1876.

"June 10.—We set off on our journey, intending to go to San Martino Lantosc in the Maritime Alps. But I was ill at Aix, where the heat had become oppressive, and we turned northwards after making a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes—stayed a few days at Lausanne, then at Vevey, where again I was ill; then by Berne and Zurich to Ragatz, where we were both set up sufficiently to enjoy our life. After Ragatz to Heidelberg, the Klönthal, Schaffhausen, St. Blasien in the Black Forest, and then home by Strasburg, Nancy, and Amiens, arriving September 1."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 6th July, 1876, from Ragatz.

"After much travelling we seem to have reached the right place for our health and comfort, and as we hope to stay here for at least a fortnight, I have begun to entertain selfish thoughts about you and the possibility of having news from you. Our month's absence seems long to us—filled with various scenes and various ailments—but to you, I dare say, the request for a letter to tell us what has happened will seem to have come before there is anything particular to tell.

"On our arriving at Aix the effect of railway travelling and heat on me warned us to renounce our project of going to the Maritime Alps and to turn northward; so after resting at Aix we went to Chambéry, just to make a pilgrimage to Les Charmettes, and then set our faces northward, staying at beautiful Lausanne and Vevey for a week, and then coming on by easy stages to this nook in the mountains. In spite of illness we have had much enjoyment of the lovely scenery we have been dwelling in ever since we entered Savoy, where one gets what I most delight in—the combination of rich, well-cultivated land, friendly to man, and the grand outline and atmospheric effect of mountains near and distant.

"This place seems to be one of the quietest baths possible. Such fashion as there is, is of a German, unimposing kind; and the King of Saxony, who is at the twin hotel with this, is, I imagine, a much quieter kind of eminence than a London stock-broker. At present the company seems to be almost exclusively Swiss and German, but all the appliances for living and carrying on the "cure" are thoroughly generous and agreeable. We rose at five this morning, drank our glasses of warm water, and walked till a quarter to seven, then breakfasted; and from half-past eight to eleven walked to Bad Pfeffers and back again, along a magnificent ravine where the Tamine boils down beneath a tremendous wall of rock, and where it is interesting to see the electric telegraph leaping from the summit, crossing the gulf, and then quietly running by the roadside till it leaps upward again to the opposite summit.

"You may consider us as generally ill-informed, and as ready to make much of a little news as any old provincial folk in the days when the stage-coach brought a single London paper to the village Crown or Red Lion. We have known that Servia has declared war against Turkey, and that Harriet Martineau is dead as well as George Sand.

"Our weather has been uniformly splendid since we left Paris, with the exception of some storms, which have conveniently laid the dust."

"Journal, 1876.

"Oct. 20.—Looking into accounts apropos of an offer from Blackwood for another ten years of copyright, I find that before last Christmas there had been distributed 24,577 copies of "Middlemarch.""

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"Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe,29 29th Oct. 1876.

""Evermore thanks" for your last letter, full of generous sympathy that can afford to be frank. The lovely photograph of the grandson will be carefully preserved. It has the sort of beauty which seems to be peculiarly abundant in America, at once rounded and delicate in form.

"I do hope you will be able to carry out your wish to visit your son at Bonn, notwithstanding that heavy crown of years that your dear Rabbi has to carry. If the sea voyage could be borne without much disturbance, the land journey might be made easy by taking it in short stages—the plan we always pursue in travelling. You see I have an interested motive in wishing you to come to Europe again, since I can't go to America. But I enter thoroughly into the disinclination to move when there are studies that make each day too short. If we were neighbors, I should be in danger of getting troublesome to the revered Orientalist, with all kinds of questions.

"As to the Jewish element in "Deronda," I expected from first to last, in writing it, that it would create much stronger resistance, and even repulsion, than it has actually met with. But precisely because I felt that the usual attitude of Christians towards Jews is—I hardly know whether to say more impious or more stupid when viewed in the light of their professed principles, I therefore felt urged to treat Jews with such sympathy and understanding as my nature and knowledge could attain to. Moreover, not only towards the Jews, but towards all Oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national disgrace to us. There is nothing I should care more to do, if it were possible, than to rouse the imagination of men and women to a vision of human claims in those races of their fellow-men who most differ from them in customs and beliefs. But towards the Hebrews we western people, who have been reared in Christianity, have a peculiar debt, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, a peculiar thoroughness of fellowship in religious and moral sentiment. Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called "educated" making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting? They hardly know that Christ was a Jew. And I find men, educated, supposing that Christ spoke Greek. To my feeling, this deadness to the history which has prepared half our world for us, this inability to find interest in any form of life that is not clad in the same coat-tails and flounces as our own, lies very close to the worst kind of irreligion. The best that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity—which is still the average mark of our culture."

