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

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 4th Dec. 1863.

The book38 is come, with its precious inscription, and I have read a great piece of it already (11 a. m.), besides looking through it to get an idea of its general plan. See how fascination shifts its quarter as our life goes on! I cannot be induced to lay aside my regular books for half an hour to read "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," but I pounce on a book like yours, which tries to tell me as much as it can in brief space of the "natural order," and am seduced into making it my after-breakfast reading instead of the work I had prescribed for myself in that pleasant quiet time. I read so slowly and read so few books that this small fact among my small habits seems a great matter to me. I thank you, dear Cara, not simply for giving me the book, but for having put so much faithful labor in a worthy direction, and created a lasting benefit which I can share with others. Whether the circulation of a book be large or small, there is always this supreme satisfaction about solid honest work, that as far as it goes its effect must be good, and as all effects spread immeasurably, what we have to care for is kind and not quantity. I am a shabby correspondent, being in ardent practice of the piano just now, which makes my days shorter than usual.

Letter to Madame Bodichon, 4th Dec. 1863.

I am rather ashamed to hear of any one trying to be useful just now, for I am doing nothing but indulging myself – enjoying being petted very much, enjoying great books, enjoying our new, pretty, quiet home, and the study of Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin, with the mild-faced old Jansa, and not being at all unhappy as you imagine me. I sit taking deep draughts of reading – "Politique Positive," Euripides, Latin Christianity, and so forth, and remaining in glorious ignorance of "the current literature." Such is our life; and you perceive that instead of being miserable, I am rather following a wicked example, and saying to my soul, "Soul, take thine ease." I am sorry to think of you without any artistic society to help you and feed your faith. It is hard to believe long together that anything is "worth while," unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind. I fancy that to do without that guarantee one must be rather insane – one must be a bad poet, or a spinner of impossible theories, or an inventor of impossible machinery. However, it is but brief space either of time or distance that divides you from those who thoroughly share your cares and joys – always excepting that portion which is the hidden private lot of every human being. In the most entire confidence even of husband and wife there is always the unspoken residue – the undivined residue – perhaps of what is most sinful, perhaps of what is most exalted and unselfish.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Dec. 1863.

I get less and less inclined to write any but the briefest letters. My books seem to get so far off me when once I have written them, that I should be afraid of looking into "The Mill;" but it was written faithfully and with intense feeling when it was written, so I will hope that it will do no mortal any harm. I am indulging myself frightfully; reading everything except the "current literature," and getting more and more out of rapport with the public taste. I have read Renan's book, however, which has proved to be eminently in the public taste. It will have a good influence on the whole, I imagine; but this "Vie de Jésus," and still more, Renan's "Letter to Berthelot" in the Revue des Deux Mondes, have compelled me to give up the high estimate I had formed of his mind. Judging from the indications in some other writings of his, I had reckoned him among the finest thinkers of the time. Still, his "Life of Jesus" has so much artistic merit that it will do a great deal towards the culture of ordinary minds, by giving them a sense of unity between that far off past and our present.

Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th Dec. 1863.

We are enjoying our new house – enjoying its quiet and freedom from perpetual stair-mounting – enjoying also the prettiness of coloring and arrangement; all of which we owe to our dear good friend, Mr. Owen Jones. He has determined every detail, so that we can have the pleasure of admiring what is our own without vanity. And another magnificent friend has given me the most splendid reclining chair conceivable, so that I am in danger of being envied by the gods, especially as my health is thoroughly good withal. I should like to be sure that you are just as comfortable externally and internally. I dare say you are, being less of a cormorant in your demands on life than I am; and it is that difference which chiefly distinguishes human lots when once the absolute needs are satisfied.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 28th Dec. 1863.

Your affectionate greeting comes as one of the many blessings that are brightening this happy Christmas.

We have been giving our evenings up to parental duties —i. e., to games and music for the amusement of the youngsters. I am wonderfully well in body, but rather in a self-indulgent state mentally, saying, "Soul, take thine ease," after a dangerous example.

Of course I shall be glad to see your fair face whenever it can shine upon me; but I can well imagine, with your multitudinous connections, Christmas and the New Year are times when all unappointed visits must be impossible to you.

All good to you and yours through the coming year! and amongst the good may you continue to feel some love for me; for love is one of the conditions in which it is even better to give than to receive.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 19th Jan. 1864.

