George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d Feb. 1863.

The letter with the one word in it, like a whisper of sympathy, lay on my plate when I went down to lunch this morning. The generous movement that made you send it has gladdened me all day. I have had a great deal of pretty encouragement from immense big-wigs – some of them saying "Romola" is the finest book they ever read; but the opinion of big-wigs has one sort of value, and the fellow-feeling of a long known friend has another. One can't do quite well without both. En revanche, I am a feeble wretch, with eyes that threaten to get bloodshot on the slightest provocation. We made a rush to Dorking for a day or two, and the quiet and fresh air seemed to make a new creature of me; but when we get back to town, town sensations return.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th March, 1863.

That scheme of a sort of Philosophical Club that I told you of went to pieces before it was finished, like a house of cards. So it will be to the end, I fancy, with all attempts at combinations that are not based either on material interests or on opinions that are not merely opinions but religion. Doubtless you have been interested in the Colenso correspondence, and perhaps in Miss Cobbe's rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe's remonstrating answer to the women of England. I was glad to see how free the answer was from all tartness or conceit. Miss Cobbe's introduction to the new edition of Theodore Parker is also very honorable to her – a little too metaphorical here and there, but with real thought and good feeling.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 18th April, 1863.

It is a comfort to hear of you again, and to know that there is no serious trouble to mar the spring weather for you. I must carry that thought as my consolation for not seeing you on Tuesday – not quite a sufficient consolation, for my eyes desire you very much after these long months of almost total separation. The reason I cannot have that pleasure on Tuesday is that, according to a long arranged plan, I am going on Monday to Dorking again for a fortnight. I should be still more vexed to miss you if I were in better condition, but at present I am rather like a shell-less lobster, and inclined to creep out of sight. I shall write to you, or try to see you, as soon as I can after my return. I wish you could have told me of a more decided return to ordinary health in Mr. Congreve, but I am inclined to hope that the lecturing may rather benefit than injure him, by being a moral tonic. How much there is for us to talk about! But only to look at dear faces that one has seen so little of for a long while seems reason enough for wanting to meet. Mr. Lewes is better than usual just now, and you must not suppose that there is anything worse the matter with me than you have been used to seeing in me. Please give my highest regards to Mr. Congreve, and love to Emily, who, I hope, has quite got back the roses which had somewhat paled. My pen straggles as if it had a stronger will than I.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 28th April, 1863, from Dorking.

Glad you enjoyed "Esmond." It is a fine book. Since you have been interested in the historical suggestions, I recommend you to read Thackeray's "Lectures on the English Humorists," which are all about the men of the same period. There is a more exaggerated estimate of Swift and Addison than is implied in "Esmond;" and the excessive laudation of men who are considerably below the tip-top of human nature, both in their lives and genius, rather vitiates the Lectures, which are otherwise admirable, and are delightful reading.

The wind is high and cold, making the sunshine seem hard and unsympathetic.

Journal, 1863.

May 6.– We have just returned from Dorking, whither I went a fortnight ago to have solitude while George took his journey to Hofwyl to see Bertie. The weather was severely cold for several days of my stay, and I was often ailing. That has been the way with me for a month and more, and in consequence I am backward with my July number of "Romola" – the last part but one.

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."

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 12th May, 1863.

Yes! we shall be in town in June. Your coming would be reason good enough, but we have others – chiefly, that we are up to the ears in boydom and imperious parental duties. All is as happy and prosperous with us as heart can lawfully desire, except my health. I have been a mere wretch for several months past. You will come to me like the morning sunlight, and make me a little less of a flaccid cabbage-plant.

It is a very pretty life you are leading at Hastings, with your painting all morning, and fair mothers and children to look at the rest of the day.

I am terribly frightened about Mrs. – . She wrote to me, telling me that we were sure to suit each other, neither of us holding the opinions of the Moutons de Panurge. Nothing could have been more decisive of the opposite prospect to me. If there is one attitude more odious to me than any other of the many attitudes of "knowingness," it is that air of lofty superiority to the vulgar. However, she will soon find out that I am a very commonplace woman.

Journal, 1863.

May 16.– Finished Part XIII. Killed Tito in great excitement.

May 18.– Began Part XIV. – the last! Yesterday George saw Count Arrivabene, who wishes to translate "Romola," and says the Italians are indebted to me.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1st June, 1863.

Health seems, to those who want it, enough to make daylight a gladness. But the explanation of evils is never consoling except to the explainer. We are just as we were, thinking about the questionable house (The Priory), and wondering what would be the right thing to do; hardly liking to lock up any money in land and bricks, and yet frightened lest we should not get a quiet place just when we want it. But I dare say we shall have it after all.

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.