"Journal, 1876.

"Dec. 1.—Since we came home at the beginning of September I have been made aware of much repugnance or else indifference towards the Jewish part of "Deronda," and of some hostile as well as adverse reviewing. On the other hand, there have been the strongest expressions of interest, some persons adhering to the opinion, started during the early numbers, that the book is my best. Delightful letters have here and there been sent to me; and the sale both in America and in England has been an unmistakable guarantee that the public has been touched. Words of gratitude have come from Jews and Jewesses, and these are certain signs that I may have contributed my mite to a good result. The sale hitherto has exceeded that of "Middlemarch," as to the £2 2s. four-volume form, but we do not expect an equal success for the guinea edition which has lately been issued.

"Dec. 11.—We have just bought a house in Surrey, and think of it as making a serious change in our life—namely, that we shall finally settle there and give up town."

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"This was a charming house—The Heights, Witley, near Godalming. It stands on a gentle hill overlooking a lovely bit of characteristic English scenery. In the foreground green fields, prettily timbered, undulate up to the high ground of Haslemere in front, with Blackdown (where Tennyson lives) on the left hand, and Hind Head on the right—"Heights that laugh with corn in August, or lift the plough-team against the sky in September." Below, the white steam-pennon flies along in the hollow. The walks and drives in the neighborhood are enchanting. A land of pine-woods and copses, village greens and heather-covered hills, with the most delicious old red or gray brick, timbered cottages nestling among creeping roses; the sober-colored tiles of their roofs, covered with lichen, offering a perpetual harmony to the eye. The only want in the landscape is the want of flowing water. About the house there are some eight or nine acres of pleasure ground and gardens. It quite fulfilled all expectations, as regards beauty and convenience of situation, though I am not quite sure that it was bracing enough for health."

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"Journal, 1876.

"Dec. 15.—At the beginning of this week I had deep satisfaction from reading in the Times the report of a lecture on "Daniel Deronda," delivered by Dr. Hermann Adler to the Jewish working-men—a lecture showing much insight and implying an expectation of serious benefit. Since then I have had a delightful letter from the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau, written by an American Jew named Isaacs, who excuses himself for expressing his feeling of gratitude on reading "Deronda," and assures me of his belief that it has even already had an elevating effect on the minds of some among his people—predicting that the effect will spread.

"I have also had a request from Signor Bartolommeo Aquarone, of Siena, for leave to translate "Romola," and declaring that as one who has given special study to the history of San Marco, and has written a life of Fra Jeronimo Savonarola, he cares that "Romola" should be known to his countrymen, for their good. Magnificat anima mea! And last night I had a letter from Dr. Benisch, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, announcing a copy of the paper containing an article written by himself on reading "Deronda" (there have long ago been two articles in the same journal reviewing the book), and using strong words as to the effect the book is producing. I record these signs, that I may look back on them if they come to be confirmed.

"Dec. 31.—We have spent the Christmas with our friends at Weybridge, but the greater part of the time I was not well enough to enjoy greatly the pleasures their affection prepared for us.

"Farewell 1876."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Jan. 1877."

"I wish, whenever it is expedient, to add "The Lifted Veil" and "Brother Jacob," and so fatten the volume containing "Silas Marner," which would thus become about 100 pages thicker."

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"Letter to William Allingham, 8th March, 1877.

"Mr. Lewes feels himself innocent of dialect in general, and of Midland dialect in especial. Hence I presume to take your reference on the subject as if it had been addressed to me. I was born and bred in Warwickshire, and heard the Leicestershire, North Staffordshire, and Derbyshire dialects during visits made in my childhood and youth. These last are represented (mildly) in "Adam Bede." The Warwickshire talk is broader, and has characteristics which it shares with other Mercian districts. Moreover, dialect, like other living things, tends to become mongrel, especially in a central, fertile, and manufacturing region, attractive of migration; and hence the Midland talk presents less interesting relics of elder grammar than the more northerly dialects.

"Perhaps, unless a poet has a dialect ringing in his ears, so as to shape his metre and rhymes according to it at one jet, it is better to be content with a few suggestive touches; and, I fear, that the stupid public is not half grateful for studies in dialect beyond such suggestions.

"I have made a few notes, which may perhaps be not unacceptable to you in the absence of more accomplished aid:

"1. The vowel always a double sound, the y sometimes present, sometimes not; either aäl or yaäl. Hither not heard except in c'moother, addressed to horses.

"2. Thou never heard. In general, the 2d person singular not used in Warwickshire except occasionally to young members of a family, and then always in the form of thee—i.e., 'ee. For the emphatic nominative, yo, like the Lancashire. For the accusative, yer, without any sound of the r. The demonstrative those never heard among the common people (unless when caught by infection from the parson, etc.). Self pronounced sen. The f never heard in of, nor the n in in.

