George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)
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Title: George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3)
Author: George Eliot
Editor: J. W. Cross
Release date: June 29, 2013 [eBook #43044]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43044
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE, AS RELATED IN HER LETTERS AND JOURNALS. VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***
Transcriber's Note:
This is Volume II of a three volume set:
Volume I--Unknown
Volume II--Famous
Volume III--Sunset
A combined index to the entire set is located at the end of Volume III.
Narrative content written by J. Cross and material quoted from writers
other than George Eliot are interspersed throughout the text. Their
content is placed in block quotes.
Remaining transcriber's notes are located at the end of the text.
* * * * *
GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE
VOL. II.--FAMOUS
"OUR FINEST HOPE IS FINEST MEMORY"
[Illustration: Portrait of George Eliot. Engraved by G. J. Stodart.]
GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE
_as related in her Letters and Journals_
ARRANGED AND EDITED BY HER HUSBAND
J. W. CROSS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
IN THREE VOLUMES.--VOLUME II
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
GEORGE ELIOT'S WORKS.
_LIBRARY EDITION._
ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
DANIEL DERONDA. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $2.50.
ESSAYS and LEAVES FROM A NOTE-BOOK. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
MIDDLEMARCH. 2 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $2.50.
ROMOLA. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, and SILAS MARNER. Illustrated. 12mo,
Cloth, $1.25.
THE IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
HARPER & BROTHERS _will send any of the above volumes by mail, postage
prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the
price. For other editions of George Eliot's works published by Harper
& Brothers see advertisement at end of third volume_.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER VIII.
JANUARY, 1858, TO DECEMBER, 1858.
Success of "Scenes of Clerical Life"--"Adam Bede" Page 1
CHAPTER IX.
JANUARY, 1859, TO MARCH, 1860.
"The Mill on the Floss" 58
CHAPTER X.
MARCH TO JUNE, 1860.
First Journey to Italy 120
CHAPTER XI.
JULY, 1860, TO DECEMBER, 1861.
"Silas Marner"--"Romola" begun 185
CHAPTER XII.
JANUARY, 1862, TO DECEMBER, 1865.
"Romola"--"Felix Holt" 238
CHAPTER XIII.
JANUARY, 1866, TO DECEMBER, 1866.
Tour in Holland and on the Rhine 303
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.
PORTRAIT OF GEORGE ELIOT.
Engraved by G. J. Stodart _Frontispiece._
THE PRIORY--DRAWING-ROOM _To face p._ 266
FAC-SIMILE OF GEORGE ELIOT'S HAND-WRITING " 280
GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE.
CHAPTER VIII.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Jan. 2._--George has returned this evening from a week's visit to
Vernon Hill. On coming up-stairs he said, "I have some very pretty
news for you--something in my pocket." I was at a loss to conjecture,
and thought confusedly of possible opinions from admiring readers,
when he drew the _Times_ from his pocket--to-day's number, containing
a review of the "Scenes of Clerical Life." He had happened to ask a
gentleman in the railway carriage, coming up to London, to allow him
to look at the _Times_, and felt quite agitated and tremulous when his
eyes alighted on the review. Finding he had time to go into town
before the train started, he bought a copy there. It is a highly
favorable notice, and, as far as it goes, appreciatory.
When G. went into town he called at Nutt's, and Mrs. Nutt said to him,
"I think you don't know our curate. _He_ says the author of 'Clerical
Scenes' is a High Churchman; for though Mr. Tryan is said to be Low
Church, his feelings and _actions_ are those of a High Churchman."
(The curate himself being of course High Church.) There were some
pleasant scraps of admiration also gathered for me at Vernon Hill.
Doyle happening to mention the treatment of children in the stories,
Helps said, "Oh, he is a great writer!"
I wonder how I shall feel about these little details ten years hence,
if I am alive. At present I value them as grounds for hoping that my
writing may succeed, and so give value to my life; as indications that
I can touch the hearts of my fellow-men, and so sprinkle some precious
grain as the result of the long years in which I have been inert and
suffering. But at present fear and trembling still predominate over
hope.
_Jan. 5._--To-day the "Clerical Scenes" came in their two-volume
dress, looking very handsome.
_Jan. 8._--News of the subscription--580, with a probable addition of
25 for Longmans. Mudie has taken 350. When we used to talk of the
probable subscription, G. always said, "I dare say it will be 250!"
(The final number subscribed for was 650.)
I ordered copies to be sent to the following persons: Froude, Dickens,
Thackeray, Tennyson, Ruskin, Faraday, the author of "Companions of my
Solitude," Albert Smith, Mrs. Carlyle.
On the 20th of January I received the following letter from Dickens:
[Sidenote: Letter from Charles Dickens to George Eliot, 17th Jan.
1858.]
"TAVISTOCK HOUSE, LONDON, _Monday, 17th Jan. 1858_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I have been so strongly affected by the two
first tales in the book you have had the kindness to send me,
through Messrs. Blackwood, that I hope you will excuse my
writing to you to express my admiration of their
extraordinary merit. The exquisite truth and delicacy, both
of the humor and the pathos of these stories, I have never
seen the like of; and they have impressed me in a manner that
I should find it very difficult to describe to you, if I had
the impertinence to try.
"In addressing these few words of thankfulness to the creator
of the Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, and the sad
love-story of Mr. Gilfil, I am (I presume) bound to adopt the
name that it pleases that excellent writer to assume. I can
suggest no better one: but I should have been strongly
disposed, if I had been left to my own devices, to address
the said writer as a woman. I have observed what seemed to me
such womanly touches in those moving fictions, that the
assurance on the title-page is insufficient to satisfy me
even now. If they originated with no woman, I believe that no
man ever before had the art of making himself mentally so
like a woman since the world began.
"You will not suppose that I have any vulgar wish to fathom
your secret. I mention the point as one of great interest to
me--not of mere curiosity. If it should ever suit your
convenience and inclination to show me the face of the man,
or woman, who has written so charmingly, it will be a very
memorable occasion to me. If otherwise, I shall always hold
that impalpable personage in loving attachment and respect,
and shall yield myself up to all future utterances from the
same source, with a perfect confidence in their making me
wiser and better.--Your obliged and faithful servant and
admirer,
"CHARLES DICKENS.
"GEORGE ELIOT, ESQ."
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Jan. 21._--To-day came the following letter from Froude:
[Sidenote: Letter from J. A. Froude to George Eliot, 17th Jan. 1858.]
"NORTHDOWN HOUSE, BIDEFORD, _17th Jan. 1858_.
"DEAR SIR,--I do not know when I have experienced a more
pleasant surprise than when, on opening a book parcel two
mornings ago, I found it to contain 'Scenes of Clerical
Life,' 'From the author.' I do not often see _Blackwood_; but
in accidental glances I had made acquaintance with 'Janet's
Repentance,' and had found there something extremely
different from general magazine stories. When I read the
advertisement of the republication, I intended fully, at my
leisure, to look at the companions of the story which had so
much struck me, and now I find myself sought out by the
person whose workmanship I had admired, for the special
present of it.
"You would not, I imagine, care much for flattering speeches,
and to go into detail about the book would carry me farther
than at present there is occasion to go. I can only thank you
most sincerely for the delight which it has given me; and
both I myself, and my wife, trust that the acquaintance which
we seem to have made with you through your writings may
improve into something more tangible. I do not know whether I
am addressing a young man or an old--a clergyman or a layman.
Perhaps, if you answer this note, you may give us some
information about yourself. But at any rate, should business
or pleasure bring you into this part of the world, pray
believe that you will find a warm welcome if you will accept
our hospitality.--Once more, with my best thanks, believe me,
faithfully yours,
J. A. FROUDE."
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 17th Jan. 1858.]
I have long ceased to feel any sympathy with mere antagonism and
destruction; and all crudity of expression marks, I think, a
deficiency in subtlety of thought as well as in breadth of moral and
poetic feeling. Mr. William Smith, the author of "Thorndale," is an
old acquaintance of Mr. Lewes's. I should say an old _friend_, only I
don't like the too ready use of that word. Mr. Lewes admires and
esteems him very highly. He is a very accomplished man--a bachelor,
with a small independent income; used to write very effective articles
on miscellaneous subjects in _Blackwood_. I shall like to know what
you think of "Thorndale." I don't know whether you look out for
Ruskin's books whenever they appear. His little book on the "Political
Economy of Art" contains some magnificent passages, mixed up with
stupendous specimens of arrogant absurdity on some economical points.
But I venerate him as one of the great teachers of the day. The grand
doctrines of truth and sincerity in art, and the nobleness and
solemnity of our human life, which he teaches with the inspiration of
a Hebrew prophet, must be stirring up young minds in a promising way.
The two last volumes of "Modern Painters" contain, I think, some of
the finest writing of the age. He is strongly akin to the sublimest
part of Wordsworth--whom, by-the-bye, we are reading with fresh
admiration for his beauties and tolerance for his faults. Our present
plans are: to remain here till about the end of March, then to go to
Munich, which I long to see. We shall live there several months,
seeing the wonderful galleries in leisure moments. Our living here is
so much more expensive than living abroad that we save more than the
expenses of our journeying; and as our work can be as well done there
as here for some months, we lay in much more capital, in the shape of
knowledge and experience, by going abroad.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Jan. 18._--I have begun the "Eumenides," having finished the
"Choephoræ." We are reading Wordsworth in the evening. At least G. is
reading him to me. I am still reading aloud Miss Martineau's History.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st Jan. 1858.]
I am sure you will be interested in Dickens's letter, which I enclose,
begging you to return it as soon as you can, and not to allow any one
besides yourself and Major Blackwood to share in the knowledge of its
contents. There can be no harm, of course, in every one's knowing that
Dickens admires the "Scenes," but I should not like any more specific
allusion made to the words of a private letter. There can hardly be
any climax of approbation for me after this; and I am so deeply moved
by the finely felt and finely expressed sympathy of the letter, that
the iron mask of my _incognito_ seems quite painful in forbidding me
to tell Dickens how thoroughly his generous impulse has been
appreciated. If you should have an opportunity of conveying this
feeling of mine to him in any way, you would oblige me by doing so.
By-the-bye, you probably remember sending me, some months ago, a
letter from the Rev. Archer Gurney--a very warm, simple-spoken
letter--praising me for qualities which I most of all care to be
praised for. I should like to send him a copy of the "Scenes," since I
could make no acknowledgment of his letter in any other way. I don't
know his address, but perhaps Mr. Langford would be good enough to
look it out in the Clergy List.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Jan. 23._--There appeared a well-written and enthusiastic article on
"Clerical Scenes" in the _Statesman_. We hear there was a poor
article in the _Globe_--of feebly written praise--the previous week,
but beyond this we have not yet heard of any notices from the press.
_Jan. 26._--Came a very pleasant letter from Mrs. Carlyle, thanking
the author of "Clerical Scenes" for the present of his book, praising
it very highly, and saying that her husband had promised to read it
when released from his mountain of history.
[Sidenote: Letter from Mrs. Carlyle to George Eliot, 21st Jan. 1858.]
"5 CHEYNE ROW, CHELSEA, _21st Jan. 1858_.
"DEAR SIR,--I have to thank you for a surprise, a pleasure,
and a--consolation (!) all in one book! And I do thank you
most sincerely. I cannot divine what inspired the good
thought to send _me_ your book; since (if the name on the
title-page be your real name) it could not have been personal
regard; there has never been a George Eliot among my friends
or acquaintance. But neither, I am sure, could _you_ divine
the circumstances under which I should read the book, and the
particular benefit it should confer on me! I read it--at
least the first volume--during one of the most (physically)
wretched nights of my life--sitting up in bed, unable to get
a wink of sleep for fever and sore throat--and it helped me
through that dreary night as well--better than the most
sympathetic helpful friend watching by my bedside could have
done!
"You will believe that the book needed to be something more
than a 'new novel' for me; that I _could_ at my years, and
after so much reading, read it in positive torment, and be
beguiled by it of the torment! that it needed to be the one
sort of book, however named, that still takes hold of me,
and that grows rarer every year--a _human_ book--written out
of the heart of a live man, not merely out of the brain of an
author--full of tenderness and pathos, without a scrap of
sentimentality, of sense without dogmatism, of earnestness
without twaddle--a book that makes one _feel friends_ at once
and for always with the man or woman who wrote it!
"In guessing at why you gave me this good gift, I have
thought amongst other things, 'Oh, perhaps it was a delicate
way of presenting the novel to my husband, he being over head
and ears in _history_.' If that was it, I compliment you on
your _tact_! for my husband is much likelier to read the
'Scenes' on _my_ responsibility than on a venture of his
own--though, as a general rule, never opening a novel, he has
engaged to read this one whenever he has some leisure from
his present task.
"I hope to know some day if the person I am addressing bears
any resemblance in external things to the idea I have
conceived of him in my mind--a man of middle age, with a
wife, from whom he has got those beautiful _feminine_ touches
in his book--a good many children, and a dog that he has as
much fondness for as I have for my little Nero! For the
rest--not just a clergyman, but brother or first cousin to a
clergyman! How ridiculous all this _may_ read beside the
reality. Anyhow--I honestly confess I am very curious about
you, and look forward with what Mr. Carlyle would call 'a
good, healthy, genuine desire' to shaking hands with you some
day.--In the meanwhile, I remain, your obliged
JANE W. CARLYLE."
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Jan. 30._--Received a letter from Faraday, thanking me very
gracefully for the present of the "Scenes." Blackwood mentions, in
enclosing this letter, that Simpkin & Marshall have sent for twelve
additional copies--the first sign of a move since the subscription.
The other night we looked into the life of Charlotte Brontë, to see
how long it was before "Jane Eyre" came into demand at the libraries,
and we found it was not until six weeks after publication. It is just
three weeks now since I heard news of the subscription for my book.
[Sidenote: Letter from M. Faraday to George Eliot, 28th Jan. 1858.]
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _28th Jan. 1858_.
"SIR,--I cannot resist the pleasure of thanking you for what
I esteem a great kindness: the present of your thoughts
embodied in the two volumes you have sent me. They have been,
and will be again, a very pleasant relief from mental
occupation among my own pursuits. Such rest I find at times
not merely agreeable, but essential.--Again thanking you, I
beg to remain, your very obliged servant,
M. FARADAY.
"GEORGE ELIOT, Esq., &c., &c."
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Feb. 3._--Gave up Miss Martineau's History last night, after reading
some hundred pages in the second volume. She has a sentimental,
rhetorical style in this history which is fatiguing and not
instructive. But her history of the Reform movement is very
interesting.
_Feb. 4._--Yesterday brought the discouraging news, that though the
book is much talked of, it moves very slowly. Finished the
"Eumenides." Bessie Parkes has written asking me to contribute to the
_Englishwoman's Journal_--a new monthly which, she says, "We are
beginning with £1000, and great social interest."
_Feb. 16._--To-day G. went into the City and saw Langford, for the
sake of getting the latest news about our two books--his "Sea-side
Studies" having been well launched about a fortnight or ten days ago,
with a subscription of 800. He brought home good news. The "Clerical
Scenes" are moving off at a moderate but steady pace. Langford
remarked, that while the press had been uniformly favorable, not one
_critical_ notice had appeared. G. went to Parker's in the evening,
and gathered a little gossip on the subject. Savage, author of the
"Falcon Family," and now editor of the _Examiner_, said he was reading
the "Scenes"--had read some of them already in _Blackwood_--but was
now reading the volume. "G. Eliot was a writer of great merit." A
barrister named Smythe said he had seen "the Bishop" reading them the
other day. As a set-off against this, Mrs. Schlesinger "Couldn't bear
the book." She is a regular novel reader; but hers is the first
unfavorable opinion we have had.
_Feb. 26._--We went into town for the sake of seeing Mr. and Mrs.
Call, and having our photographs taken by Mayall.
_Feb. 28._--Mr. John Blackwood called on us, having come to London for
a few days only. He talked a good deal about the "Clerical Scenes" and
George Eliot, and at last asked, "Well, am I to see George Eliot this
time?" G. said, "Do you wish to see him?" "As he likes--I wish it to
be quite spontaneous." I left the room, and G. following me a moment,
I told him he might reveal me. Blackwood was kind, came back when he
found he was too late for the train, and said he would come to
Richmond again. He came on the following Friday and chatted very
pleasantly--told us that Thackeray spoke highly of the "Scenes," and
said _they were not written by a woman_. Mrs. Blackwood is _sure_ they
are not written by a woman. Mrs. Oliphant, the novelist, too, is
confident on the same side. I gave Blackwood the MS. of my new novel,
to the end of the second scene in the wood. He opened it, read the
first page, and smiling, said, "This will do." We walked with him to
Kew, and had a good deal of talk. Found, among other things, that he
had lived two years in Italy when he was a youth, and that he admires
Miss Austen.
Since I wrote these last notes several encouraging fragments of news
about the "Scenes" have come to my ears--especially that Mrs. Owen
Jones and her husband--two very different people--are equally
enthusiastic about the book. But both have detected the woman.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 2d March, 1858.]
Perhaps we may go to Dresden, perhaps not: we leave room for the
_imprévu_, which Louis Blanc found so sadly wanting in Mr. Morgan's
millennial village. You are among the exceptional people who say
pleasant things to their friends, and don't feel a too exclusive
satisfaction in their misfortunes. We like to hear of your interest in
Mr. Lewes's books--at least, _I_ am very voracious of such details. I
keep the pretty letters that are written to him; and we have had some
really important ones from the scientific big-wigs about the "Sea-side
Studies." The reception of the book in that quarter has been quite
beyond our expectations. Eight hundred copies were sold at once. There
is a great deal of close hard work in the book, and every one who
knows what scientific work is necessarily perceives this; happily
many have been generous enough to express their recognition in a
hearty way.
I enter so deeply into everything you say about your mother. To me
that old, old popular truism, "We can never have but one mother," has
worlds of meaning in it, and I think with more sympathy of the
satisfaction you feel in at last being allowed to wait on her than I
should of anything else you could tell me. I wish we saw more of that
sweet human piety that feels tenderly and reverently towards the aged.
[_Apropos_ of some incapable woman's writing she adds.] There is
something more piteous almost than soapless poverty in this
application of feminine incapacity to literature. We spent a very
pleasant couple of hours with Mr. and Mrs. Call last Friday. It was
worth a journey on a cold dusty day to see two faces beaming kindness
and happiness.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th March, 1858.]
I enclose a letter which will interest you. It is affecting to see how
difficult a matter it often is for the men who would most profit by a
book to purchase it, or even get a reading of it, while stupid Jopling
of Reading or elsewhere thinks nothing of giving a guinea for a work
which he will simply put on his shelves.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, March, 1858.]
When do you bring out your new poem? I presume you are already in the
sixth canto. It is true you never told me you intended to write a
poem, nor have I heard any one say so who was likely to know.
Nevertheless I have quite as active an imagination as you, and I don't
see why I shouldn't suppose you are writing a poem as well as you
suppose that I am writing a novel. Seriously, I wish you would not set
rumors afloat about me. They are injurious. Several people, who seem
to derive their notions from Ivy Cottage,[1] have spoken to me of a
supposed novel I was going to bring out. Such things are damaging to
me.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 31st March, 1858.]
Thanks for your disclaimer. It shows me that you take a right view of
the subject. There is no undertaking more fruitful of absurd mistakes
than that of "guessing" at authorship; and as I have never
communicated to any one so much as an _intention_ of a literary kind,
there can be none but imaginary data for such guesses. If I withhold
anything from my friends which it would gratify them to know, you will
believe, I hope, that I have good reasons for doing so, and I am sure
those friends will understand me when I ask them to further my
object--which is not a whim but a question of solid interest--by
complete silence. I can't afford to indulge either in vanity or
sentimentality about my work. I have only a trembling anxiety to do
what is in itself worth doing, and by that honest means to win very
necessary profit of a temporal kind. "There is nothing hidden that
shall not be revealed" in due time. But till that time comes--till I
tell you myself, "This is the work of my hand and brain"--don't
believe anything on the subject. There is no one who is in the least
likely to know what I can, could, should, or would write.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_April 1, 1858._--Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm
praise of "Adam Bede," but wanting to know the rest of the story in
outline before deciding whether it should go in the Magazine. I wrote
in reply refusing to tell him the story.
