Chapter XVI · (continued 2)

I have to be grateful for the gift of "Brougham's Life," which will be a welcome addition to my means of knowing the time "when his ugliness had not passed its bloom."

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Jan. 1872.

Your letter seems to pierce the rainy fog with a little sunlight. Cold and clearness are the reverse of what we are usually having here. Until the last few days my chief consciousness has been that of struggling against inward as well as outward fog; but I am now better, and have only been dragged back into headachiness by a little too much fatigue from visitors. I give you this account as a preface to my renunciation of a journey to Dover, which would be very delightful, if I had not already lost too much time to be warranted in taking a holiday.

Next Saturday we are going to have a party—six to dine, and a small rush of people after dinner, for the sake of music. I think it is four years at least since we undertook anything of that kind.

A great domestic event for us has been the arrival of a new dog, who has all Ben's virtues, with more intelligence, and a begging attitude of irresistible charm. He is a dark-brown spaniel. You see what infantine innocence we live in!

Glad you are reading my demigod Milton! We also are rather old-fashioned in our light reading just now; for I have rejected Heyse's German stories, brand new, in favor of dear old Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," which I read aloud in my old age with a delicious revival of girlish impressions.

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 Miss Sara Hennell, 29th Jan. 1872.

I do lead rather a crawling life under these rainy fogs and low behavior of the barometer. But I am a little better, on the whole, though just now overdone with the fatigue of company. We have been to hear Coleridge addressing the jury on the Tichborne trial—a very interesting occasion to me. He is a marvellous speaker among Englishmen; has an exquisitely melodious voice, perfect gesture, and a power of keeping the thread of his syntax to the end of his sentence, which makes him delightful to follow. We are going some other day, if possible, to hear a cross-examination of Ballantyne's. The digest of the evidence which Coleridge gives is one of the best illustrations of the value or valuelessness of testimony that could be given. I wonder if the world, which retails Guppy anecdotes, will be anything the wiser for it.

Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Feb. 1872.

To hear of a friend's illness after he has got well through it is the least painful way of learning the bad news. I hope that your attack has been a payment of insurance.

You probably know what it grieved us deeply to learn the other day—that our excellent friend Mr. William Smith is dangerously ill. They have been so entirely happy and wrapped up in each other that we cannot bear to think of Mrs. Smith's grief.

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.

I am still below par in strength, and am too much beset with visitors and kind attentions. I long for the quiet spaces of time and the absence of social solicitations that one enjoys in the country, out of everybody's reach.

I am glad to hear of the pleasure "Middlemarch" gives in your household: that makes quite a little preliminary public for me.

Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th Mch. 1872.

I can understand very easily that the two last years have been full for you of other and more imperative work than the writing of letters not absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The proof that you still think of me affectionately is very welcome now it is come, and all the more cheering because it enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard—your western Sorrento—the beloved Rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude—as it always is to us when we go out of reach of London influences, and have the large space of country days to study, walk, and talk in. Last year we spent our summer months in Surrey, and did not leave England. Unhappily, the country was not so favorable to my bodily health as to my spiritual, and on our return to town I had an illness which was the climax of the summer's malaise. That illness robbed me of two months, and I have never quite recovered a condition in which the strict duties of the day are not felt as a weight. But just now we are having some clear spring days, and I am in hope of prospering better, the sunshine being to me the greatest visible good of life—what I call the wealth of life, after love and trust.

Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 8th Mch. 1872.

When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books, if he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena reported or attested in connection with ideas of spirit-intercourse, "psychion," and so on, have come before me here in the painful form of the lowest charlatanerie. Take Mr. H. as an example of what I mean. I could not choose to enter a room where he held a séance. He is an object of moral disgust to me; and nothing of late reported by Mr. Crookes, Lord Lindsay, and the rest carries conviction to my mind that Mr. H. is not simply an impostor, whose professedly abnormal manifestations have varied their fashion in order to create a new market, just as if they were papier mâché wares or pomades for the idle rich. But apart from personal contact with people who get money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots, such as those who make a court for a Mrs. Guppy or other feminine personage of that kind, I would not willingly place any barriers between my mind and any possible channel of truth affecting the human lot.