"3. Not year but 'ear. On the other hand, with the usual "compensation," head is pronounced yead.

"4. "A gallows little chap as e'er ye see."

"5. Here's to you, maäster.

"Saäm to yo."

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"Letter to Professor Dr. David Kaufmann, 31st May, 1877.

"Hardly, since I became an author, have I had a deeper satisfaction—I may say, a more heartfelt joy—than you have given me in your estimate of "Daniel Deronda."

"I must tell you that it is my rule, very strictly observed, not to read the criticisms on my writings. For years I have found this abstinence necessary to preserve me from that discouragement as an artist which ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in me. For far worse than any verdict as to the proportion of good and evil in our work, is the painful impression that we write for a public which has no discernment of good and evil.

"Certainly if I had been asked to choose what should be written about my books, and who should write it, I should have sketched—well, not anything so good as what you have written, but an article which must be written by a Jew who showed not merely a sympathy with the best aspirations of his race, but a remarkable insight into the nature of art and the processes of the artistic mind.

"Believe me, I should not have cared to devour even ardent praise if it had not come from one who showed the discriminating sensibility, the perfect response to the artist's intention, which must make the fullest, rarest joy to one who works from inward conviction and not in compliance with current fashions."

"I may mention as one instance your clear perception of the relation between the presentation of the Jewish elements and those of English social life."

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"Letter to Frederic Harrison, 14th June, 1877."

"I wasted some time, three years ago, in writing (what I do not mean to print) a poetic dialogue embodying or rather shadowing very imperfectly the actual contest of ideas. Perhaps what you have written to me may promote and influence a different kind of presentation. At any rate all the words of your letter will be borne in mind, and will enter into my motives."

Would this be the breakfast at Cambridge?

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"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1877.

"It was a draught of real comfort and pleasure to have a letter written by your own hand, and one altogether cheerful.30 I trust that you will by-and-by be able to write me word of continued progress. Hardly any bit of the kingdom, I fancy, would suit your taste better than your neighborhood of the Land's End. You are not fond of bushy midland-fashioned scenery. We are enjoying the mixture of wildness and culture extremely, and so far as landscape and air go we would not choose a different home from this. But we have not yet made up our minds whether we shall keep our house or sell it."

"Some London friends are also occasional dwellers in these parts. The day before yesterday we had Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Harrison, whose parents have a fine old Tudor house—Sutton Place—some three miles beyond Guildford. And do you remember Edmund Gurney? He and his graceful bride lunched with us the other day. And Miss Thackeray is married to-day to young Ritchie. I saw him at Cambridge, and felt that the nearly twenty years' difference between them was bridged hopefully by his solidity and gravity. This is one of several instances that I have known of lately, showing that young men with even brilliant advantages will often choose as their life's companion a woman whose attractions are chiefly of the spiritual order."

W. Somerset Maugham has written a delightful story of such a marriage, except, of course, characters were very different. Perhaps he took this couple and dressed the story in different characters? Or were there more than one couple with husband couple of decades younger than wife?

"I often see you enjoying your sunsets and the wayside flowers."

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"Letter to Professor Kaufmann, 12th Oct. 1877.

"I trust it will not be otherwise than gratifying to you to know that your stirring article on "Daniel Deronda" is now translated into English by a son of Professor Ferrier, who was a philosophical writer of considerable mark. It will be issued in a handsomer form than that of the pamphlet, and will appear within this autumnal publishing season, Messrs. Blackwood having already advertised it. Whenever a copy is ready we shall have the pleasure of sending it to you. There is often something to be borne with in reading one's own writing in a translation, but I hope that in this case you will not be made to wince severely.

"In waiting to send you this news, I seem to have deferred too long the expression of my warm thanks for your kindness in sending me the Hebrew translations of Lessing and the collection of Hebrew poems—a kindness which I felt myself rather presumptuous in asking for, since your time must be well filled with more important demands. Yet I must further beg you, when you have an opportunity, to assure Herr Bacher that I was most gratefully touched by the sympathetic verses with which he enriched the gift of his work."

"One can hardly turn one's thought towards Eastern Europe just now without a mingling of pain and dread, but we mass together distant scenes and events in an unreal way, and one would like to believe that the present troubles will not at any time press on you in Hungary with more external misfortune than on us in England."

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"Letter to the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, 17th Oct. 1877.

"I like to know that you have been thinking of me and that you care to write to me, and though I will not disobey your considerate prohibition so far as to try to answer your letter fully, I must content my soul by telling you that we shall be settled in the old place by the end of the first week in November, and that I shall be delighted to see you then. There are many subjects that I shall have a special pleasure in talking of with you.