On Wednesday evening, April 7th, we set off on our journey to Munich,
and now we are comfortably settled in our lodgings, where we hope to
remain three months at least. I sit down in my first leisure moments
to write a few recollections of our journey, or rather of our
twenty-four hours' stay at Nürnberg; for the rest of our journey was
mere endurance of railway and steamboat in cold and sombre weather,
often rainy. I ought to except our way from Frankfort to Nürnberg,
which lay for some distance--until we came to Bamberg--through a
beautifully varied country. Our view both of Würzburg and Bamberg, as
we hastily snatched it from our railway carriage, was very
striking--great old buildings, crowning heights that rise up boldly
from the plain in which stand the main part of the towns. From Bamberg
to Nürnberg the way lay through a wide rich plain sprinkled with
towns. We had left all the hills behind us. At Bamberg we were joined
in our carriage by a pleasant-looking elderly couple, who spoke to
each other and looked so affectionately that we said directly, "Shall
we be so when we are old?" It was very pretty to see them hold each
other's gloved hands for a minute like lovers. As soon as we had
settled ourselves in our inn at Nürnberg--the Baierische Hof--we went
out to get a general view of the town. Happily it was not raining,
though there was no sun to light up the roof and windows.
[Sidenote: Journal, April, 1858.]
How often I had thought I should like to see Nürnberg, and had
pictured to myself narrow streets with dark quaint gables! The reality
was not at all like my picture, but it was ten times better. No sombre
coloring, except the old churches: all was bright and varied, each
_façade_ having a different color--delicate green, or buff, or pink,
or lilac--every now and then set off by the neighborhood of a rich
reddish brown. And the roofs always gave warmth of color with their
bright red or rich purple tiles. Every house differed from its
neighbor, and had a physiognomy of its own, though a beautiful family
likeness ran through them all, as if the burghers of that old city
were of one heart and one soul, loving the same delightful outlines,
and cherishing the same daily habits of simple ease and enjoyment in
their balcony-windows when the day's work was done.
The balcony window is the secondary charm of the Nürnberg houses; it
would be the principal charm of any houses that had not the Nürnberg
roofs and gables. It is usually in the centre of the building, on the
first floor, and is ornamented with carved stone or wood, which
supports it after the fashion of a bracket. In several of these
windows we saw pretty family groups--young fair heads of girls or of
little children, with now and then an older head surmounting them. One
can fancy that these windows are the pet places for family joys--that
papa seats himself there when he comes home from the warehouse, and
the little ones cluster round him in no time. But the glory of the
Nürnberg houses is the roofs, which are no blank surface of mere
tiling, but are alive with lights and shadows, cast by varied and
beautiful lines of windows and pinnacles and arched openings. The
plainest roof in Nürnberg has its little windows lifting themselves up
like eyelids, and almost everywhere one sees the pretty hexagonal
tiles. But the better houses have a central, open sort of pavilion in
the roof, with a pinnacle surmounted by a weathercock. This pavilion
has usually a beautifully carved arched opening in front, set off by
the dark background which is left by the absence of glass. One
fancies the old Nürnbergers must have gone up to these pavilions to
smoke in the summer and autumn days. There is usually a brood of small
windows round this central ornament, often elegantly arched and
carved. A wonderful sight it makes to see a series of such roofs
surmounting the tall, delicate-colored houses. They are always
high-pitched, of course, and the color of the tiles was usually of a
bright red. I think one of the most charming vistas we saw was the
Adler-Gasse, on the St. Lorenz side of the town. Sometimes, instead of
the high-pitched roof, with its pavilion and windows, there is a
richly ornamented gable fronting the street; and still more frequently
we get the gables at right angles with the street at a break in the
line of houses.
Coming back from the Burg we met a detachment of soldiers, with their
band playing, followed by a stream of listening people; and then we
reached the market-place, just at the point where stands "The
Beautiful Fountain"--an exquisite bit of florid Gothic which has been
restored in perfect conformity with the original. Right before us
stood the Frauen-Kirche, with its fine and unusual _façade_, the chief
beauty being a central chapel used as the choir, and added by Adam
Krafft. It is something of the shape of a mitre, and forms a beautiful
gradation of ascent towards the summit of _façade_. We heard the organ
and were tempted to enter, for this is the one Catholic Church in
Nürnberg. The delicious sound of the organ and voices drew us farther
and farther in among the standing people, and we stayed there I don't
know how long, till the music ceased. How the music warmed one's
heart! I loved the good people about me, even to the soldier who stood
with his back to us, giving us a full view of his close-cropped head,
with its pale yellowish hair standing up in bristles on the crown, as
if his hat had acted like a forcing-pot. Then there was a little baby
in a close-fitting cap on its little round head, looking round with
bright black eyes as it sucked its bit of bread. Such a funny little
complete face--rich brown complexion and miniature Roman nose. And
then its mother lifted it up that it might see the rose-decked altar,
where the priests were standing. How music, that stirs all one's
devout emotions, blends everything into harmony--makes one feel part
of one whole which one loves all alike, losing the sense of a separate
self. Nothing could be more wretched as art than the painted St.
Veronica opposite me, holding out the sad face on her miraculous
handkerchief. Yet it touched me deeply; and the thought of the Man of
Sorrows seemed a very close thing--not a faint hearsay.
We saw Albert Dürer's statue by Rauch, and Albert Dürer's house--a
striking bit of old building, rich dark-brown, with a truncated gable
and two wooden galleries running along the gable end. My best wishes
and thanks to the artists who keep it in repair and use it for their
meetings. The vistas from the bridges across the muddy Pegnitz, which
runs through the town, are all quaint and picturesque; and it was here
that we saw some of the _shabbiest_-looking houses--almost the only
houses that carried any suggestion of poverty, and even here it was
doubtful. The town has an air of cleanliness and well-being, and one
longs to call one of those balconied apartments one's own home, with
their flower-pots, clean glass, clean curtains, and transparencies
turning their white backs to the street. It is pleasant to think there
is such a place in the world where many people pass peaceful lives.
On arriving at Munich, after much rambling, we found an advertisement
of "Zwei elegant möblirte Zimmer," No. 15 Luitpold Strasse; and to our
immense satisfaction found something that looked like cleanliness and
comfort. The bargain was soon made--twenty florins per month. So here
we came last Tuesday, the 13th April. We have been taking sips of the
Glyptothek and the two Pinacotheks in the morning, not having settled
to work yet. Last night we went to the opera--Fra Diavolo--at the
Hof-Theatre. The theatre ugly, the singing bad. Still, the orchestra
was good, and the charming music made itself felt in spite of German
throats. On Sunday, the 11th, we went to the Pinacothek, straight into
the glorious Rubens Saal. Delighted afresh in the picture of "Samson
and Delilah," both for the painting and character of the figures.
Delilah, a magnificent blonde, seated in a chair, with a transparent
white garment slightly covering her body, and a rich red piece of
drapery round her legs, leans forward, with one hand resting on her
thigh, the other, holding the cunning shears, resting on the chair--a
posture which shows to perfection the full, round, living arms. She
turns her head aside to look with sly triumph at Samson--a tawny
giant, his legs caught in the red drapery, shorn of his long locks,
furious with the consciousness that the Philistines are upon him, and
that this time he cannot shake them off. Above the group of malicious
faces and grappling arms a hand holds a flaming torch. Behind Delilah,
and grasping her arm, leans forward an old woman, with hard features
full of exultation.
This picture, comparatively small in size, hangs beside the "Last
Judgment," and in the corresponding space, on the other side of the
same picture, hangs the sublime "Crucifixion." Jesus alone, hanging
dead on the Cross, darkness over the whole earth. One can desire
nothing in this picture--the grand, sweet calm of the dead face, calm
and satisfied amidst all the traces of anguish, the real, livid flesh,
the thorough mastery with which the whole form is rendered, and the
isolation of the supreme sufferer, make a picture that haunts one like
a remembrance of a friend's death-bed.
_April 12 (Monday)._--After reading Anna Mary Howitt's book on Munich
and Overbeck on Greek art, we turned out into the delicious sunshine
to walk in the Theresien Wiese, and have our first look at the
colossal "Bavaria," the greatest work of Schwanthaler. Delightful it
was to get away from the houses into this breezy meadow, where we
heard the larks singing above us. The sun was still too high in the
west for us to look with comfort at the statue, except right in front
of it, where it eclipsed the sun; and this front view is the only
satisfactory one. The outline made by the head and arm on a side view
is almost painfully ugly. But in front, looking up to the beautiful,
calm face, the impression it produces is sublime. I have never seen
anything, even in ancient sculpture, of a more awful beauty than this
dark, colossal head, looking out from a background of pure, pale-blue
sky. We mounted the platform to have a view of her back, and then
walking forward, looked to our right hand and saw the snow-covered
Alps! Sight more to me than all the art in Munich, though I love the
_art_ nevertheless. The great, wide-stretching earth and the
all-embracing sky--the birthright of us all--are what I care most to
look at. And I feel intensely the new beauty of the sky here. The blue
is so exquisitely clear, and the wide streets give one such a broad
canopy of sky. I felt more inspirited by our walk to the Theresien
Platz than by any pleasure we have had in Munich.
_April 16._--On Wednesday we walked to the Theresien Wiese to look at
the "Bavaria" by sunset, but a shower came on and drove us to take
refuge in a pretty house built near the Ruhmeshalle, whereby we were
gainers, for we saw a charming family group: a mother with her three
children--the eldest a boy with his book, the second a three-year-old
maiden, the third a sweet baby-girl of a year and a half; two dogs,
one a mixture of the setter and pointer, the other a turn-spit; and a
relation or servant ironing. The baby cried at the sight of G. in
beard and spectacles, but kept her eyes turning towards him from her
mother's lap, every now and then seeming to have overcome her fears,
and then bursting out crying anew. At last she got down and lifted the
table-cloth to peep at his legs, as if to see the monster's nether
parts.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 17th April, 1858.]
We have been just to take a sip at the two Pinacotheks and at the
Glyptothek. At present the Rubens Saal is what I most long to return
to. Rubens gives me more pleasure than any other painter, whether that
is right or wrong. To be sure, I have not seen so many pictures, and
pictures of so high a rank, by any other great master. I feel sure
that when I have seen as much of Raphael I shall like him better; but
at present Rubens, more than any one else, makes me feel that painting
is a great art, and that he was a great artist. His are such real,
breathing men and women, moved by passions, not mincing and
grimacing, and posing in mere aping of passion! What a grand,
glowing, forceful thing life looks in his pictures--the men such
grand-bearded, grappling beings, fit to do the work of the world; the
women such real mothers. We stayed at Nürnberg only twenty-four hours,
and I felt sad to leave it so soon. A pity the place became
Protestant, so that there is only one Catholic church where one can go
in and out as one would. We turned into the famous St. Sebald's for a
minute, where a Protestant clergyman was reading in a cold, formal way
under the grand Gothic arches. Then we went to the Catholic church,
the Frauen-Kirche, where the organ and voices were giving forth a
glorious mass; and we stood with a feeling of brotherhood among the
standing congregation till the last note of the organ had died out.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_April 23._--Not being well enough to write, we determined to spend
our morning at the Glyptothek and Pinacothek. A glorious morning--all
sunshine and blue sky. We went to the Glyptothek first, and delighted
ourselves anew with the "Sleeping Faun," the "Satyr and Bacchus," and
the "Laughing Faun" (Fauno colla Macchia). Looked at the two young
satyrs reposing with the pipe in their hands--one of them charming in
the boyish, good-humored beauty of the face, but both wanting finish
in the limbs, which look almost as if they could be produced by a
turning-machine. But the conception of this often-repeated figure is
charming: it would make a garden seem more peaceful in the sunshine.
Looked at the old Silenus too, which is excellent. I delight in these
figures, full of droll animation, flinging some nature, in its broad
freedom, in the eyes of small-mouthed, mincing narrowness.
We went into the modern Saal also, glancing on our way at the
Cornelius frescoes, which seem to me stiff and hideous. An Adonis, by
Thorwaldsen, is very beautiful.
Then to the Pinacothek, where we looked at Albert Dürer's portrait
again, and many other pictures, among which I admired a group by
Jordaens: "A satyr eating, while a peasant shows him that he can blow
hot and cold at the same time;" the old grandmother nursing the child,
the father with the key in his hand, with which he has been amusing
baby, looking curiously at the satyr, the handsome wife, still more
eager in her curiosity, the quiet cow, the little boy, the dog and
cat--all are charmingly conceived.
_April 24._--As we were reading this afternoon Herr Oldenbourg came
in, invited us to go to his house on Tuesday, and chatted pleasantly
for an hour. He talked of Kaulbach, whom he has known very intimately,
being the publisher of the "Reineke Fuchs." The picture of the "Hunnen
Schlacht" was the first of Kaulbach's on a great scale. It created a
sensation, and the critics began to call it a "Weltgeschichtliches
Bild." Since then Kaulbach has been seduced into the complex,
wearisome, symbolical style, which makes the frescoes at Berlin
enormous puzzles.
When we had just returned from our drive in the Englische Garten,
Bodenstedt pleasantly surprised us by presenting himself. He is a
charming man, and promises to be a delightful acquaintance for us in
this strange town. He chatted pleasantly with us for half an hour,
telling us that he is writing a work, in five volumes, on the
"Contemporaries of Shakspeare," and indicating the nature of his
treatment of the Shakspearian drama--which is historical and
analytical. Presently he proposed that we should adjourn to his house
and have tea with him; and so we turned out all together in the bright
moonlight, and enjoyed his pleasant chat until ten o'clock. His wife
was not at home, but we were admitted to see the three sleeping
children--one a baby about a year and a half old, a lovely waxen
thing. He gave the same account of Kaulbach as we had heard from
Oldenbourg; spoke of Genelli as superior in genius, though he has not
the fortune to be recognized; recited some of Hermann Lingg's poetry,
and spoke enthusiastically of its merits. There was not a word of
detraction about any one--nothing to jar on one's impression of him as
a refined, noble-hearted man.
_April 27._--This has been a red-letter day. In the morning Professor
Wagner took us over his "Petrifacten Sammlung," giving us interesting
explanations; and before we left him we were joined by Professor
Martius, an animated, clever man, who talked admirably, and invited us
to his house. Then we went to Kaulbach's studio, talked with him, and
saw with especial interest the picture he is preparing as a present to
the New Museum. In the evening, after walking in the Theresien Wiese,
we went to Herr Oldenbourg's, and met Liebig the chemist, Geibel and
Heyse the poets, and Carrière, the author of a work on the
Reformation. Liebig is charming, with well-cut features, a low, quiet
voice, and gentle manners. It was touching to see his hands, the nails
black from the roots, the skin all grimed.
Heyse is like a painter's poet, ideally beautiful; rather brilliant in
his talk, and altogether pleasing. Geibel is a man of rather coarse
texture, with a voice like a kettledrum, and a steady determination to
deliver his opinions on every subject that turned up. But there was a
good deal of ability in his remarks.
_April 30._--After calling on Frau Oldenbourg, and then at Professor
Bodenstedt's, where we played with his charming children for ten
minutes, we went to the theatre to hear Prince Radziwill's music to
the "Faust." I admired especially the earlier part, the Easter morning
song of the spirits, the Beggar's song, and other things, until after
the scene in Auerbach's cellar, which is set with much humor and
fancy. But the scene between Faust and Marguerite is bad--"Meine Ruh
ist hin" quite pitiable, and the "König im Thule" not good. Gretchen's
second song, in which she implores help of the Schmerzensreiche,
touched me a good deal.
_May 1._--In the afternoon Bodenstedt called, and we agreed to spend
the evening at his house--a delightful evening. Professor Löher,
author of "Die Deutschen in America," and another much younger
_Gelehrter_, whose name I did not seize, were there.
_May 2._--Still rainy and cold. We went to the Pinacothek, and looked
at the old pictures in the first and second Saal. There are some very
bad and some fine ones by Albert Dürer: of the latter, a full length
figure of the Apostle Paul, with the head of Mark beside him, in a
listening attitude, is the one that most remains with me. There is a
very striking "Adoration of the Magi," by Johannes van Eyck, with much
merit in the coloring, perspective, and figures. Also, "Christ
carrying his Cross," by Albert Dürer, is striking. "A woman raised
from the dead by the imposition of the Cross" is a very elaborate
composition, by Böhms, in which the faces are of first-rate
excellence.
In the evening we went to the opera and saw the "Nord Stern."
_May 10._--Since Wednesday I have had a wretched cold and cough, and
been otherwise ill, but I have had several pleasures nevertheless. On
Friday, Bodenstedt called with Baron Schack to take us to Genelli's,
the artist of whose powers Bodenstedt had spoken to us with
enthusiastic admiration. The result to us was nothing but
disappointment; the sketches he showed us seemed to us quite destitute
of any striking merit. On Sunday we dined with Liebig, and spent the
evening at Bodenstedt's, where we met Professor Bluntschli, the
jurist, a very intelligent and agreeable man, and Melchior Meyr, a
maker of novels and tragedies, otherwise an ineffectual personage.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th May, 1858.]
Our life here is very agreeable--full of pleasant novelty, although we
take things quietly and observe our working hours just as if we were
at Richmond. People are so kind to us that we feel already quite at
home, sip _baierisch Bier_ with great tolerance, and talk bad German
with more and more _aplomb_. The place, you know, swarms with
professors of all sorts--all _gründlich_, of course, and one or two of
them great. There is no one we are more charmed with than Liebig. Mr.
Lewes had no letter to him--we merely met him at an evening party; yet
he has been particularly kind to us, and seems to have taken a
benevolent liking to me. We dined with him and his family yesterday,
and saw how men of European celebrity may put up with greasy cooking
in private life. He lives in very good German style, however; has a
handsome suite of apartments, and makes a greater figure than most of
the professors. His manners are charming--easy, graceful, benignant,
and all the more conspicuous because he is so quiet and low spoken
among the loud talkers here. He looks best in his laboratory, with his
velvet cap on, holding little phials in his hand, and talking of
Kreatine and Kreatinine in the same easy way that well-bred ladies
talk scandal. He is one of the professors who has been called here by
the present king--Max--who seems to be a really sensible man among
kings; gets up at five o'clock in the morning to study, and every
Saturday evening has a gathering of the first men in science and
literature, that he may benefit by their opinions on important
subjects. At this _Tafel-rund_ every man is required to say honestly
what he thinks; every one may contradict every one else; and if the
king suspects any one of a polite insincerity, the too polished man is
invited no more. Liebig, the three poets--Geibel, Heyse, and
Bodenstedt--and Professor Löher, a writer of considerable mark, are
always at the _Tafel-rund_ as an understood part of their functions;
the rest are invited according to the king's direction. Bodenstedt is
one of our best friends here--enormously instructed, after the fashion
of Germans, but not at all stupid with it.
We were at the Siebolds' last night to meet a party of celebrities,
and, what was better, to see the prettiest little picture of married
life--the great comparative anatomist (Siebold) seated at the piano in
his spectacles playing the difficult accompaniments to Schubert's
songs, while his little round-faced wife sang them with much taste and
feeling. They are not young. Siebold is gray, and probably more than
fifty; his wife perhaps nearly forty; and it is all the prettier to
see their admiration of each other. She said to Mr. Lewes, when he
was speaking of her husband, "Ja, er ist ein netter Mann, nicht
wahr?"[2]
We take the art in very small draughts at present--the German hours
being difficult to adjust to our occupations. We are obliged to dine
at _one!_ and of course when we are well enough must work till then.
Two hours afterwards all the great public exhibitions are closed,
except the churches. I _cannot_ admire much of the modern German art.
It is for the most part elaborate lifelessness. Kaulbach's great
compositions are huge charades; and I have seen nothing of his equal
to his own "Reineke Fuchs." It is an unspeakable relief, after staring
at one of his pictures--the "Destruction of Jerusalem," for example,
which is a regular child's puzzle of symbolism--to sweep it all out of
one's mind--which is very easily done, for nothing grasps you in
it--and call up in your imagination a little Gerard Dow that you have
seen hanging in a corner of one of the cabinets. We have been to his
_atelier_, and he has given us a proof of his "Irrenhaus,"[3] a
strange sketch, which he made years ago--very terrible and powerful.
He is certainly a man of great faculty, but is, I imagine, carried out
of his true path by the ambition to produce "Weltgeschichtliche
Bilder," which the German critics may go into raptures about. His
"Battle of the Huns," which is the most impressive of all his great
pictures, was the first of the series. He painted it simply under the
inspiration of the grand myth about the spirits of the dead warriors
rising and carrying on the battle in the air. Straightway the German
critics began to smoke furiously that vile tobacco which they call
_æsthetik_, declared it a "Weltgeschichtliches Bild," and ever since
Kaulbach has been concocting these pictures in which, instead of
taking a single moment of reality and trusting to the infinite
symbolism that belongs to all nature, he attempts to give you at one
view a succession of events--each represented by some group which may
mean "Whichever you please, my little dear."