According to your plans you must be in Rome. I have been in good spirits about you ever since I last heard from you, and the foggy twilight which, for the last week, has followed the severe frost, has made me rejoice the more that you are in a better climate and amongst lovelier scenes than we are groping in. I please myself with thinking that you will all come back with stores of strength and delightful memories. Only, if this were the best of all possible worlds, Mr. Lewes and I should be able to meet you in some beautiful place before you turn your backs on Italy. As it is, there is no hope of such a meeting. March is Charlie's holiday month, and when he goes out we like to stay at home for the sake of recovering for that short time our unbroken tête-à-tête. We have every reason to be cheerful if the fog would let us. Last night I finished reading the last proofs of the "Aristotle," which makes an octavo volume of rather less than 400 pages. I think it is a book which will be interesting and valuable to the few, but perhaps only to the few. However, George's happiness in writing his books makes him less dependent than most authors on the audience they find. He felt that a thorough account of Aristotle's science was a bit of work which needed doing, and he has given his utmost pains to do it worthily. These are the two most important conditions of authorship; all the rest belong to the "less modifiable" order of things. I have been playing energetically on the piano lately, and taking lessons in accompanying the violin from Herr Jansa, one of the old Beethoven Quartette players. It has given me a fresh kind of muscular exercise, as well as nervous stimulus, and, I think, has done its part towards making my health better. In fact I am very well physically. I wish I could be as clever and active as you about our garden, which might be made much prettier this spring if I had judgment and industry enough to do the right thing. But it is a native vice of mine to like all such matters attended to by some one else, and to fold my arms and enjoy the result. Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough. But pray make a point of liking me in spite of my deficiencies.

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 21st Jan. 1864.

I comfort myself with the belief that your nature is less rebellious under trouble than mine – less craving and discontented.

Resignation to trial, which can never have a personal compensation, is a part of our life task which has been too much obscured for us by unveracious attempts at universal consolation. I think we should be more tender to each other while we live, if that wretched falsity which makes men quite comfortable about their fellows' troubles were thoroughly got rid of.

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

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

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

Journal, 1864.

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

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

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 3d March, 1864.

It was pleasant to have news of you through the fog, which reduces my faith in all good and lovely things to its lowest ebb.

I hope you are less abjectly under the control of the skyey influences than I am. The soul's calm sunshine in me is half made up of the outer sunshine. However, we are going on Friday to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and Handel's music always brings me a revival.

I have had a great personal loss lately in the death of a sweet woman,39 to whom I have sometimes gone, and hoped to go again, for a little moral strength. She had long been confined to her room by consumption, which has now taken her quite out of reach except to memory, which makes all dear human beings undying to us as long as we ourselves live.

I am glad to know that you have been interested in "David Gray."40 It is good for us all that these true stories should be well told. Even those to whom the power of helping rarely comes, have their imaginations instructed so as to be more just and tender in their thoughts about the lot of their fellows.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 7th March, 1864.

I felt it long since I had had news from you, but my days go by, each seeming too short for what I must do, and I don't like to molest you with mere questions.

I have been spoiled for correspondence by Mr. Lewes's goodness in always writing letters for me where a proxy is admissible. And so it has come to be a great affair with me to write even a note, while people who keep up a large correspondence, and set apart their hour for it, find it easy to cover reams of paper with talk from the end of the pen.

You say nothing of yourself, which is rather unkind. We are enjoying a perfect tête à tête. On Friday we are going to hear the Judas Maccabæus, and try if possible to be stirred to something heroic by "Sound an alarm."

I was more sorry than it is usually possible to be about the death of a person utterly unknown to me, when I read of Maria Martineau's death. She was a person whose office in life seemed so thoroughly defined and so valuable. For an invalid like Harriet Martineau to be deprived of a beloved nurse and companion, is a sorrow that makes one ashamed of one's small grumblings. But, oh dear, oh dear! when will people leave off their foolish talk about all human lots being equal; as if anybody with a sound stomach ever knew misery comparable to the misery of a dyspeptic.

Farewell, dear Sara; be generous, and don't always wait an age in silence because I don't write.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 8th March, 1864.

If you were anybody but yourself I should dislike you, because I have to write letters to you. As it is, your qualities triumph even over the vice of being in Italy (too far off for a note of three lines), and expecting to hear from me, though I fear I should be graceless enough to let you expect in vain if I did not care very much to hear from you, and did not find myself getting uneasy when many weeks have been passed in ignorance about you. I do hope to hear that you got your fortnight of sight-seeing before leaving Rome – at least, you would surely go well over the great galleries. If not, I shall be vexed with you, and I shall only be consoled for your not going to Venice by the chance of the Austrians being driven or bought out of it – on no slighter grounds. For I suppose you will not go to Italy again for a long, long while, so as to leave any prospect of the omission being made up for by-and-by.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th March, 1864.

We run off to Scotland for the Easter week, setting out on Sunday evening; so if the spring runs away again, I hope it will run northward. We shall return on Monday, the 4th April. Some news of your inwards and outwards would be acceptable; but don't write unless you really like to write. You see Strauss has come out with a popular "Life of Jesus."