"Let me say now that the passage quoted from your friend's letter is one that I am most glad to find falling in with your own attitude of mind. The view is what I have endeavored to represent in a little poem called "Stradivarius," which you may not have happened to read.

"I say, not God Himself can make man's best

"Without best men to help Him.

"And next: I think direct personal portraiture—or caricature—is a bastard kind of satire that I am not disposed to think the better of because Aristophanes used it in relation to Socrates. Do you know that pretty story about Bishop Thirlwall? When somebody wanted to bring to him Forchhammer as a distinguished German writer, he replied, "No; I will never receive into my house the man who justified the death of Socrates!""

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"Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 10th Nov. 1877."

"We are in love with our Surrey house, and only regret that it hardly promises to be snug enough for us chilly people through the winter, so that we dare not think of doing without the warmer nest in town.

"Journal, 1877."

"Nov. 10.—We went to the Heights, Witley, at the beginning of June, after a delightful visit to Cambridge, and returned to this old home on the 29th October. We are at last in love with our Surrey house, and mean to keep it. The air and abundant exercise have quite renovated my health, and I am in more bodily comfort than I have known for several years. But my dear husband's condition is less satisfactory, his headaches still tormenting him.

"Since the year began several little epochs have marked themselves. Blackwood offered for another ten years' copyright of my works, the previous agreement for ten years having expired. I declined, choosing to have a royalty. G.'s third volume has been well received, and has sold satisfactorily for a book so little in the popular taste. A pleasant correspondence has been opened with Professor Kaufmann, now Principal of the Jewish Theological Seminary at Pesth; and his "Attempt at an Appreciation of 'Daniel Deronda'" has been translated into English by young Ferrier, son of Professor Ferrier.

"A new Cabinet edition of my works, including "Romola," has been decided on, and is being prepared; and there have been multiplied signs that the spiritual effect of "Deronda" is growing. In America the book is placed above all my previous writings.

"Our third little Hampstead granddaughter has been born, and was christened Saturday—the 3d—Elinor.

"Yesterday Mr. Macmillan came to ask me if I would undertake to write the volume on Shakespeare, in a series to be issued under the title "Men of Letters." I have declined."

"Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Nov. 1877."

" ... We returned from our country home (with which we are much in love) at the beginning of this month, leaving it earlier than we wished because of the need to get workmen into it. Our bit of Surrey has the beauties of Scotland wedded to those of Warwickshire. During the last two months of our stay there I was conscious of more health and strength than I have known for several years. Imagine me playing at lawn-tennis by the hour together! ... "

"Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th Jan. 1878.

"Yes, it is a comfort to me, in the midst of so many dispiriting European signs, that France has come so far through her struggle. And no doubt you are rejoicing too that London University has opened all its degrees to women."

"What do you say to the phonograph, which can report gentlemen's bad speeches with all their stammering?"

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"Letter to Mrs. Bray, 7th June, 1878.

"The royalties did themselves much credit.33 The Crown Prince is really a grand-looking man, whose name you would ask for with expectation, if you imagined him no royalty. He is like a grand antique bust—cordial and simple in manners withal, shaking hands, and insisting that I should let him know when we next came to Berlin, just as if he had been a Professor Gruppe, living au troisième. She is equally good-natured and unpretending, liking best to talk of nursing soldiers, and of what her father's taste was in literature. She opened the talk by saying, "You know my sister Louise"—just as any other slightly embarrassed mortal might have done. We had a picked party to dinner—Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Peterborough, Lord and Lady Ripon, Dr. Lyon Playfair, Kinglake (you remember "Eothen"—the old gentleman is a good friend of mine), Froude, Mrs. Ponsonby (Lord Grey's granddaughter), and two or three more "illustrations;" then a small detachment coming in after dinner. It was really an interesting occasion. We go to Oxford to-morrow (to the Master of Balliol)."

"Letter to John Blackwood, 27th June, 1878, from Witley.

"I hope we are not wrong in imagining you settled at Strathtyrum, with a fresh power of enjoying the old scenes after your exile, in spite of the abstinence from work—the chief sweetness of life. Mr. Lewes, too, is under a regimen for gout, which casts its threatening shadow in the form of nightly cramps and inward malaise. He wants me to tell you something amusing—a bit of Baboo English, from an Indian journal sent us by Lord Lytton. Apropos of Sir G. Campbell's rash statement that India was no good to England, the accomplished writer says, "But British House of Commons stripped him to pieces, and exposed his cui bono in all its naked hideousness!" After all, I think the cultivated Hindoo writing what he calls English, is about on a par with the authors of leading articles on this side of the globe writing what they call English—accusing or laudatory epithets and phrases, adjusted to some dim standard of effect quite aloof from any knowledge or belief of their own."