I must tell you something else which interested me greatly, as the
first example of the kind that has come under my observation. Among
the awful mysterious names, hitherto known only as marginal references
whom we have learned to clothe with ordinary flesh and blood, is
Professor Martius (Spix and Martius), now an old man, and rich after
the manner of being rich in Germany. He has a very sweet wife--one of
those women who remain pretty and graceful in old age--and a family of
three daughters and one son, all more than grown up. I learned that
she is Catholic, that her daughters are Catholic, and her husband and
son Protestant--the children having been so brought up according to
the German law in cases of mixed marriage. I can't tell you how
interesting it was to me to hear her tell of her experience in
bringing up her son conscientiously as a Protestant, and then to hear
her and her daughters speak of the exemplary priests who had shown
them such tender fatherly care when they were in trouble. They are the
most harmonious, affectionate family we have seen; and one delights in
such a triumph of human goodness over the formal logic of theorists.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_May 13._--Geibel came and brought me the two volumes of his poems,
and stayed chatting for an hour. We spent the evening quietly at
home.
_May 14._--After writing, we went for an hour to the Pinacothek, and
looked at some of the Flemish pictures. In the afternoon we called at
Liebig's, and he went a long walk with us--the long chain of snowy
mountains in the hazy distance. After supper I read Geibel's "Junius
Lieder."
_May 15._--Read the 18th chapter of "Adam Bede" to G. He was much
pleased with it. Then we walked in the Englische Garten, and heard the
band, and saw the Germans drinking their beer. The park was lovely.
_May 16._--We were to have gone to Grosshesselohe with the Siebolds,
and went to Frühstück with them at 12, as a preliminary. Bodenstedt
was there to accompany us. But heavy rain came on, and we spent the
time till 5 o'clock in talking, hearing music, and listening to
Bodenstedt's "Epic on the destruction of Novgorod." About seven,
Liebig came to us and asked us to spend the evening at his house. We
went and found Voelderndorff, Bischoff and his wife, and Carrière and
Frau.
_May 20._--As I had a feeble head this morning, we gave up the time to
seeing pictures, and went to the _Neue Pinacothek_. A "Lady with
Fruit, followed by three Children," pleased us more than ever. It is
by Wichmann. The two interiors of Westminster Abbey by Ainmueller
admirable. Unable to admire Rothmann's Greek Landscapes, which have a
room to themselves. Ditto Kaulbach's "Zerstörung von Jerusalem."
We went for the first time to see the collection of porcelain
paintings, and had really a rich treat. Many of them are admirable
copies of great pictures. The sweet "Madonna and Child," in Raphael's
early manner; a "Holy Family," also in the early manner, with a
Madonna the exact type of the St. Catherine; and a "Holy Family" in
the later manner, something like the Madonna Delia Sedia, are all
admirably copied. So are two of Andrea del Sarto's--full of tenderness
and calm piety.
_May 23._--Through the cold wind and white dust we went to the
Jesuits' Church to hear the music. It is a fine church in the
Renaissance style, the vista terminating with the great altar very
fine, with all the crowd of human beings covering the floor. Numbers
of men!
In the evening we went to Bodenstedt's, and saw his wife for the first
time--a delicate creature who sang us some charming Bavarian
_Volkslieder_. On Monday we spent the evening at Löher's--Baumgarten,
_ein junger Historiker_, Oldenbourg, and the Bodenstedts meeting us.
Delicious _Mai-trank_, made by putting the fresh _Waldmeister_--a
cruciferous plant with a small white flower, something like Lady's
Bedstraw--into mild wine, together with sugar, and occasionally other
things.
_May 26._--This evening I have read aloud "Adam Bede," chapter xx. We
have begun Ludwig's "Zwischen Himmel und Erde."
_May 27._--We called on the Siebolds to-day, then walked in the
Theresien Wiese, and saw the mountains gloriously. Spent the evening
at Prof. Martius's, where Frau Erdl played Beethoven's Andante and the
Moonlight Sonata admirably.
_May 28._--We heard from Blackwood this morning. Good news in general,
but the sale of our books not progressing at present.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th May, 1858.]
It is invariably the case that when people discover certain points of
coincidence in a fiction with facts that happen to have come to their
knowledge, they believe themselves able to furnish a key to the whole.
That is amusing enough to the author, who knows from what widely
sundered portions of experience--from what a combination of subtle,
shadowy suggestions, with certain actual objects and events, his story
has been formed. It would be a very difficult thing for me to furnish
a key to my stories myself. But where there is no exact memory of the
past, any story with a few remembered points of character or of
incident may pass for a history.
We pay for our sight of the snowy mountains here by the most
capricious of climates. English weather is steadfast compared with
Munich weather. You go to dinner here in summer and come away from it
in winter. You are languid among trees and feathery grass at one end
of the town, and are shivering in a hurricane of dust at the other.
This inconvenience of climate, with the impossibility of dining (well)
at any other hour than one o'clock is not friendly to the
stomach--that great seat of the imagination. And I shall never advise
an author to come to Munich except _ad interim_. The great Saal, full
of Rubens's pictures, is worth studying; and two or three precious
bits of sculpture, and the sky on a fine day, always puts one in a
good temper--it is so deliciously clear and blue, making even the
ugliest buildings look beautiful by the light it casts on them.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_May 30._--We heard "William Tell"--a great enjoyment to me.
_June 1._--To Grosshesselohe with a party. Siebold and his wife, Prof.
Löher, Fräulein von List, Fräulein Thiersch, Frau von Schaden and her
pretty daughter. It was very pretty to see Siebold's delight in
nature--the Libellulæ, the Blindworm, the crimson and black Cicadæ,
the Orchidæ. The strange whim of Schwanthaler's--the Burg von
Schwaneck--was our destination.
_June 10._--For the last week my work has been rather scanty owing to
bodily ailments. I am at the end of chapter xxi., and am this morning
going to begin chapter xxii. In the interim our chief pleasure had
been a trip to Starnberg by ourselves.
_June 13._--This morning at last free from headache, and able to
write. I am entering on my history of the birthday with some fear and
trembling. This evening we walked, between eight and half-past nine,
in the Wiese, looking towards Nymphenburg. The light delicious--the
west glowing; the faint crescent moon and Venus pale above it; the
larks filling the air with their songs, which seemed only a little way
above the ground.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th June, 1858.]
Words are very clumsy things. I like less and less to handle my
friends' sacred feelings with them. For even those who call themselves
intimate know very little about each other--hardly ever know just
_how_ a sorrow is felt, and hurt each other by their very attempts at
sympathy or consolation. We can bear no hand on our bruises. And so I
feel I have no right to say that I know _how_ the loss of your
mother--"the only person who ever leaned on you"--affects you. I only
know that it must make a deeply-felt crisis in your life, and I know
that the better from having felt a great deal about my own mother and
father, and from having the keenest remembrance of all that
experience. But for this very reason I know that I can't measure what
the event is to you; and if I were near you I should only kiss you and
say nothing. People talk of the feelings dying out as one gets older;
but at present my experience is just the contrary. All the serious
relations of life become so much more real to me--pleasure seems so
slight a thing, and sorrow and duty and endurance so great. I find the
least bit of real human life touch me in a way it never did when I was
younger.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_June 17._--This evening G. left me to set out on his journey to
Hofwyl to see his boys.
_June 18._--Went with the Siebolds to Nymphenburg; called at Professor
Knapp's, and saw Liebig's sister, Frau Knapp--a charming,
gentle-mannered woman, with splendid dark eyes.
_June 22._--Tired of loneliness, I went to the Frau von Siebold,
chatted with her over tea, and then heard some music.
_June 23._--My kind little friend (Frau von Siebold) brought me a
lovely bouquet of roses this morning, and invited me to go with them
in the evening to the theatre to see the new comedy, the "Drei
Candidaten," which I did: a miserably poor affair.
_June 24._--G. came in the evening, at 10 o'clock--after I had
suffered a great deal in thinking of the possibilities that might
prevent him from coming.
_June 25._--This morning I have read to G. all I have written during
his absence, and he approves it more than I expected.
_July 7._--This morning we left Munich, setting out in the rain to
Rosenheim by railway. The previous day we dined, and sat a few hours
with the dear, charming Siebolds, and parted from them with
regret--glad to leave Munich, but not to leave the friends who had
been so kind to us. For a week before I had been ill--almost a luxury,
because of the love that tended me. But the general languor and sense
of depression produced by Munich air and way of life was no luxury,
and I was glad to say a last good-bye to the quaint pepper-boxes of
the Frauen-Kirche.
[Sidenote: Munich to Dresden, 1858.]
At the Rosenheim station we got into the longest of omnibuses, which
took us to the _Gasthof_, where we were to dine and lunch, and then
mount into the _Stell-wagen_, which would carry us to Prien, on the
borders of the Chiem See. Rosenheim is a considerable and rather
quaint-looking town, interrupted by orchards and characterized in a
passing glance by the piazzas that are seen everywhere fronting the
shops. It has a grand view of the mountains, still a long way off. The
afternoon was cloudy, with intermittent rain, and did not set off the
landscape. Nevertheless, I had much enjoyment in this four or five
hours' journey to Prien. The little villages, with picturesque, wide
gables, projecting roofs, and wooden galleries--with abundant
orchards--with felled trunks of trees and stacks of fir-wood, telling
of the near neighborhood of the forest--were what I liked best in this
ride.
We had no sooner entered the steamboat to cross the Chiem See than it
began to rain heavily, and I kept below, only peeping now and then at
the mountains and the green islands, with their monasteries. From the
opposite bank of the See we had a grand view of the mountains, all
dark purple under the clouded sky. Before us was a point where the
nearer mountains opened and allowed us a view of their more distant
brethren receding in a fainter and fainter blue--a marsh in the
foreground, where the wild-ducks were flying. Our drive from this end
of the lake to Traunstein was lovely--through fertile, cultivated
land, everywhere married to bits of forest. The green meadow or the
golden corn sloped upward towards pine woods, or the bushy greenness
seemed to run with wild freedom far out into long promontories among
the ripening crops. Here and there the country had the aspect of a
grand park from the beautiful intermingling of wood and field, without
any line of fence.
Then came the red sunset, and it was dark when we entered Traunstein,
where we had to pass the night. Among our companions in the day's
journey had been a long-faced, cloaked, slow and solemn man, whom
George called the author of "Eugene Aram," and I Don Quixote, he was
so given to serious remonstrance with the vices he met on the road. We
had been constantly deceived in the length of our stages--on the
principle, possibly, of keeping up our spirits. The next morning there
was the same tenderness shown about the starting of the _Stell-wagen_:
at first it was to start at seven, then at half-past, then when
another _Wagen_ came with its cargo of passengers. This was too much
for Don Quixote; and when the stout, red-faced _Wirth_ had given him
still another answer about the time of starting, he began, in slow and
monotonous indignation, "Warum lügen sie so? Sie werden machen dass
kein Mensch diesen Weg kommen wird,"[4] etc. Whereupon the _Wirth_
looked red-faced, stout, and unwashed as before, without any
perceptible expression of face supervening.
The next morning the weather looked doubtful, and so we gave up
going to the König See for that day, determining to ramble on the
Mönchsberg and enjoy the beauties of Salzburg instead. The morning
brightened as the sun ascended, and we had a delicious ramble on the
Mönchsberg--looking down on the lovely, peaceful plain, below the
grand old Untersberg, where the sleeping Kaiser awaits his
resurrection in that "good time coming;" watching the white mist
floating along the sides of the dark mountains, and wandering under
the shadow of the plantation, where the ground was green with
luxuriant hawkweed, as at Nymphenburg, near Munich. The outline of the
castle and its rock is remarkably fine, and reminded us of Gorey in
Jersey. But we had a still finer view of it when we drove out to
Aigen. On our way thither we had sight of the Watzmann, the highest
mountain in Bavarian Tyrol--emerging from behind the great shoulder of
the Untersberg. It was the only mountain within sight that had snow on
its summit. Once at Aigen, and descended from our carriage, we had a
delicious walk, up and up, along a road of continual steps, by the
course of the mountain-stream, which fell in a series of cascades over
great heaps of bowlders; then back again, by a round-about way, to our
vehicle and home, enjoying the sight of old Watzmann again, and the
grand mass of Salzburg Castle on its sloping rock.
We encountered a _table-d'hôte_ acquaintance who had been to
Berchtesgaden and the König See, driven through the salt-mine, and had
had altogether a perfect expedition on this day, when we had not had
the courage to set off. Never mind! we had enjoyed our day.
We thought it wisest the next morning to renounce the König See, and
pursue our way to Ischl by the _Stell-wagen_. We were fortunate enough
to secure two places in the _coupé_, and I enjoyed greatly the quiet
outlook, from my comfortable corner, on the changing landscape--green
valley and hill and mountain; here and there a picturesque Tyrolese
village, and once or twice a fine lake.
The greatest charm of charming Ischl is the crystal Traun, surely the
purest of streams. Away again early the next morning in the _coupé_ of
the _Stell-wagen_, through a country more and more beautiful--high,
woody mountains sloping steeply down to narrow, fertile, green
valleys, the road winding amongst them so as to show a perpetual
variety of graceful outlines where the sloping mountains met in the
distance before us. As we approached the Gmunden See the masses became
grander and more rocky, and the valley opened wider. It was Sunday,
and when we left the _Stell-wagen_ we found quite a crowd in Sunday
clothes standing round the place of embarkation for the steamboat that
was to take us along the lake. Gmunden is another pretty place at the
head of the lake, but apart from this one advantage inferior to Ischl.
We got on to the slowest of railways here, getting down at the station
near the falls of the Traun, where we dined at the pleasant inn, and
fed our eyes on the clear river again hurrying over the rocks. Behind
the great fall there is a sort of inner chamber, where the water
rushes perpetually over a stone altar. At the station, as we waited
for the train, it began to rain, and the good-natured looking woman
asked us to take shelter in her little station-house--a single room
not more than eight feet square, where she lived with her husband and
two little girls all the year round. The good couple looked more
contented than half the well-lodged people in the world. He used to be
a _drozchky_ driver; and after that life of uncertain gains, which had
many days quite penniless and therefore dinnerless, he found his
present position quite a pleasant lot.
On to Linz, when the train came, gradually losing sight of the
Tyrolean mountains and entering the great plain of the Danube. Our
voyage the next day in the steamboat was unfortunate: we had incessant
rain till we had passed all the finest parts of the banks. But when we
had landed, the sun shone out brilliantly, and so our entrance into
Vienna, through the long suburb, with perpetual shops and odd names
(Prschka, for example, which a German in our omnibus thought not at
all remarkable for consonants!) was quite cheerful. We made our way
through the city and across the bridge to the Weissen Ross, which was
full; so we went to the Drei Rosen, which received us. The sunshine
was transient; it began to rain again when we went out to look at St.
Stephen's, but the delight of seeing that glorious building could not
be marred by a little rain. The tower of this church is worth going to
Vienna to see.
The aspect of the city is that of an inferior Paris; the shops have an
elegance that one sees nowhere else in Germany; the streets are clean,
the houses tall and stately. The next morning we had a view of the
town from the Belvedere Terrace; St. Stephen's sending its exquisite
tower aloft from among an almost level forest of houses and
inconspicuous churches. It is a magnificent collection of pictures at
the Belvedere; but we were so unfortunate as only to be able to see
them once, the gallery being shut up on the Wednesday; and so, many
pictures have faded from my memory, even of those which I had time to
distinguish. Titian's Danae was one that delighted us; besides this I
remember Giorgione's Lucrezia Borgia, with the cruel, cruel eyes; the
remarkable head of Christ; a proud Italian face in a red garment, I
think by Correggio; and two heads by Denner, the most wonderful of all
his wonderful heads that I have seen. There is an Ecce Homo by Titian
which is thought highly of, and is splendid in composition and color,
but the Christ is abject, the Pontius Pilate vulgar: amazing that they
could have been painted by the same man who conceived and executed the
Christo della Moneta! There are huge Veroneses, too, splendid and
interesting.
The Liechtenstein collection we saw twice, and that remains with me
much more distinctly--the room full of Rubens's history of Decius,
more magnificent even than he usually is in color; then his glorious
Assumption of the Virgin, and opposite to it the portraits of his two
boys; the portrait of his lovely wife going to the bath with brown
drapery round her; and the fine portraits by Vandyke, especially the
pale, delicate face of Wallenstein, with blue eyes and pale auburn
locks.
Another great pleasure we had at Vienna--next after the sight of St.
Stephen's and the pictures--was a visit to Hyrtl, the anatomist, who
showed us some of his wonderful preparations, showing the vascular and
nervous systems in the lungs, liver, kidneys, and intestinal canal of
various animals. He told us the deeply interesting story of the loss
of his fortune in the Vienna revolution of '48. He was compelled by
the revolutionists to attend on the wounded for three days' running.
When at last he came to his house to change his clothes he found
nothing but four bare walls! His fortune in Government bonds was
burned along with the house, as well as all his precious collection
of anatomical preparations, etc. He told us that since that great
shock his nerves have been so susceptible that he sheds tears at the
most trifling events, and has a depression of spirits which often
keeps him silent for days. He only received a very slight sum from
Government in compensation for his loss.
One evening we strolled in the Volksgarten and saw the "Theseus
killing the Centaur," by Canova, which stands in a temple built for
its reception. But the garden to be best remembered by us was that at
Schönbrunn, a labyrinth of stately avenues with their terminal
fountains. We amused ourselves for some time with the menagerie here,
the lions especially, who lay in dignified sleepiness till the
approach of feeding-time made them open eager eyes and pace
impatiently about their dens.
We set off from Vienna in the evening with a family of Wallachians as
our companions, one of whom, an elderly man, could speak no German,
and began to address G. in Wallachian, as if that were the common
language of all the earth. We managed to sleep enough for a night's
rest, in spite of intense heat and our cramped positions, and arrived
in very good condition at Prague in the fine morning.
Out we went after breakfast, that we might see as much as possible of
the grand old city in one day; and our morning was occupied chiefly in
walking about and getting views of striking exteriors. The most
interesting things we saw were the Jewish burial-ground (the Alter
Friedhof) and the old synagogue. The Friedhof is unique--with a wild
growth of grass and shrubs and trees, and a multitude of quaint tombs
in all sorts of positions, looking like the fragments of a great
building, or as if they had been shaken by an earthquake. We saw a
lovely dark-eyed Jewish child here, which we were glad to kiss in all
its dirt. Then came the sombre old synagogue, with its smoked groins,
and lamp forever burning. An intelligent Jew was our _cicerone_, and
read us some Hebrew out of the precious old book of the law.
After dinner we took a carriage and went across the wonderful bridge
of St. Jean Nepomuck, with its avenue of statues, towards the
Radschin--an ugly, straight-lined building, but grand in effect from
its magnificent site, on the summit of an eminence crowded with old,
massive buildings. The view from this eminence is one of the most
impressive in the world--perhaps as much from one's associations with
Prague as from its visible grandeur and antiquity. The cathedral close
to the Radschin is a melancholy object on the outside--left with
unfinished sides like scars. The interior is rich, but sadly confused
in its ornamentation, like so many of the grand old churches--hideous
altars of bastard style disgracing exquisite Gothic columns--cruellest
of all in St. Stephen's at Vienna!
We got our view from a _Damen Stift_[5] (for ladies of family),
founded by Maria Theresa, whose blond beauty looked down on us from a
striking portrait. Close in front of us, sloping downwards, was a
pleasant orchard; then came the river, with its long, long bridge and
grand gateway; then the sober-colored city, with its surrounding plain
and distant hills. In the evening we went to the theatre--a shabby,
ugly building--and heard Spohr's Jessonda.
[Sidenote: Dresden, 1858.]