The spirit in which you have written in the paper you kindly sent me is likely to teach others—to rouse them, at least, to attention in a case where you have been deeply impressed.

I write to you quite openly, dear friend, but very imperfectly, for my letters are always written in shreds of time.

Letter to John Blackwood, 14th Mch. 1872.

Thanks for the budget of this morning. The sales, we think, are very cheering, and we may well be content if they continue in the same ratio. But the Greek proverb about the beginning being the half of the whole wants as much defining and excepting from as most other proverbs.

I have just had sent me a copy of the magazine Für die Literatur des Auslander, containing a review of "Miss Brooke," which will be good for Asher's edition, and is otherwise satisfactory as an intelligent appreciation. It mentions at the end the appearance of Mr. Main's book, "The Sayings." A Frenchman, apparently accomplished, a M. Landolphe, who has made some important translations, is going to translate the whole of "Middlemarch;" and one of the contributors to the Revue des Deux Mondes has written for leave to extract Dorothea's history.

I fancy we have done a good turn to English authors generally by setting off Asher's series, for we have heard that Tauchnitz has raised his offers. There is another way in which benefit might come that would be still more desirable—namely, to make him more careful in his selections of books for reprint. But I fear that this effect is not so certain. You see Franz Duncker, who publishes the German translation of "Middlemarch," has also begun an English series. This is really worth while, for the Germans are excellent readers of our books. I was astonished to find so many in Berlin who really knew one's books, and did not merely pay compliments after the fashion of the admirers who made Rousseau savage—running after him to pay him visits, and not knowing a word of his writing.

You and other good readers have spoiled me, and made me rather shudder at being read only once; and you may imagine how little satisfaction I get from people who mean to please me by saying that they shall wait till "Middlemarch" is finished, and then sit up to read it "at one go-off."

We are looking for a country retreat not too far from town, so that we may run up easily. There is nothing wanting to our happiness except that "Middlemarch" should be well ended without growing signs of its author's debility.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 17th March, 1872.

Before I received your letter this morning, I was going to write you a word of sympathy, knowing how deeply you would be feeling the death of Mazzini. Such a man leaves behind him a wider good than the loss of his personal presence can take away.

I must be excused for quoting my own words, because they are my credo. I enter thoroughly into your sense of wealth in having known him.

Brighton does not suit Mr. Lewes. But he was near going there for a night a little while ago to see our friends, Mr. and Mrs. William Smith. He (the author of "Thorndale," etc.) is, I fear, wasting fatally with organic disease, and we grieve much at the too-probably near parting of a husband and wife who have been among the perfectly happy couples of the world. She is a charming woman, and I wish that you may happen to know her.

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

Owing to my loss of two months in illness, and my infirm health ever since, I have not yet finished the writing of "Middlemarch." This payment of wintry arrears makes one prefer the comforts of a London home; but we are obliged to see more company than my health is equal to, and for this reason I dare say we shall soon migrate. To-day we have been to our last morning concert—or Saturday Pop.—held on a Friday because of the University boat-race to-morrow. These concerts are an easy pleasure which we are sorry to part with. This is one of my bad weeks, owing probably to the change in the weather, and I am constantly struggling with hemicrania and malaise. Even writing this scrap of a note is the feather too much, and I must leave off. You have known too much of nervous weakness not to understand this.

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 Madame Bodichon, 4th June, 1872.

I am glad to know that you are having a time of refreshing in fine scenery, with entire freedom to paint. I am in a corresponding state of relief from the noises and small excitements that break up the day and scatter one's nervous energy in London.

We have been in our hiding-place about twelve days now, and I am enjoying it more and more—getting more bodily ease and mental clearness than I have had for the last six months. Our house is not in the least beautiful, but it is well situated and comfortable, perfectly still in the middle of a garden surrounded by fields and meadows, and yet within reach of shops and civilization.

We managed to get to the Academy one day before leaving town. I was delighted with Walker's picture—were you?—and Mason's unfinished Reaper, and a few, very few, others.