Letter to Mrs. Peter Taylor, 25th March, 1864.

Fog, east wind, and headache: there is my week's history. But this morning, when your letter came to me, I had got up well and was reading the sorrows of the aged Hecuba with great enjoyment. I wish an immortal drama could be got out of my sorrows, that people might be the better for them two thousand years hence. But fog, east wind, and headache are not great dramatic motives.

Your letter was a reinforcement of the delicious sense of bien être that comes with the departure of bodily pain; and I am glad, retrospectively, that beyond our fog lay your moonlight and your view of the glorious sea. It is not difficult to me to believe that you look a new creature already. Mr. Lewes tells me the country air has always a magical effect on me, even in the first hour; but it is not the air alone, is it? It is the wide sky, and the hills, and the wild-flowers which are linked with all calming thoughts, just as every object in town has its perturbing associations.

I share your joy in the Federal successes – with that check that attends all joy in a war not absolutely ended. But you have worked and earned more joy than those who have been merely passives.

Journal, 1864.

April 6.– Mr. Spencer called for the first time after a long correspondence on the subject of his relation to Comte.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 9th April, 1864.

Yes! I am come back from Scotland – came back last Saturday night.

I was much pleased to see Cara so wonderfully well and cheerful. She seems to me ten times more cheerful than in the old days. I am interested to know more about your work which is filling your life now, but I suppose I shall know nothing until it is in print – and perhaps that is the only form in which one can do any one's work full justice. It is very disappointing to me to hear that Cara has at present so little promise of monetary results from her conscientious labor. I fear the fatal system of half profits is working against her as against others. We are going to the opera to-night to hear the Favorita. It was the first opera I ever saw (with you I saw it!), and I have never seen it since – that is the reason I was anxious to go to-night.

This afternoon we go to see Mulready's pictures – so the day will be a full one.

Journal, 1864.

April 18.– We went to the Crystal Palace to see Garibaldi.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 30th April, 1864.

Only think! next Wednesday morning we start for Italy. The move is quite a sudden one. We need a good shake for our bodies and minds, and must take the spring-time, before the weather becomes too hot. We shall not be away more than a month or six weeks at the utmost. Our friend Mr. Burton, the artist, will be our companion for at least part of the time. He has just painted a divine picture, which is now to be seen at the old Water-Color Exhibition. The subject is from a Norse legend; but that is no matter – the picture tells its story. A knight in mailed armor and surcoat has met the fair, tall woman he (secretly) loves, on a turret stair. By an uncontrollable movement he has seized her arm and is kissing it. She, amazed, has dropped the flowers she held in her other hand. The subject might have been made the most vulgar thing in the world – the artist has raised it to the highest pitch of refined emotion. The kiss is on the fur-lined sleeve that covers the arm, and the face of the knight is the face of a man to whom the kiss is a sacrament.

How I should like a good long talk with you! From what you say of your book that is to come, I expect to be very much interested in it. I think I hardly ever read a book of the kind you describe without getting some help from it. It is to this strong influence that is felt in all personal statements of inward experience that we must perhaps refer the excessive publication of religious journals.

Journal, 1864.

May 4.– We started for Italy with Mr. Burton.

June 20.– Arrived at our pretty home again after an absence of seven weeks.

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

Your letter has affected me deeply. Thank you very much for writing it. It seems as if a close view of almost every human lot would disclose some suffering that makes life a doubtful good – except perhaps at certain epochs of fresh love, fresh creative activity, or unusual power of helping others. One such epoch we are witnessing in a young life that is very near to us. Our "boy" Charles has just become engaged, and it is very pretty to see the happiness of a pure first love, full at present of nothing but promise. It will interest you to know that the young lady who has won his heart, and seems to have given him her own with equal ardor and entireness, is the grand-daughter of Dr. Southwood Smith, whom he adopted when she was three years old, and brought up under his own eye. She is very handsome, and has a splendid contralto voice. Altogether Pater and I rejoice – for though the engagement has taken place earlier than we expected, or should perhaps have chosen, there are counterbalancing advantages. I always hoped Charlie would be able to choose or rather find the other half of himself by the time he was twenty-three; the event has only come a year and a half sooner. This is the news that greeted us on our return! We had seen before we went that the acquaintance, which was first made eighteen months or more ago, had become supremely interesting to Charlie. Altogether we rejoice.