The next morning early by railway to Dresden--a charming journey, for
it took us right through the Saxon Switzerland, with its castellated
rocks and firs. At four o'clock we were dining comfortably at the
Hotel de Pologne, and the next morning (Sunday) we secured our
lodgings--a whole apartment of six rooms, all to ourselves, for 18_s._
per week! By nine o'clock we were established in our new home, where
we were to enjoy six weeks' quiet work, undisturbed by visits and
visitors. And so we did. We were as happy as princes--are not--George
writing at the far corner of the great _salon_, I at my _Schrank_ in
my own private room, with closed doors. Here I wrote the latter half
of the second volume of "Adam Bede" in the long mornings that our
early hours--rising at six o'clock--secured us. Three mornings in the
week we went to the Picture Gallery from twelve till one. The first
day we went was a Sunday, when there is always a crowd in the Madonna
Cabinet. I sat down on the sofa opposite the picture for an instant,
but a sort of awe, as if I were suddenly in the living presence of
some glorious being, made my heart swell too much for me to remain
comfortably, and we hurried out of the room. On subsequent mornings we
always came in, the last minutes of our stay, to look at this
sublimest picture, and while the others, except the Christo della
Moneta and Holbein's Madonna, lost much of their first interest, this
became harder and harder to leave. Holbein's Madonna is very
exquisite--a divinely gentle, golden haired blonde, with eyes cast
down, in an attitude of unconscious, easy grace--the loveliest of all
the Madonnas in the Dresden Gallery except the Sistine. By the side
of it is a wonderful portrait by Holbein, which I especially enjoyed
looking at. It represents nothing more lofty than a plain, weighty man
of business, a goldsmith; but the eminently fine painting brings out
all the weighty, calm, good sense that lies in a first-rate character
of that order.
We looked at the Zinsgroschen (Titian's), too, every day, and after
that at the great painter's Venus, fit for its purity and sacred
loveliness to hang in a temple with Madonnas. Palma's Venus, which
hangs near, was an excellent foil, because it is pretty and pure in
itself; but beside the Titian it is common and unmeaning.
Another interesting case of comparison was that between the original
Zinsgroschen and a copy by an Italian painter, which hangs on the
opposite wall of the cabinet. This is considered a fine copy, and
would be a fine picture if one had never seen the original; but all
the finest effects are gone in the copy.
The four large Correggios hanging together--the _Nacht_; the Madonna
with St. Sebastian, of the smiling graceful character, with the little
cherub riding astride a cloud; the Madonna with St. Hubert; and a
third Madonna, very grave and sweet--painted when he was
nineteen--remained with me very vividly. They are full of life, though
the life is not of a high order; and I should have surmised, without
any previous knowledge, that the painter was among the first masters
of _technique_. The Magdalen is sweet in conception, but seems to have
less than the usual merit of Correggio's pictures as to painting. A
picture we delighted in extremely was one of Murillo's--St. Rodriguez,
fatally wounded, receiving the Crown of Martyrdom. The attitude and
expression are sublime, and strikingly distinguished from all other
pictures of saints I have ever seen. He stands erect in his scarlet
and white robes, with face upturned, the arms held simply downward,
but the hands held open in a receptive attitude. The silly cupid-like
angel holding the martyr's crown in the corner spoils all.
I did not half satisfy my appetite for the rich collection of Flemish
and Dutch pictures here--for Teniers, Ryckart, Gerard Dow, Terburg,
Mieris, and the rest. Rembrandt looks great here in his portraits, but
I like none of the other pictures by him; the Ganymede is an offence.
Guido is superlatively odious in his Christs, in agonized or ecstatic
attitudes--much about the level of the accomplished London beggar.
Dear, grand old Rubens does not show to great advantage, except in the
charming half-length Diana returning from Hunting, the Love Garden,
and the sketch of his Judgment of Paris.
The most popular Murillo, and apparently one of the most popular
Madonnas in the gallery, is the simple, sad mother with her child,
without the least divinity in it, suggesting a dead or sick father,
and imperfect nourishment in a garret. In that light it is touching. A
fellow-traveller in the railway to Leipzig told us he had seen this
picture in 1848 with nine bullet holes in it! The firing from the
hotel of the Stadt Rom bore directly on the Picture Gallery.
Veronese is imposing in one of the large rooms--the Adoration of the
Magi, the Marriage at Cana, the Finding of Moses, etc., making grand
masses of color on the lower part of the walls; but to me he is
ignoble as a painter of human beings.
It was a charming life--our six weeks at Dresden. There were the
open-air concerts at the Grosser Garten and the Brühl'sche Terrace;
the Sommer Theater, where we saw our favorite comic actor Merbitz; the
walks into the open country, with the grand stretch of sky all round;
the Zouaves, with their wondrous make-ups as women; Räder, the
humorous comedian at the Sink'sche Bad Theater; our quiet afternoons
in our pleasant _salon_--all helping to make an agreeable fringe to
the quiet working time.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 28th July, 1858.]
Since I wrote to you last I have lived through a great deal of
exquisite pleasure. First an attack of illness during our last week at
Munich, which I reckon among my pleasures because I was nursed so
tenderly. Then a fortnight's unspeakable journey to Salzburg, Ischl,
Linz, Vienna, Prague, and finally Dresden, which is our last
resting-place before returning to Richmond, where we hope to be at the
beginning of September. Dresden is a proper climax; for all other art
seems only a preparation for feeling the superiority of the Madonna di
San Sisto the more. We go three days a week to the gallery, and every
day--after looking at other pictures--we go to take a parting draught
of delight at Titian's Zinsgroschen and the _Einzige_ Madonna. In
other respects I am particularly enjoying our residence here--we are
so quiet, having determined to know no one and give ourselves up to
work. We both feel a happy change in our health from leaving Munich,
though I am reconciled to our long stay there by the fact that Mr.
Lewes gained so much from his intercourse with the men of science
there, especially Bischoff, Siebold, and Harless. I remembered your
passion for autographs, and asked Liebig for his on your account. I
was not sure that you would care enough about the handwriting of
other luminaries; for there is such a thing as being European and yet
obscure--a fixed star visible only from observatories.
You will be interested to hear that I saw Strauss at Munich. He came
for a week's visit before we left. I had a quarter of an hour's chat
with him alone, and was very agreeably impressed by him. He looked
much more serene, and his face had a far sweeter expression, than when
I saw him in that dumb way at Cologne. He speaks with very choice
words, like a man strictly truthful in the use of language. Will you
undertake to tell Mrs. Call from me that he begged me to give his
kindest remembrances to her and to her father,[6] of whom he spoke
with much interest and regard as his earliest English friend? I dare
not begin to write about other things or people that I have seen in
these crowded weeks. They must wait till I have you by my side again,
which I hope will happen some day.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
From Dresden, one showery day at the end of August, we set off to
Leipzig, the first stage on our way home. Here we spent two nights; had
a glimpse of the old town with its fine market; dined at Brockhaus's;
saw the picture-gallery, carrying away a lasting delight in Calame's
great landscapes and De Dreux's dogs, which are far better worth seeing
than De la Roche's "Napoleon at Fontainebleau"--considered the glory of
the gallery; went with Victor Carus to his museum and saw an Amphioxus;
and finally spent the evening at an open-air concert in Carus's
company. Early in the morning we set off by railway, and travelled
night and day till we reached home on the 2d September.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 5th Sept. 1858.]
Will you not write to the author of "Thorndale" and express your
sympathy? He is a very diffident man, who would be susceptible to that
sort of fellowship; and one should give a gleam of happiness where it
is possible. I shall write you nothing worth reading for the next
three months, so here is an opportunity for you to satisfy a large
appetite for generous deeds. You can write to me a great many times
without getting anything worth having in return.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 6th Oct. 1858.]
Thanks for the verses on Buckle. I'm afraid I feel a malicious delight
in them, for he is a writer who inspires me with a personal dislike;
not to put too fine a point on it, he impresses me as an irreligious,
conceited man.
Long ago I had offered to write about Newman, but gave it up again.
The second volume of "Adam Bede" had been sent to Blackwood
on 7th September, the third had followed two months later,
and there are the following entries in the Journal in
November:
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Nov. 1._--I have begun Carlyle's "Life of Frederic the Great," and
have also been thinking much of my own life to come. This is a moment
of suspense, for I am awaiting Blackwood's opinion and proposals
concerning "Adam Bede."
_Nov. 4._--Received a letter from Blackwood containing warm praise of
my third volume, and offering £800 for the copyright of "Adam Bede"
for four years. I wrote to accept.
_Nov. 10._--Wilkie Collins and Mr. Pigott came to dine with us after a
walk by the river. I was pleased with Wilkie Collins--there is a
sturdy uprightness about him that makes all opinion and all occupation
respectable.
_Nov. 16._--Wrote the last word of "Adam Bede" and sent it to Mr.
Langford. _Jubilate._
[Sidenote: History of "Adam Bede."]
The germ of "Adam Bede" was an anecdote told me by my Methodist Aunt
Samuel (the wife of my father's younger brother)--an anecdote from her
own experience. We were sitting together one afternoon during her
visit to me at Griff, probably in 1839 or 1840, when it occurred to
her to tell me how she had visited a condemned criminal--a very
ignorant girl, who had murdered her child and refused to confess; how
she had stayed with her praying through the night, and how the poor
creature at last broke out into tears and confessed her crime. My aunt
afterwards went with her in the cart to the place of execution; and
she described to me the great respect with which this ministry of hers
was regarded by the official people about the jail. The story, told by
my aunt with great feeling, affected me deeply, and I never lost the
impression of that afternoon and our talk together; but I believe I
never mentioned it, through all the intervening years, till something
prompted me to tell it to George in December, 1856, when I had begun
to write the "Scenes of Clerical Life." He remarked that the scene in
the prison would make a fine element in a story; and I afterwards
began to think of blending this and some other recollections of my
aunt in one story, with some points in my father's early life and
character. The problem of construction that remained was to make the
unhappy girl one of the chief _dramatis personæ_, and connect her with
the hero. At first I thought of making the story one of the series of
"Scenes," but afterwards, when several motives had induced me close
these with "Janet's Repentance," I determined on making what we always
called in our conversation "My Aunt's Story" the subject of a long
novel, which I accordingly began to write on the 22d October, 1857.
The character of Dinah grew out of my recollections of my aunt, but
Dinah is not at all like my aunt, who was a very small, black-eyed
woman, and (as I was told, for I never heard her preach) very vehement
in her style of preaching. She had left off preaching when I knew her,
being probably sixty years old, and in delicate health; and she had
become, as my father told me, much more gentle and subdued than she
had been in the days of her active ministry and bodily strength, when
she could not rest without exhorting and remonstrating in season and
out of season. I was very fond of her, and enjoyed the few weeks of
her stay with me greatly. She was loving and kind to me, and I could
talk to her about my inward life, which was closely shut up from those
usually round me. I saw her only twice again, for much shorter
periods--once at her own home at Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, and once
at my father's last residence, Foleshill.
The character of Adam and one or two incidents connected with him were
suggested by my father's early life; but Adam is not my father any
more than Dinah is my aunt. Indeed, there is not a single portrait in
Adam Bede--only the suggestions of experience wrought up into new
combinations. When I began to write it, the only elements I had
determined on, besides the character of Dinah, were the character of
Adam, his relation to Arthur Donnithorne, and their mutual relations
to Hetty--_i.e._, to the girl who commits child-murder--the scene in
the prison being, of course, the climax towards which I worked.
Everything else grew out of the characters and their mutual
relations. Dinah's ultimate relation to Adam was suggested by George,
when I had read to him the first part of the first volume: he was so
delighted with the presentation of Dinah, and so convinced that the
reader's interest would centre in her, that he wanted her to be the
principal figure at the last. I accepted the idea at once, and from
the end of the third chapter worked with it constantly in view.
The first volume was written at Richmond, and given to Blackwood in
March. He expressed great admiration of its freshness and vividness,
but seemed to hesitate about putting it in the Magazine, which was the
form of publication he as well as myself had previously contemplated.
He still _wished_ to have it for the Magazine, but desired to know the
course of the story. At _present_ he saw nothing to prevent its
reception in "Maga," but he would like to see more. I am uncertain
whether his doubts rested solely on Hetty's relation to Arthur, or
whether they were also directed towards the treatment of Methodism by
the Church. I refused to tell my story beforehand, on the ground that
I would not have it judged apart from my _treatment_, which alone
determines the moral quality of art; and ultimately I proposed that
the notion of publication in "Maga" should be given up, and that the
novel should be published in three volumes at Christmas, if possible.
He assented.
I began the second volume in the second week of my stay at Munich,
about the middle of April. While we were at Munich George expressed
his fear that Adam's part was too passive throughout the drama, and
that it was important for him to be brought into more direct collision
with Arthur. This doubt haunted me, and out of it grew the scene in
the wood between Arthur and Adam; the fight came to me as a
_necessity_ one night at the Munich opera, when I was listening to
"William Tell." Work was slow and interrupted at Munich, and when we
left I had only written to the beginning of the dance on the Birthday
Feast; but at Dresden I wrote uninterruptedly and with great enjoyment
in the long, quiet mornings, and there I nearly finished the second
volume--all, I think, but the last chapter, which I wrote here in the
old room at Richmond in the first week of September, and then sent the
MS. off to Blackwood. The opening of the third volume--Hetty's
journey--was, I think, written more rapidly than the rest of the book,
and was left without the slightest alteration of the first draught.
Throughout the book I have altered little; and the only cases I think
in which George suggested more than a verbal alteration, when I read
the MS. aloud to him, were the first scene at the Farm, and the scene
in the wood between Arthur and Adam, both of which he recommended me
to "space out" a little, which I did.
When, on October 29, I had written to the end of the love-scene at the
Farm between Adam and Dinah, I sent the MS. to Blackwood, since the
remainder of the third volume could not affect the judgment passed on
what had gone before. He wrote back in warm admiration, and offered
me, on the part of the firm, £800 for four years' copyright. I
accepted the offer. The last words of the third volume were written
and despatched on their way to Edinburgh, November the 16th, and now
on the last day of the same month I have written this slight history
of my book. I love it very much, and am deeply thankful to have
written it, whatever the public may say to it--a result which is
still in darkness, for I have at present had only four sheets of the
proof. The book would have been published at Christmas, or rather
early in December, but that Bulwer's "What will he do with it?" was to
be published by Blackwood at that time, and it was thought that this
novel might interfere with mine.
The manuscript of "Adam Bede" bears the following
inscription: "To my dear husband, George Henry Lewes, I give
the MS. of a work which would never have been written but for
the happiness which his love has conferred on my life."
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Nov. 1858.]
I shall be much obliged if you will accept for me Tauchnitz's offer of
£30 for the English reprint of "Clerical Scenes." And will you also be
so good as to desire that Tauchnitz may register the book in Germany,
as I understand that is the only security against its being translated
without our knowledge; and I shudder at the idea of my books being
turned into hideous German by an incompetent translator.
I return the proofs by to-day's post. The dialect must be toned down
all through in correcting the proofs, for I found it impossible to
keep it subdued enough in writing. I am aware that the spelling which
represents a dialect perfectly well to those who know it by the ear,
is likely to be unintelligible to others. I hope the sheets will come
rapidly and regularly now, for I dislike lingering, hesitating
processes.
Your praise of my ending was very warming and cheering to me in the
foggy weather. I'm sure, if I have written well, your pleasant letters
have had something to do with it. Can anything be done in America for
"Adam Bede?" I suppose not--as my name is not known there.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Nov. 25._--We had a visit from Mr. Bray, who told us much that
interested us about Mr. Richard Congreve, and also his own affairs.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th Nov. 1858.]
I am very grateful to you for sending me a few authentic words from
your own self. They are unspeakably precious to me. I mean that quite
literally, for there is no putting into words any feeling that has
been of long growth within us. It is easy to say how we love _new_
friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all
the fibres that knit us to the old. I have been thinking of you
incessantly in the waking hours, and feel a growing hunger to know
more precise details about you. I am of a too sordid and anxious
disposition, prone to dwell almost exclusively on fears instead of
hopes, and to lay in a larger stock of resignation than of any other
form of confidence. But I try to extract some comfort this morning
from my consciousness of this disposition, by thinking that nothing is
ever so bad as my imagination paints it. And then I know there are
incommunicable feelings within us capable of creating our best
happiness at the very time others can see nothing but our troubles.
And so I go on arguing with myself, and trying to live inside _you_
and looking at things in all the lights I can fancy you seeing them
in, for the sake of getting cheerful about you in spite of Coventry.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, Christmas Day, 1858.]
The well-flavored mollusks came this morning. It was very kind of you;
and if you remember how fond I am of oysters, your good-nature will
have the more pleasure in furnishing my _gourmandise_ with the treat.
I have a childish delight in any little act of genuine friendliness
towards us--and yet not childish, for how little we thought of
people's goodness towards us when we were children. It takes a good
deal of experience to tell one the rarity of a thoroughly
disinterested kindness.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Dec. 1858.]
I see with you entirely about the preface: indeed I had myself
anticipated the very effects you predict. The deprecatory tone is not
one I can ever take willingly, but I am conscious of a shrinking sort
of pride which is likely to warp my judgment in many personal
questions, and on that ground I distrusted my own opinion.
Mr. Lewes went to Vernon Hill yesterday for a few days' change of air,
but before he went he said, "Ask Mr. Blackwood what he thinks of
putting a mere advertisement at the beginning of the book to this
effect: As the story of 'Adam Bede' will lose much of its effect if
the development is foreseen, the author requests those critics who may
honor him with a notice to abstain from telling the story." I write my
note of interrogation accordingly "?"
Pray do not begin to read the second volume until it is all in print.
There is necessarily a lull of interest in it to prepare for the
crescendo. I am delighted that you like my Mrs. Poyser. I'm very sorry
to part with her and some of my other characters--there seems to be so
much more to be done with them. Mr. Lewes says she gets better and
better as the book goes on; and I was certainly conscious of writing
her dialogue with heightening gusto. Even in our imaginary worlds
there is the sorrow of parting.
I hope the Christmas weather is as bright in your beautiful Edinburgh
as it is here, and that you are enjoying all other Christmas pleasures
too without disturbance.
I have not yet made up my mind what my next story is to be, but I
must not lie fallow any longer when the new year is come.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1858.]
_Dec. 25 (Christmas Day)._--George and I spent this wet day very
happily alone together. We are reading Scott's life in the evenings
with much enjoyment. I am reading through Horace in this pause.
_Dec. 31._--The last day of the dear old year, which has been full of
expected and unexpected happiness. "Adam Bede" has been written, and
the second volume is in type. The first number of George's "Physiology
of Common Life"--a work in which he has had much happy occupation--is
published to-day; and both his position as a scientific writer and his
inward satisfaction in that part of his studies have been much
heightened during the past year. Our double life is more and more
blessed--more and more complete.
I think this chapter cannot more fitly conclude than with the
following extract from Mr. G. H. Lewes's Journal, with which
Mr. Charles Lewes has been good enough to furnish me:
_Jan. 28, 1859._--Walked along the Thames towards Kew to meet
Herbert Spencer, who was to spend the day with us, and we
chatted with him on matters personal and philosophical. I owe
him a debt of gratitude. My acquaintance with him was the
brightest ray in a very dreary, _wasted_ period of my life. I
have given up all ambition whatever, lived from hand to
mouth, and thought the evil of each day sufficient. The
stimulus of his intellect, especially during our long walks,
roused my energy once more and revived my dormant love of
science. His intense theorizing tendency was contagious, and
it was only the stimulus of a _theory_ which could then have
induced me to work. I owe Spencer another and a deeper debt.
It was through him that I learned to know Marian--to know her
was to love her--and since then my life has been a new birth.
To her I owe all my prosperity and all my happiness. God
bless her!
_SUMMARY._
JANUARY, 1858, TO DECEMBER, 1858.
_Times_ reviews "Scenes of Clerical Life"--Helps's
opinion--Subscription to the "Scenes"--Letter from Dickens,
18th Jan. 1858--Letter from Froude, 17th Jan.--Letter to
Miss Hennell--Mr. Wm. Smith, author of
"Thorndale"--Ruskin--Reading the "Eumenides" and
Wordsworth--Letter to John Blackwood on Dickens's
Letter--Letter from Mrs. Carlyle--Letter from
Faraday--"Clerical Scenes" moving--John Blackwood calls, and
George Eliot reveals herself--Takes MS. of first part of
"Adam Bede"--Letters to Charles Bray on reports of
authorship--Visit to Germany--Description of Nürnberg--The
Frauen-Kirche--Effect of the music--Albert Dürer's
house--Munich--Lodgings--Pinacothek--Rubens--Crucifixion--Theresien
Wiese--Schwanthaler's "Bavaria"--The Alps--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Contrast between Catholic and Protestant
worship--Glyptothek--Pictures--Statues--Cornelius
frescoes--Herr Oldenburg--Kaulbach--Bodenstedt--Professor
Wagner--Martius--Liebig--Geibel--Heyse--Carrière--Prince
Radziwill's "Faust"--Professor Löher--Baron
Schack--Genelli--Professor Bluntschli--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Description of Munich life--Kaulbach's pictures--The
Siebolds--The Neue Pinacothek--Pictures and porcelain
painting--Mme. Bodenstedt--Letter to Blackwood--Combinations
of artist in writing--Hears "William Tell"--Expedition to
Grosshesselohe--Progress with "Adam Bede"--Letter to Miss
Hennell on death of her mother--Mr. Lewes goes to
Hofwyl--Frau Knapp--Mr. Lewes returns--Leave Munich for
Traunstein--Salzburg--Ischl--Linz--By Danube to Vienna--St.