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"At this time I was in the habit of going over occasionally from Weybridge on Sundays. The shadow of trouble was on both our houses. My mother was in her last illness, and Mr. Lewes was constantly ailing, though none of us then thought that he would be taken first. But the sharing of a common anxiety contributed to make our friendship much more intimate. In our drives in the neighborhood of Witley, Mr. Lewes used sometimes to be suddenly seized with severe cramping pains. I think he was himself aware that something was far wrong, but the moment the pain ceased the extraordinary buoyancy of his spirits returned. Nothing but death could quench that bright flame. Even on his worst days he had always a good story to tell; and I remember on one occasion, between two bouts of pain, he sang through, with great brio, though without much voice, the greater portion of the tenor part in the "Barber of Seville"—George Eliot playing his accompaniment, and both of them thoroughly enjoying the fun.

"They led a very secluded life at Witley—as always in their country retreats—but enjoyed the society of some of their neighbors. Sir Henry and Lady Holland, who lived next door; charming Mrs. Thellusson and her daughter, Mrs. Greville, who lived between Witley and Godalming, were especial friends. The Tennysons, too, and the Du Mauriers and Allinghams, were all within easy visiting distance. George Eliot's dislike of London life continued to increase with the increasing number of her acquaintance, and consequent demands on time. The Sunday receptions, confined to a small number of intimate friends in 1867, had gradually extended themselves to a great variety of interesting people.

"These receptions have been so often and so well described that they have hitherto occupied rather a disproportionate place in the accounts of George Eliot's life. It will have been noticed that there is very little allusion to them in the letters; but, owing to the seclusion of her life, it happened that the large majority of people who knew George Eliot as an author never met her elsewhere. Her salon was important as a meeting-place for many friends whom she cared greatly to see, but it was not otherwise important in her own life. For she was eminently not a typical mistress of a salon. It was difficult for her, mentally, to move from one person to another. Playing around many disconnected subjects, in talk, neither interested her nor amused her much. She took things too seriously, and seldom found the effort of entertaining compensated by the gain. ... Many of the réunions were exceedingly agreeable and interesting, especially when they were not too crowded, when general conversation could be maintained. But the larger the company grew the more difficult it was to manage. The English character does not easily accommodate itself to the exigencies of a salon. There is a fatal tendency to break up into small groups. The entertainment was frequently varied by music when any good performer happened to be present. I think, however, that the majority of visitors delighted chiefly to come for the chance of a few words with George Eliot alone. When the drawing-room door of the Priory opened, a first glance revealed her always in the same low arm-chair on the left-hand side of the fire. On entering, a visitor's eye was at once arrested by the massive head. The abundant hair, streaked with gray now, was draped with lace, arranged mantilla-fashion, coming to a point at the top of the forehead. ... In addition to the Sundays "at home" the Priory doors were open to a small circle of very intimate friends on other days of the week. Of evening entertainments there were very few, I think, after 1870. I remember some charming little dinners—never exceeding six persons—and one notable evening when the Poet Laureate read aloud "Maud," "The Northern Farmer," and parts of other poems. It was very interesting on this occasion to see the two most widely known representatives of contemporary English literature sitting side by side. George Eliot would have enjoyed much in her London life if she had been stronger in health, but, with her susceptible organization, the atmosphere oppressed her both physically and mentally. She always rejoiced to escape to the country. The autumn days were beginning to close in now on the beautiful Surrey landscape, not without some dim, half-recognized presage to her anxious mind of impending trouble."

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Sept. 1878."

"Are you not disturbed by yesterday's Indian news? One's hopes for the world's getting a little rest from war are continually checked. Every day, after reading the Times, I feel as if all one's writing were miserably trivial stuff in the presence of this daily history. Do you think there are persons who admire Russia's "mission" in Asia as they did the mission in Europe?"

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November 11, 2021 - November 12, 2021.

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CHAPTER XIX.

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"Letter to J. W. Cross, 22d Jan. 1879.

"Sometime, if I live, I shall be able to see you—perhaps sooner than any one else—but not yet. Life seems to get harder instead of easier."

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"Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Feb. 1879.

"Pray do not announce "Theophrastus" in any way. It would be intolerable to my feelings to have a book of my writing brought out for a long while to come. What I wish to do is, to correct the sheets thoroughly, and then have them struck off and laid by till the time of publication comes. One reason which prompted me to set about the proofs—in addition to my scruples about occupying the type—was that I was feeling so ill, I thought there was no time to be lost in getting done everything which no one else would do if I left it undone. But I am getting better, I think; and my doctors say there is nothing the matter with me to urge more haste than the common uncertainty of life urges on us all.

"There is a great movement now among the Jews towards colonizing Palestine, and bringing out the resources of the soil. Probably Mr. Oliphant is interested in the work, and will find his experience in the West not without applicability in the East.

