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

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Oct. 1867.

Before I got your letter I was about to write to you and direct your attention to an article in the forthcoming (October) number of the Quarterly Review, on the Talmud. You really must go out of your way to read it. It is written by one of the greatest Oriental scholars, the man among living men who probably knows the most about the Talmud; and you will appreciate the pregnancy of the article. There are also beautiful, soul-cheering things selected for quotation.

Journal, 1867.

Oct. 31.– I have now inserted all that I think of for the first part of the "Spanish Gypsy." On Monday I wrote three new Lyrics. I have also rewritten the first scenes in the gypsy camp, to the end of the dialogue between Juan and Fedalma. But I have determined to make the commencement of the second part continue the picture of what goes forward in Bedmar.

Nov. 1.– Began this morning Part II. "Silva was marching homeward," etc.

Letter to John Blackwood, 9th Nov. 1867.

About putting Fedalma in type. There would be advantages, but also disadvantages; and on these latter I wish to consult you. I have more than three thousand lines ready in the order I wish them to stand in, and it would be good to have them in print to read them critically. Defects reveal themselves more fully in type, and emendations might be more conveniently made on proofs, since I have given up the idea of copying the MS. as a whole. On the other hand, could the thing be kept private when it had once been in the printing-office? And I particularly wish not to have it set afloat, for various reasons. Among others, I want to keep myself free from all inducements to premature publication; I mean, publication before I have given my work as much revision as I can hope to give it while my mind is still nursing it. Beyond this, delay would be useless. The theory of laying by poems for nine years may be a fine one, but it could not answer for me to apply it. I could no more live through one of my books a second time than I can live through last year again. But I like to keep checks on myself, and not to create external temptations to do what I should think foolish in another. If you thought it possible to secure us against the oozing out of proofs and gossip, the other objections would be less important. One difficulty is, that in my MS. I have frequently two readings of the same passage, and, being uncertain which of them is preferable, I wish them both to stand for future decision. But perhaps this might be managed in proof. The length of the poem is at present uncertain, but I feel so strongly what Mr. Lewes insists on, namely, the evil of making it too long, that I shall set it before me as a duty not to make it more than nine thousand lines, and shall be glad if it turns out a little shorter.

Will you think over the whole question? I am sure your mind will supply any prudential considerations that I may have omitted.

I am vexed by the non-success of the serial edition of the works. It is not, Heaven knows, that I read my own books or am puffed up about them, but I have been of late quite astonished by the strengthening testimonies that have happened to come to me of people who care about every one of my books, and continue to read them – especially young men, who are just the class I care most to influence. But what sort of data can one safely go upon with regard to the success of editions?

"Felix Holt" is immensely tempted by your suggestion,2 but George Eliot is severely admonished by his domestic critic not to scatter his energies.

Mr. Lewes sends his best regards. He is in high spirits about the poem.

Journal, 1867.

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

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

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

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

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 1st Dec. (?) 1867.

I have written to Miss Davies to ask her to come to see me on Tuesday.

I am much occupied just now, but the better education of women is one of the objects about which I have no doubt, and shall rejoice if this idea of a college can be carried out.

I see Miss Julia Smith's beautiful handwriting, and am glad to think of her as your guardian angel.

The author of the glorious article on the Talmud is "that bright little man" Mr. Deutsch – a very dear, delightful creature.

Journal, 1867.

Dec. 4.– Sent off the MS. of the "Address" to Edinburgh.

Letter to John Blackwood, 7th Dec. 1867.

I agree with you about the phrase "Masters of the country."3 I wrote that part twice, and originally I distinctly said that the epithet was false. Afterwards I left that out, preferring to make a stronger argumentum ad hominem, in case any workman believed himself a future master.

I think it will be better for you to write a preliminary note, washing your hands of any over-trenchant statements on the part of the well-meaning Radical. I much prefer that you should do so.

Whatever you agree with will have the advantage of not coming from one who can be suspected of being a special pleader.

What you say about Fedalma is very cheering. But I am chiefly anxious about the road still untravelled – the road I have still zurück zu legen.

Mr. Lewes has to request several proofs of Fedalma, to facilitate revision. But I will leave him to say how many. We shall keep them strictly to ourselves, you may be sure, so that three or four will be enough – one for him, one for me, and one for the resolution of our differences.

Letter to John Blackwood 12th Dec. 1867.

I am very grateful to you for your generous words about my work. That you not only feel so much sympathy, but are moved to express it so fully, is a real help to me.