Stephen's--Belvedere pictures--Liechtenstein
collection--Hyrtl the anatomist--Prague--Jewish burial-ground
and the old synagogue--To Dresden--Latter half of second
volume of "Adam Bede" written--First impression of Sistine
Madonna--The Tribute money--Holbein's Madonna--The
Correggios--Dutch school--Murillo--Letter to Miss
Hennell--Description of life at Dresden--Health
improved--Mention of Strauss at Munich--Dresden to
Leipzig--Home to Richmond--Letter to Miss Hennell--Opinion of
Buckle--Blackwood offers £800 for "Adam Bede"--Wilkie Collins
and Mr. Pigott--History of "Adam Bede"--Letter to Charles
Bray--Disinterested kindness--Letter to Blackwood suggesting
preface to "Adam Bede"--Reading Scott's Life and
Horace--Review of year--Extract from G. H. Lewes's Journal.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Brays' new house.
[2] He is really a charming man, is he not?
[3] Picture of interior of a Lunatic Asylum.
[4] "Why do you tell such lies? The result of it will be that no one
will travel this way."
[5] Charitable Institution for Ladies.
[6] Dr. Brabant.
CHAPTER IX.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Jan. 12._--We went into town to-day and looked in the "Annual
Register" for cases of _inundation_. Letter from Blackwood to-day,
speaking of renewed delight in "Adam Bede," and proposing 1st Feb. as
the day of publication. Read the article in yesterday's _Times_ on
George's "Sea-side Studies"--highly gratifying. We are still reading
Scott's life with great interest; and G. is reading to me Michelet's
book "De l'Amour."
_Jan. 15._--I corrected the last sheets of "Adam Bede," and we
afterwards walked to Wimbledon to see our new house, which we have
taken for seven years. I hired the servant--another bit of business
done: and then we had a delightful walk across Wimbledon Common and
through Richmond Park homeward. The air was clear and cold--the sky
magnificent.
_Jan. 31._--Received a check for £400 from Blackwood, being the first
instalment of the payment for four years' copyright of "Adam Bede."
To-morrow the book is to be subscribed, and Blackwood writes very
pleasantly--confident of its "great success." Afterwards we went into
town, paid money into the bank, and ordered part of our china and
glass towards house-keeping.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 31st Jan. 1859.]
Enclosed is the formal acknowledgment, bearing my signature, and with
it let me beg you to accept my thanks--_not_ formal but heartfelt--for
the generous way in which you have all along helped me with words and
with deeds.
The impression "Adam Bede" has made on you and Major Blackwood--of
whom I have always been pleased to think as concurring with your
views--is my best encouragement, and counterbalances, in some degree,
the depressing influences to which I am peculiarly sensitive. I
perceive that I have not the characteristics of the "popular author,"
and yet I am much in need of the warmly expressed sympathy which only
popularity can win.
A good subscription would be cheering, but I can understand that it is
not decisive of success or non-success. Thank you for promising to let
me know about it as soon as possible.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Feb. 6._--Yesterday we went to take possession of Holly Lodge,
Wandsworth, which is to be our dwelling, we expect, for years to come.
It was a deliciously fresh bright day--I will accept the omen. A
letter came from Blackwood telling me the result of the subscription
to "Adam Bede," which was published on the 1st: 730 copies, Mudie
having taken 500 on the publisher's terms--_i.e._, ten per cent. on
the sale price. At first he had stood out for a larger reduction, and
would only take 50, but at last he came round. In this letter
Blackwood told me the first _ab extra_ opinion of the book, which
happened to be precisely what I most desired. A cabinet-maker (brother
to Blackwood's managing clerk) had read the sheets, and declared that
the writer must have been brought up to the business, or at least had
listened to the workmen in their workshop.
_Feb. 12._--Received a cheering letter from Blackwood, saying that he
finds "Adam Bede" making just the impression he had anticipated among
his own friends and connections, and enclosing a parcel from Dr. John
Brown "to the author of 'Adam Bede.'" The parcel contained "Rab and
his Friends," with an inscription.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 13th Feb. 1859.]
Will you tell Dr. John Brown that when I read an account of "Rab and
his Friends" in a newspaper, I wished I had the story to read at full
length; and I thought to myself the writer of "Rab" would perhaps like
"Adam Bede."
When you have told him this, he will understand the peculiar pleasure
I had on opening the little parcel with "Rab" inside, and a kind word
from Rab's friend. I have read the story twice--once aloud, and once
to myself, very slowly, that I might dwell on the pictures of Rab and
Ailie, and carry them about with me more distinctly. I will not say
any commonplace words of admiration about what has touched me so
deeply; there is no adjective of that sort left undefiled by the
newspapers. The writer of "Rab" _knows_ that I must love the grim old
mastiff with the short tail and the long dewlaps--that I must have
felt present at the scenes of Ailie's last trial.
Thanks for your cheering letter. I will be hopeful--if I can.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th Feb. 1859.]
You have the art of writing just the sort of letters I care
for--sincere letters, like your own talk. We are tolerably settled
now, except that we have only a temporary servant; and I shall not be
quite at ease until I have a trustworthy woman who will manage without
incessant dogging. Our home is very comfortable, with far more of
vulgar indulgences in it than I ever expected to have again; but you
must not imagine it a snug place, just peeping above the holly
bushes. Imagine it rather as a tall cake, with a low garnish of holly
and laurel. As it is, we are very well off, with glorious breezy
walks, and wide horizons, well ventilated rooms, and abundant water.
If I allowed myself to have any longings beyond what is given, they
would be for a nook quite in the country, far away from
palaces--Crystal or otherwise--with an orchard behind me full of old
trees, and rough grass and hedge-row paths among the endless fields
where you meet nobody. We talk of such things sometimes, along with
old age and dim faculties, and a small independence to save us from
writing drivel for dishonest money. In the mean time the business of
life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of
human advancements, which I should be so very glad to believe in
without seeing.
Pretty Arabella Goddard we heard play at Berlin--play the very things
you heard as a _bonne bouche_ at the last--none the less delightful
from being so unlike the piano playing of Liszt and Clara Schumann,
whom we had heard at Weimar--both great, and one the greatest.
Thank you for sending me that authentic word about Miss Nightingale. I
wonder if she would rather rest from her blessed labors, or live to go
on working? Sometimes, when I read of the death of some great,
sensitive human being, I have a triumph in the sense that they are at
rest; and yet, along with that, such deep sadness at the thought that
the rare nature is gone forever into darkness, and we can never know
that our love and reverence can reach him, that I seem to have gone
through a personal sorrow when I shut the book and go to bed. I felt
in that way the other night when I finished the life of Scott aloud
to Mr. Lewes. He had never read the book before, and has been deeply
stirred by the picture of Scott's character, his energy and steady
work, his grand fortitude under calamity, and the spirit of strict
honor to which he sacrificed his declining life. He loves Scott as
well as I do.
We have met a pleasant-faced, bright-glancing man, whom we set down to
be worthy of the name, Richard Congreve. I am curious to see if our
_Ahnung_ will be verified.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 24th Feb. 1859.]
One word of gratitude to _you_ first before I write any other letters.
Heaven and earth bless you for trying to help me. I have been
blasphemous enough sometimes to think that I had never been good and
attractive enough to win any little share of the honest, disinterested
friendship there is in the world: one or two examples of late had
given that impression, and I am prone to rest in the least agreeable
conviction the premisses will allow. I need hardly tell you what I
want, you know it so well: a servant who will cause me the least
possible expenditure of time on household matters. I wish I were not
an anxious, fidgety wretch, and could sit down content with dirt and
disorder. But anything in the shape of an _anxiety_ soon grows into a
monstrous vulture with me, and makes itself more present to me than my
rich sources of happiness--such as too few mortals are blessed with.
You know me. Since I wrote this, I have just had a letter from my
sister Chrissey--ill in bed, consumptive--regretting that she ever
ceased to write to me. It has ploughed up my heart.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 24th Feb. 1859.]
Mrs. Carlyle's ardent letter will interest and amuse you. I reckon it
among my best triumphs that she found herself "in charity with the
whole human race" when she laid the book down. I want the philosopher
himself to read it, because the _pre_-philosophic period--the
childhood and poetry of his life--lay among the furrowed fields and
pious peasantry. If he _could_ be urged to read a novel! I should
like, if possible, to give him the same sort of pleasure he has given
me in the early chapters of "Sartor," where he describes little
Diogenes eating his porridge on the wall in sight of the sunset, and
gaining deep wisdom from the contemplation of the pigs and other
"higher animals" of _Entepfuhl_.
Your critic was _not_ unjustly severe on the "Mirage Philosophy"--and
I confess the "Life of Frederic" was a painful book to me in many
respects; and yet I shrink, perhaps superstitiously, from any written
or spoken word which is as strong as my inward criticism.
I needed your letter very much--for when one lives apart from the
world, with no opportunity of observing the effect of books except
through the newspapers, one is in danger of sinking into the foolish
belief that the day is past for the recognition of genuine, truthful
writing, in spite of recent experience that the newspapers are no
criterion at all. One such opinion as Mr. Caird's outweighs a great
deal of damnatory praise from ignorant journalists.
It is a wretched weakness of my nature to be so strongly affected by
these things; and yet how is it possible to put one's best heart and
soul into a book and be hardened to the result--be indifferent to the
proof whether or not one has really a vocation to speak to one's
fellow-men in that way? Of course one's vanity is at work; but the
main anxiety is something entirely distinct from vanity.
You see I mean you to understand that my feelings are very
respectable, and such as it will be virtuous in you to gratify with
the same zeal as you have always shown. The packet of newspaper
notices is not come yet. I will take care to return it when it _has_
come.
The best news from London hitherto is that Mr. Dallas is an
enthusiastic admirer of Adam. I ought to except Mr. Langford's
reported opinion, which is that of a person who has a voice of his
own, and is not a mere echo.
Otherwise, Edinburgh has sent me much more encouraging breezes than
any that have come from the sweet South. I wonder if all your other
authors are as greedy and exacting as I am. If so, I hope they
appreciate your attention as much. Will you oblige me by writing a
line to Mrs. Carlyle for me. I don't like to leave her second letter
(she wrote a very kind one about the "Clerical Scenes") without any
sort of notice. Will you tell her that the sort of effect she declares
herself to have felt from "Adam Bede" is just what I desire to
produce--gentle thoughts and happy remembrances; and I thank her
heartily for telling me, so warmly and generously, what she has felt.
That is not a pretty message: revise it for me, pray, for I am weary
and ailing, and thinking of a sister who is slowly dying.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 25th Feb. 1859.]
The folio of notices duly came, and are returned by to-day's post. The
friend at my elbow ran through them for me, and read aloud some
specimens to me, some of them ludicrous enough. The _Edinburgh
Courant_ has the ring of sincere enjoyment in its tone; and the writer
there makes himself so amiable to me that I am sorry he has fallen
into the mistake of supposing that Mrs. Poyser's original sayings are
remembered proverbs! I have no stock of proverbs in my memory; and
there is not one thing put into Mrs. Poyser's mouth that is not fresh
from my own mint. Please to correct that mistake if any one makes it
in your hearing.
I have not ventured to look into the folio myself; but I learn that
there are certain threatening marks, in ink, by the side of such stock
sentences as "best novel of the season," or "best novel we have read
for a long time," from such authorities as the _Sun_, or _Morning
Star_, or other orb of the newspaper firmament--as if these sentences
were to be selected for reprint in the form of advertisement. I
shudder at the suggestion. Am I taking a liberty in entreating you to
keep a sharp watch over the advertisements, that no hackneyed puffing
phrase of this kind may be tacked to my book? One sees them garnishing
every other advertisement of trash: surely no being "above the rank of
an idiot" can have his inclination coerced by them? and it would gall
me, as much as any trifle could, to see my book recommended by an
authority who doesn't know how to write decent English. I believe that
your taste and judgment will concur with mine in the conviction that
no quotations of this vulgar kind can do credit to a book; and that
unless something looking like the real opinion of a tolerably educated
writer, in a respectable journal, can be given, it would be better to
abstain from "opinions of the press" altogether. I shall be grateful
to you if you will save me from the results of any agency but your
own--or at least of any agency that is not under your rigid criticism
in this matter.
Pardon me if I am overstepping the author's limits in this expression
of my feelings. I confide in your ready comprehension of the
irritable class you have to deal with.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Feb. 26._--Laudatory reviews of "Adam Bede" in the _Athenæum_,
_Saturday_, and _Literary Gazette_. The _Saturday_ criticism is
characteristic: Dinah is not mentioned!
The other day I received the following letter, which I copy, because I
have sent the original away:
[Sidenote: Letter from E. Hall to George Eliot.]
"To the Author of 'Adam Bede,'
"CHESTER ROAD, SUNDERLAND.
"DEAR SIR,--I got the other day a hasty read of your 'Scenes
of Clerical Life,' and since that a glance at your 'Adam
Bede,' and was delighted more than I can express; but being a
poor man, and having enough to do to make 'ends meet,' I am
unable to get a read of your inimitable books.
"Forgive, dear sir, my boldness in asking you to give us a
cheap edition. You would confer on us a great boon. I can get
plenty of trash for a few pence, but I am sick of it. I felt
so different when I shut your books, even though it was but a
kind of 'hop-skip-and-jump' read.
"I feel so strongly in this matter that I am determined to
risk being thought rude and officious, and write to you.
"Many of my working brethren feel as I do, and I express
their wish as well as my own. Again asking your forgiveness
for intruding myself upon you, I remain, with profoundest
respect, yours, etc.,
"E. HALL."
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Feb. 1859.]
I have written to Chrissey, and shall hear from her again. I think her
writing was the result of long, quiet thought--the slow return of a
naturally just and affectionate mind to the position from which it had
been thrust by external influence. She says: "My object in writing to
you is to tell you how very sorry I have been that I ceased to write,
and neglected one who, under all circumstances, was kind to me and
mine. _Pray believe_ me when I say it will be the greatest comfort I
can receive to know that you are _well_ and _happy_. Will you write
once more?" etc. I wrote immediately, and I desire to avoid any word
of reference to anything with which she associates the idea of
alienation. The past is abolished from my mind. I only want her to
feel that I love her and care for her. The servant trouble seems less
mountainous to me than it did the other day. I was suffering
physically from unusual worrit and muscular exertion in arranging the
house, and so was in a ridiculously desponding state. I have written
no end of letters in answer to servants' advertisements, and we have
put our own advertisement in the _Times_--all which amount of force,
if we were not philosophers and therefore believers in the
conservation of force, we should declare to be lost. It is so pleasant
to know these high doctrines--they help one so much. Mr. and Mrs.
Richard Congreve have called on us. We shall return the call as soon
as we can.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_March 8._--Letter from Blackwood this morning saying that "'Bedesman'
has turned the corner and is coming in a winner." Mudie has sent for
200 additional copies (making 700), and Mr. Langford says the West End
libraries keep sending for more.
_March 14._--My dear sister wrote to me about three weeks ago, saying
she regretted that she had ever ceased writing to me, and that she has
been in a consumption for the last eighteen months. To-day I have a
letter from my niece Emily, telling me her mother had been taken
worse, and cannot live many days.
_March 14._--Major Blackwood writes to say "Mudie has just made up his
number of 'Adam Bede' to 1000. Simpkins have sold their subscribed
number, and have had 12 to-day. Every one is talking of the book."
_March 15._--Chrissey died this morning at a quarter to 5.
_March 16._--Blackwood writes to say I am "a popular author as well as
a great author." They printed 2090 of "Adam Bede," and have disposed
of more than 1800, so that they are thinking about a second edition. A
very feeling letter from Froude this morning. I happened this morning
to be reading the 30th Ode, B. III. of Horace--"Non omnis moriar."
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 17th March, 1859.]
The news you have sent me is worth paying a great deal of pain for,
past and future. It comes rather strangely to me, who live in such
unconsciousness of what is going on in the world. I am like a deaf
person, to whom some one has just shouted that the company round him
have been paying him compliments for the last half hour. Let the best
come, you will still be the person outside my own home who _first_
gladdened me about "Adam Bede;" and my success will always please me
the better because you will share the pleasure.
Don't think I mean to worry you with many such requests--but will you
copy for me the enclosed short note to Froude? I know you will, so I
say "thank you."
[Sidenote: Letter to J. A. Froude from George Eliot.]
DEAR SIR,--My excellent friend and publisher, Mr. Blackwood,
lends me his pen to thank you for your letter, and for his
sake I shall be brief.
Your letter has done me real good--the same sort of good as
one has sometimes felt from a silent pressure of the hand and
a grave look in the midst of smiling congratulations.
I have nothing else I care to tell you that you will not have
found out through my books, except this one thing: that, so
far as I am aware, you are only the _second_ person who has
shared my own satisfaction in Janet. I think she is the least
popular of my characters. You will judge from that, that it
was worth your while to tell me what you felt about her.
I wish I could help you with words of equal value; but, after
all, am I not helping you by saying that it was well and
generously done of you to write to me?--Ever faithfully
yours,
GEORGE ELIOT.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st March, 1859.]
It was worth your while to write me those feeling words, for they are
the sort of things that I keep in my memory and feel the influence of
a long, long while. Chrissey's death has taken from the possibility of
many things towards which I looked with some hope and yearning in the
future. I had a very special feeling towards her--stronger than any
third person would think likely.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_March 24._--Mr. Herbert Spencer brought us word that "Adam Bede" had
been quoted by Mr. Charles Buxton in the House of Commons: "As the
farmer's wife says in 'Adam Bede,' 'It wants to be hatched over again
and hatched different.'"
_March 26._--George went into town to-day and brought me home a budget
of good news that compensated for the pain I had felt in the coldness
of an old friend. Mr. Langford says that Mudie "thinks he must have
another hundred or two of 'Adam'--has read the book himself, and is
delighted with it." Charles Reade says it is "the finest thing since
Shakespeare"--placed his finger on Lisbeth's account of her coming
home with her husband from their marriage--praises enthusiastically
the style--the way in which the author handles the Saxon language.
Shirley Brooks also delighted. John Murray says there has never been
such a book. Mr. Langford says there must be a second edition, in 3
vols., and they will print 500: whether Mudie takes more or not, they
will have sold all by the end of a month. Lucas delighted with the
book, and will review it in the _Times_ the first opportunity.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th March, 1859.]
I should like you to convey my gratitude to your reviewer. I see well
he is a man whose experience and study enable him to relish parts of
my book, which I should despair of seeing recognized by critics in
London back drawing-rooms. He has gratified me keenly by laying his
finger on passages which I wrote either with strong feeling or from
intimate knowledge, but which I had prepared myself to find entirely
passed over by reviewers. Surely I am not wrong in supposing him to be
a clergyman? There was one exemplary lady Mr. Langford spoke of, who,
after reading "Adam," came the next day and bought a copy both of that
and the "Clerical Scenes." I wish there may be three hundred matrons
as good as she! It is a disappointment to me to find that "Adam" has
given no impulse to the "Scenes," for I had sordid desires for money
from a second edition, and had dreamed of its coming speedily.
About my new story, which will be a novel as long as "Adam Bede," and
a sort of companion picture of provincial life, we must talk when I
have the pleasure of seeing you. It will be a work which will require
time and labor.
Do write me good news as often as you can. I owe thanks to Major
Blackwood for a very charming letter.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 10th April, 1859.]
The other day I received a letter from an old friend in Warwickshire,
containing some striking information about the author of "Adam Bede."
I extract the passage for your amusement:
"I want to ask you if you have read 'Adam Bede,' or the 'Scenes of
Clerical Life,' and whether you know that the author is Mr.
Liggins?... A deputation of dissenting parsons went over _to ask him
to write for the 'Eclectic,'_ and they found him washing his
slop-basin at a pump. He has no servant, and does everything for
himself; but one of the said parsons said that he inspired them with a
reverence that would have made any impertinent question impossible.