"It is a satisfaction to you, I hope, that your son is about to be initiated in George Street. I trust he will one day carry on the good traditions of the name "John Blackwood.""

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"Letter to J. W. Cross, 22d April, 1879.

"I am in dreadful need of your counsel. Pray come to me when you can—morning, afternoon, or evening."

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"From this time forward I saw George Eliot constantly. My mother had died in the beginning of the previous December, a week after Mr. Lewes; and, as my life had been very much bound up with hers, I was trying to find some fresh interest in taking up a new pursuit. Knowing very little Italian, I began Dante's "Inferno" with Carlyle's translation. The first time I saw George Eliot afterwards, she asked me what I was doing, and, when I told her, exclaimed, "Oh, I must read that with you." And so it was. In the following twelve months we read through the "Inferno" and the "Purgatorio" together; not in a dilettante way, but with minute and careful examination of the construction of every sentence. The prodigious stimulus of such a teacher (cotanto maestro) made the reading a real labor of love. Her sympathetic delight in stimulating my newly awakened enthusiasm for Dante did something to distract her mind from sorrowful memories. The divine poet took us into a new world. It was a renovation of life. At the end of May I induced her to play on the piano at Witley for the first time; and she played regularly after that whenever I was there, which was generally once or twice a week, as I was living at Weybridge, within easy distance.

"Besides Dante, we read at this time a great many of Sainte-Beuve's "Causeries," and much of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. But I am anticipating. We will return to the correspondence in its order."

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"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."

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"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?"

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"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."

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"Journal, 1880.

"May 6.—Married this day at 10.15 to John Walter Cross, at St. George's, Hanover Square. Present, Charles, who gave me away, Mr. and Mrs. Druce, Mr. Hall, William, Mary, Eleanor, and Florence Cross. We went back to the Priory, where we signed our wills. Then we started for Dover and arrived there a little after five o'clock."

"Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st May, 1880, from Grenoble.

"This place is so magnificently situated, in a smiling valley, with the Isère flowing through it, and surrounded by grand and various lines of mountains, and we were so enraptured by our expedition yesterday to the Grande Chartreuse that we congratulate ourselves greatly on our choice of route. I think it unlikely that we shall want to wander beyond the second week in July. We shall begin to long for home just when the rest of the London world are longing for travel. We are seeing nature in her happiest moment now—the foliage on all the tremendous heights, the soft slopes, and the richly clad valleys on the way to the Chartreuse is all fresh and tender, shone through by a sunlight which cherishes and does not burn us. I had but one regret in seeing the sublime beauty of the Grande Chartreuse. It was that the Pater had not seen it. I would still give up my own life willingly if he could have the happiness instead of me. But marriage has seemed to restore me to my old self. I was getting hard, and if I had decided differently, I think I should have become very selfish. To feel daily the loveliness of a nature close to me, and to feel grateful for it, is the fountain of tenderness and strength to endure.

"Glorious weather always, and I am very well—quite amazingly able to go through fatigue."

"Letter to Miss Florence Cross, 25th May, 1880.

"Our life since we wrote to you has been a chapter of delights—Grenoble—Grande Chartreuse—Chambéry—paradisiacal walk to Les Charmettes—roses gathered in Jean Jacques' garden—Mont Cenis Tunnel and emergence into Italian sunshine. Milan, comfortable appartement, delicious privacy, and great minds condescending to relax themselves! We got here yesterday, and of course our first walk was to the post, where we found your delightful budget and other letters, which we took to a café in the grand galleria and read at our ease to the accompaniment of tea.

"Two of my letters yesterday touched me very gratefully. One was from "Brother Jimmy"—the prettiest letter possible. The other letter that moved me was one from my own brother. Then J. had a graceful letter of congratulation from Mr. Henry James, who is still at Florence. I think you did not send that letter of Mr. Edmund Gurney's which you mention. I am fond of seeing the letters which put my friends in an amiable light for my imagination. And now that I have had that charming letter from my new brother in America, I feel that my family initiation is complete. No woman was ever more sweetly received by brothers and sisters than I have been; and it is a happy, new longing in my life that I may return into their bosoms some of the gladness they have poured into mine."

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"Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 9th June, 1880, from Venice.

"We both enjoyed reading your letter on the morning after our arrival at this enchanting city, where the glorious light, with comparative stillness and total absence of dust, makes a paradise much more desirable than that painted by Tintoretto on the wall of the Consiglio Maggiore. Nothing but the advent of mosquitoes would make it easy for us to tear ourselves away from this place, where every prospect pleases, but also where one is obliged to admit that man is somewhat vile. I am sadly disappointed in the aspect of the Venetian populace. Even physically they look less endowed than I thought them when we were here under the Austrian dominion. We have hardly seen a sweet or noble woman's face since we arrived; but the men are not quite so ill-looking as the women. The singing here (by itinerant performers in gondolas) is disgraceful to Venice and to Italy. Coarse voices, much out of tune, make one shudder when they strike suddenly under the window."