Also we went twice to the opera in order to save ourselves from any yearnings after it when we should have settled in the country.

We tell no one our address, and have our letters sent on from the Priory.

Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 4th June, 1872.

We too are in a country refuge, you see, and this bit of Surrey, as I dare say you know, is full of beauty of the too garden-like sort for which you pity us. How different from your lodge in the wilderness! I have read your description three or four times—it enchants me so thoroughly—and Mr. Lewes is just as much enamoured of it. We shall never see it, I imagine, except in the mirror of your loving words; but thanks, many and warm, dear friend, for saying that our presence would be welcome. I have always had delight in descriptions of American forests since the early days when I read "Atala," which I believe that you would criticise as half unveracious. I dwelt on the descriptions in "Dred" with much enjoyment.

Pray give my special thanks to the Professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really look like Arabic—a very graceful character, surely—happens to be remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word. Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact—which you had told me—that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Old Town Folk;" and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his experience. Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts, physiological and psychological, which have been gathered of late years, to give larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as subjective than the Professor would approve. It seems difficult to limit—at least to limit with any precision—the possibility of confounding sense by impressions, derived from inward conditions, with those which are directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the division between within and without in this sense seems to become every year a more subtle and bewildering problem.

Your experience with the planchette is amazing; but that the words which you found it to have written were dictated by the spirit of Charlotte Brontë is to me (whether rightly or not) so enormously improbable, that I could only accept it if every condition were laid bare, and every other explanation demonstrated to be impossible. If it were another spirit aping Charlotte Brontë—if here and there at rare spots and among people of a certain temperament, or even at many spots and among people of all temperaments, tricksy spirits are liable to rise as a sort of earth-bubbles and set furniture in movement, and tell things which we either know already or should be as well without knowing—I must frankly confess that I have but a feeble interest in these doings, feeling my life very short for the supreme and awful revelations of a more orderly and intelligible kind which I shall die with an imperfect knowledge of. If there were miserable spirits whom we could help, then I think we should pause and have patience with their trivial-mindedness; but otherwise I don't feel bound to study them more than I am bound to study the special follies of a particular phase of human society. Others who feel differently, and are attracted towards this study, are making an experiment for us as to whether anything better than bewilderment can come of it. At present it seems to me that to rest any fundamental part of religion on such a basis is a melancholy misguidance of men's minds from the true sources of high and pure emotion.

I am comforted to think that you partly agree with me there.

I have not time to write more than this very imperfect fragmentary sketch of only one aspect which the question of spirit-communications wears to me at present—being always rather brain-weary after my morning's work, and called for by my husband to walk with him and read aloud to him. I spend nearly three hours every day in this exercise of reading aloud, which, happily, I can carry on without fatigue of lungs. Yet it takes strength as well as time.

Mr. Lewes is gone into town to-day, so I have an additional hour at liberty, and have been glad to be able to send you a letter which is not worth anything, indeed, but which satisfies my need to thank you and the Professor for your sweet friendliness—very sweet to me, I assure you. Please accept my entire frankness as a proof of that high value I set on you. And do not call anything I may have written a prejudice—it is simply a statement of how certain things appear to my inward eyesight, which I am ready to have rectified by more light.

About photographs—I have no photograph of myself, having always avoided having one taken. That makes me seem very selfish in being particularly glad to get yours.

Mrs. Fields, with the beautiful face and charming manners, sent me a letter a little while ago, inviting us in the most tempting way to go to Boston. She said that this pretty action was done at your prompting, which is just like you as you have always shown yourself to me.

Dear friend, how much you have lived through, both in the flesh and in the spirit! My experience has been narrow compared with yours. I assure you I feel this, so do not misinterpret anything I say to you as being written in a flippant or critical spirit. One always feels the want of the voice and eyes to accompany a letter and give it the right tone.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th July, 1872.

You were very good and dear to want to give me the pleasure of knowing that the news was good, instead of leaving me to my small stock of hopefulness. Ask Emily to care a little even now, with baby on her mind, that her old friends are the better for hearing that she is well. Four or five months ago it happens that I was writing some playfulness about a baby and baby's hair, which is now in print, to appear next month. I am not afraid that Emily should be revolted by my blasphemy!