The son of a baker, of no mark at all in his town, so that it is
possible you may not have heard of him. You know he calls himself
'George Eliot.' It sounds strange to hear the _Westminster_ doubting
whether he is a woman, when _here he is so well known_. But I am glad
it has mentioned him. _They say he gets no profit out of 'Adam Bede,'
and gives it freely to Blackwood, which is a shame._ We have not read
him yet, but the extracts are irresistible."
Conceive the real George Eliot's feelings, conscious of being a base
worldling--not washing his own slop-basin, and _not_ giving away his
MS.! not even intending to do so, in spite of the reverence such a
course might inspire. I hope you and Major Blackwood will enjoy the
myth.
Mr. Langford sent me a letter the other day from Miss Winkworth, a
grave lady, who says she never reads novels, except a few of the most
famous, but that she has read "Adam" three times running. One likes to
know such things--they show that the book tells on people's hearts,
and may be a real instrument of culture. I sing my Magnificat in a
quiet way, and have a great deal of deep, silent joy; but few authors,
I suppose, who have had a real success, have known less of the flush
and the sensations of triumph that are talked of as the accompaniments
of success. I think I should soon begin to believe that _Liggins_
wrote my books--it is so difficult to believe what the world does
_not_ believe, so easy to believe what the world keeps repeating.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th April, 1859.]
The very day you wrote we were driving in an open carriage from Ryde
to the Sandrock Hotel, taking in a month's delight in the space of
five hours. Such skies--such songs of larks--such beds of primroses!
_I_ am quite well now--set up by iron and quinine, and polished off by
the sea-breezes. I have lost my _young_ dislike to the spring, and am
as glad of it as the birds and plants are. Mr. Lewes has read "Adam
Bede," and is as dithyrambic about it as others appear to be, so _I_
must refresh my soul with it now as well as with the spring-tide. Mr.
Liggins I remember as a vision of my childhood--a tall, black-coated,
genteel young clergyman-in-embryo.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th April, 1859.]
Mr. Lewes is "making himself into four" in writing answers to
advertisements and other exertions which he generously takes on
himself to save me. A model husband!
We both like your literal title, "Thoughts in Aid of Faith," very
much, and hope to see a little book under that title before the year
is out--a book as thorough and effective in its way as "Christianity
and Infidelity."
_Re_writing is an excellent process, frequently both for the book and
its author; and to prevent you from grudging the toil, I will tell you
that so old a writer as Mr. Lewes now _re_writes everything of
_importance_, though in all the earlier years of his authorship he
would never take that trouble.
We are so happy in the neighborhood of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Congreve.
She is a sweet, intelligent, gentle woman. I already love her: and his
fine, beaming face does me good, like a glimpse of an Olympian.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_April 17._--I have left off recording the history of "Adam Bede" and
the pleasant letters and words that came to me--the success has been
so triumphantly beyond anything I had dreamed of that it would be
tiresome to put down particulars. Four hundred of the second edition
(of 750) sold in the first week, and twenty besides ordered when there
was not a copy left in the London house. This morning Hachette has
sent to ask my terms for the liberty of translation into French. There
was a review in the _Times_ last week, which will naturally give a new
stimulus to the sale; and yesterday I sent a letter to the _Times_
denying that Mr. Liggins is the author, as the world and Mr. Anders
had settled it. But I must trust to the letters I have received and
preserved for giving me the history of the book if I should live long
enough to forget details.
Shall I ever write another book as true as "Adam Bede?" The weight of
the future presses on me, and makes itself felt even more than the
deep satisfaction of the past and present.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 20th April, 1859.]
This myth about Liggins is getting serious, and must be put a stop to.
We are bound not to allow sums of money to be raised on a false
supposition of this kind. Don't you think it would be well for _you_
to write a letter to the _Times_, to the effect that, as you find in
some stupid quarters my letter has not been received as a _bonâ-fide_
denial, you declare Mr. Liggins not to be the author of "Clerical
Scenes" and "Adam Bede;" further, that any future applications to you
concerning George Eliot will not be answered, since that writer is not
in need of public benevolence. Such a letter might save us from future
annoyance and trouble, for I am rather doubtful about Mr. Liggins's
character. The last report I heard of him was that he spent his time
in smoking and drinking. I don't know whether that is one of the data
for the Warwickshire logicians who have decided him to be the author
of my books.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_April 29._--To-day Blackwood sent me a letter from Bulwer, which I
copy because I have to send back the original, and I like to keep in
mind the generous praise of one author for another.
[Sidenote: Letter from E. B. Lytton to John Blackwood.]
"MALVERN, _April 24, 1859_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I ought long since to have thanked you for
'Adam Bede.' But I never had a moment to look at it till
arriving here, and ordered by the doctors to abstain from all
'work.'
"I owe the author much gratitude for some very pleasing
hours. The book indeed is worthy of great admiration. There
are touches of beauty in the conception of human character
that are exquisite, and much wit and much poetry embedded in
the 'dialect,' which nevertheless the author over-uses.
"The style is remarkably good whenever it is English and not
provincial--racy, original, and nervous.
"I congratulate you on having found an author of such
promise, and published one of the very ablest works of
fiction I have read for years.--
Yours truly,
E. B. L.
"I am better than I was, but thoroughly done up."
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_April 29._--Finished a story--"The Lifted Veil"--which I began one
morning at Richmond as a resource when my head was too stupid for more
important work.
Resumed my new novel, of which I am going to rewrite the two first
chapters. I shall call it provisionally "The Tullivers," for the sake
of a title _quelconque_, or perhaps "St. Ogg's on the Floss."
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 29th April, 1859.]
Thank you for sending me Sir Edward Lytton's letter, which has given
me real pleasure. The praise is doubly valuable to me for the sake of
the generous feeling that prompted it. I think you judged rightly
about writing to the _Times_. I would abstain from the remotest
appearance of a "dodge." I am anxious to know of any _positive_ rumors
that may get abroad; for while I would willingly, if it were
possible--which it clearly is not--retain my _incognito_ as long as I
live, I can suffer no one to bear my arms on his shield.
There is _one_ alteration, or rather an addition--merely of a
sentence--that I wish to make in the 12_s._ edition of "Adam Bede."
It is a sentence in the chapter where Adam is making the coffin at
night, and hears the willow wand. Some readers seem not to have
understood what I meant--namely, that it was in Adam's peasant blood
and nurture to believe in this, and that he narrated it with awed
belief to his dying day. That is not a fancy of my own brain, but a
matter of observation, and is, in my mind, an important feature in
Adam's character. There is nothing else I wish to touch. I will send
you the sentence some day soon, with the page where it is to be
inserted.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_May 3._--I had a letter from Mrs. Richard Congreve, telling me of her
safe arrival, with her husband and sister,[7] at Dieppe. This new
friend, whom I have gained by coming to Wandsworth, is the chief charm
of the place to me. Her friendship has the same date as the success of
"Adam Bede"--two good things in my lot that ought to have made me less
sad than I have been in this house.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 4th May, 1859.]
Your letter came yesterday at tea-time, and made the evening happier
than usual. We had thought of you not a little as we listened to the
howling winds, especially as the terrible wrecks off the Irish coast
had filled our imaginations disagreeably. _Now_ I can make a charming
picture of you all on the beach, except that I am obliged to fancy
_your_ face looking still too languid after all your exertion and
sleeplessness. I remember the said face with peculiar vividness, which
is very pleasant to me. "Rough" has been the daily companion of our
walks, and wins on our affections, as other fellow mortals do, by a
mixture of weaknesses and virtues--the weaknesses consisting chiefly
in a tendency to become invisible every ten minutes, and in a
forgetfulness of reproof, which, I fear, is the usual accompaniment of
meekness under it. All this is good discipline for us selfish
solitaries, who have been used to stroll along, thinking of nothing
but ourselves.
We walked through your garden to-day, and I gathered a bit of your
sweetbrier, of which I am at this moment enjoying the scent as it
stands on my desk. I am enjoying, too, another sort of sweetness,
which I also owe to you--of that subtle, haunting kind which is most
like the scent of my favorite plants--the belief that you do really
care for me across the seas there, and will associate me continually
with your home. Faith is not easy to me, nevertheless I believe
everything you say and write.
Write to me as often as you can--that is, as often as you feel any
prompting to do so. You were a dear presence to me, and will be a
precious thought to me all through your absence.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_May 4._--To-day came a letter from Barbara Bodichon, full of joy in
my success, in the certainty that "Adam Bede" was mine, though she had
not read more than extracts in reviews. This is the first delight in
the book as _mine_, over and above the fact that the book is good.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th May, 1859.]
God bless you, dearest Barbara, for your love and sympathy. You are
the first friend who has given any symptom of knowing me--the first
heart that has recognized me in a book which has come from my heart of
hearts. But keep the secret solemnly till I give you leave to tell it;
and give way to no impulses of triumphant affection. You have sense
enough to know how important the _incognito_ has been, and we are
anxious to keep it up a few months longer. Curiously enough my old
Coventry friends, who have certainly read the _Westminster_ and the
_Times_, and have probably by this time read the book itself, have
given no sign of recognition. But a certain Mr. Liggins, whom rumor
has fixed on as the author of my books, and whom _they_ have believed
in, has probably screened me from their vision. I am a very blessed
woman, am I not, to have all this reason for being glad that I have
lived? I have had no time of exultation; on the contrary, these last
months have been sadder than usual to me, and I have thought more of
the future and the much work that remains to be done in life than of
anything that has been achieved. But I think your letter to-day gave
me more joy--more heart-glow--than all the letters or reviews or other
testimonies of success that have come to me since the evenings when I
read aloud my manuscript to my dear, dear husband, and he laughed and
cried alternately, and then rushed to me to kiss me. He is the prime
blessing that has made all the rest possible to me, giving me a
response to everything I have written--a response that I could confide
in, as a proof that I had not mistaken my work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Major Blackwood, 6th May, 1859.]
You must not think me too soft-hearted when I tell you that it would
make me uneasy to leave Mr. Anders without an assurance that his
apology is accepted. "Who with repentance is not satisfied," etc.;
that doctrine is bad for the sinning, but good for those sinned
against. Will you oblige me by allowing a clerk to write something to
this effect in the name of the firm?--"We are requested by George
Eliot to state, in reply to your letter of the 16th, that he accepts
your assurance that the publication of your letter to the reviewer of
'Adam Bede' in the _Times_ was unintentional on your part."
Yes, I _am_ assured now that "Adam Bede" was worth writing--worth
living through long years to write. But now it seems impossible to me
that I shall ever write anything so good and true again. I have
arrived at faith in the past, but not at faith in the future.
A friend in Algiers[8] has found me out--"will go to the stake on the
assertion that I wrote 'Adam Bede'"--simply on the evidence of a few
extracts. So far as I know, this is the first case of detection on
purely internal evidence. But the secret is safe in that quarter.
I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again during some visit
that you will pay to town before very long. It would do me good to
have you shake me by the hand as the ascertained George Eliot.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_May 9._--We had a delicious drive to Dulwich, and back by Sydenham.
We stayed an hour in the gallery at Dulwich, and I satisfied myself
that the St. Sebastian is no exception to the usual "petty prettiness"
of Guido's conceptions. The Cuyp glowing in the evening sun, the
Spanish beggar boys of Murillo, and Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs.
Sheridan and her sister, are the gems of the gallery. But better than
the pictures was the fresh greenth of the spring--the chestnuts just
on the verge of their flowering beauty, the bright leaves of the
limes, the rich yellow-brown of the oaks, the meadows full of
buttercups. We saw for the first time Clapham Common, Streatham
Common, and Tooting Common--the two last like parks rather than
commons.
_May 19._--A letter from Blackwood, in which he proposes to give me
another £400 at the end of the year, making in all £1200, as an
acknowledgment of "Adam Bede's" success.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 19th May, 1859.]
Mrs. Congreve is a sweet woman, and I feel that I have acquired a
friend in her--after recently declaring that we would never have any
_friends_ again, only _acquaintances_.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 21st May, 1859.]
Thank you: first, for acting with that fine integrity which makes part
of my faith in you; secondly, for the material sign of that integrity.
I don't know which of those two things I care for most--that people
should act nobly towards me, or that I should get honest money. I
certainly care a great deal for the money, as I suppose all anxious
minds do that love independence and have been brought up to think debt
and begging the two deepest dishonors short of crime.
I look forward with quite eager expectation to seeing you--we have so
much to say. Pray give us the first day at your command. The
excursion, as you may imagine, is not ardently longed for in this
weather, but when "merry May" is quite gone, we may surely hope for
some sunshine; and then I have a pet project of rambling along by the
banks of a river, not without artistic as well as hygienic purposes.
Pray bring me all the Liggins Correspondence. I have an amusing letter
or two to show you--one from a gentleman who has sent me his works;
happily the only instance of the kind. For, as Charles Lamb complains,
it is always the people whose books _don't_ sell who are anxious to
send them to one, with their "foolish autographs" inside.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 21st May, 1859.]
We don't think of going to the festival, not for want of power to
enjoy Handel--there are few things that I care for more in the way of
music than his choruses, performed by a grand orchestra--but because
we are neither of us fit to encounter the physical exertion and
inconveniences. It is a cruel thing the difficulty and dearness of
getting any music in England--concerted music, which is the only music
I care for much now. At Dresden we could have thoroughly enjoyable
instrumental music every evening for two-pence; and I owed so many
thoughts and inspirations of feeling to that stimulus.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_May 27._--Blackwood came to dine with us on his arrival in London,
and we had much talk. A day or two before he had sent me a letter from
Professor Aytoun, saying that he had neglected his work to read the
first volume of "Adam Bede;" and he actually sent the other two
volumes out of the house to save himself from temptation. Blackwood
brought with him a correspondence he has had with various people about
Liggins, beginning with Mr. Bracebridge, who will have it that Liggins
is the author of "Adam Bede" in spite of all denials.
_June 5._--Blackwood came, and we concocted two letters to send to the
_Times_, in order to put a stop to the Liggins affair.
[Sidenote: Letter to Major Blackwood, 6th June, 1859.]
The "Liggins business" _does_ annoy me, because it subjects you and
Mr. John Blackwood to the reception of insulting letters, and the
trouble of writing contradictions. Otherwise, the whole affair is
really a subject for a Molière comedy--"The Wise Men of Warwickshire,"
who might supersede "The Wise Men of Gotham."
The letter you sent me was a very pleasant one from Mrs. Gaskell,
saying that since she came up to town she has had the compliment paid
her of being suspected to have written "Adam Bede." "I have hitherto
denied it; but really, I think, that as you want to keep your real
name a secret, it would be very pleasant for me to blush acquiescence.
Will you give me leave?"
I hope the inaccuracy with which she writes my name is not
characteristic of a genius for fiction, though I once heard a German
account for the bad spelling in Goethe's early letters by saying that
it was "genial"--their word for whatever is characteristic of genius.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 8th June, 1859.]
I was glad you wrote to me from Avignon of all the places you have
visited, because Avignon is one of my most vivid remembrances from out
the dimness of ten years ago. Lucerne would be a strange region to me
but for Calame's pictures. Through them I have a vision of it, but of
course when I see it 'twill be another Luzern. Mr. Lewes obstinately
nurses the project of carrying me thither with him, and depositing me
within reach of you while he goes to Hofwyl. But at present I say
"No." We have been waiting and waiting for the skies to let us take a
few days' ramble by the river, but now I fear we must give it up till
all the freshness of young summer is gone. July and August are the two
months I care least about for leafy scenery.
However, we are kept at home this month partly by pleasures: the
Handel Festival, for which we have indulged ourselves with tickets,
and the sight of old friends--Mrs. Bodichon among the rest, and for
her we hope to use your kind loan of a bedroom. We are both of us in
much better condition than when you said good-bye to us, and I have
many other sources of gladness just now--so I mean to make myself
disagreeable no longer by caring about petty troubles. If one could
but order cheerfulness from the druggist's! or even a few doses of
coldness and distrust, to prevent one from foolish confidence in one's
fellow-mortals!
I want to get rid of this house--cut cables and drift about. I dislike
Wandsworth, and should think with unmitigated regret of our coming
here if it were not for you. But you are worth paying a price for.
There! I have written about nothing but ourselves this time! _You_ do
the same, and then I think I will promise ... not to write again, but
to ask you to go on writing to me without an answer.
How cool and idle you are this morning! I am warm and busy, but
always, at all temperatures, yours affectionately.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_June 20._--We went to the Crystal Palace to hear the "Messiah," and
dined afterwards with the Brays and Sara Hennell. I told them I was
the author of "Adam Bede" and "Clerical Scenes," and they seemed
overwhelmed with surprise. This experience has enlightened me a good
deal as to the ignorance in which we all live of each other.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 24th June, 1859.]
There is always an after sadness belonging to brief and interrupted
intercourse between friends--the sadness of feeling that the
blundering efforts we have made towards mutual understanding have only
made a new veil between us--still more, the sadness of feeling that
some pain may have been given which separation makes a permanent
memory. We are quite unable to represent ourselves truly. Why should
we complain that our friends see a false image? I say this because I
am feeling painfully this morning that, instead of helping you when
you brought before me a matter so deeply interesting to you, I have
only blundered, and that I have blundered, as most of us do, from too
much egoism and too little sympathy. If my mind had been more open to
receive impressions, instead of being in over-haste to give them, I
should more readily have seen what your object was in giving me that
portion of your MS., and we might have gone through the necessary part
of it on Tuesday. It seems no use to write this now, and yet I can't
help wanting to assure you that if I am too imperfect to do and feel
the right thing at the right moment, I am not without the slower
sympathy that becomes all the stronger from a sense of previous
mistake.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 27th June, 1859.]
I am told peremptorily that I am to go to Switzerland next month, but
now I have read your letter, I can't help thinking more of your
illness than of the pleasure in prospect--according to my foolish
nature, which is always prone to live in past pain.
We shall not arrive at Lucerne till the 12th, at the earliest, I
imagine, so I hope we are secured from the danger of alighting
precisely on the days of your absence. That would be cruel, for I
shall only be left at Lucerne for three days. You must positively have
nothing more interesting to do than to talk to me and let me look at
you. Tell your sister I shall be all ears and eyes and no tongue, so
she will find me the most _amiable_ of conversers.
I think it must be that the sunshine makes your absence more
conspicuous, for this place certainly becomes drearier to me as the
summer advances. The dusty roads are all longer, and the shade is
farther off. No more now about anything--except that Mr. Lewes
commands me to say he has just read the "Roman Empire of the West"
with much interest, and is going now to flesh his teeth in the
"Politique" (Auguste Comte's).
[Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, Monday evening, end of June, 1859.]
"DEAR FRIENDS,--All three of you--thanks for your packet of
heartfelt kindness. That is the best of your kindness--there
is no sham in it. It was inevitable to me to have that
outburst when I saw you for a little while after the long
silence, and felt that I must tell you then or be
forestalled, and leave you to gather the truth amidst an
inextricable mixture of falsehood. But I feel that the
influence of talking about my books, even to you and Mrs.
Bodichon, has been so bad to me that I should like to be able
to keep silence concerning them for evermore. If people were
to buzz round me with their remarks, or compliments, I should
lose the repose of mind and truthfulness of production
without which no good, healthy books can be written. Talking
about my books, I find, has much the same malign effect on me
as talking of my feelings or my religion.
"I should think Sara's version of my brother's words
concerning 'Adam Bede' is the correct one--_'that there are
things in it about my father'_ (_i.e._, being interpreted,
things my father told us about his early life), not
'portrait' of my father. There is not a single portrait in
the book, nor will there be in any future book of mine. There
are portraits in the 'Clerical Scenes;' but that was my first
bit of art, and my hand was not well in. I did not know so
well how to manipulate my materials. As soon as the Liggins
falsehood is annihilated, of course there will be twenty new
ones in its place; and one of the first will be that I was
not the sole author. The only safe thing for my mind's
health is to shut my ears and go on with my work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles Bray, 5th July, 1859.]
"Thanks for your letters. They have given me one
pleasure--that of knowing that Mr. Liggins has not been
_greatly_ culpable--though Mr. Bracebridge's statement, that
only 'some small sums' have been collected, does not accord
with what has been written to Mr. Blackwood from other
counties. But 'O, I am sick!' Take no more trouble about
me--and let every one believe--as they will, in spite of your
kind efforts--_what they like to believe_. I can't tell you
how much melancholy it causes me that people are, for the
most part, so incapable of comprehending the state of mind
which cares for that which is essentially human in all forms
of belief, and desires to exhibit it under all forms with
loving truthfulness. Freethinkers are scarcely wider than the
orthodox in this matter--they all want to see themselves and
their own opinions held up as the true and the lovely. On the
same ground that an idle woman, with flirtations and
flounces, likes to read a French novel, because she can
imagine herself the heroine, grave people, with opinions,
like the most admirable character in a novel to be their
mouth-piece. If art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it
does nothing morally. I have had heart-cutting experience
that _opinions_ are a poor cement between human souls: and
the only effect I ardently long to produce by my writings is,
that those who read them should be better able to _imagine_
and to _feel_ the pains and the joys of those who differ from
themselves in everything but the broad fact of being
struggling, erring, human creatures.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Congreve, 6th July, 1859.]