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"We thought too little of the heat, and rather laughed at English people's dread of the sun. But the mode of life at Venice has its peculiar dangers. It is one thing to enjoy heat when leading an active life, getting plenty of exercise in riding or rowing in the evenings; it is another thing to spend all one's days in a gondola—a delicious, dreamy existence—going from one church to another—from palaces to picture-galleries—sight-seeing of the most exhaustively interesting kind—traversing constantly the piccoli rei, which are nothing more than drains, and with bedroom-windows always open on the great drain of the Grand Canal. The effect of this continual bad air, and the complete and sudden deprivation of all bodily exercise, made me thoroughly ill. As soon as I could be moved we left Venice, on the 23d of June, and went to Innspruck, where we stayed for a week, and in the change to the pure, sweet, mountain air I soon regained strength."

"Left Wildbad on the 17th July, and had a delightful drive through the Black Forest by Herrenalb to Baden, and thence by Strasburg, Metz, Luxemburg, and Brussels, arriving at Witley on Monday the 26th of July."

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"Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 23d Sept. 1880.

"I have been and am suffering under an attack of a comparatively mild sort, but I expect to be well in two or three days, and am just going to drive to Godalming to meet my husband. Hence I write this hurriedly. We should like to see you and Gertrude from Saturday to Monday some week next month if it would be pleasant to you."

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"This attack was a recurrence of the renal disorder of the previous year. On the 29th September we went for ten days to Brighton as the most accessible place for a bracing change. The first effects of the sea breezes were encouraging, but the improvement was not maintained. Shortly after our return to Witley Dr. Andrew Clark,47 "the beloved physician," came down to consult with Mr. Parsons of Godalming—on 22d October. From that time there was gradual but slow improvement, and, during November, a decided recovery of strength. But an English autumn was not favorable to the invalid. Her sensibility to climatic influences was extreme. It will have been noticed in the preceding letters how constantly change of air and scene was required. I had never seen my wife out of England, previous to our marriage, except the first time at Rome, when she was suffering. My general impression, therefore, had been that her health was always very low, and that she was almost constantly ailing. Moreover, I had been with her very frequently during her long, severe illness at Witley in 1879. I was the more surprised, after our marriage, to find that from the day she set her foot on Continental soil till the day she returned to Witley she was never ill—never even unwell. She began at once to look many years younger. During the eleven years of our acquaintance I had never seen her so strong in health. The greater dryness and lightness of the atmosphere seemed to have a magical effect. At Paris we spent our mornings at the Louvre or the Luxembourg, looking at pictures or sculpture, or seeing other sights—always fatiguing work. In the afternoons we took long walks in the Bois, and very often went to the theatre in the evening. Reading and writing filled in all the interstices of time; yet there was no consciousness of fatigue. And we had the same experience at all the places we stayed at in Italy. On our way home she was able to take a great deal of walking exercise at Wildbad and Baden. Decrease of physical strength coincided exactly with the time of our return to the damper climate of England. The specific form of illness did not declare itself until two months later, but her health was never again the same as it had been on the Continent. Towards the middle of October she was obliged to keep her bed, but without restriction as to amount of reading and talking, which she was always able to enjoy, except in moments of acute pain.

"During her illness I read aloud, among other books, Comte's "Discours Préliminaire," translated by Dr. Bridges. This volume was one of her especial favorites, and she delighted in making me acquainted with it. For all Comte's writing she had a feeling of high admiration, intense interest, and very deep sympathy. I do not think I ever heard her speak of any writer with a more grateful sense of obligation for enlightenment. Her great debt to him was always thankfully acknowledged. But the appreciation was thoroughly selective, so far as I was able to judge. Parts of his teaching were accepted and other parts rejected. Her attitude towards him, as the founder of a new religion, may be gathered from the references and allusions in the foregoing correspondence, and from the fact that for many years, and up to the time of her death, she subscribed to the Comtist Fund, but never, so far as I am aware, more directly associated herself with the members of the Positivist Church. It was a limited adherence."

"Her memory held securely her great stores of reading. Even of light books her recollections were always crisp, definite, and vivid. On our way home from Venice, after my illness, we were reading French novels of Cherbuliez, Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Droz, George Sand. Most of these books she had read years before, and I was astonished to find what clear-cut, accurate impressions had been retained, not only of all the principal characters, but also of all the subsidiary personages—even their names were generally remembered. But, on the other hand, her verbal memory was not always to be depended on. She never could trust herself to write a quotation without verifying it.