Mr. Lewes had "a lovely time" from Saturday to Monday at Weybridge. He was feeling languid, and yet was tempted to sit at his desk. The little change has been very serviceable, and he is now bright.

Our first book, read aloud by me after we came down, was Wallace's "Eastern Archipelago," which, I think, you had spoken well of to Mr. Lewes. It is delightful. The biography of the infant ourang-outang alone is worth getting the book for. We are now in the middle of Tylor's "Primitive Culture," which is worth studying, and useful for reference on special points, if you happen to want knowledge about the ideas of the savage tribes.

Our days go by in delicious peace, unbroken except by my little inward anxieties about all unfinished work.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th July, 1872.

This morning came the joyful news that Gertrude has a fine healthy baby—a daughter. We have just been saying in our walk that by the end of this century our one-day-old granddaughter will probably be married and have children of her own, while we are pretty sure to be at rest. This obvious kind of wisdom does very well for discourse in the delicious sunshine, as we wander over a hilly, half fern-clad, half grassy wilderness called South Park, from which we can overlook two fertile bosky valleys. We like this bit of country better and better. As to health, I am not quite so prosperous as I was at first, but to make amends, Mr. Lewes is in a good average condition, and only now and then has a morning in which he is forced to wander about instead of going to his beloved work. We have had much happiness here, much sympathy in letters from far-off friends unknown in the flesh, and peaceful enjoyment of our occupations. But we have longed for more continuous warmth and brightness, and to-day may perhaps be the beginning of that one wanting condition.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Aug. 1872(?).

The death of that honored, good creature, Mr. William Smith, touched us particularly, because of the perfect marriage-bond which had made the last eleven years of his life unspeakably precious both to him and his wife. Mr. Lewes offered to go to Brighton to see him; but he was so reduced, so very feeble in body, though he kept to the last much brightness of mind, that Mrs. Smith feared for him the excitement of seeing friends who came, specially, from a distance.

Letter to John Blackwood, 4th Aug. 1872.

I like to think that your journey was a success. But I had felt sure, that unless bad health or bad weather overtook you, both Mrs. Blackwood and you must have great happiness in taking that bright, lovely daughter abroad and watching her fresh impressions. I imagine her laudable indignation at the crushing of the little lizard! Those little creatures darting about the stones seem part of the happiness of Italian sunshine, as the small birds hopping after the rain seem part of the moist happiness at home.

I shall send Part VII. in a few days. Since Mr. Lewes tells me that the Spectator considers me the most melancholy of authors, it will perhaps be a welcome assurance to you that there is no unredeemed tragedy in the solution of the story.

Mr. Lewes examines the newspapers before I see them, and cuts out any criticisms which refer to me, so as to save me from these spiritual chills—though, alas! he cannot save me from the physical chills which retard my work more seriously. I had hoped to have the manuscript well out of my hands before we left this place at the end of the month, but the return of my dyspeptic troubles makes me unable to reckon on such a result.

It will be a good plan, I think, to quicken the publication towards the end; but we feel convinced that the slow plan of publication has been of immense advantage to the book in deepening the impression it produces. Still I shudder a little to think what a long book it will be—not so long as "Vanity Fair" or "Pendennis," however, according to my calculation.

How good the articles on French manners and domestic life are in "Maga." The spirit in which they are written is excellent.

The manuscript of "Middlemarch" bears the following inscription:

"To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes, in this nineteenth year of our blessed union."

Letter to Mrs. Cross, Sept. 1872.

I am tired of behaving like an ungrateful wretch—making no sign in answer to affectionate words which have come to me with cheering effect. And I want to tell you and Mr. Hall (alas! for the dear old name[18] which had such cherished associations) that I long too much to see you all at Six-Mile Bottom, to give up utterly the prospect of that good. We imagine that the place is near Ipswich, which is no more than an hour and fifty minutes from London. If so, the journey would be easily managed, and would be worth taking for the sake of one whole day and two half days with you—just as if you were the hour nearer, at Weybridge—before we set our faces towards Germany. I am not hopeless that we might do that in the second week of September, if you are not quite disgusted with the thought of me as a person who is always claiming pity for small ailments, and also if Mr. Hall can secure me against being shot from the other side of the hedge by the Prince of Wales,[19] while we are discussing plantations.