"We shall not start till Saturday, and shall not reach
Lucerne till the _evening_ of the 11th. There is a project of
our returning through Holland, but the attractions of Lucerne
are sure to keep us there as long as possible. We have given
up Zurich in spite of Moleschott and science. The other day I
said to Mr. Lewes, 'Every now and then it comes across me,
like the recollection of some precious little store laid by,
that there is Mrs. Congreve in the world.' That is how people
talk of you in your absence."
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_July 9._--We started for Switzerland. Spent a delightful day in
Paris. To the Louvre first, where we looked chiefly at the Marriage at
Cana, by Paul Veronese. This picture, the greatest I have seen of his,
converted me to high admiration of him.
_July 12._--Arrived at Lucerne in the evening. Glad to make a home at
the charming Schweizerhof on the banks of the Lake. G. went to call on
the Congreves, and in the afternoon Mrs. Congreve came to chat with
us. In the evening we had a boat on the Lake.
_July 13._--G. set off for Hofwyl at five o'clock, and the three next
days were passed by me in quiet chat with the Congreves and quiet
resting on my own sofa.
_July 19._--Spent the morning in Bâle, chiefly under the
chestnut-trees, near the Cathedral, I reading aloud Flourens's sketch
of Cuvier's labors. In the afternoon to Paris.
_July 21._--Holly Lodge, Wandsworth. Found a charming letter from
Dickens, and pleasant letters from Blackwood; nothing to annoy us.
Before we set off we had heard the excellent news that the fourth
edition of "Adam Bede" (5000) had all been sold in a fortnight. The
fifth edition appeared last week.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 23d July, 1859.]
We reached here last evening, and though I was a good deal overdone in
getting to Lucerne, I have borne the equally rapid journey back
without headache--a proof that I am strengthened. I had three quiet
days of talk with the Congreves at Lucerne, while Mr. Lewes went to
Hofwyl. Mrs. Congreve is one of those women of whom there are
few--rich in intelligence, without pretension, and quivering with
sensibility, yet calm and quiet in her manners.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 23d July, 1859.]
I thank you for your offer about the money for "Adam," but I have
intentions of stern thrift, and mean to want as little as possible.
When "Maggie" is done, and I have a month or two of leisure, I should
like to transfer our present house, into which we were driven by haste
and economy, to some one who likes houses full of eyes all round him.
I long for a house with some shade and grass close round it--I don't
care how rough--and the sight of Swiss houses has heightened my
longing. But at present I say Avaunt to all desires.
While I think of it, let me beg of you to mention to the
superintendent of your printing-office, that in case of another
reprint of "Adam," I beg the word "sperrit" (for "spirit") may be
particularly attended to. Adam never said "speerit," as he is made to
do in the cheaper edition, at least in one place--his speech at the
birthday dinner. This is a small matter, but it is a point I care
about.
Words fail me about the not impossible Pug, for some compunction at
having mentioned my unreasonable wish will mingle itself paradoxically
with the hope that it may be fulfilled.
I hope we shall have other interviews to remember this time next year,
and that you will find me without aggravated symptoms of the "author's
malady"--a determination of talk to my own books, which I was
alarmingly conscious of when you and the Major were here. After all, I
fear authors must submit to be something of monsters--not quite
simple, healthy human beings; but I will keep my monstrosity within
bounds if possible.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 26th July, 1859.]
The things you tell me are just such as I need to know--I mean about
the help my book is to the people who read it. The weight of my future
life--the self-questioning whether my nature will be able to meet the
heavy demands upon it, both of personal duty and intellectual
production, presses upon me almost continually in a way that prevents
me even from tasting the quiet joy I might have in the _work done_.
Buoyancy and exultation, I fancy, are out of the question when one has
lived so long as I have. But I am the better for every word of
encouragement, and am helped over many days by such a note as yours. I
often think of my dreams when I was four or five and twenty. I thought
then how happy fame would make me! I feel no regret that the fame, as
such, brings no pleasure; but it _is_ a grief to me that I do not
constantly feel strong in thankfulness that my past life has
vindicated its uses and given me reason for gladness that such an
unpromising woman-child was born into the world. I ought not to care
about small annoyances, and it is chiefly egoism that makes them
annoyances. I had quite an _enthusiastic_ letter from Herbert Spencer
the other day about "Adam Bede." He says he feels the better for
reading it--really words to be treasured up. I can't bear the idea of
appearing further in the papers. And there is no one now except
people who would not be convinced, though one rose from the dead, to
whom any statement _apropos_ of Liggins would be otherwise than
superfluous. I dare say some "investigator" of the Bracebridge order
will arise after I am dead and revive the story--and perhaps posterity
will believe in Liggins. Why not? A man a little while ago wrote a
pamphlet to prove that the Waverley novels were chiefly written, not
by Walter Scott, but by Thomas Scott and his wife Elizabeth. The main
evidence being that several people thought Thomas cleverer than
Walter, and that in the list of the Canadian regiment of Scots to
which Thomas belonged many of the _names_ of the Waverley novels
occurred--among the rest _Monk_--and in "Woodstock" there is a
_General Monk_! The writer expected to get a great reputation by his
pamphlet, and I think it might have suggested to Mr. B. his style of
critical and historical inference. I must tell you, _in confidence_,
that Dickens has written to me the noblest, most touching words about
"Adam"--not hyperbolical compliments, but expressions of deep feeling.
He says the reading made an epoch in his life.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 30th July, 1859.]
Pug is come! come to fill up the void left by false and narrow-hearted
friends. I see already that he is without envy, hatred, or
malice--that he will betray no secrets, and feel neither pain at my
success nor pleasure in my chagrin. I hope the photograph does justice
to his physiognomy. It is expressive: full of gentleness and
affection, and radiant with intelligence when there is a savory morsel
in question--a hopeful indication of his mental capacity. I distrust
all intellectual pretension that announces itself by obtuseness of
palate!
I wish you could see him in his best _pose_--when I have arrested him
in a violent career of carpet-scratching, and he looks at me with
fore-legs very wide apart, trying to penetrate the deep mystery of
this arbitrary, not to say capricious, prohibition. He is snoring by
my side at this moment, with a serene promise of remaining quiet for
any length of time; he couldn't behave better if he had been expressly
educated for me. I am too lazy a lover of dogs and all earthly things
to like them when they give me much trouble, preferring to describe
the pleasure other people have in taking trouble.
Alas! the shadow that tracks all earthly good--the possibility of
loss. One may lose one's faculties, which will not always fetch a high
price; how much more a _Pug_ worth unmentionable sums--a PUG which
some generous-hearted personage in some other corner of Great Britain
than Edinburgh may even now be sending emissaries after, being bent on
paying the kindest, most delicate attention to a sensitive mortal not
sufficiently reticent of wishes.
All I can say of that generous-hearted personage No. 2 is, that I wish
he may get--somebody else's Pug, not mine. And all I will say of the
sensitive, insufficiently reticent mortal No. 2 is, that I hope he may
be as pleased and as grateful as George Eliot.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 30th July, 1859.]
I look forward to playing duets with you as one of my future
pleasures; and if I am able to go on working, I hope we shall afford
to have a fine grand-piano. I have none of Mozart's Symphonies, so
that you can be guided in your choice of them entirely by your own
taste. I know Beethoven's Sonata in E flat well; it is a very charming
one, and I shall like to hear you play it. That is one of my
luxuries--to sit still and hear some one playing my favorite music;
so that you may able sure you will find willing ears to listen to the
fruits of your industrious practising.
There are ladies in the world, not a few, who play the violin, and I
wish I were one of them, for then we could play together sonatas for
the piano and violin, which make a charming combination. The violin
gives that _keen edge_ of tone which the piano wants.
I like to know that you were gratified by getting a watch so much
sooner than you expected; and it was the greater satisfaction to me to
send it you, because you had earned it by making good use of these
precious years at Hofwyl. It is a great comfort to your father and me
to think of that, for we, with our old grave heads, can't help talking
very often of the need our boys will have for all sorts of good
qualities and habits in making their way through this difficult life.
It is a world, you perceive, in which cross-bows _will_ be _launisch_
sometimes, and frustrate the skill of excellent marksmen--how much
more of lazy bunglers?
The first volume of the "Physiology of Common Life" is just published,
and it is a great pleasure to see so much of your father's hard work
successfully finished. He has been giving a great deal of labor to the
numbers on the physiology of the nervous system, which are to appear
in the course of two or three months, and he has enjoyed the labor in
spite of the drawback of imperfect health, which obliges him very
often to leave the desk with a hot and aching head. It is quite my
worst trouble that he has so much of this discomfort to bear; and we
must all try and make everything else as pleasant to him as we can, to
make up for it.
Tell Thornton he shall have the book he asks for, if possible--I mean
the book of moths and butterflies; and tell Bertie I expect to hear
about the wonderful things he has done with his pocket-knife. Tell him
he is equipped well enough to become king of a desert island with that
pocket-knife of his; and if, as I think I remember, it has a corkscrew
attached, he would certainly have more implements than he would need
in that romantic position.
We shall hope to hear a great deal of your journey, with all its haps
and mishaps. The mishaps are just as pleasant as the haps when they
are past--that is one comfort for tormented travellers.
You are an excellent correspondent, so I do not fear you will flag in
writing to me; and remember, you are always giving a pleasure when you
write to me.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Aug. 11._--Received a letter from an American--Mr. J. C.
Evans--asking me to write a story for an American periodical. Answered
that I could not write one for less than £1000, since, in order to do
it, I must suspend my actual work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 11th Aug. 1859.]
I do wish much to see more of human life: how can one see enough in
the short years one has to stay in the world? But I meant that at
present my mind works with the most freedom and the keenest sense of
poetry in my remotest past, and there are many strata to be worked
through before I can begin to use, _artistically_, any material I may
gather in the present. Curiously enough, _apropos_ of your remark
about "Adam Bede," there is much less "out of my own life" in that
book--_i.e._, the materials are much more a combination from
imperfectly known and widely sundered elements than the "Clerical
Scenes." I'm so glad you have enjoyed these--so thankful for the words
you write me.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Aug. 12._--Mr. J. C. Evans wrote again, declaring his willingness to
pay the £1000, and asking for an interview to arrange preliminaries.
_Aug. 15._--Declined the American proposition, which was to write a
story of twelve parts (weekly parts) in the _New York Century_ for
£1200.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 15th Aug. 1859.]
I have re-read your whole proof, and feel that every serious reader
will be impressed with the indications of real truth-seeking and
heart-experience in the tone. Beginnings are always troublesome. Even
Macaulay's few pages of introduction to his Introduction in the
English History are the worst bit of writing in the book. It was no
trouble to me to read your proof, so don't talk as if it had been.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Aug. 17._--Received a letter from Blackwood, with check for £200 for
second edition of "Clerical Scenes."
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 17th Aug. 1859.]
I'm glad my story cleaves to you. At present I have no hope that it
will affect people as strongly as "Adam" has done. The characters are
on a lower level generally, and the environment less romantic. But my
stories grow in me like plants, and this is only in the leaf-bud. I
have faith that the flower will come. Not enough faith, though, to
make me like the idea of beginning to print till the flower is fairly
out--till I know the end as well as the beginning.
Pug develops new charms every day. I think, in the prehistoric period
of his existence, before he came to me, he had led a sort of Caspar
Hauser life, shut up in a kennel in Bethnal Green; and he has had to
get over much astonishment at the sight of cows and other rural
objects on a large scale, which he marches up to and surveys with the
gravity of an "Own Correspondent," whose business it is to observe.
He has absolutely no bark; but, _en revanche_, he sneezes powerfully,
and has speaking eyes, so the _media_ of communication are abundant.
He sneezes at the world in general, and he looks affectionately at me.
I envy you the acquaintance of a genuine non-bookish man like Captain
Speke. I wonder when men of that sort will take their place as heroes
in our literature, instead of the inevitable "genius?"
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Aug. 20._--Letter from the troublesome Mr. Quirk of Attleboro, still
wanting satisfaction about Liggins. I did not leave it unanswered,
because he is a friend of Chrissey's, but G. wrote for me.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 20th Aug. 1859.]
Our great difficulty is _Time_. I am little better than a sick nigger
with the lash behind him at present. If we go to Penmaenmawr we shall
travel all through by night, in order not to lose more than one day;
and we shall pause at Lichfield on our way back. To pause at Coventry
would be a real pleasure to me; but I think, even if we could do it on
our way home, it would be better economy to wait until the sense of
hurry is past, and make it a little reward for work done. The going to
the coast seems to be a wise measure, quite apart from indulgence. We
are both so feeble; but otherwise I should have kept my resolution and
remained quiet here for the next six months.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Aug. 25._--In the evening of this day we set off on our journey to
Penmaenmawr. We reached Conway at half-past three in the morning; and
finding that it was hopeless to get a bed anywhere, we walked about
the town till the morning began to dawn, and we could see the outline
of the fine old castle's battlemented walls. In the morning we went to
Llandudno, thinking that might suit us better than Penmaenmawr. We
found it ugly and fashionable. Then we went off to Penmaenmawr, which
was beautiful to our hearts' content--or rather discontent--for it
would not receive us, being already filled with visitors. Back again
in despair to Conway, where we got temporary lodgings at one of the
numerous Joneses. This particular Jones happened to be honest and
obliging, and we did well enough for a few days in our in-door life,
but out-of-doors there were cold winds and rain. One day we went to
Abergele and found a solitary house called Beach House, which it
seemed possible we might have at the end of a few days. But no! And
the winds were so cold on this northerly coast that George was not
sorry, preferring rather to take flight southward. So we set out again
on 31st, and reached Lichfield about half-past five. Here we meant to
pass the night, that I might see my nieces--dear Chrissey's orphan
children--Emily and Kate. I was much comforted by the sight of them,
looking happy, and apparently under excellent care in Miss Eborall's
school. We slept at the "Swan," where I remember being with my father
and mother when I was a little child, and afterwards with my father
alone, in our last journey into Derbyshire. The next morning we set
off again, and completed our journey to Weymouth. Many delicious walks
and happy hours we had in our fortnight there. A letter from Mr.
Langford informed us that the subscription for the sixth edition of
"Adam Bede" was 1000. Another pleasant incident was a letter from my
old friend and school-fellow, Martha Jackson, asking if the author of
"Adam Bede" was _her_ Marian Evans.
_Sept. 16._--We reached home, and found letters awaiting us--one from
Mr. Quirk, finally renouncing Liggins!--with tracts of an
ultra-evangelical kind for me, and the Parish Mag., etc., from the
Rev. Erskine Clark of St. Michael's, Derby, who had written to me to
ask me to help him in this sort of work.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 17th Sept. 1859.]
I have just been reading, with deep interest and heart-stirring, the
article on the Infant Seamstresses in the _Englishwoman's Journal_. I
am one among the grateful readers of that moving description--moving
because the writer's own soul was moved by love and pity in the
writing of it. These are the papers that will make the "Journal" a
true organ with a _function_. I am writing at the end of the day, on
the brink of sleep, too tired to think of anything but that picture of
the little sleeping slop-worker who had pricked her tiny finger so.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Sept. 18._--A volume of devotional poetry from the authoress of
"Visiting my Relations," with an inscription admonishing me not to be
beguiled by the love of money. _In much anxiety and doubt about my new
novel._
_Oct. 7._--Since the last entry in my Journal various matters of
interest have occurred. Certain "new" ideas have occurred to me in
relation to my novel, and I am in better hope of it. At Weymouth I had
written to Blackwood to ask him about terms, supposing I published in
"Maga." His answer determined me to decline. On Monday, the 26th, we
set out on a three days' journey to Lincolnshire and back--very
pleasant and successful both as to weather and the object I was in
search of. A less pleasant business has been a correspondence with a
_crétin_--a Warwickshire magistrate, who undertakes to declare the
process by which I wrote my books--and who is the chief propagator and
maintainer of the story that Liggins is at the bottom of the
"Clerical Scenes" and "Adam Bede." It is poor George who has had to
conduct the correspondence, making his head hot by it, to the
exclusion of more fructifying work. To-day, in answer to a letter from
Sara, I have written her an account of my interviews with my Aunt
Samuel. This evening comes a letter from Miss Brewster, full of
well-meant exhortation.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 7th Oct. 1859.]
The very best bit of news I can tell you to begin with is that your
father's "Physiology of Common Life" is selling remarkably well, being
much in request among medical students. You are not to be a medical
student, but I hope, nevertheless, you will by-and-by read the work
with interest. There is to be a new edition of the "Sea-side Studies"
at Christmas, or soon after--a proof that this book also meets with a
good number of readers. I wish you could have seen to-day, as I did,
the delicate spinal cord of a dragon-fly--like a tiny thread with tiny
beads on it--which your father had just dissected! He is so
wonderfully clever now at the dissection of these delicate things, and
has attained this cleverness entirely by devoted practice during the
last three years. I hope _you_ have some of his resolution and
persistent regularity in work. I think you have, if I may judge from
your application to music, which I am always glad to read of in your
letters. I was a very idle practiser, and I often regret now that when
I had abundant time and opportunity for hours of piano playing I used
them so little. I have about eighteen Sonatas and Symphonies of
Beethoven, I think, but I shall be delighted to find that you can play
them better than I can. I am very sensitive to blunders and wrong
notes, and instruments out of tune; but I have never played much from
ear, though I used to play from memory a great deal. The other evening
Mr. Pigott, whom you remember, Mr. Redford, another friend of your
father's, and Mr. Wilkie Collins dined with us, and we had a charming
musical evening. Mr. Pigott has a delicious tenor voice, and Mr.
Redford a fine barytone. The latter sings "Adelaide," that exquisite
song of Beethoven's, which I should like you to learn. Schubert's
songs, too, I especially delight in; but, as you say, they are
difficult.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 10th Oct. 1859.]
It is pleasant to have to tell you that Mr. Bracebridge has been at
last awakened to do the right thing. This morning came a letter
enclosing the following to me:
"Madame, I have much pleasure on receiving your declaration that
'etc., etc.,' in replying that I frankly accept your declaration as
the truth, and I shall repeat it if the contrary is again asserted to
me."
This is the first symptom we have had from him of common-sense. I am
very thankful--for it ends transactions with him.
Mr. Lewes is of so sensitive a temperament, and so used to feeling
more angry and more glad on my behalf than his own, that he has been
made, several mornings, quite unable to go on with his work by this
irritating correspondence. It is all my fault, for if he didn't see in
the first instance that I am completely upset by anything that arouses
unloving emotions, he would never feel as he does about outer sayings
and doings. No one is more indifferent than he is to what is said
about himself. No more about my business, let us hope, for a long
while to come!
The Congreves are settled at home again now--blessing us with the
sight of kind faces--Mr. Congreve beginning his medical course.
Delicious confusion of ideas! Mr. Lewes, walking in Wandsworth, saw a
good woman cross over the street to speak to a blind man. She accosted
him with, "Well, _I_ knew you, _though you are dark_!"
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 16th Oct. 1859.]
I wish you had read the letter you enclosed to me; it is really
curious. The writer, an educated person, asks me to perfect and extend
the benefit "Adam Bede" has "conferred on society" by writing a
_sequel_ to it, in which I am to tell all about Hetty after her
reprieve, "Arthur's efforts to obtain the reprieve, and his desperate
ride after obtaining it--Dinah on board the convict ship--Dinah's
letters to Hetty--and whatever the author might choose to reveal
concerning Hetty's years of banishment. Minor instances of the
incompleteness which induces an unsatisfactory feeling may be alleged
in the disposal of the _locket and earrings_--which everybody expects
to re-appear--and in the incident of the pink silk neckerchief, of
which all would like to hear a little more!!"
I do feel more than I ought about outside sayings and doings, and I
constantly rebuke myself for all that part of my susceptibility, which
I know to be weak and egoistic; still what is said about one's art is
not merely a personal matter--it touches the very highest things one
lives for. _Truth_ in art is so startling that no one can believe in
it as art, and the specific forms of religious life which have made
some of the grandest elements in human history are looked down upon as
if they were not within the artist's sympathy and veneration and
intensely dramatic reproduction. "I do well to be angry" on that
ground, don't I? The simple fact is, that I never saw anything of my
aunt's writing, and Dinah's words came from me "as the tears come
because our heart is full, and we can't help them."