The manuscript of "Romola" bears the following inscription:

"To the Husband whose perfect love has been the best source of her insight and strength, this manuscript is given by his devoted wife, the writer."

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th June, 1863.

How impossible it is for strong, healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true – the religion that is strength to the healthy – is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

Journal, 1863.

June 16.– George and I set off to-day to the Isle of Wight, where we had a delightful holiday. On Friday, the 19th, we settled for a week at Niton, which, I think, is the prettiest place in all the island. On the following Friday we went on to Freshwater, and failed, from threatening rain, in an attempt to walk to Alum Bay, so that we rather repented of our choice. The consolation was that we shall know better than to go to Freshwater another time. On the Saturday morning we drove to Ryde, and remained there until Monday the 29th.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st June, 1863.

Your letter was a welcome addition to our sunshine this Sabbath morning. For in this particular we seem to have been more fortunate than you, having had almost constant sunshine since we arrived at Sandown, on Tuesday evening.

This place is perfect, reminding me of Jersey, in its combination of luxuriant greenth with the delights of a sandy beach. At the end of our week, if the weather is warmer, we shall go on to Freshwater for our remaining few days. But the wind at present is a little colder than one desires it, when the object is to get rid of a cough, and unless it gets milder we shall go back to Shanklin. I am enjoying the hedge-row grasses and flowers with something like a released prisoner's feeling – it is so long since I had a bit of real English country.

Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 21st June, 1863.

I am very happy in my holiday, finding quite a fresh charm in the hedge-row grasses and flowers after my long banishment from them. We have a flower-garden just round us, and then a sheltered grassy walk, on which the sun shines through the best part of the day; and then a wide meadow, and beyond that trees and the sea. Moreover, our landlady has cows, and we get the quintessence of cream – excellent bread and butter also, and a young lady, with a large crinoline, to wait upon us – all for 25s. per week; or, rather, we get the apartment in which we enjoy those primitive and modern blessings for that moderate sum.

Journal, 1863.

July 4.– Went to see Ristori in Adrienne Lecouvreur and did not like it. I have had hemicrania for several days, and have been almost idle since my return home.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th July, 1863.

Constant languor from the new heat has made me shirk all exertion not imperative. And just now there are not only those excitements of the season, which even we quiet people get our share of, but there is an additional boy to be cared for – Thornie, who is this week passing his momentous examination.

A pretty thing has happened to an acquaintance of mine, which is quite a tonic to one's hope. She has all her life been working hard in various ways, as house-keeper, governess, and several et ceteras that I can't think of at this moment – a dear little dot, about four feet eleven in height; pleasant to look at, and clever; a working-woman, without any of those epicene queernesses that belong to the class. Her life has been a history of family troubles, and she has that susceptible nature which makes such troubles hard to bear. More than once she has told me that courage quite forsook her. She felt as if there were no good in living and striving; it was difficult to discern or believe in any results for others, and there seemed none worth having for herself. Well! a man of fortune and accomplishments has just fallen in love with her, now she is thirty-three. It is the prettiest story of a swift decided passion, and made me cry for joy. Madame Bodichon and I went with her to buy her wedding-clothes. The future husband is also thirty-three – old enough to make his selection an honor. Fond of travelling and science and other good things, such as a man deserves to be fond of who chooses a poor woman in the teeth of grand relatives: brought up a Unitarian, just turned Catholic. If you will only imagine everything I have not said, you will think this a very charming fairy tale.

We are going this evening to see the French actress in Juliet (Stella Colas), who is astonishing the town. Last week we saw Ristori, the other night heard the Faust, and next week we are going to hear the Elisir d'Amore and Faust again! So you see we are trying to get some compensation for the necessity of living among bricks in this sweet summer time. I can bear the opera better than any other evening entertainment, because the house is airy and the stalls are comfortable. The opera is a great, great product – pity we can't always have fine Weltgeschichtliche dramatic motives wedded with fine music, instead of trivialities or hideousnesses. Perhaps this last is too strong a word for anything except the Traviata. Rigoletto is unpleasant, but it is a superlatively fine tragedy in the Nemesis. I think I don't know a finer.

We are really going to buy the Priory after all. You would think it very pretty if you saw it now, with the roses blooming about it.

Journal, 1863.

July 12.– I am now in the middle of G.'s "Aristotle," which gives me great delight.

July 23.– Reading Mommsen and Story's "Roba di Roma;" also Liddell's "Rome," for a narrative to accompany Mommsen's analysis.

July 29.– In the evening we went to Covent Garden to hear Faust for the third time. On our return we found a letter from Frederick Maurice – the greatest, most generous tribute ever given to me in my life.36

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 30th July, 1863.