I dare not count much on fulfilling any project, my life for the last year having been a sort of nightmare, in which I have been scrambling on the slippery bank of a pool, just keeping my head above water. But I shall be the happier for having told you that I delight in the double invitation for the sake of the love it assures me of, and that I do want to see you all.

You are all gloriously well, I hope, and Alkie looking more and more cherubic, and Emily and Florence blooming. My best love to all. Particular regards to J., and regrets that we were not on his route from Brindisi. I read his paper on New York with much interest and satisfaction.

You are often among my imaged companions both in dreaming and waking hours.

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.

It was cruel to find the bitter cold just set in as we arrived. For two days we were as cold as in clear winter days at Berlin. There are no amusements for the evening here, and the pleasure of listening to the excellent band in the afternoons is diminished by the chillness which makes one fear to sit down in the open air. But we like being idle, and the days pass easily.

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.

Asher's cheap editions are visible everywhere by the side of Tauchnitz, but the outside is not, I think, quite equally recommendable and recommending.

We brought no books with us, but have furnished our table with German books which we bought at Frankfort, from learned writing about Menschlich Sprache and Vernunft down to Kotzebue's comedies, so that we have employment for the rainy hours when once our heads are clear of aches. The certainty that the weather is everywhere else bad will help our resolution to stay here till the 12th at least. In the mean time we hope to have the proof of the finale to "Middlemarch."

I am rejoiced to learn from Mr. William's letter that Mr. Simpson has returned from his excursion in good condition. That must be a comfort to you, both for friendship and for work's sake.

We mean to return by Paris, and hope that the weather will not drive us away from health and pleasure-seeking until the end of the month. I fear, from the accounts of your Scottish weather, that you will have enjoyed Strathtyrum less than usual, and will be resigned to Edinburgh before your proper time. How one talks about the weather! It is excusable here where there is no grave occupation, and no amusement for us, who don't gamble, except seeking health in walks and water drinking.

Letter to Mrs. Cross, 27th Oct. 1872, from Boulogne.

I had meant to write to you again from Germany, but I was hindered from doing so by the uncertainty of our plans, which vacillated between further wanderings in South Germany and the usual dreary railway journeying by Strasburg to Paris. As it was, we left Homburg on the 13th and had ten days of delicious autumnal weather and quietude at Stuttgart and Carlsruhe—ten days which made the heart of our enjoyment. We still hesitated whether we should go to Augsburg, and even Munich, making our way home through Germany and Belgium, and turning our shoulders on Paris. Our evil genius persuaded us to go to Paris and to make the journey by night—whence came headache and horrible disgust with the shops of the Rue de la Paix and the Boulevard. After going to Versailles in the rain, seeing the sad ruins of the Hotel de Ville, missing the Theatre Français, and getting "Patrie" in exchange, we rushed away to this place, where we are trying to recover the sense of benefit from our change, which forsook us on quitting old Germany. We have an affinity for what the world calls "dull places," and always prosper best in them. We are sure to be at home next week, and I hope before long to have some news of you there—some dear faces coming to bring it. We shall linger here a few days and take a favorable time for crossing, but our patience will hardly last beyond Friday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to John Blackwood, 1st Dec. 1872.

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

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

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

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

A thousand thanks for your kind interest in our project, and for the trouble you have taken in our behalf. I fear the land buying and building[20] is likely to come to nothing, and our construction to remain entirely of the aerial sort. It is so much easier to imagine other people doing wise things than to do them one's self! Practically, I excel in nothing but paying twice as much as I ought for everything. On the whole, it would be better if my life could be done for me, and I could look on. However, it appears that the question of the land at Shere may remain open until we can discuss it with you at Weybridge; and there is no telling what we may not venture on with your eyes to see through.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUMMARY.

JANUARY, 1869, TO DECEMBER, 1872.

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