I am very glad to have had the revise of the "Address." I feel the danger of not being understood. Perhaps, by a good deal longer consideration and gradual shaping, I might have put the ideas into a more concrete, easy form.

Mr. Lewes read the proof of the poem all through to himself for the first time last night, and expressed great satisfaction in the impression it produced. Your suggestion of having it put into type is a benefit for which we have reason to be obliged to you.

I cannot help saying again that it is a strong cordial to me to have such letters as yours, and to know that I have such a first reader as you.

Journal, 1867.

Dec. 21.– Finished reading "Averroës and Averroisme" and "Les Médicins Juifs." Reading "First Principles."

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 22d Dec. 1867.

Our Christmas will be very quiet. On the 27th Mr. Lewes means to start on a solitary journey to Bonn, and perhaps to Würzburg, for anatomical purposes. I don't mean that he is going to offer himself as an anatomical subject, but that he wants to get answers to some questions bearing on the functions of the nerves. It is a bad time for him to travel in, but he hopes to be at home again in ten days or a fortnight, and I hope the run will do him good rather than harm.

Journal, 1867.

Dec. 25.– George and I dined happily alone; he better for weeks than he has been all the summer before; I more ailing than usual, but with much mental consolation, part of it being the delight he expresses in my poem, of which the first part is now in print.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1867.

Thanks for the pretty remembrance. You were not unthought of before it came. Now, however, I rouse all my courage under the thick fog to tell you my inward wish – which is that the new year, as it travels on towards its old age, may bring you many satisfactions undisturbed by bodily ailment.

Mr. Lewes is going to-morrow on an unprecedented expedition – a rapid run to Bonn, to make some anatomical researches with Professor Schutze there. If he needs more than he can get at Bonn, he may go to Heidelberg and Würzburg. But in any case he will not take more than a fortnight.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Dec. 1867.

Public questions which, by a sad process of reduction, become piteous private questions, hang cloudily over all prospects. The state of Europe, the threat of a general war, the starvation of multitudes – one can't help thinking of these things at one's breakfast. Nevertheless, there is much enjoyment going on, and abundance of rosy children's parties.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 30th Dec. 1867.

It is very good and sweet of you to propose to come round for me on Sunday, and I shall cherish particularly the remembrance of that kindness. But, on our reading your letter, Mr. Lewes objected, on grounds which I think just, to my going to any public manifestation without him, since his absence could not be divined by outsiders.

I am companioned by dyspepsia, and feel life a struggle under the leaden sky. Mme. Bodichon writes that in Sussex the air is cold and clear, and the woods and lanes dressed in wintry loveliness of fresh, grassy patches, mingled with the soft grays and browns of the trees and hedges. Mr. Harrison shed the agreeable light of his kind eyes on me yesterday for a brief space; but I hope I was more endurable to my visitors than to myself, else I think they will not come again. I object strongly to myself, as a bundle of unpleasant sensations with a palpitating heart and awkward manners. Impossible to imagine the large charity I have for people who detest me. But don't you be one of them.

Letter to John Blackwood, 30th Dec. 1867.

I am much obliged to you for your handsome check, and still more gratified that the "Address" has been a satisfaction to you.

I am very glad to hear of your projected visit to town, and shall hope to have a good batch of MS. for you to carry back. Mr. Lewes is in an unprecedented state of delight with the poem, now that he is reading it with close care. He says he is astonished that he can't find more faults. He is especially pleased with the sense of variety it gives; and this testimony is worth the more because he urged me to put the poem by (in 1865) on the ground of monotony. He is really exultant about it now, and after what you have said to me I know this will please you.

Hearty wishes that the coming year may bring you much good, and that the "Spanish Gypsy" may contribute a little to that end.