I have wanted for several days to make some feeble sign in writing that I think of your trouble. But one claim after another has arisen as a hinderance. Conceive us, please, with three boys at home, all bigger than their father! It is a congestion of youthfulness on our mature brains that disturbs the course of our lives a little, and makes us think of most things as good to be deferred till the boys are settled again. I tell you so much to make you understand that "omission" is not with me equivalent to "neglect," and that I do care for what happens to you.

Renan is a favorite with me. I feel more kinship with his mind than with that of any other living French author. But I think I shall not do more than look through the Introduction to his "Vie de Jésus" – unless I happen to be more fascinated by the constructive part than I expect to be from the specimens I have seen. For minds acquainted with the European culture of this last half-century, Renan's book can furnish no new result; and they are likely to set little store by the too facile construction of a life from materials of which the biographical significance becomes more dubious as they are more closely examined. It seems to me the soul of Christianity lies not at all in the facts of an individual life, but in the ideas of which that life was the meeting-point and the new starting-point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ either in its historical influence or its great symbolic meanings. Still, such books as Renan's have their value in helping the popular imagination to feel that the sacred past is, of one woof with that human present, which ought to be sacred too.

You mention Renan in your note, and the mention has sent me off into rather gratuitous remarks, you perceive. But such scrappy talk about great subjects may have a better excuse than usual, if it just serves to divert your mind from the sad things that must be importuning you now.

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. Of course, if I had been called on to expound my own book, there are other things that I should want to say, or things that I should say somewhat otherwise; but I can point to nothing in your exposition of which my consciousness tells me that it is erroneous, in the sense of saying something which I neither thought nor felt. You have seized with a fulness which I had hardly hoped that my book could suggest, what it was my effort to express in the presentation of Bardo and Baldasarre; and also the relation of the Florentine political life to the development of Tito's nature. Perhaps even a judge so discerning as yourself could not infer from the imperfect result how strict a self-control and selection were exercised in the presentation of details. I believe there is scarcely a phrase, an incident, an allusion, that did not gather its value to me from its supposed subservience to my main artistic objects. But it is likely enough that my mental constitution would always render the issue of my labor something excessive – wanting due proportion. It is the habit of my imagination to strive after as full a vision of the medium in which a character moves as of the character itself. The psychological causes which prompted me to give such details of Florentine life and history as I have given, are precisely the same as those which determined me in giving the details of English village life in "Silas Marner," or the "Dodson" life, out of which were developed the destinies of poor Tom and Maggie. But you have correctly pointed out the reason why my tendency to excess in this effort after artistic vision makes the impression of a fault in "Romola" much more perceptibly than in my previous books. And I am not surprised at your dissatisfaction with Romola herself. I can well believe that the many difficulties belonging to the treatment of such a character have not been overcome, and that I have failed to bring out my conception with adequate fulness. I am sorry she has attracted you so little; for the great problem of her life, which essentially coincides with a chief problem in Savonarola's, is one that readers need helping to understand. But with regard to that and to my whole book, my predominant feeling is – not that I have achieved anything, but – that great, great facts have struggled to find a voice through me, and have only been able to speak brokenly. That consciousness makes me cherish the more any proof that my work has been seen to have some true significance by minds prepared not simply by instruction, but by that religious and moral sympathy with the historical life of man which is the larger half of culture.

Journal, 1863.

Aug. 10.– Went to Worthing. A sweet letter from Mrs. Hare, wife of Julius Hare, and Maurice's sister.

Aug. 18.– Returned home much invigorated by the week of change, but my spirits seem to droop as usual now I am in London again.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 19th Aug. 1863.

I was at Worthing when your letter came, spending all my daylight hours out-of-doors, and trying with all my might to get health and cheerfulness. I will tell you the true reason why I did not go to Hastings. I thought you would be all the better for not having that solicitation of your kindness that the fact of my presence there might have caused. What you needed was precisely to get away from people to whom you would inevitably want to be doing something friendly, instead of giving yourself up to passive enjoyment. Else, of course, I should have liked everything you write about and invite me to.

We only got home last night, and I suppose we shall hardly be able to leave town again till after the two younger boys have left us, and after we have moved into the new house.

Since I saw you I have had some sweet woman's tenderness shown me by Mrs. Hare, the widow of Archdeacon Hare, and the sister of Frederick Maurice.

I know how you are enjoying the country. I have just been having the joy myself. The wide sky, the not London, makes a new creature of me in half an hour. I wonder, then, why I am ever depressed – why I am so shaken by agitations. I come back to London, and again the air is full of demons.

Letter to Mrs. Bray and Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Sept. 1863.

I think I get a little freshness from the breeze that blows on you – a little lifting of heart from your wide sky and Welsh mountains. And the edge of autumn on the morning air makes even London a place in which one can believe in beauty and delight. Delicate scent of dried rose-leaves and the coming on of the autumnal airs are two things that make me feel happy before I know why.

