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

But after 1866 his contributions to any periodical were very scanty – confined to a few articles in the Pall Mall Gazette, one on "The Reign of Law," in the Fortnightly, and the series on Darwin, now incorporated in "The Physical Basis of Mind." After these, his sole contributions were an article on Dickens (1872), two on "Spiritualism" and "Mesmerism" (1876), and one on "The Dread and Dislike of Science" (1878).

Charles, I think, mentioned to you my desire that you should do me the valuable service of looking over the proofs of the remaining volume of "Problems," and you were so generous as to express your willingness to undertake that labor. The printing will not begin till after the 16th – Dr. Michael Foster, who has also kindly offered to help me in the same way, not being sufficiently at leisure till after that date.

I have been rather ill again lately, but am hoping to benefit by the country quietude. You, too, I am sorry to hear, are not over strong. This will make your loan of mind and eyesight all the more appreciated by me.

Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, 3d June, 1879.

Your letter, full of details – just the sort of letter I like to have – has been among my comforts in these last damp, chill days. The first week I was not well, and had a troublesome attack of pain, but I am better, and try to make life interesting by always having something to do.

I am wishing Margaret many happy returns of this day, and am making a picture of you all keeping the little fête. A young birthday, when the young creature is promising, is really a happy time; one can hope reasonably; and the elder ones may be content that gladness has passed onward from them into newer vessels. I should like to see the blue-eyed maid with her bangles on her arms.

Please give my love to all and sundry who make any sign of love for me; and any amount you like is ready for you to draw upon.

Letter to Frederic Harrison, 10th June, 1879.

I am greatly obliged to you for sending me the paper you are to read to-day; and I appreciate it the more highly because your diligence is in contrast with the general sluggishness of readers about any but idle reading. It is melancholy enough that to most of our polite readers the social factor in psychology would be a dull subject; for it is certainly no conceit of ours which pronounces it to be the supremely interesting element in the thinking of our time.

I confess the word factor has always been distasteful to me as the name for the grandest of forces. If it were only mathematical I should not mind, but it has many other associated flavors which spoil it for me.

Once more – ever more – thanks.

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

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

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

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

Letter to William Blackwood, 12th June, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to John Blackwood, 20th June, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to John Blackwood, 29th June, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 2d July, 1879.

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

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

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

Letter to John Blackwood, 16th July, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to James Sully, 7th Aug. 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to William Blackwood, 3d Sept. 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 3d Sept. 1879.

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

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

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

Letter to James Sully, 10th Sept. 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter to James Sully, 7th Oct. 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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