SUMMARYJanuary, 1867, to December, 1867

Letter to Madame Bodichon from Bordeaux – Madame Mohl – Scherer – Renan – Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Biarritz – Delight in Comte's "Politique" – Gratitude to him for illumination – Learning Spanish – Papers in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by Saveney – Letter to Madame Bodichon from Barcelona – Description of scenery – Pampeluna – Saragossa – Lerida – Letter to F. Harrison from Granada – The vindication of the law in "Felix Holt" – Spanish travelling – Letter to John Blackwood from Granada – Alicante – Granada – Letter to Mrs. Congreve from Biarritz – Delight of the journey – Madrid pictures – Return to the Priory – Letter to John Blackwood – "Felix Holt" – Cheap edition of novels – "Spanish Gypsy" – Dr. Congreve's Lectures on Positivism – Letter to Miss Hennell – Historical Portraits at South Kensington – Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor – Women's claims – Comte's position – Fortnight's Visit to the Isle of Wight – Letter of adieu to Mrs. Congreve – Two months' visit to North Germany – Return to England – Reading on Spanish subjects – Mr. Lewes and Mr. Spencer at Weybridge – Acquaintance with Mrs. Cross and family – Letter to Miss Hennell – Deutsch's article on the Talmud – Letter to Blackwood about putting "Spanish Gypsy" in type – "Address to Workingmen, by Felix Holt" – Letter to Miss Hennell – Girton College – Letter to Madame Bodichon – The higher education of women – Letter to John Blackwood on the "Address" – Christmas day at the Priory – Letter to Miss Hennell – Visit of Mr. Lewes to Bonn – Letter to Mrs. Congreve – Depression – Letter to John Blackwood – Mr. Lewes on "Spanish Gypsy."

CHAPTER XV

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 9th Jan. 1868.

There is a good genius presiding over your gifts – they are so felicitous. You always give me something of which I have felt the want beforehand, and can use continually. It is eminently so with my pretty mittens; there was no little appendage I wanted more; and they are just as warm at the wrist as I could have wished them to be – warming, too, as a mark of affection at a time when all cheering things are doubly welcome.

Mr. Lewes came home last night, and you may imagine that I am glad. Between the bad weather, bad health, and solitude, I have been so far unlike the wicked that I have not flourished like the green bay-tree. To make amends, he – Mr. Lewes, not the wicked – has had a brilliant time, gained great instruction, and seen some admirable men, who have received him warmly.

I go out of doors very little, but I shall open the drawer and look at my mittens on the days when I don't put them on.

Journal, 1868.

Jan.– Engaged in writing Part III. of "Spanish Gypsy."

Feb. 27.– Returned last evening from a very pleasant visit to Cambridge.4 I am still only at p. 5 of Part IV., having had a wretched month of malaise.

March 1.– Finished Guillemin on the "Heavens," and the 4th Book of the "Iliad." I shall now read Grote.

March 6.– Reading Lubbock's "Prehistoric Ages."

March 8.– Saturday concert. Joachim and Piatti, with Schubert's Ottett.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 17th Mch. 1868.

We go to-morrow morning to Torquay for a month, and I can't bear to go without saying a word of farewell to you. How sadly little we have seen each other this winter! It will not be so any more, I hope, will it?

We are both much in need of the change, for Mr. Lewes has got rather out of sorts again lately. When we come back I shall ask you to come and look at us before the bloom is off. I should like to know how you all are; but you have been so little inspired for note-writing lately that I am afraid to ask you to send me a line to the post-office at Torquay. I really deserve nothing of my friends at present.

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

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

I am reading about savages and semi-savages, and think that our religious oracles would do well to study savage ideas by a method of comparison with their own. Also, I am studying that semi-savage poem, the "Iliad." How enviable it is to be a classic. When a verse in the "Iliad" bears six different meanings, and nobody knows which is the right, a commentator finds this equivocalness in itself admirable!

Letter to John Blackwood, end of Mch. 1868.

Mr. Lewes quite agrees with you, that it is desirable to announce the poem. His suggestion is, that it should be simply announced as "a poem" first, and then a little later as "The Spanish Gypsy," in order to give a new detail for observation in the second announcement. I chose the title, "The Spanish Gypsy," a long time ago, because it is a little in the fashion of the elder dramatists, with whom I have perhaps more cousinship than with recent poets. Fedalma might be mistaken for an Italian name, which would create a definite expectation of a mistaken kind, and is, on other grounds, less to my taste than "The Spanish Gypsy."

This place is becoming a little London, or London suburb. Everywhere houses and streets are being built, and Babbacombe will soon be joined to Torquay.

I almost envy you the excitement of golf, which helps the fresh air to exhilarate, and gives variety of exercise. Walking can never be so good as a game – if one loves the game. But when a friend of Mr. Lewes's urges him angrily to play rackets for his health, the prospect seems dreary.

We are afraid of being entangled in excursion trains, or crowds of Easter holiday-makers, in Easter week, and may possibly be driven back next Wednesday. But we are loath to have our stay so curtailed.

Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards, and pities all of us who are less interested in ganglionic cells. He is in a state of beatitude about the poem.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th April, 1868.