The Priory is all scaffolding and paint; and we are still in a nightmare of uncertainty about our boys. But then I have by my side a dear companion, who is a perpetual fountain of courage and cheerfulness, and of considerate tenderness for my lack of those virtues. And besides that I have Roman history! Perhaps that sounds like a bitter joke to you, who are looking at the sea and sky and not thinking of Roman history at all. But this too, read aright, has its gospel and revelation. I read it much as I used to read a chapter in the Acts or Epistles. Mommsen's "History of Rome" is so fine that I count all minds graceless who read it without the deepest stirrings.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, Oct. 1863.

I cannot be quite easy without sending this little sign of love and good wishes on the eve of your journey. I shall think of you with all the more delight, because I shall imagine you winding along the Riviera and then settling in sight of beautiful things not quite unknown to me. I hope your life will be enriched very much by these coming months; but above all, I hope that Mr. Congreve will come back strong. Tell him I have been greatly moved by the "Discours Préliminaire."37

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 16th Oct. 1863.

If I wait to write until I have anything very profitable to say, you will have time to think that I have forgotten you or else to forget me – and both consequences would be unpleasant to me.

Well, our poor boy Thornie parted from us to-day and set out on his voyage to Natal. I say "poor," as one does about all beings that are gone away from us for a long while. But he went away in excellent spirits, with a large packet of recommendatory letters to all sorts of people, and with what he cares much more for, a first-rate rifle and revolver – and already with a smattering of Dutch Zulu, picked up from his grammars and dictionaries.

What are you working at, I wonder? Cara says you are writing; and, though I desire not to ask prying questions, I should feel much joy in your being able to tell me that you are at work on something which gives you a life apart from circumstantial things.

I am taking a deep bath of other people's thoughts, and all doings of my own seem a long way off me. But my bath will be sorely interrupted soon by the miserable details of removal from one house to another. Happily Mr. Owen Jones has undertaken the ornamentation of the drawing-room, and will prescribe all about chairs, etc. I think, after all, I like a clean kitchen better than any other room.

We are far on in correcting the proofs of the new edition of "Goethe," and are about to begin the printing of the "Aristotle," which is to appear at Christmas or Easter.

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 Mrs. Bray, 14th Nov. 1863.

At last we are in our new home, with only a few details still left to arrange. Such fringing away of precious life, in thinking of carpets and tables, is an affliction to me, and seems like a nightmare from which I shall find it bliss to awake into my old world of care for things quite apart from upholstery.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 28th Nov. 1863.

I have kissed your letter in sign of my joy at getting it. But the cold draughts of your Florentine room came across my joy rather harshly. I know you have good reasons for what you do, yet I cannot help saying, Why do you stay at Florence, the city of draughts rather than of flowers?

Mr. Congreve's suffering during the journey and your suffering in watching him saddens me as I think of it. For a long while to come I suppose human energy will be greatly taken up with resignation rather than action. I wish my feeling for you could travel by some helpful vibrations good for pains.

For ourselves, we have enough ease now to be able to give some of it away. But our removal into our new home on the 5th of November was not so easy as it might have been, seeing that I was only half recovered from a severe attack of influenza, which had caused me more terrible pains in the head and throat than I have known for years. However, the crisis is past now, and we think our little home altogether charming and comfortable. Mr. Owen Jones has been unwearied in taking trouble that everything about us may be pretty. He stayed two nights till after twelve o'clock, that he might see every engraving hung in the right place; and as you know I care even more about the fact of kindness than its effects, you will understand that I enjoy being grateful for all this friendliness on our behalf. But so tardy a business is furnishing, that it was not until Monday last that we had got everything in its place in preparation for the next day – Charlie's twenty-first birthday – which made our house-warming a doubly interesting epoch. I wish your sweet presence could have adorned our drawing-room and made it look still more agreeable in the eyes of all beholders. You would have liked to hear Jansa play on his violin, and you would perhaps have been amused to see an affectionate but dowdy friend of yours splendid in a gray moire antique – the consequence of a severe lecture from Owen Jones on her general neglect of personal adornment. I am glad to have got over this crisis of maternal and house-keeping duty. My soul never flourishes on attention to details which others can manage quite gracefully without any conscious loss of power for wider thoughts and cares. Before we began to move I was swimming in Comte and Euripides and Latin Christianity: now I am sitting among puddles, and can get sight of no deep water. Now I have a mind made up of old carpets fitted in new places, and new carpets suffering from accidents; chairs, tables, and prices; muslin curtains and down draughts in cold chimneys. I have made a vow never to think of my own furniture again, but only of other people's.