"In foreign languages George Eliot had an experience more unusual among women than among men. With a complete literary and scholarly knowledge of French, German, Italian, and Spanish, she spoke all four languages with difficulty, though accurately and grammatically; but the mimetic power of catching intonation and accent was wanting. Greek and Latin she could read with thorough delight to herself; and Hebrew was a favorite study to the end of her life. In her younger days, especially at Geneva, inspired by Professor de la Rive's lectures, she had been greatly interested in mathematical studies. At one time she applied herself heartily and with keen enjoyment to geometry, and she thought that she might have attained to some excellence in that branch if she had been able to pursue it. In later days the map of the heavens lay constantly on her table at Witley, and she longed for deeper astronomical knowledge. She had a passion for the stars; and one of the things to which we looked forward on returning to London was a possible visit to Greenwich Observatory, as she had never looked through a great telescope of the first class. Her knowledge of wild-flowers gave a fresh interest each day to our walks in the Surrey lanes, as every hedgerow is full of wonders—to "those who know;" but she would, I think, have disclaimed for herself real botanical knowledge, except of an elementary sort.

"This wide and varied culture was accompanied with an unaffected distrust of her own knowledge, with the sense of how little she really knew, compared with what it was possible for her to have known, in the world. Her standard was always abnormally high—it was the standard of an expert; and she believed in the aphorism that to know any subject well we must know the details of it.

"During our short married life our time was so much divided between travelling and illness that George Eliot wrote very little, so that I have but slight personal experience of how the creative effort affected her. But she told me that, in all that she considered her best writing, there was a "not herself," which took possession of her, and that she felt her own personality to be merely the instrument through which this spirit, as it were, was acting. Particularly she dwelt on this in regard to the scene in "Middlemarch" between Dorothea and Rosamond, saying that, although she always knew they had, sooner or later, to come together, she kept the idea resolutely out of her mind until Dorothea was in Rosamond's drawing-room. Then, abandoning herself to the inspiration of the moment, she wrote the whole scene exactly as it stands, without alteration or erasure, in an intense state of excitement and agitation, feeling herself entirely possessed by the feelings of the two women. Of all the characters she had attempted she found Rosamond's the most difficult to sustain. With this sense of "possession" it is easy to imagine what the cost to the author must have been of writing books, each of which has its tragedy. We have seen the suffering alluded to in the letters on the "Mill on the Floss," "Felix Holt," and "Romola.""

That scene between Dorothea and Rosamond certainly flows, however melodramatic.

"It will have been seen from the letters that George Eliot was deeply interested in the higher education of women, and that she was among the earliest contributors to Girton College. After meeting Mr. and Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, in September, 1880, when they had gone to reside at the new hall of Newnham College for a time, she was anxious to be associated in that work also, but she did not live to carry out the plan herself. The danger she was alive to in the system of collegiate education was the possible weakening of the bonds of family affection and family duties. In her view, the family life holds the roots of all that is best in our mortal lot; and she always felt that it is far too ruthlessly sacrificed in the case of English men by their public school and university education, and that much more is such a result to be deprecated in the case of women. But, the absolute good being unattainable in our mixed condition of things, those women especially who are obliged to earn their own living must do their best with the opportunities at their command, as "they cannot live with posterity," when a more perfect system may prevail. Therefore, George Eliot wished God-speed to the women's colleges. It was often in her mind and on her lips that the only worthy end of all learning, of all science, of all life, in fact, is, that human beings should love one another better. Culture merely for culture's sake can never be anything but a sapless root, capable of producing at best a shrivelled branch."

" ... And I remember, many years ago, at the time of our first acquaintance, how deeply it pained her when, in reply to a direct question, I was obliged to admit that, with all my admiration for her books, I found them, on the whole, profoundly sad. But sadness was certainly not the note of her intimate converse. For she had the distinctively feminine qualities which lend a rhythm to the movement of life. The quick sympathy that understands without words; the capacity for creating a complete atmosphere of loving interest; the detachment from outside influences; the delight in everything worthy—even the smallest thing—for its own sake; the readiness to receive as well as to give impressions; the disciplined mental habit which can hold in check and conquer the natural egoism of a massive, powerful personality; the versatility of mind; the varied accomplishments—these are characteristics to be found more highly developed among gifted women than among gifted men. Add to these the crowning gift of genius, and, in such companionship, we may possess the world without belonging to it."

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November 12, 2021 - November 12, 2021.

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November 03, 2021 - November 12, 2021.

The Life of George Eliot

(Kindle Edition)

by George Eliot

Kindle Edition

Published December 17th 2020

ASIN:- B08R3WS3GD

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4334227910

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Friday, November 12, 2021

The Life of George Eliot, by George Eliot, J. W. Cross.

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