Our journey was delightful in spite of Mr. Lewes's frequent malaise; for his cheerful nature is rarely subdued even by bodily discomfort. We saw only one place that we had not seen before – namely, Brescia; but all the rest seemed more glorious to us than they had seemed four years ago. Our course was to Venice, where we stayed a fortnight, pausing only at Paris, Turin and Milan on our way thither, and taking Padua, Verona, Brescia, and again Milan, as points of rest on our way back. Our friend Mr. Burton's company was very stimulating, from his great knowledge, not of pictures only, but of almost all other subjects. He has had the advantage of living in Germany for five or six years, and has gained those large, serious views of history which are a special product of German culture, and this was his first visit to Italy, so you may imagine his eager enjoyment in finding it beautiful beyond his hopes. We crossed the Alps by the St. Gothard, and stayed a day or two at Lucerne; and this, again, was a first sight of Switzerland to him.

Letter to Mrs. Congreve, July, 1864.

Looking at my little mats this morning while I was dressing, I felt very grateful for them, and remembered that I had not shown my gratitude when you gave them to me. If I were a "conceited" poet, I should say your presence was the sun, and the mats were the tapers; but now you are away, I delight in the tapers. How pretty the pattern is – and your brain counted it out! They will never be worn quite away while I live, or my little purse for coppers either.

Journal, 1864.

July 17.– Horrible scepticism about all things paralyzing my mind. Shall I ever be good for anything again? Ever do anything again?

July 19.– Reading Gibbon, Vol. I., in connection with Mosheim, also Gieseler on the condition of the world at the appearance of Christianity.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th Aug. 1864.

I am distressed to find that I have let a week pass without writing in answer to your letter, which made me very glad when I got it. Remembering you just a minute ago, I started up from Max Müller's new volume, with which I was consoling myself under a sore throat, and rushed to the desk that I might not risk any further delay.

It was just what I wanted to hear about you that you were having some change, and I think the freshness of the companionship must help other good influences, not to speak of the "Apologia," which breathed much life into me when I read it. Pray mark that beautiful passage in which he thanks his friend Ambrose St. John. I know hardly anything that delights me more than such evidences of sweet brotherly love being a reality in the world. I envy you your opportunity of seeing and hearing Newman, and should like to make an expedition to Birmingham for that sole end.

My trouble now is George's delicate health. He gets thinner and thinner. He is going to try what horseback will do, and I am looking forward to that with some hope.

Our boy's love-story runs smoothly, and seems to promise nothing but good. His attraction to Hampstead gives George and me more of our dear old tête-à-tête, which we can't help being glad to recover.

Dear Cara and Mr. Bray! I wish they too had joy instead of sadness from the young life they have been caring for these many years. When you write to Cara, or see her, assure her that she is remembered in my most affectionate thoughts, and that I often bring her present experience before my mind – more or less truly – for we can but blunder about each other, we poor mortals.

Write to me whenever you can, dear Sara; I should have answered immediately but for sickness, visitors, business, etc.

Journal, 1864.

Sept. 6. – I am reading about Spain, and trying a drama on a subject that has fascinated me – have written the prologue, and am beginning the First Act. But I have little hope of making anything satisfactory.

Sept. 13 to 30. – Went to Harrogate and Scarborough, seeing York Minster and Peterborough.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Sept. 1864, from Harrogate.

We journeyed hither on Tuesday, and found the place quite as pretty as we expected. The great merit of Harrogate is that one is everywhere close to lovely open walks. Your "plan" has been a delightful reference for Mr. Lewes, who takes it out of his pocket every time we walk. At present, of course, there is not much improvement in health to be boasted of, but we hope that the delicious bracing air, and also the chalybeate waters, which have not yet been tried, will not be without good effect. The journey was long. How hideous those towns of Holbeach and Wakefield are! It is difficult to keep up one's faith in a millennium within sight of this modern civilization which consists in "development of industries." Egypt and her big calm gods seems quite as good.

Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Sept. 1864, from Scarborough.

We migrated on Friday last from delightful Harrogate, pausing at York to see the glorious Cathedral. The weather is perfect, the sea blue as a sapphire, so that we see to utmost advantage the fine line of coast here and the magnificent breadth of sand. Even the Tenby sands are not so fine as these. Better than all, Mr. Lewes, in spite of a sad check of a few days, is strengthened beyond our most hopeful expectations by this brief trial of fresh conditions. He is wonderful for the rapidity with which he "picks up" after looking alarmingly feeble and even wasted. We paid a visit to Knaresborough the very last day of our stay at Harrogate, and were rejoiced that we had not missed the sight of that pretty characteristic northern town. There is a ruined castle here too, standing just where one's eyes would desire it on a grand line of cliff; but perhaps you know the place. Its only defect is that it is too large, and therefore a little too smoky; but except in Wales or Devonshire I have seen no sea-place on our English coast that has greater natural advantages. I don't know quite why I should write you this note all about ourselves – except that your goodness having helped us to the benefit we have got, I like you to know of the said benefit.