If you were living in London instead of at Edinburgh, I should ask you
to read the first volume of "Sister Maggie" at once, for the sake of
having your impression, but it is inconvenient to me to part with the
MS. The great success of "Adam" makes my writing a matter of more
anxiety than ever. I suppose there is a little sense of responsibility
mixed up with a great deal of pride. And I think I should worry myself
still more if I began to print before the thing is essentially
complete. So on all grounds it is better to wait. How clever and
picturesque the "Horsedealer in Syria" is! I read him with keen
interest, only wishing that he saw the seamy side of things rather
less habitually. Excellent Captain Speke can't write so well, but one
follows him out of grave sympathy. That a man should live through such
things as that beetle in his ear! Such papers as that make the
_specialité_ of _Blackwood_--one sees them nowhere else.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Oct. 16._--Yesterday came a pleasant packet of letters: one from
Blackwood, saying that they are printing a seventh edition of "Adam
Bede" (of 2000), and that "Clerical Scenes" will soon be exhausted. I
have finished the first volume of my new novel, "Sister Maggie;" have
got my legal questions answered satisfactorily, and when my headache
has cleared off must go at it full speed.
_Oct. 25._--The day before yesterday Herbert Spencer dined with us. We
have just finished reading aloud "Père Goriot"--a hateful book. I have
been reading lately and have nearly finished Comte's "Catechism."
_Oct. 28._--Received from Blackwood a check for £400, the last payment
for "Adam Bede" in the terms of the agreement. But in consequence of
the great success, he proposes to pay me £800 more at the beginning of
next year. Yesterday Smith, the publisher, called to make propositions
to G. about writing in the _Cornhill Magazine_.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Oct. 1859.]
I beg that you and Major Blackwood will accept my thanks for your
proposal to give me a further share in the success of "Adam Bede,"
beyond the terms of our agreement, which are fulfilled by the second
check for £400, received this morning. Neither you nor I ever
calculated on half such a success, thinking that the book was too
quiet, and too unflattering to dominant fashion, ever to be very
popular. I hope that opinion of ours is a guarantee that there is
nothing hollow or transient in the reception "Adam" has met with.
Sometimes when I read a book which has had a great success, and am
unable to see any valid merits of an artistic kind to account for it,
I am visited with a horrible alarm lest "Adam," too, should ultimately
sink into the same class of outworn admirations. But I always fall
back on the fact that no shibboleth and no vanity is flattered by it,
and that there is no novelty of mere form in it which can have
delighted simply by startling.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Nov. 10._--Dickens dined with us to-day, for the first time, and
after he left I went to the Congreves, where George joined me, and we
had much chat--about George Stephenson, religion, etc.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 11th Nov. 1859.]
A very beautiful letter--beautiful in feeling--that I have received
from Mrs. Gaskell to-day, prompts me to write to you and let you know
how entirely she has freed herself from any imputation of being
unwilling to accept the truth when it has once clearly presented
itself as truth. Since she has known "on authority" that the two books
are mine, she has re-read them, and has written to me, apparently on
the prompting they gave in that second reading: very sweet and noble
words they are that she has written to me. Yesterday Dickens dined
with us, on _his_ return from the country. That was a great pleasure
to me: he is a man one can thoroughly enjoy talking to--there is a
strain of real seriousness along with his keenness and humor.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 14th Nov. 1859.]
The Liggins affair is concluded so far as any _action_ of ours is
concerned, since Mr. Quirk (the inmost citadel, I presume) has
surrendered by writing an apology to Blackwood, saying he now believes
he was imposed on by Mr. Liggins. As to Miss Martineau, I respect her
so much as an authoress, and have so pleasant a recollection of her as
a hostess for three days, that I wish that distant impression from
herself and her writings to be disturbed as little as possible by mere
personal details. Anything she may do or say or feel concerning me
personally is a matter of entire indifference: I share her bitterness
with a large number of far more blameless people than myself. It can
be of no possible benefit to me, or any one else, that I should know
more of those things, either past, present, or to come. "I do owe no
man anything" except to write honestly and religiously what comes from
my inward promptings; and the freer I am kept of all knowledge of that
comparatively small circle who mingle personal regards or hatred with
their judgment or reception of my writings, the easier it will be to
keep my motives free from all indirectness and write truly.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Nov. 18._--On Monday Dickens wrote, asking me to give him, after I
have finished my present novel, a story to be printed in _All the Year
Round_--to begin four months after next Easter, and assuring me of my
own terms. The next day G. had an interview by appointment with Evans
(of Bradbury & Evans), and Lucas, the editor of _Once a Week_, who,
after preliminary pressing of G. himself to contribute, put forward
their wish that I should give them a novel for their Magazine. They
were to write and make an offer, but have not yet done so. We have
written to Dickens, saying that _time_ is an insurmountable obstacle
to his proposition, as he puts it.
I am reading Thomas à Kempis.
_Nov. 19._--Mr. Lockhart Clarke and Mr. Herbert Spencer dined with us.
_Nov. 22._--We have been much annoyed lately by Newby's advertisement
of a book called "Adam Bede, Junior," a sequel; and to-day Dickens has
written to mention a story of the tricks which are being used to push
the book under the pretence of its being mine. One librarian has been
forced to order the book against his will, because the public have
demanded it. Dickens is going to put an article on the subject in
_Household Words_, in order to scarify the rascally bookseller.
_Nov. 23._--We began Darwin's book on "The Origin of Species"
to-night. Though full of interesting matter, it is not impressive,
from want of luminous and orderly presentation.
_Nov. 24._--This morning I wrote the scene between Mrs. Tulliver and
Wakem. G. went into town and saw young Evans (of Bradbury & Evans),
who agreed that it would be well to have an article in _Punch_ on this
scoundrelly business of "Adam Bede, Junior." A divine day. I walked
out, and Mrs. Congreve joined me. Then music, "Arabian Nights," and
Darwin.
_Nov. 25._--I am reading old Bunyan again, after the long lapse of
years, and am profoundly struck with the true genius manifested in the
simple, vigorous, rhythmic style.
[Sidenote: Letter to the Brays, 25th Nov. 1859.]
Thanks for _Bentley_. Some one said the writer of the article on "Adam
Bede" was a Mr. Mozeley, a clergyman, and a writer in the _Times_; but
these reports about authorship are as often false as true. I think it
is, on the whole, the best review we have seen, unless we must except
the one in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, by Emile Montégut. I don't
mean to read _any_ reviews of my next book; so far as they would
produce any effect, they would be confusing. Everybody admires
something that somebody else finds fault with; and the miller with his
donkey was in a clear and decided state of mind compared with the
unfortunate writer who should set himself to please all the world of
review writers. I am compelled, in spite of myself, to be annoyed with
this business of "Adam Bede, Junior." You see I am well provided with
thorns in the flesh, lest I should be exalted beyond measure. To part
with the copyright of a book which sells 16,000 in one year--to have a
Liggins and an unknown writer of one's "Sequel" all to one's self--is
excellent discipline.
We are reading Darwin's book on Species, just come out after long
expectation. It is an elaborate exposition of the evidence in favor of
the Development Theory, and so makes an epoch. Do you see how the
publishing world is going mad on periodicals? If I could be seduced by
such offers, I might have written three poor novels, and made my
fortune in one year. Happily, I have no need to exert myself when I
say "Avaunt thee, Satan!" Satan, in the form of bad writing and good
pay, is not seductive to me.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Nov. 26._--Letter from Lucas, editor of _Once a Week_, anxious to
come to terms about my writing for said periodical.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 26th Nov. 1859.]
It was very pretty and generous of you to send me a nice long letter
out of your turn, and I think I shall give you, as a reward, other
opportunities of being generous in the same way for the next few
months, for I am likely to be a poor correspondent, having my head and
hands full.
We have the whole of Vilmar's "Literatur Geschichte," but not the
remainder of the "Deutsche Humoristik." I agree with you in liking the
history of German literature, especially the earlier ages--the
birth-time of the legendary poetry. Have you read the "Nibelungenlied"
yet?
Whereabouts are you in algebra? It would be very pleasant to study it
with you, if I could possibly find time to rub up my knowledge. It is
now a good while since I looked into algebra, but I was very fond of
it in old days, though I dare say I never went so far as you have now
gone. Tell me your latitude and longitude.
I have no memory of an autumn so disappointing as this. It is my
favorite season. I delight especially in the golden and red tints
under the purple clouds. But this year the trees were almost stripped
of their leaves before they had changed color--dashed off by the winds
and rain. We have had _no_ autumnal beauty.
I am writing at night--very tired--so you must not wonder if I have
left out words, or been otherwise incoherent.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Nov. 29._--Wrote a letter to the _Times_, and to Delane about Newby.
[Sidenote: Letter to Madame Bodichon, 5th Dec. 1859.]
I took no notice of the extract you sent me from a letter of Mrs.
Gaskell's, being determined not to engage in any writing on the topic
of my authorship, except such as was absolutely demanded of us. But
since then I have had a very beautiful letter from Mrs. Gaskell, and I
will quote some of her words, because they do her honor, and will
incline you to think more highly of her. She begins in this way:
"Since I heard, on authority, that you were the author of 'Scenes of
Clerical Life' and 'Adam Bede,' I have read them again, and I must
once more tell you how earnestly, fully, and _humbly_ I admire them. I
never read anything so complete and beautiful in fiction in my life
before." Very sweet and noble of her, was it not? She went on to speak
of her having held to the notion of Liggins, but she adds, "I was
never such a goose as to believe that books like yours were a mosaic
of real and ideal." The "Seth Bede" and "Adam Bede, Junior," are
speculations of those who are always ready to fasten themselves like
leeches on a popular fame. Such things must be endured: they are the
shadow to the bright fact of selling 16,000 in one year. As to the
silly falsehoods and empty opinions afloat in some petty circles, I
have quite conquered my temporary irritation about them--indeed, I
feel all the more serene now for that very irritation; it has
impressed on me more deeply how entirely the rewards of the artist lie
apart from everything that is narrow and personal: there is no peace
until that lesson is thoroughly learned. I shall go on writing from
my inward promptings--writing what I love and believe, what I feel to
be true and good, if I can only render it worthily--and then leave all
the rest to take its chance: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be" with those who are to produce any art that will
lastingly touch the generations of men. We have been reading Darwin's
book on the "Origin of Species" just now: it makes an epoch, as the
expression of his thorough adhesion, after long years of study, to the
Doctrine of Development--and not the adhesion of an anonym like the
author of the "Vestiges," but of a long-celebrated naturalist. The
book is sadly wanting in illustrative facts--of which he has collected
a vast number, but reserves them for a future book, of which this
smaller one is the _avant-coureur_. This will prevent the work from
becoming popular as the "Vestiges" did, but it will have a great
effect in the scientific world, causing a thorough and open discussion
of a question about which people have hitherto felt timid. So the
world gets on step by step towards brave clearness and honesty! But to
me the Development Theory, and all other explanations of processes by
which things came to be, produce a feeble impression compared with the
mystery that lies under the processes. It is nice to think of you
reading our great, great favorite Molière, while, for the present, we
are not taking him down from the shelves--only talking about him, as
we do very often. I get a good deal of pleasure out of the sense that
some one I love is reading and enjoying my best-loved writers. I think
the "Misanthrope" the finest, most complete production _of its kind_
in the world. I know you enjoy the "sonnet" scene, and the one between
Arsinoé and Célimène.
[Sidenote: Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Monday evening, 5th Dec.
1859.]
In opposition to most people who love to _read_ Shakspeare, I like to
see his plays acted better than any others; his great tragedies thrill
me, let them be acted how they may. I think it is something like what
I used to experience in old days in listening to uncultured
preachers--the emotions lay hold of one too strongly for one to care
about the medium. Before all other plays I find myself cold and
critical, seeing nothing but actors and "properties." I like going to
those little provincial theatres. One's heart streams out to the poor
devils of actors who get so little clapping, and will go home to so
poor a supper. One of my pleasures lately has been hearing repeatedly
from my Genevese friends M. and Mme. d'Albert, who were so good to me
during my residence with them. M. d'Albert had read the "Scenes of
Clerical Life" before he knew they were mine, and had been so much
struck with them that he had wanted to translate them. One likes to
feel old ties strengthened by fresh sympathies. The _Cornhill
Magazine_ is going to lead off with great spirit, and promises to
eclipse all the other new-born periodicals. Mr. Lewes is writing a
series of papers for it--"Studies in Animal Life"--which are to be
subsequently published in a book. It is quite as well that your book
should not be ready for publication just yet. February is a much
better time than Christmas. I shall be one of your most eager
readers--for every book that comes from the heart of hearts does me
good, and I quite share your faith that what you yourself feel so
deeply and find so precious will find a home in some other minds. Do
not suspect that I impose on you the task of writing letters to answer
my _dilettante_ questions. "Am I on a bed of roses?" I have four
children to correspond with--the three boys in Switzerland, and Emily
at Lichfield.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1859.]
_Dec. 15._--Blackwood proposes to give me for "The Mill on the Floss"
£2000 for 4000 copies of an edition at 31_s._ 6_d._, and after the
same rate for any more that may be printed at the same price: £150 for
1000 at 12_s._, and £60 for 1000 at 6_s._ I have accepted.
_Dec. 25._--Christmas-day. We all, including Pug, dined with Mr. and
Mrs. Congreve, and had a delightful day. Mr. Bridges was there too.
[Sidenote: Letter to Mrs. Bray, 30th Dec. 1859.]
I don't like Christmas to go by without sending you a greeting, though
I have really nothing to say beyond that. We spent our Christmas-day
with the Congreves, shutting up our house and taking our servant and
Pug with us. And so we ate our turkey and plum-pudding in very social,
joyous fashion with those charming friends. Mr. Bridges was there too.
We are meditating flight to Italy when my present work is done, as our
last bit of vagrancy for a long, long while. We shall only stay two
months, doing nothing but absorb.
I don't think I have anything else to tell, except that we, being very
happy, wish all mortals to be in like condition, and especially the
mortals we know in the flesh. Human happiness is a web with many
threads of pain in it--that is always _sub auditum_--Twist ye, twine
ye, even so, etc., etc.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 3d Jan. 1860.]
I never before had so pleasant a New Year's greeting as your letter
containing a check for £800, for which I have to thank you to-day. On
every ground--including considerations that are not at all of a
monetary kind--I am deeply obliged to you and to Major Blackwood for
your liberal conduct in relation to "Adam Bede."
As, owing to your generous concession of the copyright of "Adam Bede,"
the three books will be henceforth on the same footing, we shall be
delivered from further discussion as to terms.
We are demurring about the title. Mr. Lewes is beginning to prefer
"The House of Tulliver; or, Life on the Floss," to our old notion of
"Sister Maggie." "The Tullivers; or, Life on the Floss," has the
advantage of slipping easily off the lazy English tongue, but it is
after too common a fashion ("The Newcomes," "The Bertrams," etc.,
etc.). Then there is "The Tulliver Family; or, Life on the Floss."
Pray meditate, and give us your opinion.
I am very anxious that the "Scenes of Clerical Life" should have every
chance of impressing the public with its existence: first, because I
think it of importance to the estimate of me as a writer that "Adam
Bede" should not be counted as my only book; and secondly, because
there are ideas presented in these stories about which I care a good
deal, and am not sure that I can ever embody again. This latter reason
is my private affair, but the other reason, if valid, is yours also. I
must tell you that I had another cheering letter to-day besides yours:
one from a person of mark in your Edinburgh University,[9] full of the
very strongest words of sympathy and encouragement, hoping that my
life may long be spared "to give pictures of the deeper life of this
age." So I sat down to my desk with a delicious confidence that my
audience is not made up of reviewers and literary clubs. If there is
any truth in me that the world wants, nothing will hinder the world
from drinking what it is athirst for. And if there is no needful truth
in me, let me, howl as I may in the process, be hurled into the Dom
Daniel, where I wish all other futile writers to sink.
Your description of the "curling" made me envy you the sight.
[Sidenote: Letter to Charles L. Lewes, 4th Jan. 1860.]
The sun is shining with us too, and your pleasant letter made it seem
to shine more brightly. I am not going to be expansive in this
appendix to your father's chapter of love and news, for my head is
tired with writing this morning--it is not so young as yours, you
know, and, besides, is a feminine head, supported by weaker muscles
and a weaker digestive apparatus than that of a young gentleman with a
broad chest and hopeful whiskers. I don't wonder at your being more
conscious of your attachment to Hofwyl now the time of leaving is so
near. I fear you will miss a great many things in exchanging Hofwyl,
with its snowy mountains and glorious spaces, for a very moderate home
in the neighborhood of London. You will have a less various, more
arduous life: but the time of _Entbehrung_ or _Entsagung_ must begin,
you know, for every mortal of us. And let us hope that we shall
all--father and mother and sons--help one another with love.
What jolly times you have had lately! It did us good to read of your
merrymaking.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 6th Jan. 1860.]
"The Mill on the Floss" be it then! The only objections are, that the
mill is not _strictly_ on the Floss, being on its small tributary, and
that the title is of rather laborious utterance. But I think these
objections do not deprive it of its advantage over "The Tullivers;
or, Life on the Floss"--the only alternative, so far as we can see.
Pray give the casting-vote.
Easter Monday, I see, is on the 8th April, and I wish to be out by the
middle or end of March. Illness apart, I intend to have finished Vol.
III. by the beginning of that month, and I hope no obstacle will
impede the rapidity of the printing.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]
_Jan. 11._--I have had a very delightful letter of sympathy from
Professor Blackie of Edinburgh, which came to me on New Year's
morning, and a proposal from Blackwood to publish a third edition of
"Clerical Scenes" at 12_s._ George's article in the _Cornhill
Magazine_--the first of a series of "Studies in Animal Life"--is much
admired, and in other ways our New Year opens with happy omens.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 12th Jan. 1860.]
Thank you for letting me see the specimen advertisements; they have
helped us to come to a decision--namely, for "The Mill on the Floss."
I agree with you that it will be well not to promise the book in
March--not because I do not desire and hope to be ready, but because I
set my face against all pledges that I am not _sure_ of being able to
fulfil. The third volume is, I fancy, always more rapidly written than
the rest. The third volume of "Adam Bede" was written in six weeks,
even with headaching interruptions, because it was written under a
stress of emotion, which first volumes cannot be. I will send you the
first volume of "The Mill" at once. The second is ready, but I would
rather keep it as long as I can. Besides the advantage to the book of
being out by Easter, I have another reason for wishing to have done in
time for that. We want to get away for two months to Italy, if
possible, to feed my mind with fresh thoughts, and to assure ourselves
of that fructifying holiday before the boys are about us, making it
difficult for us to leave home. But you may rely on it that no amount
of horse-power would make me _hurry_ over my book, so as not to do my
best. If it is written fast, it will be because I can't help writing
it fast.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]
_Jan. 16._--Finished my second volume this morning, and am going to
send off the MS. of the first volume to-morrow. We have decided that
the title shall be "The Mill on the Floss." We have been reading
"Humphrey Clinker" in the evenings, and have been much disappointed in
it, after the praise of Thackeray and Dickens.
_Jan. 26._--Mr. Pigott, Mr. Redford, and Mr. F. Chapman dined with us,
and we had a musical evening. Mrs. Congreve and Miss Bury[10] joining
us after dinner.
[Sidenote: Letter to John Blackwood, 28th Jan. 1860.]
Thanks for your letter of yesterday, with the Genevese enclosure. No
promise, alas! of smallest watch expressing largest admiration, but a
desire for "permission to translate."
I have been invalided for the last week, and, of course, am a prisoner
in the castle of Giant Despair, who growls in my ear that "The Mill on
the Floss" is detestable, and that the last volume will be the climax
of that general detestableness. Such is the elation attendant on what
a self-elected lady correspondent of mine from Scotland calls my
"exciting career!"
I have had a great pleasure this week. Dr. Inman of Liverpool has
dedicated a new book ("Foundation for a New Theory and Practice of
Medicine") "to G. H. Lewes, as an acknowledgment of benefit received
from noticing his close observation and clear inductive reasoning in
'Sea-side Studies' and the 'Physiology of Common Life.'"
That is really gratifying, coming from a _physician_ of some
scientific mark, who is _not_ a personal friend.
[Sidenote: Journal, 1860.]
_Feb. 4._--Came this morning a lette
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