We find a few retired walks, and are the less discontented because the weather is perfect. I hope you are sharing the delights of sunshine and moonlight. There are no waves here, as you know; but under such skies as we are having, sameness is so beautiful that we find no fault, and there is a particular hill at Babbacombe of the richest Spanish red. On the whole, we are glad we came here, having avoided all trouble in journeying and settling. But we should not come again without special call, for in a few years all the hills will be parts of a London suburb.

How glorious this weather is for the hard workers who are looking forward to their Easter holiday! But for ourselves, we are rather afraid of the railway stations in holiday time. Certainly, we are ill prepared for what Tennyson calls the "To-be," and it is good that we shall soon pass from this objective existence.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 6th April, 1868.

I think Ruskin has not been encouraged about women by his many and persistent attempts to teach them. He seems to have found them wanting in real scientific interest – bent on sentimentalizing in everything.

What I should like to be sure of, as a result of higher education for women – a result that will come to pass over my grave – is their recognition of the great amount of social unproductive labor which needs to be done by women, and which is now either not done at all or done wretchedly. No good can come to women, more than to any class of male mortals, while each aims at doing the highest kind of work, which ought rather to be held in sanctity as what only the few can do well. I believe, and I want it to be well shown, that a more thorough education will tend to do away with the odious vulgarity of our notions about functions and employment, and to propagate the true gospel, that the deepest disgrace is to insist on doing work for which we are unfit – to do work of any sort badly. There are many points of this kind that want being urged, but they do not come well from me.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 17th April, 1868.

Your letter came just at the right time to greet us. Thanks for that pretty remembrance. We are glad to be at home again with our home comforts around us, though we became deeply in love with Torquay in the daily heightening of spring beauties, and the glory of perpetual blue skies. The eight hours' journey (one hour more than we paid for) was rather disturbing; and, I think, Mr. Lewes has got more zoological experience than health from our month's delight – but a delight it really has been to us to have perfect quiet with the red hills, the sunshine, and the sea.

I shall be absorbed for the next fortnight, so that I cannot allow myself the sort of pleasure you kindly project for us; and when May begins, I want you to come and stay a night with us. I shall be ready by and by for such holiday-making, and you must be good to me. Will you give Dr. Congreve my thanks for his pamphlet, which I read at Torquay with great interest? All protests tell, however slowly and imperceptibly, and a protest against the doctrine that England is to keep Ireland under all conditions was what I had wished to be made. But in this matter he will have much more important concurrence than mine. I am bearing much in mind the great task of the translation. When it is completed we shall be able and glad to do what we were not able to do in the case of the "Discours Préliminaire," namely, to take our share, if we may, in the expenses of publication.

Journal, 1868.

April 16.– Returned home, bringing Book IV. finished.

April 18.– Went with Mr. Pigott to see Holman Hunt's great picture, Isabella and the Pot of Basil.

Letter to John Blackwood, 21st April, 1868.

I send you by to-day's post the MS. of Book IV., that it may be at hand whenever there is opportunity for getting it into print, and letting me have it in that form for correction. It is desirable to get as forward as we can, in case of the Americans asking for delay after their reception of the sheets – if they venture to make any arrangement. I shall send the MS. of Book V. (the last) as soon as headache will permit, but that is an uncertain limit. We returned from Torquay on the 16th, leaving the glorious weather behind us. We were more in love with the place on a better acquaintance: the weather, and the spring buds, and the choirs of birds, made it seem more of a paradise to us every day.

The poem will be less tragic than I threatened: Mr. Lewes has prevailed on me to return to my original conception, and give up the additional development, which I determined on subsequently. The poem is rather shorter in consequence. Don't you think that my artistic deference and pliability deserve that it should also be better in consequence? I now end it as I determined to end it when I first conceived the story.

Journal, 1868.

April 25.– Finished the last dialogue between Silva and Fedalma. Mr. and Mrs. Burne Jones dined with us.

April 29.– Finished "The Spanish Gypsy."

Letter to John Blackwood, 29th Aug. 1868.

I send you by to-day's post the conclusion of the poem in MS., and the eighteen sheets of revise. The last book is brief, but I may truly use the old epigram – that it would have taken less time to make it longer. It is a great bore that the name of my heroine is wrongly spelled in all the earlier sheets. It is a fresh proof of the fallibility of our impressions as to our own doings, that I would have confidently affirmed the name to be spelled Fedalma (as it ought to be) in my manuscript. Yet I suppose I should have affirmed falsely, for the i occurs in the slips constantly.

As I shall not see these paged sheets again, will you charitably assure me that the alterations are safely made?

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

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